[Sidenote: Ancient English, or Anglo-Saxon.]

The oldest form of English is commonly called Anglo-Saxon and is so different from the language that we use that, in order to read it, it must be learned like a foreign language. We hear of an English poet, Cdmon, as early as Bede's time, a century before Charlemagne. A manuscript of an Anglo-Saxon epic, called Beowulf, has been preserved which belongs perhaps to the close of the eighth century. The interest which King Alfred displayed in the mother tongue has already been mentioned. This old form of our language prevailed until after the Norman Conquest; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which does not close until 1154, is written in pure Anglo-Saxon. Then changes may be noticed in the language as it appears in the books of the time, and decade by decade it approaches more nearly to that which we speak. Although the first public document in English (1256), which belongs to the reign of Henry III, is scarcely to be understood without study, a poem written in his son's time is tolerably intelligible.[162]

English literature was destined one day to arouse the admiration of the peoples across the Channel and exercise an important influence upon other literatures. In the Middle Ages, however, French, not English, was the most important of the vernacular languages of western Europe. In France a vast literature was produced in the language of the people during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries which profoundly affected the books written in Italy, Spain, Germany, and England.

[Sidenote: French and Provenal.]

99. Two quite different languages had gradually developed in France from the spoken Latin of the Roman Empire. If a line were drawn on the map from La Rochelle, on the Atlantic, eastward to the Alps, crossing the Rhone a little below Lyons, it would give a general idea of the limits of the two tongues. To the north, French was spoken; to the south, in a region bounded by the Pyrenees and the Alps, Provenal.[163]

[Sidenote: Medival French romances.]

Very little in the ancient French language written before the year 1100 has been preserved. The West Franks undoubtedly began much earlier to sing of their heroes, of the great deeds of Clovis, Dagobert, and Charles Martel. These famous rulers were, however, completely overshadowed later by Charlemagne, who became the unrivaled hero of medival poetry and romance. It was believed that he had reigned for a hundred and twenty-five years, and the most marvelous exploits were attributed to him and his knights. He was supposed, for instance, to have led a crusade to Jerusalem. Such themes as these—more legend than history—were woven into long epics, which were the first written literature of the Frankish people. These poems, combined with the stories of adventure, developed a spirit of patriotic enthusiasm among the French which made them regard "fair France" as the especial care of Providence.

[Sidenote: The Song of Roland.]

It is little wonder that the best of these long poems came to be looked upon as the national epic of the French. This is the Song of Roland, probably written just before the First Crusade. It tells the story of Charlemagne's retreat from Spain, during which Roland, one of his commanders, lost his life in a romantic encounter in the defiles of the Pyrenees.

That death was on him he knew full well; Down from his head to his heart it fell. On the grass beneath a pine tree's shade, With face to earth, his form he laid, Beneath him placed he his horn and sword, And turned his face to the heathen horde. Thus hath he done the sooth to show, That Karl and his warriors all may know, That the gentle count a conqueror died.[164]

[Sidenote: Romances of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.]

In the latter part of the twelfth century the romances of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table begin to appear. These enjoyed great popularity in all western Europe for centuries, and they are by no means forgotten yet. Arthur, of whose historical existence no one can be quite sure, was supposed to have been king of Britain shortly after the Saxons gained a foothold in the island. In other long poems of the time, Alexander the Great, Csar, and other ancient worthies appear as heroes. The absolute disregard of historical facts and the tendency to represent the warriors of Troy and Rome as medival knights, show the inability of the medival mind to understand that the past could have been different from the present. All these romances are full of picturesque adventures and present a vivid picture of the valor and loyalty of the true knight, as well as of his ruthlessness and contempt for human life.[165]

[Sidenote: The fabliaux and the fables.]

Besides the long and elaborate epics, like Roland, and the romances in verse and prose, there were numberless short stories in verse (the fabliaux), which usually dealt with the incidents of everyday life, especially with the comical ones. Then there were the fables, the most famous of which are the stories of Reynard the Fox, which were satires upon the customs of the time, particularly the weaknesses of the priests and monks.

[Sidenote: The troubadours.]

100. Turning now to southern France, the beautiful songs of the troubadours, which were the glory of the Provenal tongue, reveal a gay and polished society at the courts of the numerous feudal princes. The rulers not merely protected and encouraged the poets; they aspired to be poets themselves and to enter the ranks of the troubadours, as the composers of these elegant verses were called. These songs were always sung to an accompaniment on some instrument, usually the lute. Those who merely sang them, without being themselves poets, were called jongleurs. The troubadours and jongleurs traveled from court to court, not only in France, but north into Germany and south into Italy, carrying with them the southern French poetry and customs. We have few examples of Provenal before the year 1100, but from that time on, for two centuries, countless songs were written, and many of the troubadours enjoyed an international reputation. The terrible Albigensian crusade brought misery and death into the sprightly circles which had gathered about the count of Toulouse and others who had treated the heretics too leniently. But the literary critic traces signs of decline in the Provenal verse even before this disaster.[166]

[Sidenote: Chivalry.]

For the student of history, the chief interest of the epics of northern France and the songs of the South lies in the insight that they give into the life and aspirations of this feudal period. These are usually summed up in the term chivalry, or knighthood, of which a word may properly be said here, since we should know little of it were it not for the literature of which we have been speaking. The knights play the chief rle in all the medival romances; and, as many of the troubadours belonged to the knightly class, they naturally have much to say of it in their songs.

Chivalry was not a formal institution established at any particular moment. Like feudalism, with which it was closely connected, it had no founder, but appeared spontaneously throughout western Europe to meet the needs and desires of the period. We learn from Tacitus that even in his time the Germans considered the moment a solemn one when the young warrior was first invested with the arms of a soldier. "This was the sign that the youth had reached manhood; this was his first honor." It is probably a survival of this feeling which we find in the idea of knighthood. When the youth of good family had been carefully trained to ride his horse, use his sword, and manage his hawk in the hunt, he was made a knight by a ceremony in which the Church took part, although the knighthood was actually conferred by an older knight.

[Sidenote: Nature of the knightly order.]

The knight was a Christian soldier, and he and his fellows were supposed to form, in a way, a separate order with high ideals of the conduct befitting their class. Knighthood was not, however, membership in an association with officers and a written constitution. It was an ideal, half-imaginary society,—a society to which even those who enjoyed the title of king or duke were proud to belong. One was not born a knight as he might be born a duke or count, and could become one only through the ceremony mentioned above. One might be a noble and still not belong to the knightly order, and, on the other hand, one baseborn might be raised to knighthood on account of some valorous deed.

[Sidenote: The ideals of the knight.]

The knight must, in the first place, be a Christian and must obey and defend the Church on all occasions. He must respect all forms of weakness and defend the helpless wherever he might find them. He must fight the infidel ceaselessly, pitilessly, and never give way before the enemy. He must perform all his feudal duties, be faithful in all things to his lord, never lie or violate his plighted word. He must be generous and give freely and ungrudgingly to the needy. He must be faithful to his lady and be ready to defend her person and her honor at all costs. Everywhere he must be the champion of the right against injustice and oppression. In short, chivalry was the Christianized profession of arms.

In the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table there is a beautiful picture of the ideal knight. The dead Lancelot is addressed by one of his sorrowing companions as follows: "Thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare shield, and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse, and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man [i.e., among sinful men] that ever loved woman, and thou wert the kindest man that ever struck with sword, and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among the press of knights, and thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies, and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in breast."

[Sidenote: The German minnesingers.]

[Sidenote: Walther von der Vogelweide.]

[Sidenote: Parsifal.]

The Germans also made their contribution to the literature of chivalry. The German poets of the thirteenth century are called minnesingers. Like the troubadours, whom they greatly admired, they usually sang of love (German, Minne). The most famous of the minnesingers was Walther von der Vogelweide (d. about 1228), whose songs are full of charm and of enthusiasm for his German fatherland. Wolfram von Eschenbach (d. about 1225) in his story of Parsifal gives the long and sad adventures of a knight in search of the Holy Grail,—the sacred vessel which had held the blood of Christ. Only those perfectly pure in thought, word, and deed could hope to behold it. Parsifal failed to speak a word of sympathy to a suffering man and was forced to undergo a long atonement. At last he learned that only through pity and humility and faith in God could he hope to find the Grail.

[Sidenote: Difference between the earlier and later ideals of chivalry.]

The chivalry depicted in the Song of Roland and the more serious poems of northern France is of a severe type, in which the service of the Church, especially against the infidel, and the obligations to the feudal suzerain have the predominant place. On the other hand, in the Arthurian legends, and, above all, in the songs of the troubadours, the ideal conduct of a polished and valorous gentleman, especially toward the lady of his choice, finds expression. The later romances of chivalry (in the thirteenth and following centuries) deal very largely with knighthood in the latter sense of the word. No one, indeed, any longer thought of fighting the infidel; for the Crusades were over and the knight was forced to seek adventures nearer home.[167]

[Sidenote: General ignorance of the past.]

101. So long as all books had to be copied by hand, there were, of course, but few of them compared with modern times. The literature of which we have been speaking was not in general read, but was listened to, as it was sung or recited by those who made it their profession. Wherever the wandering jongleur appeared he was sure of a delighted audience for his songs and stories, both serious and light. Those unfamiliar with Latin could, however, learn little of the past; there were no translations of the great classics of Greece and Rome, of Homer, Plato, Cicero, or Livy. All that they could know of ancient history was derived from the fantastic romances referred to above, which had for their theme the quite preposterous deeds ascribed to Alexander the Great, neas, and Csar. As for their own history, the epics relating to the earlier course of events in France and the rest of Europe were hopelessly confused. The writers attributed a great part of the acts of the Frankish kings, from Clovis to Pippin, to Charlemagne. The first real history written in French is Villehardouin's account of the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders (in 1204), which he witnessed.

[Sidenote: Medival popular science.]

What we should call scientific literature was practically wanting. It is true that there was a kind of encyclopedia in verse which gave a great deal of misinformation about things in general. Every one believed in strange animals like the unicorn, the dragon, and the phoenix, and in still stranger habits of real animals. A single example will suffice to show what passed for zology in the thirteenth century.

"There is a little beast made like a lizard and such is its nature that it will extinguish fire should it fall into it. The beast is so cold and of such a quality that fire is not able to burn it, nor will trouble happen in the place where it shall be." This beast signifies the holy man who lives by faith, who "will never have hurt from fire nor will hell burn him.... This beast we name also by another name,—it is called salamander, as you find written,—it is accustomed to mount into apple-trees, poisons the apples, and in a well where it shall fall it will poison the water."

It will be noticed that the habits of the animals were supposed to have some spiritual meaning and carry with them a lesson for mankind. It may be added that this and similar stories were centuries old. The most improbable things were repeated from generation to generation without its occurring to any one to inquire if there was any truth in them. Even the most learned men of the time believed in astrology and in the miraculous virtues of herbs and gems. For instance, Albertus Magnus, one of the most distinguished scientists of the thirteenth century, agrees that a sapphire will drive away boils and that the diamond can be softened in the blood of a stag, which will work best if the stag has been fed on wine and parsley.[168]

102. It is not only in the literature of the Middle Ages that we find the thought and life of the people reflected, but in the art as well, for painters, sculptors, and builders were at work in every country of western Europe.

[Sidenote: Illuminations done by the monks.]

[Sidenote: In religious works.]

The paintings were altogether different from those of to-day, and consisted chiefly of illustrations in the books, called illuminations. Just as the books had all to be laboriously written out by hand, so each picture was painted on the parchment page with tiny brushes and usually in brilliant colors with a generous use of gold. And as the monks wrote out the books, so it was, in general, the monks who painted the pictures. The books that they adorned were chiefly those used in the church services, especially the breviary, the psalter, and the book of hours. Naturally these pictures usually dealt with religious subjects and illustrated the lives of the saints or the events of biblical history. Virtue was encouraged by representations of the joys of heaven and also stimulated by spirited portrayals of the devil and his fiends, and of the sufferings of the lost.

[Sidenote: In secular books.]

Secular works, too, were sometimes provided with pictures drawn from a wide variety of subjects. We find in their pages such homely and familiar figures as the farmer with his plow, the butcher at his block, the glass blower at his furnace; then, again, we are transported to an imaginary world, peopled with strange and uncouth beasts and adorned with fantastic architecture.

[Sidenote: The artist governed by fixed rules.]

The medival love of symbols and of fixed rules for doing things is strikingly illustrated in these illuminations. Each color had its especial significance. There were certain established attitudes and ways of depicting various characters and emotions which were adhered to by generation after generation of artists and left comparatively little opportunity for individual talent or lifelike presentation. On the other hand, these little pictures—for of course they were always small[169]—were often executed with exquisite care and skill and sometimes in the smaller details with great truth to nature.

Beside the pictures of which we have been speaking, it was a common practice to adorn the books with gay illuminated initials or page borders, which were sometimes very beautiful in both design and color. In these rather more freedom was allowed to the caprice of the individual artist, and they were frequently enlivened with very charming and lifelike flowers, birds, squirrels, and other small animals.



[Sidenote: Sculpture subservient to architecture.]

The art of sculpture was more widely and successfully cultivated during the Middle Ages than painting. Medival sculpture did not, however, concern itself chiefly with the representation of the human figure, but with what we may call decorative carving; it was almost wholly subservient to the dominant art of the Middle Ages, namely, architecture.

[Sidenote: Architecture the dominant art of the Middle Ages.]

It is in the great cathedrals and other churches scattered throughout England, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, and Germany, that we find the noblest and most lasting achievements of medival art, which all the resources of modern skill have been unable to equal. Everybody belonged to the Church, but the Church, too, belonged to each individual. The building and beautifying of a new church was a matter of interest to the whole community,—to men of every rank. It gratified at once their religious sentiments, their local pride, and their artistic cravings. All the arts and crafts ministered to the construction and adornment of the new edifice, and, in addition to its religious significance, it took the place of our modern art museum.



[Sidenote: The Romanesque style.]

Up to the beginning of the thirteenth century the churches were built in the Romanesque style.[170] They were, generally speaking, in the form of a cross, with a main aisle, and two side aisles which were both narrower and lower than the main aisle. The aisles were divided from each other by massive round pillars which supported the round vaulting of the roof and were connected by round arches. The round-arched windows were usually small for the size of the building, so that the interior was not very light. The whole effect was one of massive simplicity. There was, however, especially in the later churches of this style, a profusion of carved ornament, usually in geometric designs.

[Sidenote: Introduction of the Gothic style.]

[Sidenote: The pointed arch.]

[Sidenote: Flying buttresses.]

The pointed form of arch was used occasionally in windows during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But about the beginning of the thirteenth century[171] it began to be employed much more extensively, and in an incredibly short time practically superseded the round arch and became the characteristic feature of a new style, called Gothic. The adoption of the pointed arch had very important results. It enabled the builder to make arches of the same height but various widths, and of varying height and the same width. A round arch of a given span can be only half as high as it is wide, but the pointed arch may have a great diversity of proportions. The development of the Gothic style was greatly forwarded by the invention of the "flying buttress." By means of this graceful outside prop it became possible to lighten the masonry of the hitherto massive walls and pierce them with great windows which let a flood of light into the hitherto dark churches.[172]



[Sidenote: Stained glass.]

The light from all these great windows might even have been too glaring had it not been for the wonderful stained glass set in exquisite stone tracery with which they were filled. The stained glass of the medival cathedral, especially in France, where the glass workers brought their art to the greatest perfection, was one of its chief glories. By far the greater part of this old glass has of course been destroyed, but it is still so highly prized that every bit of it is now carefully preserved, for it has never since been equaled. A window set with odd bits of it pieced together like crazy patch-work is more beautiful, in its rich and jewel-like coloring, than the finest modern work.



[Sidenote: Sculptured ornament.]

As the Gothic style developed and the builders grew all the time more skillful and daring, the churches became marvels of lightness and delicacy of detail and finish, while still retaining their dignity and beauty of proportion. Sculptors enriched them with the most beautiful creations of their art. Moldings and capitals, pulpits, altars, and choir screens, the wooden seats for the clergy and choristers, are sometimes literally covered with carving representing graceful leaf and flower forms, familiar animals or grotesque monsters, biblical incidents or homely scenes from everyday life. In the cathedral of Wells, in England, one capital shows us among its vines and leaves a boy whose face is screwed up with pain from the thorn he is extracting from his foot; another depicts a whole story of sin found out, thieves stealing grapes pursued by an angry farmer with a pitchfork. One characteristic of the medival imagination is its fondness for the grotesque. It loved queer beasts, half eagle, half lion, hideous batlike creatures, monsters like nothing on land or sea. They lurk among the foliage on choir screens, leer at you from wall or column, or squat upon the gutters high on roof and steeple.



[Sidenote: Gothic sculpture.]

A striking peculiarity of the Gothic structure is the great number of statues of apostles, saints, and rulers which adorn the faades and especially the main portal of the churches. These figures are cut from the same kind of stone of which the building is made and appear to be almost a part of it. While, compared with later sculpture, they seem somewhat stiff and unlifelike, they harmonize wonderfully with the whole building, and the best of them are full of charm and dignity.



[Sidenote: Secular buildings.]

So far we have spoken only of the church architecture, and that was by far the most important during the period with which we have been dealing. Later, in the fourteenth century, many beautiful secular buildings were constructed in the Gothic style. The most striking and important of these were the guildhalls built by the rich merchant guilds, and the townhalls of some of the important cities. But the Gothic style has always been especially dedicated to, and seems peculiarly fitted for, ecclesiastical architecture. Its lofty aisles and open floor spaces, its soaring arches leading the eye toward heaven, and its glowing windows suggesting the glories of paradise, may well have fostered the ardent faith of the medival Christian.



[Sidenote: The medival castle.]

We have already touched upon some of the characteristics of domestic architecture in referring to the medival castle. This was rather a stronghold than a home,—strength and inaccessibility were its main requirements. The walls were many feet thick and the tiny windows, often hardly more than slits in the massive walls, the stone floors, the great bare halls warmed only by large fireplaces, suggest nothing of the comfort of a modern household. At the same time they imply a simplicity of taste and manners and a hardihood of body which we may well envy.

[Sidenote: The schools before the eleventh century.]

103. On turning from the language and books of the people and the art of the period to the occupations of the learned class, who carried on their studies and discussions in Latin, we naturally inquire where such persons obtained their education. During the long centuries which elapsed between the time when Justinian closed the government schools and the advent of Frederick Barbarossa, there appears to have been nothing in western Europe, outside of Italy and Spain, corresponding to our universities and colleges. Some of the schools which the bishops and abbots had established in accordance with Charlemagne's commands were, it is true, maintained all through the dark and disorderly times which followed his death. But the little that we know of the instruction offered in them would indicate that it was very elementary, although there were sometimes noted men at their head.

[Sidenote: Abelard, d. 1142.]

About the year 1100 an ardent young man named Abelard started out from his home in Brittany to visit all the places where he might hope to receive instruction in logic and philosophy, in which, like all his learned contemporaries, he was especially interested. He reports that he found teachers in several of the French towns, particularly in Paris, who were attracting large numbers of students to listen to their lectures upon logic, rhetoric, and theology. Abelard soon showed his superiority to his teachers by defeating them several times in debate. Before long he began lecturing on his own account, and such was his success that thousands of students flocked to hear him.

[Sidenote: Abelard's Yea and Nay.]

He prepared a remarkable little text-book, called Yea and Nay, containing seemingly contradictory opinions of the church fathers upon particular questions. The student was left to reconcile the contradictions, if he could, by careful reasoning; for Abelard held that a constant questioning was the only path to real knowledge. His free way of dealing with the authorities upon which men based their religious beliefs seemed wicked to many of his contemporaries, especially to St. Bernard, who made him a great deal of trouble. Nevertheless it soon became the fashion to discuss the various doctrines of Christianity with great freedom and to try to make a well-reasoned system of theology by following the rules of Aristotle's logic. It was just after Abelard's death (1142) that Peter Lombard published his Sentences, already described.

Abelard did not found the University of Paris, as has sometimes been supposed, but he did a great deal to make the discussions of theological problems popular, and by his attractive method of teaching he greatly increased the number of those who wished to learn. The sad story of his life, which he wrote when he was worn out with the calamities that had overtaken him, is the best and almost the only account which exists of the remarkable interest in learning which explains the origin of the University of Paris.[173]

[Sidenote: Origin of the University of Paris.]

Before the end of the twelfth century the teachers had become so numerous in Paris that they formed a union, or guild, for the advancement of their interests. This union of professors was called by the usual name for corporations in the Middle Ages, universitas; hence our word "university." The king and pope both favored the university and granted the teachers and students many of the privileges of the clergy, a class to which they were regarded as belonging, because learning had for so many centuries been confined to the clergy.

[Sidenote: Study of the Roman and canon law in Bologna.]

[Sidenote: The Decretum of Gratian.]

About the time that we find the beginnings of a university or guild of professors at Paris, a great institution of learning was growing up at Bologna. Here the chief attention was given, not to theology, as at Paris, but to the study of the law, both Roman and canon. Very early in the twelfth century a new interest in the Roman law became apparent in Italy, where the old jurisprudence of Rome had never been completely forgotten. Then, in 1142 or thereabouts, a monk, Gratian, published a great work in which he aimed to reconcile all the conflicting legislation of the councils and popes and to provide a convenient text-book for the study of the church or canon law. Students then began to stream to Bologna in greater numbers than ever before. In order to protect themselves in a town where they were regarded as strangers, they organized themselves into associations, which became so powerful that they were able to force the professors to obey the rules which they laid down.

[Sidenote: Other universities founded.]

The University of Oxford was founded in the time of Henry II, probably by English students and masters who had become discontented at Paris for some reason. The University of Cambridge, as well as numerous universities in France, Italy, and Spain, appeared in the thirteenth century. The German universities, which are still so famous, were established somewhat later, most of them in the latter half of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth centuries. The northern institutions generally took the great mother university on the Seine as their model, while those in southern Europe usually adopted the habits of Bologna.

[Sidenote: The academic degree.]

When, after some years of study, a student was examined by the professors, he was, if successful, admitted to the corporation of teachers and became a master himself. What we call a degree to-day was originally, in the medival universities, nothing more than the qualification to teach. But in the thirteenth century many began to desire the honorable title of master or doctor (which is only the Latin word for teacher) who did not care to become professors in our sense of the word.[174]

[Sidenote: Simple methods of instruction.]

The students in the medival universities were of all ages, from thirteen to forty, and even older. There were no university buildings, and in Paris the lectures were given in the Latin quarter, in Straw Street, so called from the straw strewn on the floors of the hired rooms where the lecturer explained the text-book, with the students squatting on the floor before him. There were no laboratories, for there was no experimentation. All that was required was a copy of the text-book,—Gratian's Decretum, the Sentences, a treatise of Aristotle, or a medical book. This the lecturer explained sentence by sentence, and the students listened and sometimes took notes.

[Sidenote: The universities could move freely from one town to another.]

The fact that the masters and students were not bound to any particular spot by buildings and apparatus left them free to wander about. If they believed themselves ill-treated in one town they moved to another, greatly to the disgust of the tradespeople of the place which they deserted, who of course profited by the presence of the university. The universities of Oxford and of Leipsic, among others, were founded by professors and students who had deserted their former home.

[Sidenote: Course of study.]

The course in arts, which corresponded to our college course and led to the degree of Master of Arts, occupied six years at Paris. The studies were logic, various sciences,—physics, astronomy, etc.,—studied in Aristotle's treatises, and some philosophy and ethics. There was no history, no Greek. Latin had to be learned in order to carry on the work at all, but little attention was given to the Roman classics. The new modern languages were considered entirely unworthy of the learned. It must of course be remembered that none of the books which we consider the great classics in English, French, Italian, or Spanish had as yet been written.

[Sidenote: Aristotle's works become known in the West.]

104. The most striking peculiarity of the instruction in the medival university was the supreme deference paid to Aristotle. Most of the courses of lectures were devoted to the explanation of some one of his numerous treatises,—his Physics, his Metaphysics, his various treatises on logic, his Ethics, his minor works upon the soul, heaven and earth, etc. Only his Logic had been known to Abelard, as all his other works had been forgotten. But early in the thirteenth century all his comprehensive contributions to science reached the West, either from Constantinople or through the Arabs who had brought them to Spain. The Latin translations were bad and obscure, and the lecturer had enough to do to give some meaning to them, to explain what the Arab philosophers had said of them, and, finally, to reconcile them to the teachings of Christianity.

[Sidenote: Veneration for Aristotle.]

Aristotle was, of course, a pagan. He was uncertain whether the soul continued to exist after death; he had never heard of the Bible and knew nothing of the salvation of man through Christ. One would have supposed that he would have been promptly rejected with horror by those who never questioned the doctrines of Christianity. But the teachers of the thirteenth century were fascinated by his logic and astonished at his learning. The great theologians of the time, Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) and Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), did not hesitate to prepare elaborate commentaries upon all his works. He was called "The Philosopher"; and so fully were scholars convinced that it had pleased God to permit Aristotle to say the last word upon each and every branch of knowledge that they humbly accepted him, along with the Bible, the church fathers, and the canon and Roman law, as one of the unquestioned authorities which together formed a complete guide for humanity in conduct and in every branch of science.

[Sidenote: Scholasticism.]

The term scholasticism is commonly given to the philosophy, theology, and method of discussion of the medival professors. To those who later outgrew the fondness for logic and the supreme respect for Aristotle, scholasticism, with its neglect of Greek and Roman literature, came to seem an arid and profitless plan of education. Yet if we turn over the pages of the wonderful works of Thomas Aquinas, we see that the scholastic philosopher might be a person of extraordinary insight and erudition, ready to recognize all the objections to his position, and able to express himself with great clearness and cogency.[175] The training in logic, if it did not increase the sum of human knowledge, accustomed the student to make careful distinctions and present his material in an orderly way.

[Sidenote: Roger Bacon's attack on scholasticism.]

Even in the thirteenth century there were a few scholars who criticised the habit of relying upon Aristotle for all knowledge. The most distinguished fault-finder was Roger Bacon, an English Franciscan monk (d. about 1290), who declared that even if Aristotle were very wise he had only planted the tree of knowledge and that this had "not as yet put forth all its branches nor produced all its fruits." "If we could continue to live for endless centuries we mortals could never hope to reach full and complete knowledge of all the things which are to be known. No one knows enough of nature completely to describe the peculiarities of a single fly and give the reason for its color and why it has just so many feet, no more and no less." Bacon held that truth could be reached a hundred thousand times better by experiments with real things than by poring over the bad Latin translations of Aristotle. "If I had my way," he declared, "I should burn all the books of Aristotle, for the study of them can only lead to a loss of time, produce error and increase ignorance."

So we find that even when scholasticism was most popular in the universities, there were keen-sighted scientists who recommended the modern scientific method of discovering truth. This does not consist in discussing, according to the rules of logic, what a Greek philosopher said hundreds of years ago, but in the patient observation of things about us.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Review of the great changes between the break-up of the Roman Empire in the west and the end of the thirteenth century.]

We have now traversed somewhat over one half of the long period of fifteen hundred years which separates Europe of to-day from the disintegrating Roman Empire of the fifth century. The eight hundred years which lie between the century of Alaric, Attila, Leo the Great, and Clovis, and that of Innocent III, St. Louis, and Edward I, witnessed momentous changes, quite as important as any that have occurred since.

[Sidenote: The 'dark ages.']

It is true that it seemed at first as if the barbarous Goths, Franks, Vandals, and Burgundians were bringing nothing but turmoil and distraction. Even the strong hand of Charlemagne curbed the unruly elements for only a moment; then the discord of his grandsons and the incursions of Northmen, Hungarians, Slavs, and Saracens plunged western Europe once more into the same anarchy and ignorance through which it had passed in the seventh and eighth centuries.

Two hundred years and more elapsed after Charlemagne's death before we can begin once more to note signs of progress. While we know little of the eleventh century, and while even its most distinguished writers are forgotten by all save the student of the period, it was undoubtedly a time of preparation for the brilliant twelfth century—for Abelard and St. Bernard, for the lawyers, poets, architects, and philosophers who seem to come suddenly upon the scene.

[Sidenote: The twelfth and thirteenth centuries a period of rapid advance.]

The Middle Ages may therefore be divided into two fairly distinct and quite different periods. The centuries prior to the age of Gregory VII and of William the Conqueror may, on account of their disorder and ignorance, be properly called the "dark ages," although they beheld some important stages in the transformation of Europe. The later Middle Ages, on the contrary, were a time of rapid and unmistakable progress in almost every line of human endeavor. Indeed by the end of the thirteenth century a great part of those changes were well under way which serve to make modern Europe so different from the condition of western Europe under the Roman Empire. The most striking of these are the following.

[Sidenote: Appearance of national states.]

(1) A group of national states in which a distinct feeling of nationality was developing had taken the place of the Roman Empire, which made no allowance in its government for the differences between Italians, Gauls, Germans, and Britons. The makeshift feudal government which had grown up during the dark ages was yielding to the kingly power (except in Germany and Italy) and there was no hope of ever reuniting western Europe into a single empire.

[Sidenote: The national states begin to deprive the Church of its governmental powers.]

(2) The Church had, in a way, taken the place of the Roman Empire by holding the various peoples of western Europe together under the headship of the pope and by assuming the powers of government during the period when the feudal lords were too weak to secure order and justice. Organized like an absolute monarchy, the Church was in a certain sense far the most powerful state of the Middle Ages. But it attained the zenith of its political influence under Innocent III, at the opening of the thirteenth century; before its close the national states had so grown in strength that it was clear that they would gradually reassume the powers of government temporarily exercised by the Church and confine the pope and clergy more and more to their strictly religious functions.

[Sidenote: Appearance of the commons or third estate.]

(3) A new social class had come into prominence alongside the clergy and the knightly aristocracy. The emancipation of the serfs, the founding of towns, and the growth of commerce made it possible for merchants and successful artisans to rise to importance and become influential through their wealth. From these beginnings the great intelligent and educated public of modern times has sprung.

[Sidenote: Books begin to be written in the language of the people.]

(4) The various modern languages began to be used in writing books. For five or six hundred years after the invasions of the Germans, Latin was used by all writers, but in the eleventh and following centuries the language of the people began to replace the ancient tongue. This enabled the laymen who had not mastered the intricacies of the old Roman speech to enjoy the stories and poems which were being composed in French, Provenal, German, English, and Spanish, and, somewhat later, in Italian.

[Sidenote: The clergy lose the monopoly of learning.]

Although the clergy still directed education, laymen were beginning to write books as well as to read them, and gradually the churchmen ceased to enjoy the monopoly of learning which they had possessed during the early Middle Ages.

[Sidenote: Study of law, theology, and philosophy.]

[Sidenote: The universities.]

(5) Scholars began as early as the year 1100 to gather eagerly about masters who lectured upon the Roman and canon law or upon logic, philosophy, or theology. The works of Aristotle, the most learned of the ancients, were sought out, and students followed him enthusiastically into all fields of knowledge. The universities grew up which are now so conspicuous a feature of our modern civilization.

[Sidenote: Beginnings of experimental science.]

(6) Scholars could not satisfy themselves permanently with the works of Aristotle but began themselves to add to the fund of human knowledge. In Roger Bacon and his sympathizers we find a group of scientific investigators who were preparing the way for the unprecedented achievements in natural science which are the glory of recent times.

[Sidenote: Artistic progress.]

(7) The developing appreciation of the beautiful is attested by the skill and taste expressed in the magnificent churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which were not a revival of any ancient style but the original production of the architects and sculptors of the period.

General Reading.—The most convenient and readable account of medival literature is perhaps that of SAINTSBURY, The Flourishing of Romance (Charles Scribner's Sons, $1.50). For chivalry, see CORNISH, Chivalry (The Macmillan Company, $1.75). For Gothic architecture, see C.H. MOORE, Development and Character of Gothic Architecture (The Macmillan Company, $4.50). For the art in general, LBKE, Outlines of the History of Art (Dodd, Mead & Co., 2 vols., $7.50). For the universities, RASHDALL, History of the Universities of the Middle Ages (Clarendon Press, 3 vols., $14.00).



CHAPTER XX

THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR

[Sidenote: Plan of the following four chapters.]

105. In dealing with the history of Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the following order has been adopted. (1) England and France are treated together, since the claims of the English kings to the French crown, and the long Hundred Years' War between the two countries, bring them into the same tale of disorder and final reorganization. (2) Next the history of the papal power and the remarkable efforts to better the Church at the great Council of Constance (1414) are considered. (3) Then the progress of enlightenment is taken up, particularly in the Italian towns, which were the leaders in culture during this period. This leads to an account of the invention of printing and the extraordinary geographical discoveries of the latter part of the fifteenth century. (4) In a fourth chapter the situation of western Europe at the opening of the sixteenth century is described, in order that the reader may be prepared to understand the great revolt against the Church under the leadership of Martin Luther.

[Sidenote: Extent of the king of England's realms before Edward I (1272-1307).]

We turn first to England. The English kings who preceded Edward I had ruled over only a portion of the island of Great Britain. To the west of their kingdom lay the mountainous district of Wales, inhabited by that remnant of the original Britons which the German invaders had been unable to conquer. To the north of England was the kingdom of Scotland, which was quite independent except for an occasional vague recognition on the part of its rulers of the English kings as their feudal superiors. Edward I, however, succeeded in conquering Wales permanently and Scotland temporarily.



[Sidenote: The Welsh and their bards.]

For centuries a border warfare had been carried on between the English and the Welsh. William the Conqueror had found it necessary to establish a chain of earldoms on the Welsh frontier, and Chester, Shrewsbury, and Monmouth became the outposts of the Normans. While the raids of the Welsh constantly provoked the English kings to invade Wales, no permanent conquest was possible, for the enemy retreated into the mountains about Snowdon and the English soldiers were left to starve in the wild regions into which they had ventured. The long and successful resistance which the Welsh made against the English must be attributed not only to their inaccessible retreats but also to the patriotic inspiration of their bards. These fondly believed that their people would sometime reconquer the whole of England, which they had possessed before the coming of the Angles and Saxons.[176]

[Sidenote: Edward I conquers Wales.]

[Sidenote: The title of 'Prince of Wales.']

When Edward I came to the throne he demanded that Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, as the head of the Welsh clans was called, should do him homage. Llewelyn, who was a man of ability and energy, refused the king's summons, and Edward marched into Wales. Two campaigns were necessary before the Welsh finally succumbed. Llewelyn was killed (1282), and with him expired the independence of the Welsh people. Edward divided the country into shires and introduced English laws and customs, and his policy of conciliation was so successful that there was but a single rising in the country for a whole century. He later presented his son to the Welsh as their prince, and from that time down to the present the title of "Prince of Wales" has usually been conferred upon the heir to the English throne.

[Sidenote: Scotland before Edward I.]

[Sidenote: The Highlands and Lowlands.]

The conquest of Scotland proved a far more difficult matter than that of Wales. The early history of the kingdom of Scotland is a complicated one. When the Angles and Saxons landed in Britain, a great part of the mountainous region north of the Firth of Forth was inhabited by a Celtic tribe, the Picts. There was, however, on the west coast a little kingdom of the Irish Celts, who were then called Scots. By the opening of the tenth century the Picts had accepted the king of the Scots as their ruler, and the annalists begin to refer to the highland region as the land of the Scots. As time went on the English kings found it to their advantage to grant to the Scottish rulers certain border districts, including the Lowlands, between the river Tweed and the Firth of Forth. This region was English in race and speech, while the Celts in the Highlands spoke, and still speak, Gaelic.

[Sidenote: Character of the inhabitants of the Lowlands.]

It was very important in the history of Scotland that its kings chose to dwell in the Lowlands rather than in the Highlands, and made Edinburgh, with its fortress, their chief town. With the coming of William the Conqueror many Englishmen, and also a number of discontented Norman nobles, fled across the border to the Lowlands of Scotland, and founded some of the great families, like those of Balliol and Bruce, who later fought for Scottish liberty. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the country, especially in the south, developed rapidly under the influence of the neighboring Anglo-Norman civilization, and the towns increased in size and importance.

[Sidenote: Edward intervenes in Scotch affairs.]

[Sidenote: Alliance between Scotland and France.]

It was not until the time of Edward I that the long series of troubles between England and Scotland began. The death of the last representative of the old line of Scotch kings in 1290 was followed by the appearance of a number of claimants to the crown. In order to avoid civil war, Edward was asked to decide who should be king. He agreed to make the decision on condition that the one whom he selected should hold Scotland as a fief from the English king. This arrangement was adopted, and the crown was given to Robert Balliol. But Edward unwisely made demands upon the Scots which aroused their anger, and their king renounced his homage to the king of England. The Scotch, moreover, formed an alliance with Edward's enemy, Philip the Fair of France; thenceforth, in all the difficulties between England and France, the English kings had always to reckon with the disaffected Scotch, who were glad to aid England's enemies.

[Sidenote: Edward attempts to incorporate Scotland with England.]

Edward marched in person against the Scotch (1296) and speedily put down what he regarded as a rebellion. He declared that Balliol had forfeited his fief through treason, and that consequently the English king had become the immediate lord of the Scotch nobles, whom he forced to do him homage. He emphasized his claim by carrying off the famous Stone of Scone, upon which the kings of Scotland had been crowned for ages. Continued resistance led Edward to attempt to incorporate Scotland with England in the same way that he had treated Wales. This was the beginning of three hundred years of intermittent war between England and Scotland, which ended only when a Scotch king, James VI, succeeded to the English throne in 1603 as James I.

[Sidenote: Scotland gains its independence under Robert Bruce.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Bannockburn, 1314.]

That Scotland was able to maintain her independence was mainly due to Robert Bruce, a national hero who succeeded in bringing both the nobility and the people under his leadership. Edward I died, old and worn out, in 1307, when on his way north to put down a rising under Bruce, and left the task of dealing with the Scotch to his incompetent son, Edward II. The Scotch acknowledged Bruce as their king and decisively defeated Edward II in the great battle of Bannockburn, the most famous conflict in Scottish history. Nevertheless, the English refused to acknowledge the independence of Scotland until forced to do so in 1328.

[Sidenote: The Scottish nation differs from the English.]

In the course of their struggles with England the Scotch people of the Lowlands had become more closely welded together, and the independence of Scotland, although it caused much bloodshed, first and last, served to develop certain permanent differences between the little Scotch nation and the rest of the English race. The peculiarities of the people north of the Tweed have been made familiar by the writings of gifted Scotchmen like Burns, Scott, and Stevenson.

[Sidenote: Growth of the power of Parliament.]

Edward II's numerous enemies took advantage of his weakness to bring about his downfall, but it is noteworthy that they worked through Parliament and in that way strengthened that fundamental national institution. We have seen how Edward I called representatives of the townspeople, as well as the nobles and prelates, to the Model Parliament of 1295.[177] This important innovation was formally ratified by his son, who solemnly promised that all questions relating to his realm and its people should be settled in parliaments in which the commons should be included. Thereafter no statute could be legally passed without their consent. In 1327 Parliament showed its power by forcing Edward II to abdicate in favor of his son, and thereby established the principle that the representatives of the nation might even go so far as to depose their ruler, should he show himself clearly unfit for his high duties. About this time Parliament began to meet in two distinct divisions, which later became the House of Lords and the House of Commons. In modern times this form of legislative assembly has been imitated by most of the countries of Europe.

[Sidenote: Cause of the Hundred Years' War.]

106. The so-called Hundred Years' War, which we must now review, was a long but frequently interrupted series of conflicts between the English and the French kings. It began in the following manner. The king of England, through John's misconduct, had lost Normandy and other portions of the great Plantagenet realm on the continent.[178] He still retained, however, the extensive duchy of Guienne, for which he did homage to the king of France, whose most powerful vassal he was. This arrangement was bound to produce constant difficulty, especially as the French kings were, as we have discovered, bent upon destroying as fast as possible the influence of their vassals, so that the royal power should everywhere take the place of that of the feudal lords. It was obviously out of the question for the king of England meekly to permit the French monarch to extend his control directly over the people of Guienne, and yet this was the constant aim of Philip the Fair[179] and his successors.

THE FRENCH KINGS DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES

Louis IX (Saint Louis) (1226-1270) Philip III (1270-1285) + -+ + Philip IV, the Fair Charles of Valois, (1285-1314) ancestor of the house of Valois + -+ + -+ + Louis X Isabella, m. Philip V Charles IV (1314-1316) Edward II (1316-1322) (1322-1328) + + + Edward daughters daughter daughter III of Philip VI England (1328-1350) John (1316), an infant John II who died (1350-1364) when but a few days old + + Charles V Philip, (1364-1380) founder of the powerful Charles VI house (1380-1422) of Burgundy Charles VII (1422-1461) Louis XI (1461-1483) Charles VIII (1483-1498)

[Sidenote: The French succession in 1328.]

The inevitable struggle between England and France was rendered the more serious by the claim made by Edward III that he was himself the rightful king of France. He based his pretensions upon the fact that his mother Isabella was the daughter of Philip the Fair. Philip, who died in 1314, had been followed by his three sons in succession, none of whom had left a male heir, so that the direct male line of the Capetians was extinguished in 1328. The lawyers thereupon declared that it was a venerable law in France that no woman should succeed to the throne. The principle was also asserted that a woman could not even transmit the crown to her son. Consequently Edward III appeared to be definitely excluded, and Philip VI of Valois, a nephew of Philip the Fair, became king.

[Sidenote: Edward III claims the French crown.]

At first Edward III, who was a mere boy in 1328, appeared to recognize the propriety of this settlement and did qualified homage to Philip VI for Guienne. But when it became apparent later that Philip was not only encroaching upon Edward's prerogatives in Guienne but had sent French troops to aid the Scotch, the English king bethought him of his neglected claim to the French crown.

[Sidenote: The Flemish towns.]

The advantage of publicly declaring himself the rightful king of France was increased by the attitude of the flourishing towns of Flanders. Philip VI had assisted the count of Flanders in a bitter struggle to prevent the towns from establishing their independence. Consequently the Flemish burghers now announced their willingness to desert Philip and acknowledge and aid Edward as their king.

[Sidenote: Commercial relations between the Flemish towns and England.]

[Sidenote: English wool.]

Flanders at this period was the most important trading and manufacturing country in western Europe. Ghent was a great manufacturing town, like Manchester to-day, and Bruges a busy port, like modern Antwerp or Liverpool. All this prosperity was largely dependent upon England, for it was from there that the Flemish manufacturers procured the fine, long wool which they wove on their looms into cloth and spun into yarn. In 1336 the count of Flanders, perhaps at Philip's suggestion, ordered the imprisonment of all the Englishmen in Flanders. Edward promptly retaliated by prohibiting the export of wool from England and the importation of cloth. At the same time he protected and encouraged the Flemish artisans who had emigrated across the Channel and were carrying on their industry in the county of Norfolk.



It is clear, then, that the Flemish burghers had good reason for wishing Edward to become their king, so that their relations with England might not be broken off. They did their part in inducing him to undertake the conquest of France, and (in 1340) we find him adding the fleur de lis of France to the lions of the English royal arms.

[Sidenote: Edward III invades France, 1346.]

[Sidenote: The English victory at the battle of Crcy, 1346.]

Edward did not invade France for some years, but his sailors destroyed the French fleet and began to show themselves able to maintain their king's claim to be lord of the English seas upon every side. In 1346 Edward himself landed in Normandy, devastated the country, and marched up the Seine almost to Paris, but was then obliged to retreat northward before a large army which Philip had collected. Edward made a halt at Crcy, and here one of the most celebrated battles of history took place. It taught the world a great lesson in warfare by proving once more, as the battle of Bannockburn had already done, that foot soldiers, properly armed and trained to act in concert, could defeat the feudal cavaliers in spite of their lances and heavy armor. The proud mounted knights of France performed prodigies of valor, each for himself, but they did not act together and could not hold their ground against the deadly shower of arrows poured into their midst from the long bows of the English archers. The flower of French chivalry was routed with terrible slaughter by the serried ranks of the humble English foot soldiers.[180] It was at Crcy that Edward's son, the Black Prince,—so named from his black armor,—won his spurs.[181]

[Sidenote: The English take Calais.]

[Sidenote: The Black Prince wins a second great victory at Poitiers, 1356.]

After this great victory the English king proceeded to lay siege to Calais, the French coast town nearest England. This he took, drove out a great part of the inhabitants, and substituted Englishmen for them. The town remained subject to England for two centuries. When the war was renewed the Black Prince, now at the height of his fame, was able to deal the enemy a still more crushing blow than at Crcy. He again put the French knights to flight in the battle of Poitiers; he even captured the French king, John, and carried him off to London.

[Sidenote: The Estates General attempt to control the king and reform the government.]

107. The French quite properly attributed the signal disasters of Crcy and Poitiers to the inefficiency of their king and his advisers. Accordingly, after the second defeat, the Estates General, which had been summoned to approve the raising of more money, attempted to take matters into their own hands. The representatives of the towns, whom Philip the Fair had first called in,[182] were on this occasion more numerous than the members of the clergy and nobility. A great list of reforms was drawn up, which provided, among other things, that the Estates should meet regularly whether summoned by the king or not, and that the collection and expenditure of the public revenue should be no longer entirely under the control of the king but should be supervised by the representatives of the people. The city of Paris rose in support of the revolutionary Estates, but the violence of its allies discredited rather than helped the movement, and France was soon glad to accept the unrestricted rule of its king once more.[183]

[Sidenote: Contrast between the position of the Estates General and the English Parliament.]

This unsuccessful attempt to reform the French government is interesting in two ways. In the first place, there was much in the aims of the reformers and in the conduct of the Paris mob that suggests the great successful French revolution of 1789, which at last fundamentally modified the organization of the state. In the second place, the history of the Estates forms a curious contrast to that of the English Parliament, which was laying the foundation of its later power during this very period. While the French king occasionally summoned the Estates when he needed money, he did so only in order that their approbation of new taxes might make it easier to collect them. He never admitted that he had not the right to levy taxes if he wished without consulting his subjects. In England, on the other hand, the kings ever since the time of Edward I had repeatedly agreed that no new taxes should be imposed without the consent of Parliament. Edward II had gone farther and accepted the representatives of the people as his advisers in all important matters touching the welfare of the realm. While the French Estates gradually sank into insignificance, the English Parliament soon learned to grant no money until the king had redressed the grievances which it pointed out, and thus it insured its influence over the king's policy.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Bretigny, 1360.]

Edward III found it impossible to conquer France in spite of the victories of the Black Prince and the capture of John. He was glad in 1360 to sign the treaty of Bretigny, in which he not only renounced his pretensions to the French crown but agreed to say no more of the old claims of his family to Normandy and the Plantagenet provinces north of the Loire. In return for these concessions he received, in full sovereignty and without any feudal obligations to the king of France, Poitou, Guienne, Gascony, and the town of Calais, amounting to about one third of the territory of France.



[Sidenote: England loses most of its French territory before the death of Edward III, 1377.]

The promising peace of Bretigny was however soon broken. The Black Prince, to whom the government of Guienne was delegated by his father, levied such heavy taxes that he quickly alienated the hearts of a people naturally drawn to France rather than to England. When the sagacious Charles V of France (1364-1380) undertook to reconquer the territory which his father had ceded to England, he met with no determined opposition; Edward III was getting old and his warlike son, the Black Prince, had fallen mortally ill. So when Edward died in 1377 nothing remained to the English king except Calais and a strip of land from Bordeaux southward.

[Sidenote: Miserable condition of France.]

For a generation after the death of Edward III the war with France was almost discontinued. France had suffered a great deal more than England. In the first place, all the fighting had been done on her side of the Channel, and in the second place, the soldiers who found themselves without occupation after the treaty of Bretigny had wandered about in bands maltreating and plundering the people. Petrarch, who visited France at this period, tells us that he could not believe that this was the same kingdom which he had once seen so rich and flourishing. "Nothing presented itself to my eyes but fearful solitude and extreme poverty, uncultivated land and houses in ruins. Even about Paris there were everywhere signs of fire and destruction. The streets were deserted; the roads overgrown with weeds."

[Sidenote: The bubonic plague of 1348-1349, commonly called the 'black death.']

The horrors of war had been increased by the deadly bubonic plague which appeared in Europe early in 1348. In April it had reached Florence; by August it was devastating France and Germany; it then spread over England from the southwest northward, attacking every part of the country during the year 1349. This disease, like other terrible epidemics, such as smallpox and cholera, came from Asia. Those who were stricken with it usually died in two or three days. It is impossible to tell what proportion of the population perished. Reports of the time say that in one part of France but one tenth of the people survived, in another but one sixteenth; and that for a long time five hundred bodies were carried from the great hospital of Paris every day. A careful estimate shows that in England toward one half of the population died. At the Abbey of Newenham only the abbot and two monks were left alive out of twenty-six. There were constant complaints that certain lands were no longer of any value to their lords because the tenants were all dead.

[Sidenote: Conditions of English labor.]

108. In England the growing discontent among the agricultural classes may be ascribed partly to the results of the great pestilence and partly to the new taxes which were levied in order to prolong the disastrous war with France. Up to this time the majority of those who cultivated the land belonged to some particular manor, paid stated dues to their lord, and performed definite services for him. Hitherto there had been relatively few farm hands who might be hired and who sought employment anywhere that they could get it. The black death, by greatly decreasing the number of laborers, raised wages and served to increase the importance of the unattached laborer. Consequently he not only demanded higher wages than ever before, but readily deserted one employer when another offered him more money.

[Sidenote: The Statutes of Laborers issued in 1351 and following years.]

This appeared very shocking to those who were accustomed to the traditional rates of payment; and the government undertook to keep down wages by prohibiting laborers from asking more than had been customary during the years that preceded the pestilence. Every laborer, when offered work at the established wages, was ordered to accept it on pain of imprisonment. The first "Statute of Laborers"[184] was issued in 1351; but apparently it was not obeyed and similar laws were enacted from time to time for a century. Nevertheless complaints continued that serfs and laborers persisted in demanding "outrageous and excessive hire." This seems to indicate that the efforts of Parliament to interfere with the law of supply and demand were unsuccessful.

[Sidenote: Breaking up of the medival manors in England.]

The old manor system was breaking up. Many of the laboring class in the country no longer held land as serfs but moved from place to place and made a living by working for wages. The villain, as the serf was called in England, began to regard the dues which he had been accustomed to pay to his lord as unjust. A petition to Parliament in 1377 asserts that the villains are refusing to pay their customary services to their lords or to acknowledge the obligations which they owe as serfs.

[Sidenote: Causes of discontent among the English peasants.]

[Sidenote: 'The Vision of Piers Ploughman.']

The discontent was becoming general. We see it reflected in a remarkable poem of the time, "The Vision of Piers Ploughman," in which the unfortunate position of the peasant is vividly portrayed.[185] This is only the most notable example of a great number of pamphlets, some in prose and some in bad verse, which were calculated to make the people more discontented than ever. The efforts to enforce the provisions of the Statutes of Laborers had undoubtedly produced much friction between the landlords and their employees. A new form of taxation also caused much irritation. A general poll tax, which was to be paid by every one above sixteen years of age, was established in 1379 and another one in the following year to meet the expenses of the hopeless French war which was now being conducted by incapable and highly unpopular ministers.

[Sidenote: The peasant revolt of 1381.]

In 1381 rioting began among the peasants in Kent and Essex, and several bodies of the insurgents determined to march upon London. As they passed along the road their ranks were swelled by discontented villagers and by many of the poorer workingmen from the towns. Soon the revolt spread all through southern and eastern England. The peasants burned some of the houses of the gentry and of the rich ecclesiastics, and took particular pains to see that the lists for the collection of the hated poll tax were destroyed, as well as the registers kept by the various lords enumerating the obligations of their serfs. The gates of London were opened to the insurgents by sympathizers within the walls, and several of the king's officers were seized and put to death. Some of the simple people imagined that they might induce the boy king, Richard II, to become their leader. He had no idea of aiding them; he went out, however, to meet them and induced them to disperse by promising that he would abolish serfdom.

[Sidenote: Final disappearance of serfdom in England.]

Although the king did not keep his promise, serfdom decayed rapidly. It became more and more common for the serf to pay his dues to the lord in money instead of working for him, and in this way he lost one of the chief characteristics of a serf. The landlord then either hired men to cultivate the fields which he reserved for his own use[186] or rented the land to tenants. These tenants were not in a position to force their fellow-tenants on the manor to pay the full dues which had formerly been exacted by the lord. Sixty or seventy years after the Peasants' War the English rural population had in one way or another become free men, and serfs had practically disappeared.

[Sidenote: Deposition of Richard II and accession of Henry IV of Lancaster, 1399-1413.]

[Sidenote: Henry V claims the French crown, 1414.]

109. The war with France had, as we have seen, almost ceased for a generation after the death of Edward III. The young son of the Black Prince, Richard II, who succeeded his grandfather on the throne, was controlled by the great noblemen whose rivalries fill much space in the annals of England. He was finally forced to abdicate in 1399. Henry IV, of the powerful house of Lancaster,[187] was recognized as king in spite of the fact that he had less claim than another descendant of Edward III, who was, however, a mere boy. Henry IV's uncertain title may have made him less enterprising than Edward III; at any rate, it was left for his son, Henry V (1413-1422), to continue the French war. The conditions in France were such as to encourage the new claim which Henry V made to the French crown in 1414.

[Sidenote: Civil war in France between the houses of Burgundy and Orleans.]

The able French king, Charles V, who had delivered his country for a time from the English invaders,[188] had been followed in 1380 by Charles VI, who soon lost his mind. The right to govern France consequently became a matter of dispute among the insane king's uncles and other relations. The country was divided between two great factions, one of which was headed by the powerful duke of Burgundy, who was building up a new state between France and Germany, and the other by the duke of Orleans. In 1407 the duke of Orleans was brutally murdered by order of the duke of Burgundy,—a by no means uncommon way at that time of disposing of one's enemies in both France and England. This led to a prolonged civil war between the two parties, and saved England from an attack which the duke of Orleans had been planning.

[Sidenote: Position of Henry V.]

[Sidenote: Agincourt, 1415.]

Henry V had no real basis for his claim to the French crown. Edward III had gone to war because France was encroaching upon Guienne and aiding Scotland, and because he was encouraged by the Flemish towns. Henry V, on the other hand, was merely anxious to make himself and his house popular by deeds of valor. Nevertheless his very first victory, the battle of Agincourt, was as brilliant as that of Crcy or Poitiers. Once more the English bowmen slaughtered great numbers of French knights. The English then proceeded to conquer Normandy and march upon Paris.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Troyes, 1420.]

Burgundians and Orleanists were upon the point of forgetting their animosities in their common fear of the English, when the duke of Burgundy, as he was kneeling to kiss the hand of his future sovereign, the Dauphin,[189] was treacherously attacked and killed by a band of his enemies. His son, the new duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, immediately joined the English against the Dauphin, whom he believed to be responsible for his father's murder. Henry then forced the French to sign the treaty of Troyes (1420), which provided that he was to become king of France upon the death of the mad Charles VI.

[Sidenote: Henry VI recognized as king in northern France.]

Both Henry V and Charles VI died two years later. Henry V's son, Henry VI, was but nine months old; nevertheless according to the terms of the treaty of Troyes he succeeded to the throne in France as well as in England. The child was recognized only in a portion of northern France. Through the ability of his uncle, the duke of Bedford, his interests were defended with such good effect that the English succeeded in a few years in conquering all of France north of the Loire, although the south continued to be held by Charles VII, the son of Charles VI.

[Sidenote: Joan of Arc.]

Charles VII had not yet been crowned and so was still called the Dauphin even by his supporters. Weak and indolent, he did nothing to stem the tide of English victories or restore the courage and arouse the patriotism of his distressed subjects. This great task was reserved for a young peasant girl from a remote village on the eastern border of France. To her family and her companions Joan of Arc seemed only "a good girl, simple and pleasant in her ways," but she brooded much over the disasters that had overtaken her country, and a "great pity on the fair realm of France" filled her heart. She saw visions and heard voices that bade her go forth to the help of the king and lead him to Rheims to be crowned.

[Sidenote: Relief of Orleans by Joan, 1429.]

It was with the greatest difficulty that she got anybody to believe in her mission or to help her to get an audience with the Dauphin. But her own firm faith in her divine guidance triumphed over all doubts and obstacles. She was at last accepted as a God-sent champion and placed at the head of some troops despatched to the relief of Orleans. This city, which was the key to southern France, had been besieged by the English for some months and was on the point of surrender. Joan, who rode on horseback at the head of her troops, clothed in armor like a man, had now become the idol of the soldiers and of the people. Under the guidance and inspiration of her indomitable courage, sound sense, and burning enthusiasm, Orleans was relieved and the English completely routed. The Maid of Orleans, as she was henceforth called, was now free to conduct the Dauphin to Rheims, where he was crowned in the cathedral (July 17, 1429).



[Sidenote: Execution of Joan, 1431.]

The Maid now felt that her mission was accomplished and begged permission to return to her home and her brothers and sisters. To this the king would not consent, and she continued to fight his battles with undiminished loyalty. But the other leaders were jealous of her, and even her friends, the soldiers, were sensitive to the taunt of being led by a woman. During the defense of Compigne in May, 1430, she was allowed to fall into the hands of the duke of Burgundy, who sold her to the English. They were not satisfied with simply holding as prisoner that strange maiden who had so discomfited them; they wished to discredit everything that she had done, and so declared, and undoubtedly believed, that she was a witch who had been helped by the Evil One. She was tried by a court of ecclesiastics, found guilty of heresy, and burned at Rouen in 1431. Her bravery and noble constancy affected even her executioners, and an English soldier who had come to triumph over her death was heard to exclaim: "We are lost—we have burned a saint." The English cause in France was indeed lost, for her spirit and example had given new courage and vigor to the French armies.[190]

[Sidenote: England loses her French possessions.]

[Sidenote: End of the Hundred Years' War, 1453.]

The English Parliament became more and more reluctant to grant funds when there were no more victories gained. Bedford, through whose ability the English cause had hitherto been maintained, died in 1435, and Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, renounced his alliance with the English and joined Charles VII. Owing to his acquisition of the Netherlands, the possessions of Philip were now so great that he might well be regarded as a European potentate whose alliance with France rendered further efforts on England's part hopeless. From this time on the English lost ground steadily. They were expelled from Normandy in 1450. Three years later, the last vestige of their long domination in southern France passed into the hands of the French king. The Hundred Years' War was over, and although England still retained Calais, the great question whether she should extend her sway upon the continent was finally settled.

[Sidenote: The Wars of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York, 1455-1485.]

110. The close of the Hundred Years' War was followed in England by the Wars of the Roses, between the rival houses which were struggling for the crown. The badge of the house of Lancaster, to which Henry VI belonged, was a red rose, and that of the duke of York, who proposed to push him off his throne, was a white one. Each party was supported by a group of the wealthy and powerful nobles whose rivalries, conspiracies, treasons, murders, and executions fill the annals of England during the period which we have been discussing. Vast estates had come into the hands of the higher nobility by inheritance, and marriages with wealthy heiresses. Many of the dukes and earls were related to the royal family and consequently were inevitably drawn into the dynastic struggles.

[Sidenote: Retainers.]

The nobles no longer owed their power to vassals who were bound to follow them to war. Like the king, they relied upon hired soldiers. It was easy to find plenty of restless fellows who were willing to become the retainers of a nobleman if he would agree to clothe them with his livery and keep open house, where they might eat and drink their fill. Their master was to help them when they got into trouble, and they on their part were expected to intimidate, misuse, and even murder at need those who opposed the interests of their chief. When the French war was over, the unruly elements of society poured back across the Channel and, as retainers of the rival lords, became the terror of the country. They bullied judges and juries, and helped the nobles to control the selection of those who were sent to Parliament.

[Sidenote: Edward IV secures the crown.]

It is needless to speak of the several battles and the many skirmishes of the miserable Wars of the Roses. These lasted from 1455, when the duke of York set seriously to work to displace the weak-minded Lancastrian king, Henry VI, until the accession of Henry VII, of the house of Tudor, thirty years later. After several battles the Yorkist leader, Edward IV, assumed the crown in 1461 and was recognized by Parliament, which declared Henry VI and the two preceding Lancastrian kings usurpers.[191] Edward was a vigorous monarch and maintained his own until his death in 1483.

[Sidenote: Edward V, 1483; Richard III, 1483-1485.]

[Sidenote: Death of Richard in the battle of Bosworth Field.]

[Sidenote: Accession of Henry VII of the house of Tudor, 1485.]

[Sidenote: End of the Wars of the Roses.]

Edward's son, Edward V, was only a little boy, so that the government fell into the hands of the young king's uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The temptation to make himself king was too great to be resisted, and Richard soon seized the crown. Both the sons of Edward IV were killed in the Tower of London, and with the knowledge of their uncle, as it was commonly believed. This murder made Richard unpopular even at a time when one could kill one's political rivals without incurring general opprobrium. A new aspirant to the throne organized a conspiracy. Richard III was defeated and slain in the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and the crown which had fallen from his head was placed upon that of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. The latter had no particular right to it, although he was descended from Edward III through his mother. He hastened to procure the recognition of Parliament, and married Edward IV's daughter, thus blending the red and white roses in the Tudor badge.[192]



[Sidenote: The despotism of the Tudors.]

The Wars of the Roses had important results. Nearly all the powerful families of England had been drawn into the fierce struggles, and a great part of the nobility, whom the kings had formerly feared, had perished on the battlefield or lost their heads in the ruthless executions carried out by each party after it gained a victory. This left the king far more powerful than ever before. He could now dominate Parliament, if he could not dispense with it. For a century and more the Tudor kings enjoyed almost despotic power. England ceased for a time to enjoy the free government for which the foundations had been laid under the Edwards and the Lancastrian kings, whose embarrassments at home and abroad had made them constantly dependent upon the aid of the nation.[193]

[Sidenote: France establishes a standing army, 1439.]

111. In France the closing years of the Hundred Years' War had witnessed a great increase of the king's power through the establishment of a well-organized standing army. The feudal army had long since disappeared. Even before the opening of the war the nobles had begun to be paid for their military services and no longer furnished troops as a condition of holding fiefs. But the companies of soldiers, although nominally under the command of royal officers, were often really independent of the king. They found their pay very uncertain, and plundered their countrymen as well as the enemy. As the war drew to a close, the lawless troopers became a terrible scourge to the country and were known as flayers, on account of the horrible way in which they tortured the peasants in the hope of extracting money from them. In 1439 the Estates General approved a plan devised by the king, for putting an end to this evil. Thereafter no one was to raise a company without the permission of the king, who was to name the captains and fix the number of the soldiers and the character of their arms.[194]

[Sidenote: The permanent tax fatal to the powers of the Estates General.]

The Estates agreed that the king should use a certain tax, called the taille, to support the troops necessary for the protection of the frontier. This was a fatal concession, for the king now had an army and the right to collect what he chose to consider a permanent tax, the amount of which he later greatly increased; he was not dependent, as was the English king, upon the grants made for brief periods by the representatives of the nation.

[Sidenote: The new feudalism.]

Before the king of France could hope to establish a compact, well-organized state it was necessary for him to reduce the power of his vassals, some of whom were almost his equals in strength. The older feudal dynasties, as we have seen, had many of them succumbed to the attacks and the diplomacy of the kings of the thirteenth century, especially of St. Louis. But he and his successors had raised up fresh rivals by granting whole provinces, called appanages,[195] to their younger sons. In this way new and powerful lines of feudal nobles were established, such, for example, as the houses of Orleans, Anjou, Bourbon, and, above all, of Burgundy. The accompanying map shows the region immediately subject to the king—the royal domain—at the time of the expulsion of the English. It clearly indicates what still remained to be done in order to free France from feudalism and make it a great nation. The process of reducing the prerogatives of the nobles had been begun. They had been forbidden to coin money, to maintain armies, and to tax their subjects, and the powers of the king's judges had been extended over all the realm. But the task of consolidating France was reserved for the son of Charles VII, the shrewd and treacherous Louis XI (1461-1483).

[Sidenote: Extent of the Burgundian possessions in the fifteenth century.]

By far the most dangerous of Louis' vassals were Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1419-1467), and his impetuous son, Charles the Bold (1467-1477). Just a century before Louis XI came to the throne, the old line of Burgundian dukes had died out, and in 1363 the same King John whom the English captured and carried off to England, presented Burgundy to his younger son Philip.[196] By fortunate marriages and lucky windfalls the dukes of Burgundy had added a number of important fiefs to their original possessions, and Philip the Good ruled over Franche-Comt, Luxembourg, Flanders, Artois, Brabant, and other provinces and towns which lie in what is now Holland and Belgium.



[Sidenote: Ambition of Charles the Bold, 1467-1477.]

Charles the Bold busied himself for some years before his father's death in forming alliances with the other powerful French vassals and conspiring against Louis. Upon becoming duke himself he set his heart upon two things. He resolved, first, to conquer Lorraine, which divided his territories into two parts and made it difficult to pass from Franche-Comt to Luxembourg. In the second place, he proposed to have himself crowned king of the territories which his forefathers had accumulated and in this way establish a strong new state between France and Germany.

[Sidenote: Charles defeated by the Swiss at Granson and Murten, 1476.]

Naturally neither the king of France nor the emperor sympathized with Charles' ambitions. Louis taxed his exceptional ingenuity in frustrating his aspiring vassal; and the emperor refused to crown Charles as king when he appeared at Trier eager for the ceremony. The most humiliating, however, of the defeats which Charles encountered came from an unexpected quarter. He attempted to chastise his neighbors the Swiss for siding with his enemies and was soundly beaten by that brave people in two memorable battles.



[Sidenote: Death of Charles, 1477.]

[Sidenote: Marriage of Mary of Burgundy to Maximilian of Austria.]

The next year Charles fell ingloriously in an attempt to take the town of Nancy. His lands went to his daughter Mary, who was immediately married to the emperor's son, Maximilian, much to the disgust of Louis, who had already seized the duchy of Burgundy and hoped to gain still more. The great importance of this marriage, which resulted in bringing the Netherlands into the hands of Austria, will be seen when we come to consider Charles V (the grandson of Mary and Maximilian) and his vast empire.[197]

[Sidenote: Work of Louis XI.]

Louis XI did far more for the French monarchy than check his chief vassal and reclaim a part of the Burgundian territory. He had himself made heir to a number of provinces in central and southern France,—Anjou, Maine, Provence, etc.,—which by the death of their possessors came under the king's immediate control (1481). He humiliated in various ways the vassals who in his early days had combined with Charles the Bold against him. The duke of Alenon he imprisoned; the rebellious duke of Nemours he caused to be executed in the most cruel manner. Louis' political aims were worthy, but his means were generally despicable. It sometimes seemed as if he gloried in being the most rascally among rascals, the most treacherous among the traitors whom he so artfully circumvented in the interests of the French monarchy.[198]

[Sidenote: England and France establish strong national governments.]

Both England and France emerged from the troubles and desolations of the Hundred Years' War stronger than ever before. In both countries the kings had overcome the menace of feudalism by destroying the power of the great families. The royal government was becoming constantly more powerful. Commerce and industry increased the national wealth and supplied the monarchs with the revenue necessary to maintain government officials and a sufficient armed force to execute the laws and keep order throughout their realms. They were no longer forced to rely upon the uncertain pledges of their vassals. In short, the French and the English were both becoming nations, each with a strong national feeling and a king whom every one, both high and low, recognized and obeyed as the head of the government.

[Sidenote: Influence of the development of modern states upon the position of the medival Church.]

It is obvious that the strengthening of the royal power could hardly fail to alter the position of the medival Church. This was, as we have seen, not simply a religious institution but a sort of international state which performed a number of important governmental duties. We must, therefore, now turn back and review the history of the Church from the time of Edward I and Philip the Fair to the opening of the sixteenth century.

General Reading.—For the political history of this period, LODGE, Close of the Middle Ages (The Macmillan Company, $1.75), is the best work, although rather dry and cumbered with names which might have been omitted. For the general history of France, see in addition to ADAMS, Growth of the French Nation (The Macmillan Company, $1.25), DURUY, A History of France (T.Y. Crowell, $2.00). The economic history of England is to be found in the works mentioned at the end of Chapter XVIII. The following collections of documents furnish illustrative material in abundance: LEE, Source-book of English History (Holt, $2.00); COLBY, Selections from the Sources of English History, (Longmans, Green & Co., $1.50); ADAMS & STEPHENS, Select Documents of English Constitutional History (The Macmillan Company, $2.25); KENDALL, Source Book of English History (The Macmillan Company, 80 cents).



CHAPTER XXI

THE POPES AND THE COUNCILS

[Sidenote: The problem of the relation of church and state.]

112. The influence which the Church and its head exercised over the civil government in the Middle Ages was due largely to the absence of strong, efficient rulers who could count upon the support of a large body of prosperous and loyal subjects. So long as the feudal anarchy continued, the Church endeavored to supply the deficiencies of the restless and ignorant princes by striving to maintain order, administer justice, protect the weak, and encourage learning. So soon, however, as the modern state began to develop, difficulties arose. The clergy naturally clung to the powers and privileges which they had long enjoyed, and which they believed to be rightly theirs. On the other hand, the state, so soon as it felt itself able to manage its own affairs, protect its subjects, and provide for their worldly interests, was less and less inclined to tolerate the interference of the clergy and their head, the pope. Educated laymen were becoming more and more common, and the king was no longer obliged to rely upon the assistance of the clergy in conducting his government. It was natural that he should look with disfavor upon their privileges, which put them upon a different footing from the great mass of his subjects, and upon their wealth, which he would deem excessive and dangerous to his power. This situation raised the fundamental problem of the proper relation of church and state, upon which Europe has been working ever since the fourteenth century and has not completely solved yet.

[Sidenote: Edward I and Philip the Fair attempt to tax the clergy.]

The difficulty which the Church experienced in maintaining its power against the kings is excellently shown by the famous struggle between Philip the Fair, the grandson of St. Louis, and Boniface VIII, an old man of boundless ambition and inexhaustible energy who came to the papal throne in 1294. The first serious trouble arose over the habit into which the kings of England and France had fallen, of taxing the property of the churchmen like that of other subjects. It was natural after a monarch had squeezed all that he could out of the Jews and the towns, and had exacted every possible feudal due, that he should turn to the rich estates of the clergy, in spite of their claim that their property was dedicated to God and owed the king nothing. The extensive enterprises of Edward I led him in 1296 to demand one fifth of the personal property of the clergy. Philip the Fair exacted one hundredth and then one fiftieth of the possessions of clergy and laity alike.

[Sidenote: The bull Clericis laicos of Boniface VIII, 1296.]

Against this impartial system Boniface protested in the famous bull Clericis laicos (1296). He claimed that the laity had always been exceedingly hostile to the clergy, and that the rulers were now exhibiting this hostility by imposing heavy burdens upon the Church, forgetting that they had no control over the clergy and their possessions. The pope, therefore, forbade all churchmen, including the monks, to pay, without his consent, to a king or ruler any part of the Church's revenue or possessions upon any pretext whatsoever. He likewise forbade the kings and princes under pain of excommunication to presume to exact any such payments.

[Sidenote: Boniface concedes a limited right to tax churchmen.]

It happened that just as the pope was prohibiting the clergy from contributing to the taxes, Philip the Fair had forbidden the exportation of all gold and silver from the country. In that way he cut off an important source of the pope's revenue, for the church of France could obviously no longer send anything to Rome. The pope was forced to give up his extreme claims. He explained the following year that he had not meant to interfere with the payment on the clergy's part of customary feudal dues nor with their loans of money to the king.[199]

[Sidenote: The jubilee of 1300.]

In spite of this setback, the pope never seemed more completely the recognized head of the western world than during the first great jubilee, in the year 1300, when Boniface called together all Christendom to celebrate the opening of the new century by a great religious festival at Rome. It is reported that two millions of people, coming from all parts of Europe, visited the churches of Rome, and that in spite of widening the streets many were crushed in the crowd. So great was the influx of money into the papal treasury that two assistants were kept busy with rakes collecting the offerings which were deposited at the tomb of St. Peter.

Boniface was, however, very soon to realize that even if Christendom regarded Rome as its religious center, the nations would not accept him as their political head. When he dispatched an obnoxious prelate to Philip the Fair, ordering him to free the count of Flanders whom he was holding prisoner, the king declared the harsh language of the papal envoy to be high treason and sent one of his lawyers to the pope to demand that the messenger be degraded and punished.

[Sidenote: The Estates General of 1302.]

Philip was surrounded by a body of lawyers, and it would seem that they, rather than the king, were the real rulers of France. They had, through their study of Roman law, learned to admire the absolute power exercised by the Roman emperor. To them the civil government was supreme, and they urged the king to punish what they regarded as the insolent conduct of the pope. Before taking any action against the head of the Church, Philip called together the representatives of his people, including not only the clergy and the nobility but the people of the towns as well. The Estates General, after hearing a statement of the case from one of Philip's lawyers, agreed to support their monarch.

[Sidenote: Nogaret insults Boniface VIII.]

[Sidenote: Death of Boniface, 1303.]

Nogaret, one of the chief legal advisers of the king, undertook to face the pope. He collected a little troop of soldiers in Italy and marched against Boniface, who was sojourning at Anagni, where his predecessors had excommunicated two emperors, Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II. As Boniface, in his turn, was preparing solemnly to proclaim the king of France an outcast from the Church, Nogaret penetrated into the papal palace with his soldiers and heaped insults upon the helpless but defiant old man. The townspeople forced Nogaret to leave the next day, but Boniface's spirit was broken and he soon died at Rome.

[Sidenote: Clement V, 1305-1314, and his subservience to Philip the Fair.]

[Sidenote: The popes take up their residence at Avignon.]

King Philip now proposed to have no more trouble with popes. He arranged in 1305 to have the Archbishop of Bordeaux chosen head of the Church, with the understanding that he should transfer the papacy to France. The new pope accordingly summoned the cardinals to meet him at Lyons, where he was crowned under the title of Clement V. He remained in France during his whole pontificate, moving from one rich abbey to another. At Philip's command he reluctantly undertook a sort of trial of the deceased Boniface VIII, who was accused by the king's lawyers of all sorts of abominable crimes. A great part of Boniface's decrees were revoked, and those who had attacked him were exculpated. Then, to please the king, Clement brought the Templars to trial; the order was abolished and its possessions in France, for which the king had longed, were confiscated. Obviously it proved very advantageous to the king to have a pope within his realm. Clement V died in 1314. His successors took up their residence in the town of Avignon, just outside the French frontier of those days. There they built a sumptuous palace in which successive popes lived in great splendor for sixty years.