There are still traces of rude earthworks round the top of Clay hill, which are said to have been thrown up by Alfred's army at this time. If there had been time for such a work, it would undoubtedly have been a wise step, as a fortified encampment here would have served Alfred in good stead in case of a reverse. But the few hours during which the army halted on Clay hill would have been quite too short time for such an undertaking, which, moreover, would have exhausted the troops. It is more likely that the earthworks, which are of the oldest type, similar to those at White Horse hill, above Ashdown, were there long before Alfred's arrival in May, 878. After resting one night on Clay hill, Alfred led out his men in close order of battle against the pagan host, which lay at Ethandune. There has been much doubt among the antiquaries as to the site of Ethandune, but Dr. Giles and others have at length established the claims of Edington, a village seven miles from Clay hill, on the northeast, to the spot where the strength of the second wave of pagan invasion was utterly broken and rolled back weak and helpless from the rock of the West Saxon kingdom.

Sir John Spelman, relying apparently only on the authority of Nicholas Harpesfeld's Ecclesiastical History of England, puts a speech into Alfred's mouth, which he is supposed to have delivered before the battle of Edington. He tells them that the great sufferings of the land had been yet far short of what their sins had deserved. That God had only dealt with them as a loving Father, and was now about to succor them, having already stricken their foe with fear and astonishment, and given him, on the other hand, much encouragement by dreams and otherwise. That they had to do with pirates and robbers, who had broken faith with them over and over again; and the issue they had to try that day was whether Christ's faith or heathenism was henceforth to be established in England.

There is no trace of any such speech in the Saxon Chronicle or Asser, and the one reported does not ring like that of Judas Maccabaeus. That Alfred's soul was on fire that morning, on finding himself once more at the head of a force he could rely on, and before the enemy he had met so often, we may be sure enough, but shall never know how the fire kindled into speech, if indeed it did so at all. In such supreme moments many of the strongest men have no word to say—keep all their heat within.

Nor have we any clew to the numbers who fought on either side at Ethandune, or indeed in any of Alfred's battles. In the Chronicles there are only a few vague and general statements, from which little can be gathered. The most precise of them is that in the Saxon Chronicle, which gives eight hundred and forty as the number of men who were slain, as we heard, with Hubba before Cynuit fort, in Devonshire, earlier in this same year. Such a death-roll, in an action in which only a small detachment of the pagan army was engaged, would lead to the conclusion that the armies were far larger than one would expect. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine how any large bodies of men could find subsistence in a small country, which was the seat of so devastating a war, and in which so much land remained still unreclaimed. But whatever the power on either side amounted to we may be quite sure that it had been exerted to the utmost to bring as large a force as possible into line at Ethandune.

Guthrum fought to protect Chippenham, his base of operations, some sixteen miles in his rear, and all the accumulated plunder of the busy months which had passed since Twelfth Night; and it is clear that his men behaved with the most desperate gallantry. The fight began at noon—one chronicler says at sunrise, but the distance makes this impossible unless Alfred marched in the night—and lasted through the greater part of the day. Warned by many previous disasters the Saxons never broke their close order, and so, though greatly outnumbered, hurled back again and again the onslaughts of the Northmen. At last Alfred and his Saxons prevailed, and smote his pagan foes with a very great slaughter, and pursued them up to their fortified camp on Bratton hill or Edge, into which the great body of the fugitives threw themselves. All who were left outside were slain, and the great spoil was all recovered. The camp may still be seen, called Bratton Castle, with its double ditches and deep trenches, and barrow in the midst sixty yards long, and its two entrances guarded by mounds. It contains more than twenty acres, and commands the whole country side. There can be little doubt that this camp, and not Chippenham, which is sixteen miles away, was the last refuge of Guthrum and the great northern army on Saxon soil.

So, in three days from the breaking up of his little camp at Athelney, Alfred was once more King of all England south of the Thames; for this army of pagans, shut up within their earthworks on Bratton Edge, are little better than a broken and disorderly rabble, with no supplies and no chance of succor from any quarter. Nevertheless he will make sure of them, and above all will guard jealously against any such mishap as that of 876, when they stole out of Wareham, murdered the horsemen he had left to watch them, and got away to Exeter. So Bratton camp is strictly besieged by Alfred with his whole power.

Guthrum, the destroyer, and now the King of East Anglia, the strongest and ablest of all the Northmen who had ever landed in England, is now at last fairly in Alfred's power. At Reading, Wareham, Exeter, he had always held a fortified camp, on a river easily navigable by the Danish war-ships, where he might look for speedy succor or whence at the worst he might hope to escape to the sea. But now he, with the remains of his army, is shut up in an inland fort with no ships on the Avon, the nearest river, even if they could cut their way out and reach it, and no hopes of reinforcements overland. Halfdene is the nearest viking who might be called to the rescue, and he, in Northumbria, is far too distant. It is a matter of a few days only, for food runs short at once in the besieged camp. In former years, or against any other enemy, Guthrum would probably have preferred to sally out and cut his way through the Saxon lines, or die sword in hand as a son of Odin should. Whether it were that the wild spirit in him is thoroughly broken for the time by the unexpected defeat at Ethandune, or that long residence in a Christian land and contact with Christian subjects have shaken his faith in his own gods, or that he has learned to measure and appreciate the strength and nobleness of the man he had so often deceived, at any rate for the time Guthrum is subdued. At the end of fourteen days he sends to Alfred, suing humbly for terms of any kind; offering on the part of the army as many hostages as may be required, without asking for any in return; once again giving solemn pledges to quit Wessex for good; and, above all, declaring his own readiness to receive baptism. If it had not been for the last proposal, we may doubt whether even Alfred would have allowed the ruthless foes with whom he and his people had fought so often, and with such varying success, to escape now. Over and over again they had sworn to him, and broken their oaths the moment it suited their purpose; had given hostages, and left them to their fate. In all English kingdoms they had now for ten years been destroying and pillaging the houses of God and slaying even women and children. They had driven his sister's husband from the throne of Mercia, and had grievously tortured the martyr Edmund. If ever foe deserved no mercy, Guthrum and his army were the men.

When David smote the children of Moab, he "measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive." When he took Rabbah of the children of Ammon, "he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln." That was the old Hebrew method, even under King David, and in the ninth century Christianity had as yet done little to soften the old heathen custom of "woe to the vanquished." Charlemagne's proselytizing campaigns had been as merciless as Mahomet's. But there is about this English King a divine patience, the rarest of all virtues in those who are set in high places. He accepts Guthrum's proffered terms at once, rejoicing over the chance of adding these fierce heathen warriors to the church of his Master, by an act of mercy which even they must feel. And so the remnant of the army are allowed to march out of their fortified camp, and to recross the Avon into Mercia, not quite five months after the day of their winter attack and the seizing of Chippenham. The northern army went away to Cirencester, where they stayed over the winter, and then returning into East Anglia settled down there, and Alfred and Wessex hear no more of them. Never was triumph more complete or better deserved; and in all history there is no instance of more noble use of victory than this. The West Saxon army was not at once disbanded. Alfred led them back to Athelney, where he had left his wife and children; and while they are there, seven weeks after the surrender, Guthrum and thirty of the bravest of his followers arrive to make good their pledge.

The ceremony of baptism was performed at Wedmore, a royal residence which had probably escaped the fate of Chippenham, and still contained a church. Here Guthrum and his thirty nobles were sworn in, the soldiers of a greater King than Woden, and the white linen cloth, the sign of their new faith, was bound round their heads. Alfred himself was godfather to the viking, giving him the Christian name of Athelstan; and the chrism-loosing, or unbinding of the sacramental cloths, was performed on the eighth day by Ethelnoth, the faithful alderman of Somersetshire. After the religious ceremony there still remained the task of settling the terms upon which the victors and vanquished were hereafter to live together side by side in the same island; for Alfred had the wisdom, even in his enemy's humiliation, to accept the accomplished fact, and to acknowledge East Anglia as a Danish kingdom. The Witenagemot had been summoned to Wedmore, and was sitting there, and with their advice the treaty was then made, from which, according to some historians, English history begins.

We have still the text of the two documents which together contain Alfred and Guthrum's peace, or the treaty of Wedmore; the first and shorter being probably the articles hastily agreed on before the capitulation of the Danish army at Chippenham; the latter the final terms settled between Alfred and his witan, and Guthrum and his thirty nobles, after mature deliberation and conference at Wedmore, but not formally executed until some years later.

The shorter one, that made at the capitulation, runs as follows:

"ALFRED AND GUTHRUM'S PEACE.—This is the peace that King Alfred and King Guthrum, and the witan of all the English nation, and all the people that are in East Anglia have all ordained, and with oaths confirmed, for themselves and their descendants, as well for born as unborn, who reck of God's mercy or of ours.

"First, concerning our land boundaries. These are upon the Thames, and then upon the Lea, and along the Lea unto its source, then straight to Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street.

"Then there is this: if a man be slain we reckon all equally dear, English and Dane, at eight half marks of pure gold, except the churl who dwells on gavel land and their leisings, they are also equally dear at two hundred shillings. And if a king's thane be accused of manslaughter, if he desire to clear himself, let him do so before twelve king's thanes. If any man accuse a man who is of less degree than king's thane, let him clear himself with eleven of his equals and one king's thane. And so in every suit which be for more than four mancuses; and if he dare not, let him pay for it threefold, as it may be valued.

"Of Warrantors.—And that every man know his warrantor, for men, and for horses, and for oxen.

"And we all ordained, on that day that the oaths were sworn, that neither bondman nor freeman might go to the army without leave, nor any of them to us. But if it happen that any of them from necessity will have traffic with us, or we with them, for cattle or goods, that is to be allowed on this wise: that hostages be given in pledge of peace, and as evidence whereby it may be known that the party has a clean book."

By the treaty Alfred is thus established as King of the whole of England south of the Thames; of all the old kingdom of Essex south of the Lea, including London, Hertford, and St. Albans; of the whole of the great kingdom of Mercia, which lay to the west of Watling Street, and of so much to the east as lay south of the Ouse. That he should have regained so much proves the straits to which he had brought the northern army, who would have to give up all their new settlements round Gloster. That he should have resigned so much of the kingdom which had acknowledged his grandfather, father, and brothers as overlords proves how formidable his foe still was, even in defeat, and how thoroughly the northeastern parts of the island had by this time been settled by the Danes.

The remainder of the short treaty would seem simply to be provisional, and intended to settle the relations between Alfred's subjects and the army while it remained within the limits of the new Saxon kingdom. Many of the soldiers would have to break up their homes in Glostershire; and, with this view, the halt at Cirencester is allowed, where, as we have already heard, they rest until the winter. While they remain in the Saxon kingdom there is to be no distinction between Saxon and Dane. The were-gild, or life-ransom, is to be the same in each case for men of like rank; and all suits for more than four mancuses (about twenty-four shillings) are to be tried by a jury of peers of the accused. On the other hand, only necessary communications are to be allowed between the northern army and the people; and where there must be trading, fair and peaceful dealing is to be insured by the giving of hostages. This last provision, and the clause declaring that each man shall know his warrantor, inserted in a five-clause treaty, where nothing but what the contracting parties must hold to be of the very first importance would find place, are another curious proof of the care with which our ancestors, and all Germanic tribes, guarded against social isolation—the doctrine that one man has nothing to do with another—a doctrine which the great body of their descendants, under the leading of Schultze, Delitzsch, and others, seem likely to repudiate with equal emphasis in these latter days, both in Germany and England.

Thus, in July, 878, the foundations of the new kingdom of England were laid, for new it undoubtedly became when the treaty of Wedmore was signed. The Danish nation, no longer strangers and enemies, are recognized by the heir of Cerdic as lawful owners of the full half of England. Having achieved which result, Guthrum and the rest of the new converts leave the Saxon camp and return to Cirencester at the end of twelve days, loaded with such gifts as it was still in the power of their conquerors to bestow: and Alfred was left in peace, to turn to a greater and more arduous task than any he had yet encountered.

JOHN RICHARD GREEN

Alfred was the noblest as he was the most complete embodiment of all that is great, all that is lovable, in the English temper. He combined as no other man has ever combined its practical energy, its patient and enduring force, its profound sense of duty, the reserve and self-control that steady in it a wide outlook and a restless daring, its temperance and fairness, its frank geniality, its sensitiveness to action, its poetic tenderness, its deep and passionate religion. Religion, indeed, was the groundwork of Alfred's character. His temper was instinct with piety. Everywhere throughout his writings that remain to us the name of God, the thought of God, stir him to outbursts of ecstatic adoration.

But he was no mere saint. He felt none of that scorn of the world about him which drove the nobler souls of his day to monastery or hermitage. Vexed as he was by sickness and constant pain, his temper took no touch of asceticism. His rare geniality, a peculiar elasticity and mobility of nature, gave color and charm to his life. A sunny frankness and openness of spirit breathe in the pleasant chat of his books, and what he was in his books he showed himself in his daily converse. Alfred was in truth an artist, and both the lights and shadows of his life were those of the artistic temperament. His love of books, his love of strangers, his questionings of travellers and scholars, betray an imaginative restlessness that longs to break out of the narrow world of experience which hemmed him in. At one time he jots down news of a voyage to the unknown seas of the north. At another he listens to tidings which his envoys bring back from the churches of Malabar.

And side by side with this restless outlook of the artistic nature he showed its tenderness and susceptibility, its vivid apprehension of unseen danger, its craving for affection, its sensitiveness to wrong. It was with himself rather than with his reader that he communed as thoughts of the foe without, of ingratitude and opposition within, broke the calm pages of Gregory or Boethius.

"Oh, what a happy man was he," he cries once, "that man that had a naked sword hanging over his head from a single thread; so as to me it always did!" "Desirest thou power?" he asks at another time. "But thou shalt never obtain it without sorrows—sorrows from strange folk, and yet keener sorrows from thine own kindred." "Hardship and sorrow!" he breaks out again; "not a king but would wish to be without these if he could. But I know that he cannot!"

The loneliness which breathes in words like these has often begotten in great rulers a cynical contempt of men and the judgments of men. But cynicism found no echo in the large and sympathetic temper of Alfred. He not only longed for the love of his subjects, but for the remembrance of "generations" to come. Nor did his inner gloom or anxiety check for an instant his vivid and versatile activity. To the scholars he gathered round him he seemed the very type of a scholar, snatching every hour he could find to read or listen to books read to him. The singers of his court found in him a brother singer, gathering the old songs of his people to teach them to his children, breaking his renderings from the Latin with simple verse, solacing himself in hours of depression with the music of the Psalms.

He passed from court and study to plan buildings and instruct craftsmen in gold work, to teach even falconers and dog-keepers their business. But all this versatility and ingenuity was controlled by a cool good sense. Alfred was a thorough man of business. He was careful of detail, laborious, methodical. He carried in his bosom a little handbook in which he noted things as they struck him—now a bit of family genealogy, now a prayer, now such a story as that of Ealdhelm playing minstrel on the bridge. Each hour of the day had its appointed task; there was the same order in the division of his revenue and in the arrangement of his court.

Wide, however, and various as was the King's temper, its range was less wonderful than its harmony. Of the narrowness, of the want of proportion, of the predominance of one quality over another which go commonly with an intensity of moral purpose Alfred showed not a trace. Scholar and soldier, artist and man of business, poet and saint, his character kept that perfect balance which charms us in no other Englishman save Shakespeare. But full and harmonious as his temper was, it was the temper of a king. Every power was bent to the work of rule. His practical energy found scope for itself in the material and administrative restoration of the wasted land.

His intellectual activity breathed fresh life into education and literature. His capacity for inspiring trust and affection drew the hearts of Englishmen to a common centre, and began the upbuilding of a new England. And all was guided, controlled, ennobled by a single aim. "So long as I have lived," said the King as life closed about him, "I have striven to live worthily." Little by little men came to know what such a life of worthiness meant. Little by little they came to recognize in Alfred a ruler of higher and nobler stamp than the world had seen. Never had it seen a king who lived solely for the good of his people. Never had it seen a ruler who set aside every personal aim to devote himself solely to the welfare of those whom he ruled. It was this grand self-mastery that gave him his power over the men about him. Warrior and conqueror as he was, they saw him set aside at thirty the warrior's dream of conquest; and the self-renouncement of Wedmore struck the keynote of his reign. But still more is it this height and singleness of purpose, this absolute concentration of the noblest faculties to the noblest aim, that lifts Alfred out of the narrow bounds of Wessex.

If the sphere of his action seems too small to justify the comparison of him with the few whom the world owns as its greatest men, he rises to their level in the moral grandeur of his life. And it is this which has hallowed his memory among his own English people. "I desire," said the King in some of his latest words, "I desire to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works."

His aim has been more than fulfilled. His memory has come down to us with a living distinctness through the mists of exaggeration and legend which time gathered round it. The instinct of the people has clung to him with a singular affection. The love which he won a thousand years ago has lingered round his name from that day to this. While every other name of those earlier times has all but faded from the recollection of Englishmen, that of Alfred remains familiar to every English child.

The secret of Alfred's government lay in his own vivid energy. He could hardly have chosen braver or more active helpers than those whom he employed both in his political and in his educational efforts. The children whom he trained to rule proved the ablest rulers of their time. But at the outset of his reign he stood alone, and what work was to be done was done by the King himself. His first efforts were directed to the material restoration of his realm. The burnt and wasted country saw its towns built again, forts erected in positions of danger, new abbeys founded, the machinery of justice and government restored, the laws codified and amended. Still more strenuous were Alfred's efforts for its moral and intellectual restoration. Even in Mercia and Northumbria the pirate's sword had left few survivors of the schools of Egbert or Bede, and matters were even worse in Wessex, which had been as yet the most ignorant of the English kingdoms.

"When I began to reign," said Alfred, "I cannot remember one priest south of the Thames who could render his service-book into English." For instructors indeed he could find only a few Mercian prelates and priests, with one Welsh bishop, Asser.

"Formerly," the King writes bitterly, "men came hither from foreign lands to seek for instruction, and now when we desire it we can only obtain it from abroad." But his mind was far from being prisoned within his own island. He sent a Norwegian shipmaster to explore the White Sea, and Wulfstan to trace the coast of Esthonia; envoys bore his presents to the churches of India and Jerusalem, and an annual mission carried Peter's pence to Rome.

But it was with the Franks that his intercourse was closest, and it was from them that he drew the scholars to aid him in his work of education. A scholar named Grimbald came from St. Omer to preside over his new abbey at Winchester; and John, the old Saxon, was fetched from the abbey of Corbey to rule a monastery and school that Alfred's gratitude for his deliverance from the Danes raised in the marshes of Athelney. The real work, however, to be done was done, not by these teachers, but by the King himself. Alfred established a school for the young nobles in his court, and it was to the need of books for these scholars in their own tongue that we owe his most remarkable literary effort.

He took his books as he found them—they were the popular manuals of his age—the Consolation of Boethius, the Pastoral of Pope Gregory, the compilation of Orosius, then the one accessible handbook of universal history, and the history of his own people by Bede. He translated these works into English, but he was far more than a translator, he was an editor for the people. Here he omitted, there he expanded. He enriched Orosius by a sketch of the new geographical discoveries in the north. He gave a West Saxon form to his selections from Bede. In one place he stops to explain his theory of government, his wish for a thicker population, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due balance of priest, soldier, and churl. The mention of Nero spurs him to an outbreak on the abuses of power. The cold providence of Boethius gives way to an enthusiastic acknowledgment of the goodness of God.

As he writes, his large-hearted nature flings off its royal mantle, and he talks as a man to men. "Do not blame me," he prays with a charming simplicity, "if any know Latin better than I, for every man must say what he says and do what he does according to his ability."

But simple as was his aim, Alfred changed the whole front of our literature. Before him, England possessed in her own tongue one great poem and a train of ballads and battle-songs. Prose she had none. The mighty roll of the prose books that fill her libraries begins with the translations of Alfred, and above all with the chronicle of his reign. It seems likely that the King's rendering of Bede's history gave the first impulse toward the compilation of what is known as the English or Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was certainly thrown into its present form during his reign. The meagre lists of the kings of Wessex and the bishops of Winchester, which had been preserved from older times, were roughly expanded into a national history by insertions from Bede; but it is when it reaches the reign of Alfred that the chronicle suddenly widens into the vigorous narrative, full of life and originality, that marks the gift of a new power to the English tongue. Varying as it does from age to age in historic value, it remains the first vernacular history of any Teutonic people, and, save for the Gothic translations of Ulfilas, the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose.

But all this literary activity was only a part of that general upbuilding of Wessex by which Alfred was preparing for a fresh contest with the stranger. He knew that the actual winning back of the Danelagh must be a work of the sword, and through these long years of peace he was busy with the creation of such a force as might match that of the Northmen. A fleet grew out of the little squadron which Alfred had been forced to man with Frisian seamen.

The national fyrd or levy of all freemen at the King's call was reorganized. It was now divided into two halves, one of which served in the field while the other guarded its own burhs (burghs or boroughs) and townships, and served to relieve its fellow when the men's forty days of service were ended. A more disciplined military force was provided by subjecting all owners of five hides of land to "thane-service," a step which recognized the change that had now substituted the thegn for the eorl and in which we see the beginning of a feudal system. How effective these measures were was seen when the new resistance they met on the Continent drove the Northmen to a fresh attack on Britain.

In 893 a large fleet steered for the Andredsweald, while the sea-king Hasting entered the Thames. Alfred held both at bay through the year till the men of the Danelagh rose at their comrades' call. Wessex stood again front to front with the Northmen. But the King's measures had made the realm strong enough to set aside its old policy of defence for one of vigorous attack. His son Edward and his son-in-law Ethelred, whom he had set as ealdorman[23] over what remained of Mercia, showed themselves as skilful and active as the King.

[Footnote 23: Primitive of alderman; in this period, a chieftain, lord, or earl; subsequently, the chief magistrate of a territorial district, as of a county or province.]

The aim of the Northmen was to rouse again the hostility of the Welsh, but while Alfred held Exeter against their fleet, Edward and Ethelred caught their army near the Severn and overthrew it with a vast slaughter at Buttington. The destruction of their camp on the Lea by the united English forces ended the war; in 897 Hasting again withdrew across the Channel, and the Danelagh made peace. It was with the peace he had won still about him that Alfred died in 901; and warrior as his son Edward had shown himself, he clung to his father's policy of rest.



HENRY THE FOWLER FOUNDS THE SAXON LINE OF GERMAN KINGS

ORIGIN OF THE GERMAN BURGHERS OR MIDDLE CLASSES

A.D. 911-936

WOLFGANG MENZEL

(The famous treaty of Verdun [843] was the culmination of a series of civil wars between the descendants of Charlemagne. By it the great empire which Charlemagne had built up was divided among his three grandsons, Lothair, Charles the Bald, and Louis. With this treaty the history of the Franks closes, and Germany and France take their places, along with Italy, as distinct and separate nations.

The Teutonic kingdom, or Germany, fell to Louis. On his death, in 876, after an uneventful reign, he was succeeded by his sons Charles the Fat, Carloman, and Louis. The latter two dying, Charles the Fat became sole King of Germany. A little later he became ruler of Italy, and was crowned emperor by the pope. Then he was invited by the West Franks to become their king. Thus almost the whole empire of the great Charlemagne was reunited in the hands of Charles the Fat. However, his people soon became disgusted with his weak efforts in the treatment of a series of invasions by the Northmen, and he was deposed in 887. He died the next year, and the Carlovingian empire fell to pieces, never to be united again.

Charles the Fat was succeeded in Germany by his nephew, Arnulf, who also took possession of Italy and was crowned emperor by the pope, though his power in Italy was merely nominal. On his death in 889 his second son, Ludwig [Louis III] the child, became king in Germany.

The race of Charlemagne in Germany ended in 911 by the death of Ludwig. Though a mere child he had been enthroned through the intrigues of Otto, Duke of Saxony, and Hatto, Archbishop of Mayence, who virtually governed the empire during Ludwig's short reign.

The empire at that time was composed of various nations, each under the rule of a powerful duke. The bond of union between these nations was slight. The dukes were constantly waging war against each other, and these internal dissensions greatly weakened the central government.

At the same time the empire was exposed to the incursions of the Magyars or Hungarians, whose wholesale depredations and cruelties so dismayed the child-king that he concluded a treaty of peace with the invaders and consented to pay them a ten-years' tribute.

The Germans were deeply sensible of the dishonor incurred by this ignominious tribute, and of the dangers of their internal dissensions. They longed for a stronger government, and on the death of Ludwig the crown was offered to Otto of Saxony, the strongest of the dukes. He declined in favor of Conrad, Duke of Franconia, a descendant in the female line from Charlemagne. But Conrad's rule was weak, and during his short reign of seven years civil war continued, part of the time with Henry the Fowler, son of Duke Otto [who died in 912], owing to Conrad's attempt to separate Thuringia from Saxony in order to weaken Henry's ducal power. The empire also was again invaded by the Slavs and Hungarians.

Conrad died without male issue in 918, whereupon the Germans elected as emperor Henry the Fowler, who thus became the first of the Saxon dynasty in Germany, and proved himself to be the wisest and most vigorous sovereign who had ruled in Germany since the days of Charlemagne.)

The extinction of the Carlovingian line did not sever the bond of union that existed between the different nations of Germany, although a contention arose between them concerning the election of the new emperor, each claiming that privilege for itself; and as the increase of the ducal power had naturally led to a wider distinction between them, the diet convoked for the purpose represented nations instead of classes. There were consequently four nations and four votes: the Franks under Duke Conrad, whose authority, nevertheless, could not compete with that of the now venerable Hatto, Archbishop of Mayence, who may be said to have been, at that period, the pope in Germany; the Saxons, Frieslanders, Thuringians, and some of the subdued Slavi, under Duke Otto; the Swabians, with Switzerland and Elsace, under different grafs, who, as the immediate officers of the crown, were named kammerboten, in order to distinguish them from the grafs nominated by the dukes; the Bavarians, with the Tyrolese and some of the subdued eastern Slavi, under Duke Arnulf the Bad, the son of the brave duke Luitpold. The Lothringians formed a fifth nation, under their duke Regingar, but were at that period incorporated with France.

The first impulse of the diet was to bestow the crown on the most powerful among the different competitors, and it was accordingly offered to Otto of Saxony, who not only possessed the most extensive territory and the most warlike subjects, but whose authority, having descended to him from his father and grandfather, was also the most firmly secured. But both Otto and his ancient ally, the bishop Hatto, had found the system they had hitherto pursued, of reigning in the name of an imbecile monarch, so greatly conducive to their interest that they were disinclined to abandon it. Otto was a man who mistook the prudence inculcated by private interest for wisdom, and his mind, narrow as the limits of his dukedom, and solely intent upon the interests of his family, was incapable of the comprehensive views requisite in a German emperor, and indifferent to the welfare of the great body of the nation. The examples of Boso, of Odo, of Rudolph of Upper Burgundy, and of Berenger, who, favored by the difference in descent of the people they governed, had all succeeded in severing themselves from the empire, were ever present to his imagination, and he believed that as, on the other side of the Rhine, the Frank, the Burgundian, and the Lombard severally obeyed an independent sovereign, the East Frank, the Saxon, the Swabian, and the Bavarian, on this side of the Rhine, were also desirous of asserting a similar independence, and that it would be easier and less hazardous to found a hereditary dukedom in a powerful and separate state than to maintain the imperial dignity, undermined, as it was, by universal hostility.

The influence of Hatto and the consent of Otto placed Conrad, Duke of Franconia, on the imperial throne. Sprung from a newly risen family, a mere creature of the bishop, his nobility as a feudal lord only dating from the period of the Babenberg feud, he was regarded by the Church as a pliable tool and by the dukes as little to be feared. His weakness was quickly demonstrated by his inability to retain the rich allods of the Carlovingian dynasty as heir to the imperial crown, and his being constrained to share them with the rest of the dukes; he was, nevertheless, more fully sensible of the dignity and of the duties of his station than those to whom he owed his election probably expected. His first step was to recall Regingar of Lothringia, who was oppressed by France, to his allegiance as vassal of the empire.

Otto died in 912, and his son Henry, a high-spirited youth, who had greatly distinguished himself against the Slavi, ere long quarrelled with the aged bishop Hatto. According to the legendary account, the bishop sent him a golden chain so skilfully contrived as to strangle its wearer. The truth is that the ancient family feud between the house of Conrad and that of Otto, which was connected with the Babenbergers, again broke out, and that the Emperor attempted again to separate Thuringia, which Otto had governed since the death of Burkhard, from Saxony, in order to hinder the overpreponderance of that ducal house. Hatto, it is probable, counselled this step, as a considerable portion of Thuringia belonged to the diocese of Mayence, and a collision between him and the duke was therefore unavoidable. Henry flew to arms, and expelled the adherents of the bishop from Thuringia, which forced the Emperor to take the field in the name of the empire against his haughty vassal. This unfortunate civil war was a signal for a fresh irruption of the Slavi and Hungarians. During this year the Bohemians and Sorbi also made an inroad into Thuringia and Bavaria, and in 913 the Hungarians advanced as far as Swabia, but being surprised near Oetting by the Bavarians under Arnulf, who on this occasion bloodily avenged his father's death, and by the Swabians under the kammerboten Erchanger and Berthold, they were all, with the exception of thirty of their number, cut to pieces. Arnulf subsequently embraced a contrary line of policy, married the daughter of Geisa, King of Hungary, and entered into a confederacy with the Hungarian and the Swabian kammerboten, for the purpose of founding an independent state in the south of Germany, where he had already strengthened himself by the appointment of several markgrafs, Rudiger of Pechlarn in Austria, Rathold in Carinthia, and Berthold in the Tyrol. He then instigated all the enemies of the empire simultaneously to attack the Franks and Saxons, at that crisis at war with each other, in 915, and while the Danes under Gorm the Old, and the Obotrites, destroyed Hamburg, immense hordes of Hungarians, Bohemians, and Sorbi laid the country waste as far as Bremen.

The Emperor was, meanwhile, engaged with the Saxons. On one occasion Henry narrowly escaped being taken prisoner, being merely saved by the stratagem of his faithful servant, Thiatmar, who caused the Emperor to retreat by falsely announcing to him the arrival of a body of auxiliaries. At length a pitched battle was fought near Merseburg, in 915, between Henry and Eberhard, the Emperor's brother, in which the Franks[24] were defeated, and the superiority of the Saxons remained, henceforward, unquestioned for more than a century. The Emperor was forced to negotiate with the victor, whom he induced to protect the northern frontiers of the empire while he applied himself in person to the reestablishment of order in the south.

[Footnote 24: So great a slaughter took place that the Saxons said on the occasion:

"'Twere difficult to find a hell Where so many Franks might dwell!"]

In Swabia, Salomon, Bishop of Constance, who was supported by the commonalty, adhered to the imperial cause, while the kammerboten were unable to palliate their treason, and were gradually driven to extremities. Erchanger, relying upon aid from Arnulf and the Hungarians, usurped the ducal crown and took the bishop prisoner. Salomon's extreme popularity filled him with such rage that he caused the feet of some shepherds, who threw themselves on their knees as the captured prelate passed by, to be chopped off. His wife, Bertha, terror-stricken at the rashness of her husband, and foreseeing his destruction, received the prisoner with every demonstration of humility, and secretly aided his escape. He no sooner reappeared than the people flocked in thousands around him. "Heil Herro! Heil Liebo!" ("Hail, master! Hail, beloved one!") they shouted, and in their zeal attacked and defeated the traitors and their adherents. Berthold vainly defended himself in his mountain stronghold of Hohentwiel. The people so urgently demanded the death of these traitors to their country that the Emperor convoked a general assembly at Albingen in Swabia, sentenced Erchanger and Berthold to be publicly beheaded, and nominated Burkhard, in 917, whose father and uncle had been assassinated by order of Erchanger, as successor to the ducal throne. Arnulf withdrew to his fortress at Salzburg, and quietly awaited more favorable times. His name was branded with infamy by the people, who henceforth affixed to it the epithet of "the Bad," and the Nibelungenlied has perpetuated his detested memory.

Conrad died in 918 without issue. On his death-bed, mindful only of the welfare of the empire, he proved himself deserving even by his latest act of the crown he had so worthily worn, by charging his brother Eberhard to forget the ancient feud between their houses, and to deliver the crown with his own hands to his enemy, the free-spirited Henry, whom he judged alone capable of meeting all the exigencies of the State. Eberhard obeyed his brother's injunctions, and the princes respected the will of their dying sovereign.

The princes, with the exception of Burkhard and of Arnulf, assembled at Fritzlar, elected the absent Henry king, and despatched an embassy to inform him of their decision. It is said that the young duke was at the time among the Harz Mountains, and that the ambassadors found him in the homely attire of a sportsman in the fowling floor. He obeyed the call of the nation without delay and without manifesting surprise. The error he had committed in rebelling against the State, it was his firm purpose to atone for by his conduct as emperor. Of a lofty and majestic stature, although slight and youthful in form, powerful and active in person, with a commanding and penetrating glance, his very appearance attracted popular favor; besides these personal advantages, he was prudent and learned, and possessed a mind replete with intelligence. The influence of such a monarch on the progressive development of society in Germany could not fail of producing results fully equalling the improvements introduced by Charlemagne.

The youthful Henry, the first of the Saxon line, was proclaimed king of Germany at Fritzlar, in 919, by the majority of votes, and, according to ancient custom, raised upon the shield. The Archbishop of Mayence offered to anoint him according to the usual ceremony, but Henry refused, alleging that he was content to owe his election to the grace of God and to the piety of the German princes, and that he left the ceremony of anointment to those who wished to be still more pious.

Before Henry could pursue his more elevated projects, the assent of the southern Germans, who had not acknowledged the choice of their northern compatriots, had to be gained. Burkhard of Swabia, who had asserted his independence, and who was at that time carrying on a bitter feud with Rudolph, King of Burgundy, whom he had defeated, in 919, in a bloody engagement near Winterthur, was the first against whom he directed the united forces of the empire, in whose name he, at the same time, offered him peace and pardon. Burkhard, seeing himself constrained to yield, took the oath of fealty to the new-elected King at Worms, but continued to act with almost his former unlimited authority in Swabia, and even undertook an expedition into Italy in favor of Rudolph, with whom he had become reconciled. The Italians, enraged at the wantonness with which he mocked them, assassinated him. Henry bestowed the dukedom of Swabia on Hermann, one of his relations, to whom he gave Burkhard's widow in marriage. He also bestowed a portion of the south of Alemannia on King Rudolph in order to win him over, and in return received from him the holy lance with which the side of the Saviour had been pierced as he hung on the cross. Finding it no longer possible to dissolve the dukedoms and great fiefs, Henry, in order to strengthen the unity of the empire, introduced the novel policy of bestowing the dukedoms, as they fell vacant, on his relations and personal adherents, and of allying the rest of the dukes with himself by intermarriage, thus uniting the different powerful houses in the State into one family.

Bavaria still remained in an unsettled state. Arnulf the Bad, leagued with the Hungarians, against whom Henry had great designs, had still much in his power, and Henry, resolved at any price to dissolve this dangerous alliance, not only concluded peace with this traitor on that condition, but also married his son Henry to Judith, Arnulf's daughter, in 921. Arnulf deprived the rich churches of great part of their treasures, and was consequently abhorred by the clergy, the chroniclers of those times, who, chiefly on that account, depicted his character in such unfavorable colors.

In France, Charles the Simple was still the tool and jest of the vassals. His most dangerous enemy was Robert, Count of Paris, brother to Odo, the late King. Both solicited aid from Henry, but in a battle that shortly ensued near Soissons, Count Robert losing his life and Charles being defeated, Rudolph of Burgundy, one of Boso's nephews, set himself up as king of France, and imprisoned Charles the Simple, who craved assistance from the German monarch, to whom he promised to perform homage as his liege lord. Henry, meanwhile, contented himself with expelling Rudolph from Lotharingia, and, after taking possession of Metz, bestowed that dukedom upon Gisilbrecht, the son of Regingar, and reincorporated it with the empire. These successes now roused the apprehensions of the Hungarians, who again poured their invading hordes across the frontier. In 926 they plundered St. Gall, but were routed near Seckingen by the peasantry, headed by the country people of Hirminger, who had been roused by alarm fires; and again in Alsace, by Count Liutfried: another horde was cut to pieces near Bleiburg, in Carinthia, by Eberhard and the Count of Meran. The Hungarian King, probably Zoldan, was, by chance, taken prisoner during an incursion by the Germans, a circumstance turned by Henry to a very judicious use. He restored the captured prince to liberty, and also agreed to pay him a yearly tribute, on condition of his entering into a solemn truce for nine years. The experience of earlier times had taught Henry that a completely new organization was necessary in the management of military affairs in Germany before this dangerous enemy could be rendered innoxious, and, as an undertaking of this nature required time, he prudently resolved to incur a seeming disgrace by means of which he in fact secured the honor of the State. During this interval of nine years he aimed at bringing the other enemies of the empire, more particularly the Slavi, into subjection, and making preparations for an expedition against Hungary by which her power should receive a fatal blow.

In the mean time Gisilbrecht, the youthful Duke of Lotharingia, again rebelled, but was besieged and taken prisoner in Zuelpich by Henry, who, struck by his noble appearance, restored to him his dukedom, and bestowed upon him his daughter, Gerberga, in marriage. Rudolph of France also sued for peace, being hard pressed by his powerful rival, Hugo the Great or Wise, the son of Robert. Charles the Simple was, on Henry's demand, restored to liberty, but quickly fell anew into the power of his faithless vassals.

Peace was now established throughout the empire, and afforded Henry an opportunity for turning his attention to the introduction of measures, in the interior economy of the State, calculated to obviate for the future the dangers that had hitherto threatened it from without. The best expedient against the irruptions of the Hungarians appeared to him to be the circumvallation of the most important districts, the erection of forts and of fortified cities. The most important point, however, was to place the garrisons immediately under him as citizens of the State, commanded by his immediate officers, instead of their being indirectly governed by the feudal aristocracy and by the clergy. As these garrisons were intended not only for the protection of the walls, but also for open warfare, he had them trained to fight in rank and file, and formed them into a body of infantry, whose solid masses were calculated to withstand the furious onset of the Hungarian horse. These garrisons were solely composed of the ancient freemen, and the whole measure was, in fact, merely a reform of the ancient arrier-ban, which no longer sufficed for the protection of the State, and whose deficiency had long been supplied by the addition of vassals under the command of their temporal or spiritual lieges, and by the mercenaries or bodyguards of the emperors. The ancient class of freemen, who originally composed the arrier-ban, had been gradually converted into feudal vassals; but they were at that time still so numerous as to enable Henry to give them a completely new military organization, which at once secured to them their freedom, hitherto endangered by the preponderating power of the feudal aristocracy, and rendered them a powerful support to the throne. By collecting them into the cities, he afforded them a secure retreat against the attempts of the grafs, dukes, abbots, and bishops, and created for himself a body of trusty friends, of whom it would naturally be expected that they would ever side with the Emperor against the nobility.

This new regulation appears to have been founded on the ancient mode of division. At first, out of every nine freemen—which recalls the decania—one only was placed within the new fortress, and the remaining eight were bound—perhaps on account of their ancient association into corporations or guilds—to nourish and support him; but the remaining freemen, in the neighborhood of the new cities, appear to have been also gradually collected within their walls, and to have committed the cultivation of their lands in the vicinity to their bondmen. However that may be, the ancient class of freemen completely disappeared as the cities increased in importance, and it was only among the wild mountains, where no cities sprang up, that the centen or cantons and whole districts or gauen of free peasantry were to be met with.

Henry's original intention in the introduction of this new system was, it is evident, solely to provide a military force answering to the exigencies of the State; still there is no reason to suppose him blind to the great political advantage to be derived from the formation of an independent class of citizens; and that he had in reality premeditated a civil as well as a military reformation may be concluded from the fact of his having established fairs, markets, and public assemblies, which, of themselves, would be closely connected with civil industry, within the walls of the cities; and, even if these trading warriors were at first merely feudatories of the Emperor, they must naturally in the end have formed a class of free citizens, the more so as, attracted within the cities by the advantages offered to them, their number rapidly and annually increased.

The same military reasons which induced the emperor Henry to enroll the ancient freemen into a regular corps of infantry, and to form them into a civil corporation, caused him also to metamorphose the feudal aristocracy into a regular troop of cavalry and a knightly institution. The wild disorder with which the mounted vassals of the empire, the dukes, grafs, bishops, and abbots, each distinguished by his own banner, rushed to the attack, or vied with each other in the fury of the assault, was now changed by Henry, who was well versed in every knightly art, to the disciplined manoeuvres of the line, and to that of fighting in close ranks, so well calculated to withstand the furious onset of their Hungarian foe. The discipline necessary for carrying these new military tactics into practice among a nobility habituated to license could alone be enforced by motives of honor, and Henry accordingly formed a chivalric institution, which gave rise to new manners and to an enthusiasm that imparted a new character to the age. The tournament— from the ancient verb turnen, to wrestle or fight, a public contest in every species of warfare, carried on by the knights in the presence of noble dames and maidens, whose favor they sought to gain by their prowess, and which chiefly consisted of tilting and jousting either singly or in troops, the day concluding with a banquet and a dance—was then instituted. In these tournaments the ancient heroism of the Germans revived; they were in reality founded upon the ancient pagan legends of the heroes who carried on an eternal contest in their Walhalla, in order to win the smiles of the Walkyren, now represented by earth's well-born dames.

The ancient spirit of brotherhood in arms, which had been almost quenched by that of self-interest, by the desire of acquiring feudal possessions, by the slavish subjection of the vassals under their lieges, and by the intrigues of the bishops, who intermeddled with all feudal matters, also reappeared. A great universal society of Christian knights, bound to the observance of peculiar laws, whose highest aim was to fight only for God—before long also for the ladies—and who swore never to make use of dishonorable means for success, but solely to live and to die for honor, was formed; an innovation which, although merely military in its origin, speedily became of political importance, for, by means of this knightly honor, the little vassal of a minor lord was no longer viewed as a mere underling, but as a confederate in the great universal chivalric fraternity. There were also many freemen who sometimes gained their livelihood by offering their services to different courts, or by robbing on the highways, and who were too proud to serve on foot; Henry offered them free pardon, and formed them into a body of light cavalry. In the cities the free citizens, who were originally intended only to serve as foot soldiery, appear ere long to have formed themselves into mounted troops, and to have created a fresh body of infantry out of their artificers and apprentices. It is certain that every freeman could pretend to knighthood.

Although the chivalric regulations ascribed to the emperor Henry, and to his most distinguished vassals, may not be genuine, they offer nevertheless infallible proofs of the most ancient spirit of knighthood. Henry ordained that no one should be created a knight who either by word or by deed injured the holy Church; the Pfalzgraf Conrad added, "no one who either by word or by deed injured the holy German empire"; Hermann of Swabia, "no one who injured a woman or a maiden"; Berthold, the brother of Arnulf of Bavaria, "no one who had ever deceived another or had broken his word"; Conrad of Franconia, "no one who had ever run away from the field of battle." These appear to have been, in fact, the first chivalric laws, for they spring from the spirit of the times, while all the regulations concerning nobility of birth, the number of ancestors, the exclusion of all those who were engaged in trade, etc., are, it is evident from their very nature, of a much later origin.



CONQUEST OF EGYPT BY THE FATIMITES

A.D. 969

STANLEY LANE-POOLE

(It was the fate of the religion which Mahomet founded, as it has been of other great systems, to undergo many sectarian divisions, and to be used as the instrument of conquest and political power. When Islam had somewhat departed from the character which it first manifested in moral sternness and fiery zeal, and had established itself in various parts of the world on a basis of commerce or of science, rather than that of its original inspiration, various off shoots of the faith began to assume prominence. Among the sects which sprang up was one that claimed to represent the true succession of Mahomet. This sect was itself the result of a schism among the adherents of one of the two principal divisions of the Moslems—the Shiahs. They maintained that Ali, a relation and the adopted son of Mahomet and husband of his daughter Fatima, was the first legitimate imam or successor of the prophet. They regarded the other and greater division—the Sunnites, who recognized the first three caliphs, Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman—as usurpers. Ali was the fourth caliph, and the Sunnites in turn looked upon his followers, the Shiahs, as heretics.

The schism among the Shiahs grew out of the claim of the schismatics that the legitimate imam or successor of the Prophet must be in the line of descent from Ali. The sixth imam, Jaffer, upon the death of his eldest son, Ismail, appointed another son, Moussa or Moses, his heir; but a large body of the Shiahs denied the right of Jaffer to make a new nomination, declaring the imamate to be strictly hereditary. They formed a new party of Ismailians, and in 908 a chief of this sect, Mahomet, surnamed el-Mahdi, or the Leader—a title of the Shiahs for their imams—revolted in Africa. He called himself a descendant of Ismail and claimed to be the legitimate imam. He aimed at the temporal power of a caliph, and soon established a rival caliphate in Africa, where he had obtained a considerable sovereignty. The dynasty thus begun assumed the name of Fatimites in honor of Fatima. The fourth caliph of this line, El-Moizz, conquered Egypt about 969, founded the modern Cairo, and made it his capital. The claims of the Egyptian caliphate were heralded throughout all Islam, and its rule was rapidly extended into Syria and Arabia. It played an important part in the history of the Crusades, but in 1171 was abolished by the famous Saladin, and Egypt was restored to the obedience which it had formerly owned to Bagdad. The Bagdad caliphs, called Abbassides—claiming descent from Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet—remained rulers of Egypt until 1517, or until within twenty years of the death of the last Abbasside.)

Three hundred and thirty years had passed since the Saracens first invaded the valley of the Nile. The people, with traditional docility, had liberally adopted the religion of their rulers, and the Moslems now formed the great majority of the population. Arabs and natives had blended into much the same race that we now call Egyptians; but so far the mixture had not produced any conspicuous men. The few commanding figures among the governors, Ibn-Tulun, the Ikshid, Kafur, were foreigners, and even these were but a step above the stereotyped official. They essayed no great extension of their dominions; they did not try to extinguish their dangerous neighbors the schismatic Fatimites; and though they possessed and used fleets, they ventured upon no excursions against Europe.

The great revolution which had swept over North Africa, and now spread to Egypt, arose out of the old controversy over the legitimacy of the caliphate. The prophet Mahomet died without definitely naming a successor, and thereby bequeathed an interminable quarrel to his followers. The principle of election, thus introduced, raised the first three caliphs, Abu-Bekr, Omar, Othman, to the cathedra at Medina; but a strong minority held that the "divine right" rested with Ali, the "Lion of God," first convert to Islam, husband of the prophet's daughter Fatima, and father of Mahomet's only male descendants. When Ali in turn became the fourth caliph, he was the mark for jealousy, intrigue, and at length assassination; his sons, the grandsons of the Prophet, were excluded from the succession; his family were cruelly persecuted by their successful rivals, the Ommiad usurpers; and the tragedy of Kerbela and the murder of Hoseyn set the seal of martyrdom on the holy family and stirred a passionate enthusiasm which still rouses intense excitement in the annual representations of the Persian passion play.

The rent thus opened in Islam was never closed. The ostracism of Ali "laid the foundation of the grand interminable schism which has divided the Mahometan Church, and equally destroyed the practice of charity among the members of their common creed and endangered the speculative truths of doctrine."

The descendants of Ali, though almost universally devoid of the qualities of great leaders, possessed the persistence and devotion of martyrs, and their sufferings heightened the fanatical enthusiasm of their supporters. All attempts to recover the temporal power having proved vain, the Alides fell back upon the spiritual authority of the successive candidates of the holy family, whom they proclaimed to be the imams or spiritual leaders of the faithful. This doctrine of the imamate gradually acquired a more mystical meaning, supported by an allegorical interpretation of the Koran; and a mysterious influence was ascribed to the imam, who, though hidden from mortal eye, on account of the persecution of his enemies, would soon come forward publicly in the character of the ever-expected mahdi, sweep away the corruptions of the heretical caliphate, and revive the majesty of the pure lineage of the prophet. All Mahometans believe in a coming mahdi, a messiah, who shall restore right and prepare for the second advent of Mahomet and the tribunal of the last day; but the Shiahs turned the expectation to special account. They taught that the true Imam, though invisible to mortal sight, is ever living; they predicted the mahdi's speedy appearance, and kept their adherents on the alert to take up arms in his service. With a view to his coming they organized a pervasive conspiracy, instituted a secret society with carefully graduated stages of initiation, used the doctrines of all religions and sects as weapons in the propaganda, and sent missionaries throughout the provinces of Islam to increase the numbers of the initiates and pave the way for the great revolution. We see their partial success in the ravages of the Karmathians, who were the true parents of the Fatimites. The leaders and chief missionaries had really nothing in common with Mahometanism. Among themselves they were frankly atheists. Their objects were political, and they used religion in any form, and adapted it in all modes, to secure proselytes, to whom they imparted only so much of their doctrine as they were able to bear. These men were furnished with "an armory of proselytism" as perfect, perhaps, as any known to history: they had appeals to enthusiasm, and arguments for the reason, and "fuel for the fiercest passions of the people and times in which they moved." Their real aim was not religious or constructive, but pure nihilism. They used the claim of the family of Ali, not because they believed in any divine right or any caliphate, but because some flag had to be flourished in order to rouse the people.

One of these missionaries, disguised as a merchant, journeyed back to Barbary in 893, with some Berber pilgrims who had performed the sacred ceremonies at Mecca. He was welcomed by the great tribe of the Kitama, and rapidly acquired an extraordinary influence over the Berbers—a race prone to superstition, and easily impressed by the mysterious rites of initiation and the emotional doctrines of the propagandist, the wrongs of the prophetic house, and the approaching triumph of the Mahdi. Barbary had never been much attached to the caliphate, and for a century it had been practically independent under the Aglabite dynasty, the barbarous excesses of whose later sovereigns had alienated their subjects. Alides, moreover, had established themselves, in the dynasty of the Idrisides, in Morocco since the end of the eighth century. The land was in every respect ripe for revolution, and the success of Abu-Abdallah esh-Shii, the new missionary, was extraordinarily rapid. In a few years he had a following of two hundred thousand armed men, and after a series of battles he drove Ziyadat-Allah, the last Aglabite prince, out of the country in 908. The missionary then proclaimed the imam Obeid-Allah as the true caliph and spiritual head of Islam. Whether this Obeid-Allah was really a descendant of Ali or not, he had been carefully prepared for the role, and reached Barbary in disguise, with the greatest mystery and some difficulty, pursued by the suspicions of the Bagdad caliph, who, in great alarm, sent repeated orders for his arrest. Indeed, the victorious missionary had to rescue his spiritual chief from a sordid prison at Sigilmasa. Then humbly prostrating himself before him, he hailed him as the expected mahdi, and in January, 910, he was duly prayed for in the mosque of Kayrawan as "the Imam 'Obeid-Allah el-Mahdi, Commander of the Faithful.'"

The missionary's Berber proselytes were too numerous to encourage resistance, and the few who indulged the luxury of conscientious scruples were killed or imprisoned. El-Mahdi, indeed, appeared so secure in power that he excited the jealousy of his discoverer.

Abu-Abdallah, the missionary, now found himself nobody, where a month before he had been supreme. The Fatimite restoration was to him only a means to an end; he had used Obeid-Allah's title as an engine of revolution, intending to proceed to the furthest lengths of his philosophy, to a complete social and political anarchy, the destruction of Islam, community of lands and women, and all the delight of unshackled license. Instead of this, his creature had absorbed his power, and all such designs were made void. He began to hatch treason and to hint doubts as to the genuineness of the Mahdi, who, as he truly represented, according to prophecy, ought to work miracles and show other proofs of his divine mission. People began to ask for a "sign." In reply, the Mahdi had the missionary murdered.

The first Fatimite caliph, though without experience, was so vigorous a ruler that he could dispense with the dangerous support of his discoverer. He held the throne for a quarter of a century and established his authority, more or less continuously, over the Arab and Berber tribes and settled cities from the frontier of Egypt to the province of Fez (Fas) in Morocco, received the allegiance of the Mahometan governor of Sicily, and twice despatched expeditions into Egypt, which he would probably have permanently conquered if he had not been hampered by perpetual insurrections in Barbary. Distant governors, and often whole tribes of Berbers, were constantly in revolt, and the disastrous famine of 928-929, coupled with the Asiatic plague which his troops had brought back with them from Egypt, led to general disturbances and insurrections which fully occupied the later years of his reign. The western provinces, from Tahart and Nakur to Fez and beyond, frequently threw off all show of allegiance. His authority was founded more on fear than on religious enthusiasm, though zeal for the Alide cause had its share in his original success. The new "Eastern doctrines," as they were called, were enforced at the sword's point, and frightful examples were made of those who ventured to tread in the old paths. Nor were the freethinkers of the large towns, who shared the missionary's esoteric principles, encouraged; for outwardly, at least, the Mahdi was strictly a Moslem. When people at Kayrawan began to put in practice the missionary's advanced theories, to scoff at all the rules of Islam, to indulge in free love, pig's flesh, and wine, they were sternly brought to order. The mysterious powers expected of a mahdi were sedulously rumored among the credulous Berbers, though no miracles were actually exhibited; and the obedience of the conquered provinces was secured by horrible outrages and atrocities, of which the terrified people dared not provoke a repetition at the hands of the Mahdi's savage generals.

His eldest son Abul-Kasim, who had twice led expeditions into Egypt, succeeded to the caliphate with the title of El-Kaim, 934-946. He began his reign with warlike vigor. He sent out a fleet in 934 or 935, which harried the southern coast of France, blockaded and took Genoa, and coasted along Calabria, massacring and plundering, burning the shipping, and carrying off slaves wherever it touched. At the same time he despatched a third army against Egypt; but the firm hand of the Ikshid now held the government, and his brother, Obeid-Allah, with fifteen thousand horse, drove the enemy out of Alexandria and gave them a crushing defeat on their way home. But for the greater part of his reign El-Kaim was on the defensive, fighting for existence against the usurpation of one Abu-Yezid, who repudiated Shiism, cursed the Mahdi and his successor, stirred up most of Morocco and Barbary against El-Kaim, drove him out of his capital, and went near to putting an end to the Fatimite caliphate.

It was only after seven years of uninterrupted civil war that this formidable insurrection died out, under the firm but politic management of the third caliph, El-Mansur (946-953), a brave man who knew both when to strike and when to be generous. Abu-Yezid was at last run to earth, and his body was skinned and stuffed with straw, and exposed in a cage with a couple of ludicrous apes as a warning to the disaffected.

The Fatimites so far wear a brutal and barbarous character. They do not seem to have encouraged literature or learning; but this is partly explained by the fact that culture belonged chiefly to the orthodox caliphate; and its learned men could have no dealings with the heretical pretender. The city of Kayrawan, which dates from the Arab conquest in the eighth century, preserves the remains of some noble buildings, but of their other capitals or royal residences no traces of art or architecture remain to bear witness to the taste of their founders. Each began to decay as soon as its successor was built.

With the fourth caliph, however, El-Moizz, the conqueror of Egypt, 953-975, the Fatimites entered upon a new phase.

El-Moizz was a man of politic temper, a born statesman, able to grasp the conditions of success and to take advantage of every point in his favor. He was also highly educated, and not only wrote Arabic poetry and delighted in its literature, but studied Greek, mastered Berber and Sudani dialects, and is even said to have taught himself Slavonic in order to converse with his slaves from Eastern Europe. His eloquence was such as to move his audience to tears. To prudent statesmanship he added a large generosity, and his love of justice was among his noblest qualities. So far as outward acts could show, he was a strict Moslem of the Shiah sect, and the statement of his adversaries that he was really an atheist seems to rest merely upon the belief that all the Fatimites adopted the esoteric doctrines of the Ismailian missionaries.

When he ascended the throne in April, 953, he had already a policy, and he lost no time in carrying it into execution. He first made a progress through his dominions, visiting each town, investigating its needs, and providing for its peace and prosperity. He bearded the rebels in their mountain fastnesses, till they laid down their arms and fell at his feet. He conciliated the chiefs and governors with presents and appointments, and was rewarded by their loyalty.

At the head of his ministers he set Gawhar "the Roman," a slave from the Eastern Empire, who had risen to the post of secretary to the late Caliph, and was now by his son promoted to the rank of wazir commander of the forces. He was sent in 958 to bring the ever-refractory Maghreb (Morocco) to allegiance. The expedition was entirely successful, Sigilmasa and Fez were taken, and Gawhar reached the shore of the Atlantic.

Jars of live fish and sea-weed reached the capital, and proved to the Caliph that his empire touched the ocean, the "limitless limit" of the world. All the African littoral, from the Atlantic to the frontier of Egypt—with the single exception of Spanish Ceuta—now peaceably admitted the sway of the Fatimite Caliph.

The result was due partly to the exhaustion caused by the long struggle during the preceding reigns, partly to the politic concessions and personal influence of the able young ruler. He was liberal and conciliatory toward different provinces, but to the Arabs of the capital he was severe. Kayrawan teemed with disaffected folk, sheiks, and theologians bitterly hostile to the heretical "orientalism" of the Fatimites, and always ready to excite a tumult. Moizz was resolved to give them no chance, and one of his repressive measures was the curfew. At sunset a trumpet sounded, and anyone found abroad after that was liable to lose not only his way, but his head. So long as they were quiet, however, he used the people justly, and sought to impress them in his favor. In a singular interview, recorded by Makrisi, he exhibited himself to a deputation of sheiks, dressed in the utmost simplicity, and seated before his writing materials in a plain room, surrounded by books. He wished to disabuse them of the idea that he led in private a life of luxury and self-indulgence.

"You see what employs me when I am alone," he said; "I read letters that come to me from the lands of the East and the West, and answer them with my own hand; I deny myself all the pleasures of the world, and I seek only to protect your lives, multiply your children, shame your rivals, and daunt your enemies." Then he gave them much good advice, and especially recommended them to keep to one wife.

"One woman is enough for one man. If you straitly observe what I have ordained," he concluded, "I trust that God will, through you, procure our conquest of the East in like manner as he has vouchsafed us the West."

The conquest of Egypt was indeed the aim of his life. To rule over tumultuous Arab and Berber tribes in a poor country formed no fit ambition for a man of his capacity. Egypt, its wealth, its commerce, its great port, and its docile population—these were his dream.

For two years he had been digging wells and building rest-houses on the road to Alexandria. The West was now outwardly quiet, and between Egypt and any hope of succor from the eastern caliphate stood the ravaging armies of the Karmatis. Egypt itself was in helpless disorder. The great Kafur was dead, and its nominal ruler was a child. Ibn-Furat, the wazir, had made himself obnoxious to the people by arrests and extortions. The very soldiery was in revolt, and the Turkish retainers of the court mutinied, plundered the wazir's palace, and even opened negotiations with Moizz. Hoseyn, the nephew of the Ikshid, attempted to restore public order, but after three months of vacillating and unpopular government he returned to his own province in Palestine to make terms with the Karmatis. Famine, the result of the exceptionally low Nile of 967, added to the misery of the country; plague, as usual, followed in the steps of famine; over six hundred thousand people died in and around Fustat, and the wretched inhabitants began in despair to migrate to happier lands.

All these matters were fully reported to Moizz by the renegade Jew Yakub Killis, a former favorite of Kafur, who had been driven from Egypt by the jealous exactions of the wazir, Ibn-Furat, and who was perfectly familiar with the political and financial state of the Nile valley. His representations confirmed the Fatimite Caliph's resolve; the Arab tribes were summoned to his standard; an immense treasure was collected, all of which was spent in the campaign; gratuities were lavishly distributed to the army, and at the head of over one hundred thousand men, all well mounted and armed, accompanied by a thousand camels and a mob of horses carrying money, stores, and ammunition, Gawhar marched from Kayrawan in February, 969. The Caliph himself reviewed the troops. The marshal kissed his hand and his horse's shoe. All the princes, emirs, and courtiers passed reverently on foot before the honored leader of the conquering army, who, as a last proof of favor, received the gift of his master's own robes and charger. The governors of all the towns on the route had orders to come on foot to Gawhar's stirrup, and one of them vainly offered a large bribe to be excused the indignity.

The approach of this overwhelming force filled the Egyptian ministers with consternation, and they thought only of obtaining favorable terms. A deputation of notables, headed by Abu-Giafar Moslem, a sherif, or descendant of the Prophet's family, waited upon Gawhar near Alexandria, and demanded a capitulation. The general consented without reserve, and in a conciliatory letter granted all they asked. But they had reckoned without their host; the troops at Fustat would not listen to such humiliation, and there was a strong war party among the citizens, to which some of the ministers leaned. The city prepared for resistance, and skirmishes took place with Gawhar's army, which had meanwhile arrived at the opposite town of Giza in July. Forcing the passage of the river, with the help of some boats supplied by Egyptian soldiers, the invaders fell upon the imposing army drawn up on the other bank, and totally defeated them. The troops deserted Fustat in a panic, and the women of the city, running out of their houses, implored the sherif to intercede with the conqueror.

Gawhar, like his master, always disposed to a politic leniency, renewed his former promises, and granted a complete amnesty to all who submitted. The overjoyed populace cut off the heads of some of the refractory leaders, in their enthusiasm, and sent them to the camp in pleasing token of allegiance. A herald, bearing a white flag, rode through the streets of Fustat proclaiming the amnesty and forbidding pillage, and on August the 5th the Fatimite army, with full pomp of drums and banners, entered the capital.

That very night Gawhar laid the foundations of a new city, or rather fortified palace, destined for the reception of his sovereign. He was encamped on the sandy waste which stretched northeast of Fustat on the road to Heliopolis, and there, at a distance of about a mile from the river, he marked out the boundaries of the new capital. There were no buildings, save the old "Convent of the Bones," nor any cultivation except the beautiful park called "Kafur's Garden," to obstruct his plans. A square, somewhat less than a mile each way, was pegged out with poles, and the Maghrabi astrologers, in whom Moizz reposed extravagant faith, consulted together to determine the auspicious moment for the opening ceremony. Bells were hung on ropes from pole to pole, and at the signal of the sages their ringing was to announce the precise moment when the laborers were to turn the first sod. The calculations of the astrologers were, however, anticipated by a raven, who perched on one of the ropes and set the bells jingling, upon which every mattock was struck into the earth, and the trenches were opened. It was an unlucky hour; the planet Mars (El-Kahir) was in the ascendant; but it could not be undone, and the place was accordingly named after the hostile planet, El-Kahira, "the Martial" or "Triumphant," in the hope that the sinister omen might be turned to a triumphant issue. Cairo, as Kahira has come to be called, may fairly be said to have outlived all astrological prejudices. The name of the Abbasside caliph was at once expunged from the Friday prayers at the old mosque of Amr at Fustat; the black Abbasside robes were proscribed, and the preacher, in pure white, recited the Khutba for the imam Moizz, emir el-muminin, and invoked blessings on his ancestors Ali and Fatima and all their holy family. The call to prayer from the minarets was adapted to Shiah taste. The joyful news was sent to the Fatimite Caliph on swift dromedaries, together with the heads of the slain. Coins were struck with the special formulas of the Fatimite creed—"Ali is the noblest of [God's] delegates, the wazir of the best of apostles"; "the Imam Maadd calls men to profess the unity of the Eternal"—in addition to the usual dogmas of the Mahometan faith. For two centuries the mosques and the mint proclaimed the shibboleth of the Shiahs.

Gawhar set himself at once to restore tranquillity and alleviate the sufferings of the famine-stricken people. Moizz had providently sent grain ships to relieve their distress, and as the price of bread nevertheless remained at famine rates, Gawhar publicly flogged the millers, established a central corn-exchange, and compelled everyone to sell his corn there under the eye of a government inspector. In spite of his efforts the famine lasted for two years; plague spread alarmingly, insomuch that the corpses could not be buried fast enough, and were thrown into the Nile; and it was not till the winter of 971-972 that plenty returned and the pest disappeared. As usual, the viceroy took a personal part in all public functions. Every Saturday he sat in court, assisted by the wazir Ibn-Furat, the cadi, and skilled lawyers, to hear causes and petitions and to administer justice. To secure impartiality, he appointed to every department of state an Egyptian and a Maghrabi officer. His firm and equitable rule insured peace and order; and the great palace he was building, and the new mosque, the Azhar, which he founded in 970 and finished in 972, not only added to the beauty of the capital, but gave employment to innumerable craftsmen.

The inhabitants of Egypt accepted the new regime with their habitual phlegm. An Ikshidi officer in the Bashmur district of Lower Egypt did, indeed, incite the people to rebellion, but his fate was not such as to encourage others. He was chased out of Egypt, captured on the coast of Palestine, and then, it is gravely recorded, he was given sesame oil to drink for a month, till his skin stripped off, whereupon it was stuffed with straw and hung up on a beam, as a reminder to him who would be admonished. With this brief exception we read of no riots, no sectarian risings, and the general surrender was complete when the remaining partisans of the deposed dynasty, to the number of five thousand, laid down their arms. An embassy sent to George, King of Nubia, to invite him to embrace Islam, and to exact the customary tribute, was received with courtesy, and the money, but not the conversion, was arranged. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the Higaz, where the gold of Moizz had been prudently distributed some years before, responded to his generosity and success by proclaiming his supremacy in the mosques; the Hamdanide prince who held Northern Syria paid similar homage to the Fatimite Caliph at Aleppo, where the Abbassides had hitherto been recognized. Southern Syria, however, which had formed part of the Ikshid's kingdom, did not submit to the usurpers without a struggle. Hoseyn was still independent at Ramla, and Gawhar's lieutenant, Giafar ben Fellah, was obliged to give him battle. Hoseyn was defeated and exposed bareheaded to the insults of the mob at Fustat, to be finally sent, with the rest of the family of Ikshid, to a Barbary jail. Damascus, the home of orthodoxy, was taken by Giafar, not without a struggle, and the Fatimite doctrine was there published, to the indignation and disgust of the Sunnite population.

A worse plague than the Fatimite conquest soon afflicted Syria. The Karmati leader, Hasan ben Ahmad, surnamed El-Asam, finding the blackmail, which he had lately received out of the revenues of Damascus, suddenly stopped, resolved to extort it by force of arms. The Fatimites indeed sprang from the same movement, and their founder professed the same political and irreligious philosophy as Hasan himself; but this did not stand in his way, and his knowledge of their origin made him the less disposed to render homage to the sacred pretensions of the new imams, whom he contemptuously designated as the spawn of the quacks, charlatans, and the enemies of Islam. He tried to enlist the support of the Abbasside Caliph, but El-Muti replied that Fatimis and Karmatis were all one to him, and he would have nothing to do with either. The Buweyhid prince of Irak, however, supplied Hasan with arms and money; Abu-Taghlib, the Hamdanide ruler of Rahba on the Euphrates, contributed men; and, supported by the Arab tribes of Okeyl, Tavy, and others, Hasan marched upon Damascus, where the Fatimites were routed, and their general, Giafar, killed. Moizz was forthwith publicly cursed from the pulpit in the Syrian capital, to the qualified satisfaction of the inhabitants, who had to pay handsomely for the pleasure.

Hasan next marched to Ramla, and thence, leaving the Fatimite army of eleven thousand men shut up in Jaffa, invaded Egypt. His troops surprised Kulzum at the head of the Red Sea, and Farama (Pelusium), near the Mediterranean, at the two ends of the Egyptian frontier. Tinnis declared against the Fatimites, and Hasan appeared at Heliopolis in October, 971. Gawhar had already intrenched the new capital with a deep ditch, leaving but one entrance, which he closed with an iron gate. He armed the Egyptians as well as the African troops, and a spy was set to watch the wazir Ibn-Furat, lest he should be guilty of treachery. The sherifs of the family of Ali were summoned to the camp, as hostages for the good behavior of the inhabitants. Meanwhile, the officers of the enemy were liberally tempted with bribes. Two months they lay before Cairo, and then, after an indecisive engagement, Hasan stormed the gate, forced his way across the ditch, and attacked the Egyptians on their own ground. The result was a severe repulse, and Hasan retreated, under cover of night, to Kulzum, leaving his camp and baggage to be plundered by the Fatimites, who were only balked of a sanguinary pursuit by the intervention of night. The Egyptian volunteers displayed unexpected valor in the fight, and many of the partisans of the late dynasty, who were with the enemy, were made prisoners.

Thus the serious danger, which went near to cutting short the Fatimite occupation of Egypt, was not only resolutely met, but even turned into an advantage. There was no more intriguing on behalf of the Ikshidids; Tinnis was recovered from its temporary defection and occupied by the reinforcements which Moizz had hurriedly despatched under Ibn-Ammar to the succor of Gawhar; and the Karmati fleet, which attempted to recover this fort, was obliged to slip anchor, abandoning seven ships and five hundred prisoners. Jaffa, which still held out resolutely against the besieging Arabs, was now relieved by the despatch of African troops from Cairo, who brought back the garrison, but did not dare to hold the post. The enemy fell back upon Damascus, and the leaders fell out among themselves.

The Karmati chief was not crushed, however, by his defeat. In the following year he was collecting ships and Arabs for a fresh invasion. Gawhar, who had long urged his master to come and protect his conquest, now pointed out the extreme danger of a second attack from an enemy which had already succeeded in boldly forcing his way to the gate of Cairo. Moizz had delayed his journey, because he could not safely trust his western provinces in his absence; but on the receipt of this grave news, he appointed Yusuf Bulugin ben Zeyri, of the Berber tribe of Sanhaga, to act as his deputy in Barbary, left Sardaniya—the Fontainebleau of Kayrawan, as Mansuriya was its Versailles—in November, 972, and making a leisurely progress, by way of Kabis, Tripolis, Agdabiya, and Barka, reached Alexandria in the following May. Here the Caliph received a deputation, consisting of the cadi of Fustat and other eminent persons, whom he moved to tears by his eloquent and virtuous discourse. A month later he was encamped in the gardens of the monastery near Giza, where he was reverently welcomed by his devoted servant, Gawhar, content to efface himself in his master's shadow.

The entry of the new Caliph into his new capital was a solemn spectacle. With him were all his sons and brothers and kinsfolk, and before him were borne the coffins of his ancestors. Fustat was illuminated and decked for his reception; but Moizz would not enter the old capital of the usurping caliphs. He crossed from Roda by Gawhar's new bridge, and proceeded direct to the palace-city of Cairo. Here he threw himself on his face and gave thanks to God.

There was yet an ordeal to be gone through before he could regard himself as safe. Egypt was the home of many undoubted sherifs or descendants of Ali, and these, headed by a representative of the distinguished Tabataba family, came boldly to examine his credentials. Moizz must prove his title to the holy imamate inherited from Ali, to the satisfaction of these experts in genealogy. According to the story, the Caliph called a great assembly of the people, and invited the sherifs to appear; then, half drawing his sword, he said:

"Here is my pedigree," and scattering gold among the spectators, added, "and there is my proof."

It was perhaps the best argument he could produce. The sherifs could only protest their entire satisfaction at this convincing evidence; and it is at any rate certain that, whatever they thought of the Caliph's claim, they did not contest it. The capital was placarded with his name, and the praises of Ali and Moizz were acclaimed by the people, who flocked to his first public audience. Among the presents offered him, that of Gawhar was especially splendid, and its costliness illustrates the colossal wealth acquired by the Fatimites. It included five hundred horses with saddles and bridles encrusted with gold, amber, and precious stones; tents of silk and cloth of gold, borne on Bactrian camels; dromedaries, mules, and camels of burden; filigree coffers full of gold and silver vessels; gold-mounted swords; caskets of chased silver containing precious stones; a turban set with jewels, and nine hundred boxes filled with samples of all the goods that Egypt produced.



GROWTH AND DECADENCE OF CHIVALRY

TENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURY

LEON GAUTIER

(Writers on the history of chivalry are unable to refer its origin to any definite time or place; and even specific definition of chivalry is seldom attempted by careful students. They rather give us, as does Gautier in the picturesque account which follows, some recognized starting-point, and for definition content themselves with characterization of the spirit and aims of chivalry, analysis of its methods, and the story of its rise and fall.

Chivalry was not an official institution that came into existence by the decree of a sovereign. Although religious in its original elements and impulses, there was nothing in its origin to remind us of the foundation of a religious order. It would be useless to search for the place of its birth or for the name of its founder. It was born everywhere at once, and has been everywhere at the same time the natural effect of the same aspirations and the same needs. "There was a moment when people everywhere felt the necessity of tempering the ardor of old German blood, and of giving to their ill-regulated passions an ideal. Hence chivalry!"

Yet chivalry arose from a German custom which was idealized by the Christian church; and chivalry was more an ideal than an institution. It was "the Christian form of the military profession; the knight was the Christian soldier." True, the profession and mission of the church meant the spread of peace and the hatred of war, she holding with her Master that "they who take the sword shall perish with the sword." Her thought was formulated by St. Augustine: "He who can think of war and can support it without great sorrow is truly dead to human feelings." "It is necessary," he says, "to submit to war, but to wish for peace." The church did, however, look upon war as a divine means of punishment and of expiation, for individuals and nations. And the eloquent Bossuet showed the church's view of war as the terrestrial preparation for the Kingdom of God, and described how empires fall upon one another to form a foundation whereon to build the church. In the light of such interpretations the church availed herself of the militant auxiliary known as chivalry.

Along with the religious impulse that animated it, chivalry bore, throughout its purer course, the character of knightliness which it received from Teutonic sources. How the fine sentiments and ennobling customs of the Teutonic nations, particularly with respect to the gallantry and generosity of the male toward the female sex, grew into beautiful combination with the rule of protecting the weak and defenceless everywhere, and how these elements were blended with the spirit of religious devotion which entered into the organization and practices of chivalry, forms one of the most fascinating features in the study of its development; and this gentler side, no less than its sterner aspects, is faithfully presented in the brilliant examination of Gautier. And the heroic sentiment and action which inspired and accomplished the sacred warfare of the Crusades are not less admirably depicted in these pages; while in his summary of the decline of chivalry Gautier has perhaps never been surpassed for penetrating insight and lucid exposition.)