No More Learning

b


## p. xiv (#16) #############################################

xiv
Introduction
invaders, against whom it was now beginning to react—in the advance of
the Christian kingdoms in Spain, in the Norman conquest of Sicily, in
the capture of Mahdiyah by Genoa and Pisa in 1087. The Crusades were,
in one aspect, an extension Eastwards of this reaction, a change
from the defensive to the offensive. Against a common foe Eastern and
Western Christians had a common cause, but the concord went no further.
In the first place, seventeen years before the fatal battle of Manzikert,
which had caused the Eastern Empire to turn to the West for aid, the
great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches had already
occurred. One of the results hoped for from the First Crusade was the
healing of that schism, and to the Western mind the obstinate perversity
of the Greek Church made it as dangerous an enemy of the faith as
Mohammedanism itself. And, secondly, the Normans in South Italy had
conquered Greeks as well as Saracens, and their first advance eastwards
was against Greeks not against Saracens. Robert Guiscard by his attack
on the Eastern Empire in 1081 began the policy, which was continued
by his successors and was adopted by the Emperor Henry VI as part of
his Norman inheritance. In other quarters, too, the experiences of the
first two Crusades created a body of opinion in favour of the conquest of
the Eastern Empire as a necessary part of the whole movement; this
opinion gathered strength when the Eastern Emperor came to terms with
Saladin to oppose the Western advance which was now a menace to both.
Finally, Venice was alienated by the ambition of Manuel Comnenus and
the folly of Andronicus, and from being the chief obstacle to the Norman
policy became its chief supporter. It was now the aim of the Crusaders
to conquer the whole of the Near East, Christian and Muslim alike, and
their first objective was Constantinople.
In the internal history of Europe this volume deals, outside Italy,
with the three leading countries of Germany, France, and England; the
history of the outlying and more backward countries—Spain, Scandinavia,
Poland, Bohemia, Hungary-is reserved for the next volume. In these
three countries there was much that was similar, for the underlying ideas
inherent in feudal society were common to them all. But similar concep-
tions produced widely differing results. On the one hand, feudal society
with its deep reverence for custom and tradition was much affected by
local conditions and lapse of time. On the other hand, it was peculiarly
sensitive to the workings of human nature, to the ambition of individuals
who stressed the privileges and minimised the obligations arising from the
idea of contract on which the feudal system was essentially based; it was
poised on a delicate balance which the accident of death might immedi-


## p. xv (#17) ##############################################

1
Introduction
XV
ately upset. In the secular governments, as in the ecclesiastical government
of the Church, the trend is in favour of monarchy, and the rulers make,
with varying success, a continual effort towards centralisation; but they
were all at an initial disadvantage compared with the Pope. The success
of the electoral principle might be fatal to monarchical authority; and
the hereditary principle had its dangers too, in the event of a minority
or the failure of a direct heir. The hereditary principle could not be
applied to the Papacy, for which the electoral system worked as a means
of continual development; for the cardinals, having no opportunity of
obtaining an independent position apart from the Pope, had everything
to gain as individuals and nothing to lose by electing the ablest of their
number as Pope.
Monarchy was in the most favourable position in England, and here
it was therefore the most successful. William I started with the initial
advantage that the whole land was his by conquest, and to be dealt with as
he chose. The Normans, here as in Sicily, displayed their genius in adminis-
tration, their adaptability and eclecticism. The political feudalism they
brought from Normandy placed the king in England in the strong posi-
tion that, as duke, he had held in Normandy; and he adopted what he
found suitable to his purpose already existing—the manorial system, the
shire and hundred courts, Danegeld. As it had been won by conquest,
the whole land was royal domain. Wisely the king kept a large share for
himself, though feudal dues and the precedent of general taxation made
him less dependent on his own estates for revenue than were his French
and German contemporaries. The lands he granted out were held
directly from him, as fiefs on military tenure, liable to forfeiture and not
transferable at will. No individual baron could match himself with the
king or hope to establish an independent position. The king was not
dependent upon the barons in the central government, nor were they,
as on the Continent, all-powerful in local government. They were not
officials but tenants-in-chief, and the strength of the Crown in local affairs
is clearly displayed in that the king not only appointed and dismissed
the sheriffs at will, but also insisted on their attendance at his Court and
a rendering of their stewardship at his Exchequer—just as the Pope in-
sisted on the visits ad limina of his local officials, the archbishops and
bishops. So too did royal justice penetrate through the country, with
the system of inquests, writs, and itinerant judges; the local courts were
maintained under royal control, and it was the baronial jurisdiction that
suffered. Not that it was directly attacked; the kings were careful not
to transgress the letter of the feudal contract. But they preserved their
supremacy, and in Church as well as in State; moreover, in spite of
62


## p. xvi (#18) #############################################

xvi
Introduction
1
Henry I's dispute with Anselm and Henry II's long contest with Becket,
they avoided any serious conflict with the Papacy. They were, from
the English point of view, too much absorbed in their continental posses-
sions, which involved long absences of the king and too heavy a burden on
English resources. Yet still, at the end of our period, the monarchy is
at the height of its power, both in England and on the Continent. A
rapid decline set in with John, who not only lost most of his continental
possessions but, by making the mistakes which the wisdom of his pre-
decessors had avoided, entered into a serious conflict both with the Pope
and with the united baronage.
France presents a complete contrast. In the eleventh century the
French monarchy was almost helpless. The great nobles had become
practically independent, and, unlike the nobles in Germany, had ceased
to be even in theory royal officials. The king had to start de novo, and
perhaps in the long run this was an advantage. He was not fettered by
all those traditions of the past which hampered royal initiative in Ger-
many, and the strongest of the fetters had rusted from disuse. The
Capetians had enjoyed the supreme fortune of an uninterrupted succession;
the custom of two centuries hardened into a right; and the electoral
privileges of the nobles gave way to the hereditary right of the eldest
son. In this volume we deal only with the reigns of Louis VI and VII,
during which the monarchy recovered from the weakness of the eleventh
century and prepared the way for the great period which begins with
Philip Augustus. The king had two assets: a domain, which though
small was compact, and the potentialities inherent in the kingly office.
Louis VI, by his wisdom in concentrating almost entirely on the former,
was able eventually to make use of the latter. After a long series of petty
wars, he overcame the brigand-nobles of the domain, and so established
peace and order within it, made the roads safe for merchants and travellers,
and made royal justice attractive. He had his reward in the appeals for
his intervention that came from other quarters. So sure was his building
that even Louis VII managed to add a few bricks to the edifice. The
great vassals absorbed in their own domains ignored the central govern-
ment, and the king, much to his advantage, was able to create a body of
officials directly dependent upon himself. In local government he was
confined almost entirely to the royal domain, but soon, by escheat and
conquest, this was to become the larger part of France; the king reaped
the advantage from the over-aggrandisement of his greatest vassal.
Finally, one source of strength had grown out of past weakness. The
Papacy in the eleventh century had succeeded in carrying out its reform
policy more completely in France than elsewhere, because of the weakness


## p. xvii (#19) ############################################

Introduction
xvii
។
of royal opposition. On France, therefore, it could rely for welcome and
a refuge, whatever the king's attitude, and frequently the Popes availed
themselves of this. The result was that they came to depend, Alexander
III in particular, on French support; this, as the king became powerful,
meant the support of the French king, who soon attained a unique posi-
tion among lay rulers in his relations with the Papacy.
In Germany the situation is much harder to assess; monarchy was
firmly established, with a long tradition of power, but the king was handi-
capped by tradition as well, and still more by his imperial position.
His Italian kingdom prevented him from concentrating upon Germany,
while the long struggle with the Papacy gave the opportunity for the
anti-monarchical forces in both countries to defeat his aims at centralisa-
tion. Another weakness was the lack of continuity. More than once
already the king had left no son to succeed him, and twice again this
happened within our period. So the hereditary principle was never estab-
lished, and the grip of the electors tightened with each vacancy. The
royal resources were distinctly inferior to those of the English kings, for
a large part of the land was not held directly from the king and he had
no power of instituting general taxation. The royal domain, in which in
a sense must be included the ecclesiastical territories held from the king,
was widely scattered, and the king was unable to concentrate on one area,
as Louis VI did in France. Henry IV attempted this in Saxony, and was
defeated by the Saxon revolt; Henry V's attempt in the Rhine district
was cut short by his death; Lothar III started with an extensive Saxon
domain, but again a change of dynasty upset his plans; Frederick Bar-
barossa, who added his Swabian domain to the Salian inheritance, was
the most favourably placed of all, and he was the most powerful. He it
was too who solved the problem of the duchies.
The German kings, while very powerful compared with their French
contemporaries, were still hampered by the conditions to which the
weakness of the ninth century had given rise, and from which they had
never been able to shake themselves free. Germany had been saved from
the fate of France in the ninth century by the tribal feeling, which
prevented her from breaking up into small units. But the very cohesion
of the tribal duchies was a handicap to the central authority. In the first
place, tribal institutions and tribal customs were too strong to be over-
ridden, and tended to make of Germany a federation rather than a nation;
and, secondly, the dukes, as leaders of the tribes, were a constant embar-
rassment to the king. Various expedients had been adopted, from Otto I
onwards, to control them, but once again in the twelfth century they had
risen, in Swabia, Bavaria, and Saxony, to a position little inferior to that


## p. xviii (#20) ###########################################

xviii
Introduction
of their predecessors in the ninth century. The fall of Henry the Lion
at last gave Frederick Barbarossa the opportunity, by partitioning the
duchies, to destroy the old tribal units. The smaller units he could more
easily control, but he did nothing to replace the tribal bond by a national
bond, and so Germany became a federation of many small states in place
of a few large ones.
What stood in his way particularly was the status of the German
nobility. Dukes, margraves, and counts remained in theory what they
had once been in fact-royal officials, entrusted with local government
and jurisdiction. These functions they now exercised by hereditary right,
and themselves reaped the financial advantages. So, while the nobles
could often interfere in the central government, the king, where he was
not present, could not control the local government. One important
change he did make, by which a landed status tended to supersede the
official status. The first rank of German nobles, the principes, had included
all holders of official titles, lay and ecclesiastical. After 1180, only those
who held directly from the king were ranked as “princes. ” So, while the
bishops and the abbots of royal abbeys retained princely rank (and were
often, in a real sense, royal officials), only some sixteen lay nobles remained
in the highest grade. The princes of Germany had the right of choosing
the king; this right was now confined to a much smaller number, and
already it was recognised that with a privileged few the real decision lay.
The elective system was becoming crystallised, and both Frederick
Barbarossa and Henry VI vainly attempted to combat it. Frederick was
a great ruler himself, a great respecter of law, a great guardian of order.
But, though he was successful in preserving order in Germany, he had to
be present himself to enforce it. The local magnates, though with a landed
rather than an official status, continued like the princes to exercise local
control. No attempt was made by Frederick to imitate the English kings,
to create a bureaucracy directly responsible to himself and by a system
of itinerant justices to enforce locally the king's law and to make the
king's justice universal. He was so scrupulous in his administration of
feudal custom that it was hardly possible that he should contemplate
such a change. It was the nobles who instituted the process against
Henry the Lion, and it was they, and not the king, who reaped the results
of his fall. In fact, there was no real effort at centralisation in Germany,
and this was fatal to German unity and so to monarchy in Germany.
Hitherto the political side of feudalism had been displayed in arrange-
ments or conflicts between the king on the one side and the nobles on
the other. But now, as the more settled state of things gave opportunity


## p. xix (#21) #############################################

Introduction
xix
for the development of more peaceful pursuits, a third factor enters in
with the rise of the towns. In this volume we are concerned with the
political importance of these urban communities, and the economic history
of the development and organisation of trade and industry, as well as of
agricultural conditions, is reserved for later volumes. The king was
naturally interested in keeping control of the towns, which provided
useful sources of revenue: in England the leading boroughs were retained
as royal boroughs by William I and were heavily taxed by Henry I; in
Germany there were many royal towns, and, as most towns were under
a bishop, royal control was usually maintained. The towns, for their part,
were anxious to hold directly from the king, and were willing to pay the
price. For the king alone could legally grant the privileges they coveted,
and a strong monarchy was the best guarantee of the peace which was
so necessary a condition for the expansion of trade and industry. They
were, therefore, naturally on the side of the king against the nobles, and
often rendered him valuable support. The work of Louis VI in the royal
domain was so much to their interest that we find the towns a constant
ally of monarchy in France, though the kings until Philip Augustus were
slow to recognise the advantage this gave them. In England, the support
of London was one of Stephen's chief assets. In Germany, the assistance
of the Rhine towns turned the tide in favour of Henry IV when his fortunes
were at their lowest ebb, and he never lost their support. Henry V,
depending at first on the nobles, had to throw over the towns, but he tried
energetically, though not altogether successfully, to regain their support
later on. The twelfth century was the great flowering period of corporate
town-life in Germany, aided by royal grants of self-government.
Frederick II in the thirteenth century handed the towns over to the
nobles ; they were forced to depend upon themselves, and adopted the
plan of leagues for mutual support and the furtherance of trade.
In the towns of northern and central Italy, for different reasons, this
stage had already been reached in the twelfth century; the motives
governing their actions, though the same as elsewhere, led to contrary
results. The Italian towns had been accustomed to city-organisation from
Roman times, and their geographical situation caused an earlier develop-
ment of trade and greater prosperity than elsewhere in Europe. Some
of them had already acquired charters and liberties in the eleventh century,
and they found their opportunity when they were practically left to
themselves by Lothar III and Conrad III. During this period they
suppressed the local feudal nobility, who made peaceful trading impossible,
and, getting rid of their episcopal lords, established themselves as self-
governing communities. The royal power had not assisted them, and was


## p. xx (#22) ##############################################

XX
Introduction
now the only bar to complete independence. They had violated the
sovereign rights of the Emperor, and such a breach with feudal law could
only be made good by revolution. Frederick Barbarossa was entirely
within his rights in enforcing at Roncaglia the recovery of the regalia, so
important a source of revenue, which they had usurped. The towns
justified themselves by success, and, though they consented to an outward
recognition of imperial overlordship, the tie was too slender to affect their
independence. But the league of Italian cities, its defensive purpose
achieved, did not continue, as the later leagues in Germany, for the
preservation of order and the mutual furtherance of trade. City rivalries
and trade jealousies counterbalanced the bond of common interest, and
the cities suffered from constant internal as well as external strife;
rise of oligarchies of wealth led to class struggles, and the competition
of different crafts to conflicts between the gilds.
In an age when monarchical government, secular and ecclesiastical,
was not only regarded as divinely instituted but was also the best guarantee
of peace and order, the capacity of the ruler was of the first importance
and attention is focussed upon individuals. The second half of the eleventh
century is dominated by the personality of Pope Gregory VII, the second
half of the twelfth by that of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. In the
middle period it is neither lay ruler nor ecclesiastical ruler, but a Cistercian
abbot, St Bernard, who fills the centre of the stage; and that this could
be so is a sign of the effect on medieval life of spiritual considerations.
It was the admiration felt for the holiness of his life, and his reputation
as a great and fearless preacher, that gave St Bernard his extraordinary
influence over his generation. He figures in several chapters in this volume,
and his life-story provides an epitome of most of the leading features
of contemporary human endeavour. It was an age of new monastic experi-
ments, which were of great importance in the life of the Church; for
monastic reform had preluded, and constantly recurred to reinvigorate,
the Reform of the Church as a whole. Not only did St Bernard's out-
standing personality make Cistercianism the most popular Order of the
day; his ardent zeal put new life into the older Benedictine monasteries
and materially assisted the beginnings of the other new Orders-
Carthusians, Templars, Premonstratensians, Augustinian canons; par-
ticularly did he encourage the substitution of regular for secular canons
in cathedral chapters. The twelfth century witnessed also a new wave of
intellectual endeavour, and St Bernard was the arbiter on some of the
leading questions of the day, including the condemnation of Abelard and
Arnold of Brescia in 1140, and the less successful trial of Gilbert de la


## p. xxi (#23) #############################################

Introduction
xxi
Porrée in 1147. In this way he exercised an unfortunate influence; his
rigid orthodoxy made him immediately suspicious of a critical mind, and
was more in place in combating the heresy which was already beginning
to spread in the south of France.
In a larger sphere he also predominated. It was his decision in favour
of Innocent II that settled the issue of the papal schism following the
death of Honorius II in 1130. It was his preaching that kindled the
Second Crusade, and his influence that caused the Kings of France and
Germany to participate in it; its disastrous failure reacted on his
popularity but did not deter him from attempting to assemble a new
crusade. He not only laid down rules of life for bishops, monks, secular
clergy, and laity, but he dispatched admonitions and censures, in the
plainest of language, to Popes, cardinals, and kings. Most interesting of
all is the long lecture he addressed to Eugenius III on the duties of the
papal office—the De Consideratione. In this he develops a view of the
extent of spiritual authority that did not fall short of the extreme concep-
tion of Gregory VII; he speaks of the plenitudo potestatis of the Pope and
of the two swords, material as well as spiritual, belonging to the Church.
But, on the other hand, he was quite emphatic that this power must be
used for spiritual purposes only, and the idea of the Pope as a ruler is
abhorrent to him. The Pope has a ministerium not a dominatio; the
Roman Church is the mater not the domina of all the churches; the Pope's
power is “in criminibus non in possessionibus. ” He is especially vehement
against the increasing absorption of the Pope in the pomps and secular
cares of his office, and though his treatise does not supply a very practical
solution of the difficulties with which the Pope was faced, it does convey
a timely warning, and in a sense a prophecy of the fate that was soon
to overtake the Papacy.


## p. xxii (#24) ############################################

xxii
CORRIGENDA.
Vol. III.
p. 121, 1. 19. For Courci-sur-Dive read Courci-sur-Dives.
p. 250, 1. 6. For St Vanne's read St Vannes.
INDEX.
p. 663, col. 2. For Courci-sur-Dive read Courci-sur-Dives.
Vol. IV.
p. xvi, Chap. 1, 1. 2. Delete late.
p. 119, 1. 11. For Hubaira read Hubairah.
p. 120, 11. 6-7. For still 7000 men read 7000 men to meet the advancing enemy.
p. 120, 1. 36, p. 124, 1. 10, p. 126, 11. 33, 38, p. 128, 1. 23, p. 133, 1. 5. For Semaluos
read Semalus.
p. 120, n. 2. For "Taiba' read "Țaibah. '
p. 123, passim and p. 124, 1. 6. For Thumāma read Thumămah.
p. 123, 11. 18 and 16 from bottom and p. 124, 1. 7. For īsa read ‘īsà.
p. 126, 1. 9. For Vardan read Bardanes.
p. 127, 11. 11 and 13-14.
For Harthama reud Harthamah.
p. 133, 1. 4. For Bugha read Bughā.
p. 135, 11. 3 and 8. For Balāta read Balātah.
p. 138, headline and I. 15. For Khafāja read Khafājah.
p. 234, 1. 5. For a thousand read eleven hundred.
p. 316, last line. For Kerbogha read Karboghā.
p. 359, 1. 7 from bottom. For Bizāʻa read Buzāʻah.
p. 367, 1. 22. For abandoned the Crusade read quitted the army.
p. 375, 1. 7 from bottom. For Bukaia read Buqai'ah.
p. 711, 1. 10 from bottom. For 911 read 912.
p. 899, an. 757. For Paul IV read Paul I.
Index.
p. 913, col 1. Insert entry Andrasus, p. 125 n.
p. 918, col. 1. For Balāța read Balāțah.
p. 920, col. 2. Delete entry Bizā‘a.
p. 922, col. 1. For Bugha read Bughā.
Delete entry Bukaia.
p. 922, col. 2. Insert entry Buqai'ah, the, battle of, 375.
p. 923, col. 1. Insert entry Buzā‘ah, in Syria, 359.
p. 929, col. 1. Under existing entry Constantine, the patrician, delete defeated and
slain, 135.
p. 929, col. 1. Insert new entry Constantine, patrician, defeated and slain in Sicily,
134 sq.
p. 930, col. 2. In entry Corum, for 128, 130 read 128; 130.
p. 936, col. 1. Read Enna (Castrogiovanni), in Sicily, besieged by Saracens, 135 sq. ;
finally captured, 46, 137, 138.


## p. xxiii (#25) ###########################################

Corrigenda
xxiii
p. 940, col. 1. Read Ghamr, Arab prince, 121.
Ghamr, Arab general, 128.
p. 942, col. 2. For Harthama read Harthamah.
p. 944, col. 1. For Hubaira read Hubairah.
p. 945, col. 1. For Ibn Haukal read Ibn Hauqal.
Under entry Ibrāhim ibn al-Aghlab delete 141 ;
Insert entry Ibrāhīm II, Aghlabid emir of Africa, 141.
p. 950, col. 2. Insert entry Karböghå (Qawwām-ad-Daulah Karbuqā), prince of
Mosul, at Antioch, 316, 339
p. 951, col. 1. Delete entry Kerbogha.
For Khafāja read Khafājah.
p. 957, col. 2. Manuel, the strategus, and Manuel, the Magister, are the same person.
p. 958, col. 2. Under entry Maslamah delete sq.
Insert entry Maslamah ibn Hishām, 121.
p. 959, col. 1. Read Melas, river in Cappadocia, Byzantine defeat on, 122.
Melas, river in Bithynia, 131 note.
p. 966, col. 1. Read Omar ibn Hubairah.
p. 973, col. 2. Read Ragusa, in Sicily, raided by Saracens, 137; 138 sq.
Ragusa, in Dalmatia, Robert Guiscard and, 325; etc.
p. 976, col. 1. Under entry Safşaf read 125 sq.
p. 979, col. 1. Under entry Seleucia, theme of, delete pillaged by Byzantine fleet, 130.
Insert entry Seleucia, Syrian town, pillaged by Byzantine fleet, 130.
For Semaluos read Semalus.
p. 984, col. 2. Under entry Tarsus add to list of emirs ‘Aḥmad, Naşr.
p. 985, col. 1. Under entry Theoctistus, the Logothete, delete uncle and.
p. 988, col. 2. Under entry Turcus, Bardanes, add , 126.
p. 990, col. 1. Delete entry Vardan, Armenian rebel.
VOL. V.
p. 34, 1. 18. For Bardo read Eberhard.
p. 95, 11. 5 and 4 from bottom. For a monk and, like his predecessor, at Cluny.
Sent to Rome by Abbot Hugh read a monk in some south Italian monastery'.
Sent to Rome by his abbot.
p. 95. Add note 1 See March, J. M. , Liber Pontificalis (Barcelona, 1925), p. 154, n. 3.
p. 120, 1. 19. For Adalbert read Adalbero.
p. 338, 1. 15 from bottom. For Limbourg read Limburg.
p. 389, 1. 12. For Gésa read Géza.
p. 643, l. 20. For Daz read Dax.
p. 709, 1. 9. For Fenandus read Ferrandus.
p. 883, 1. 18.