A sparse population
occupied rather than filled the space surrounded by the half-ruined
walls.
occupied rather than filled the space surrounded by the half-ruined
walls.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
It is not difficult to see however that he
was quite ready to supersede Brunhild in the task of directing the
Frankish Church; he would like to make Candidus, who was the
administrator of the papal patrimony in Provence, a kind of legate
beyond the Alps. There can be no doubt that Gregory I, had he lived,
would have succeeded by his able policy in re-establishing in Gaul the
papal authority as it had been exercised by Leo I before the fall of the
Empire. But after the death of Gregory in 604 relations between
Rome and the Franks became very rare for more than a century.
There are only one or two instances of such relations to which we can
point. Pope Martin I (649-655), for example, requested the sons of
Dagobert to assemble councils in order to combat the Monothelete
heresy, which was supported by the Byzantine Emperors. Relations
were not effectively resumed until the eighth century, but they were then
to have an immense influence upon general history.
We have already seen how, in their opposition to the Emperors of
Constantinople, the popes sought the aid of the Mayors of the Palace,
and how this alliance was concluded. We have also noticed, in passing,
how Boniface brought under the authority of the Holy See the Germanic
races whom he converted to the Christian faith. But, besides this, with
the aid of Carloman and Pepin (after 739), Boniface accomplished another
task. After the death of Dagobert the Frankish Church had fallen
into profound decadence, and Charles Martel had sunk it still lower by
conferring bishoprics and abbeys on rude and ignorant laymen. These
bishops and abbots never wore clerical vestments, but always sword
and baldric. They dissipated the property of the Church and sought
to bequeath their offices to their bastards. For eighty years no
council was called. Every vestige of education and civilisation was in
danger of being swamped. A complete reform of the Church was
necessary in the interests of society itself. To Carloman and Pepin
belongs the merit of having perceived this, and they entrusted this great
work to Boniface. Once more a series of councils was held, in the
dominions of Carloman as well as in those of Pepin; there was even a
general council of the whole kingdom in March 745 at Estinnes in
Hainault. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was restored, measures were
taken against priests of scandalous life; the clergy were encouraged to
## p. 147 (#179) ############################################
Monasteries 147
become better educated. Above all, this reformed clergy was placed
under the authority of the Papacy; the road to Rome became familiar
to them. On the one hand there was a political alliance between the
popes and the Mayors of the Palace; on the other relations were renewed
between the clergy of what had been Gaul and the Papacy. Thus was
recovered the idea of Christian unity in one sole Church under the
authority of the Pope, as the successor of the apostle Peter.
We have hitherto spoken chiefly of the secular Church, but in even
a summary account of the Church of the Merovingian period a place
must be found for the monasteries. As early as the fifth century, before
the conquest of Clovis, famous abbeys had arisen upon Gallic soil.
Such were Liguge near Poitiers, Marmoutier and St Martin in the
territory of Tours, St Honorat on one of the islands of Lerins, St
Victor at Marseilles. In the time of Clovis Caesarius founded in the
town of Aries one monastery for men and another for women. Under
Clovis and his successors monasteries rapidly increased in number.
Childebert I founded that of St Vincent, close to the gates of Paris,
afterwards to be known as St Germain-des-Pres; Chlotar I founded
St Medard of Soissons, while Radegund, the Thuringian wife whom
he had repudiated, built Ste Croix of Poitiers. To Guntram is due
the foundation of St Marcel of Chalon-sur-Saone, and the extension
of St Benignus of Dijon. Private persons followed the example of
the kings. Aridius, a friend of Gregory of Tours, founded on one
of his estates the monastery which from his name was known as
St Yrieix. All these monasteries were placed under the charge of
the bishop, who visited them and if necessary recalled the monks to
their duty. At the head of the household was placed an abbot,
generally chosen by the founder or his descendants, but in some cases
elected by the community, subject to the bishop's confirmation. Each
monastery was independent of the rest, and had a rule—regula—of its
own, based upon principles borrowed from the early monks in Egypt,
from Pachomius, Basil and the writings of Cassian and Caesarius of
Aries. The abbeys did not as yet form congregations obeying the same
rule. Since they confined themselves to serving as a refuge for souls
wounded in the battle of life, they had no influence on the outside world.
They were not centres of the religious life radiating an influence beyond
the walls of the cloister and exercising a direct action upon the Church.
This type of monastic life was the creation of an Irish monk, Colum-
banus, who landed on the Continent about the year 585. He settled in
the kingdom of Guntram, and established, in the neighbourhood of the
Vosges, three monasteries, Annegray, Luxeuil (known in Roman times
for its medicinal baths), and Fontaines. These three houses were under
his direction and he gave them a common rule, which was distinguished
by its extreme severity. Obedience was required of the monk "even
unto death," according to the example of Christ, who was faithful to
ch. v. 10—2
## p. 148 (#180) ############################################
148 Columbanus and his Disciples
His Father even unto the death of the cross. The smallest peccadillo,
the least negligence in service, was punished with strokes of the rod.
The monk must have no possessions; he must never even use the word
"my. " This rule became common to all the other abbeys which were
founded subsequently by Columbanus himself or his disciples. For
Columbanus did not remain undisturbed within the walls of Luxeuil.
Twice he was torn from his refuge by Brunhild, whose orders he
refused to obey. He wandered through Champagne, and under his
influence a monastery arose at Rebais and convents for women at
Faremoutiers and Jouarre. Later he found his way to the shores of the
Lake of Constance in Alemannia where his disciple Callus founded the
monastery which bore his name, St Gall. He ended his days on
23 November 615 in Italy, where the monastery of Bobbio claims him
as its founder. Loyal disciples of his had reformed or founded in Gaul
a large number of monasteries; in no similar period were so many
founded as between the years 610 and 650. We can mention only the
most famous—Echternach, Prlim, Etival, Senones, Moyenmoutier, St
Mihiel-sur-Meuse, Malmedy and Stavelot. Many of these monasteries
received from one hundred to two hundred monks.
All these abbeys obeyed the same rule and were animated by the
same spirit; they formed a sort of congregation. In general they
declared themselves independent of the bishop—ad modum Luxoven-
sium. They chose their abbots and administered their property freely.
Moreover these monks did not confine themselves within the walls
of their monasteries; they desired to play a part in the Church.
St Wandrille claimed that the monks should not merely be allowed to
count the years which they spent in the cloister, but those also in which
they travelled in the service of God. The disciples of Columbanus
were preachers like himself; they proclaimed the necessity of penance,
the expiation of every mistake according to a fixed scale, as in the rule of
the monastery, and at this time penitentials began to be widely circulated.
The sense of sin became very keen among the people, and they multiplied
gifts to the Church in order to atone for their transgressions. The monks
also became missionaries; each abbey was, so to speak, the head-quarters
of a mission. St Gall completed the conversion of the Alemans, Eustasius
abbot of Luxeuil converted the heretical Warasci in the neighbourhood
of Besancon and went to preach the Gospel in Bavaria. But the very
number of these monasteries caused the defects of the rule of Colum-
banus to be quickly perceived. This rule did not provide for the
administration of the monastery; it did not prescribe, hour by hour,
the employments of the day; then, again, it was too severe, too crush-
ing, and often reduced men to despair. Now, about a hundred years
earlier (c. 529), Benedict of Nursia had given to the monastery of Monte
Cassino an admirable rule; this rule was not known in France until
after the death of Columbanus and the remarkable growth of monasteries
## p. 149 (#181) ############################################
Spread of the Benedictine Rule 149
connected with him, but once known its advantages were soon recognised.
All the questions which Columbanus had left unsettled here received a
practical solution. It regulated the relations of the abbot with the
monks and of the monks with one another; it prescribed the employ-
ments of the day and the hours to be divided between prayer, manual
work and study. Mystical speculations are left aside; there is something
of the legal spirit of ancient Rome in these clearly-drawn precepts.
The rule of St Benedict at first appeared as a rival alongside of that of
St Columbanus; but after the great ecclesiastical reform associated with
the name of Boniface it reigned alone; and a little later Louis the
son of Charles the Great imposed it (817) upon all the monasteries of
his realm. The impetuous torrent which Columbanus had let loose
was thus turned into a wide channel, in which its waters could flow
calmly.
Merovingian society was composed of remarkably definite gradations,
each man having his fixed price, so to speak, marked by the wergeld.
At the bottom of the scale was the slave. The Germans as well as the
Romans had possessed slaves, and their number was increased in the
Merovingian period. After a war the prisoners were often reduced to
servitude; many of these unfortunates belonged to the Slav race, and
the name slave gradually took the place of servus. There were also
slave-dealers who went to seek their human merchandise overseas; young
Anglo-Saxons were much sought after on account of their beauty. Then
again, a man who could not pay his debts, or a fine inflicted by the courts,
fell into servitude; and a freeman who married a slave lost his freedom.
Slaves were looked on as chattels; the master could sell them or give
them away at his pleasure. Anyone who stole or killed a slave paid
a fine of thirty solid/, just the same amount as was paid for stealing a
horse, and this compensation was paid to the master: the slave was not
considered to have any family. Slaves were often very cruelly treated
by their masters; Duke Rauching for example made his slaves put out
torches by pressing them against their naked legs. The Church however
took up their cause; it declared unions between slaves which had been
blessed by the priest to be legitimate, and earnestly exhorted masters
not to separate husband and wife, parents and children.
Slaves could escape from their condition by enfranchisement. In the
Merovingian period there were two kinds of solemn enfranchisement,
that per denarium before the king, by which the former slave acquired
the rights of a Frankish freeman, and that of the Church, by which
he became a free Roman. In both cases he was discharged from all
obligation towards his former master, but remained in a certain
dependence on the king, who fell heir to the property of slaves if
they had no children born after their enfranchisement. But usually the
slave was simply freed by a written statement to that effect given by the
## p. 150 (#182) ############################################
150 Classes of Society
master, and a freedman of this kind, known as libertus or lidus, remained
in a position of close dependence upon his former master. He could, it
is true, plead in the courts and enter into binding agreements, but he
paid his patron a yearly fee known as the ltdimonium, and if he died
without issue his patron became his heir. The freedman usually retained
the land which he had cultivated as a slave, but instead of being a
servilts holding it became a lidilis holding.
On the large estates there was a third class of holding, the marm
ingenuiles. These were held by the coloni, the descendants of the
former Roman coloni. Theoretically these coloni were free, but they
were bound to their holdings; they could not quit them without the
permission of the owner, and if they ran away they were brought back
by force. But, on the other hand, so long as they paid their rent,
they could not be expelled from their holdings and might cultivate
them as they chose. They thus form an intermediate class between the
slaves who were tied to one place and the freemen, to whom all roads
stood open.
The freemen might belong either to the conquering race, the Franks,
or the conquered race, the Gallo-Romans; and the two races were under
different laws. The Salic law fixes the wergeld of a Salian Frank at two
hundred golidi, that of the Roman at one hundred only. But we must
not conclude from this that there was a great gulf fixed between the two
races. Where both parties to a case were Gallo-Romans, they were
judged according to the Roman law; when a Gallo-Roman was accused
by a Frank, judgment was still given according to the Roman law; it
was only in a case where a Frank was the defendant that the Salic law
was applied, and it is quite natural that this law should be more severe
upon the murder of a man of the same race than on that of a Roman.
Besides, the further we advance in Merovingian history, the more the
two races become intermingled. The Franks admired the Roman
civilisation and endeavoured to assimilate it; they learned the common
language of Gaul, which was in process of becoming Romanic; they
even prided themselves on learning to speak pure Latin. The Gallo-
Romans, on their part, adopted the military customs of the barbarians.
They frequently gave Germanic names to their children. Both nations
were Christian, and the common faith contributed to bring them
together.
In theory all these freemen were equal, but little by little dis-
tinctions arose among them. In default of a nobility with hereditary
privileges, there grew up an aristocracy, potentes, priores, who exercised a
powerful influence. These great men belonged generally to the ancient
Gallo-Roman senatorial families, who held vast estates and possessed
great wealth. From these families the king chose the great officers of
state and the people of the cities chose their bishops; thus there was
added to their wealth political power, or the veneration attaching to
## p. 151 (#183) ############################################
Origin of Vassalage 151
the sacred office of the priesthood. The Franks who possessed large
estates became assimilated to these Roman senators and there thus grew
up an aristocracy composed of members of the two races.
In consequence of the troublous times which were the rule in Gaul
in the seventh century, the poor and the weak could not depend on the
protection of the State, and sought protection from one or other of these
powerful personages. They put themselves under his mundeburdis as it
was called in Germanic; they "commended" themselves to him, accord-
ing to the expression borrowed from Roman usage, and this expression
is suitable enough, for they became in fact clients of these great men.
The patron undertook to maintain his clients, to support them in
law cases, to further their interests; in return, the client promised to
serve his patron on all occasions, to defend him if he were attacked,
and to take the field along with him if he attacked anyone else. Each
of these great personages had thus under his orders a more or less
numerous body of men. To mark these new social conditions new terms
were created, or a new sense was given to ancient terms. The protector
was called the senior; the client was called vassus. In the Salic law
the term vassal simply meant a slave attached to the personal service
of his master; at the close of the Merovingian period it always
means one of these voluntary dependents. Those who felt the need
of protection could "commend" themselves not only to wealthy
private persons but also to royal officers, to the dukes and counts,
to the officials of the palace; but above all they could commend
themselves to the king himself. In that case the sovereign exercised
a double authority over them; first, his public authority as king, and
secondly a more special protection, parallel, in so far, to that of the
seignior. In time the strength of the king came to depend in large
measure on the number of his vassals. The subjection of the individual
to the State was replaced by a personal subjection to the king, and the
population of the country came to be composed of groups of men bound
to one another by personal ties. Thus we find the germs of the feudal
system already present in the seventh century.
A time was to come when to this subordination of persons there
should be added a subordination of lands. In order to understand this
evolution, which was to have so great a historical importance, we must
first examine the conditions on which property was held.
With the exception of the towns the soil of Gaul was divided, in
the Merovingian period, into large estates, called villae or fundi. These
estates usually bore the name of their original holder; thus the villae
called Victoriacus had belonged to a man named Victorius, and the
modern villages which have descended from these villae have kept the
old names. Variously transformed according to the district in which
they lie, they are known to-day as Vitrac, Vitrec, Vitre, Vitrey or Vitry.
Similarly villae bearing the name Sabiniacus have become our villages
## p. 152 (#184) ############################################
152 The Merovingian Villa
of Savignae, Savignec, Sevigne, Savigneux. Many of these estates,
especially in the north and east, changed their names after the invasions,
taking the names of their barbarian owners. Thus Theodonis villa,
Thionville, Ramberti villare, Rambervillers, Arnulfi curtis, Harcourt,
Bodegiteli vaUis, Bougival near Paris. In the seventh century some
estates took the name of the saint to whom the church was dedicated:
Dompierre, Dommartin, St Pierre, St Martin. Some villae again took
their names from some particular variety of trees or plantations;
Roboretum has become Rouvray, Rouvres; Rosariae and Cannaberiae have
given us the names of our modern villages Rosieres and Chennevieres.
It often happened that through sale, exchange or division among
brothers, a villa was divided between several owners, but it none the
less retained its unity and organisation.
The lands of the villa were divided into two portions. One, consisting
of the lands lying round about the house of the owner, was farmed
directly by him. The other portion was divided up into lots or holdings
(mansi), of which the owner gave the use to his slaves, his lidi, or to
freemen ; whence comes the distinction between mansi seroiles, lidiles and
ingenviles, of which we have spoken above. Each tenant cultivated his
holding for his own profit, but in return for its use was obliged to pay a
rent to the owner and to render him certain services. The houses
occupied by the tenants were either isolated, in the mountainous districts,
or grouped together within a small area. A villa was self-sufficing;
besides the cultivators there were the workmen who made or repaired
the tools and implements. There was a mill and a wine-press which
served the whole population of the villa, and often there was a forge
also. It had its own chapel, of which the priest (often born on the
estate) was appointed by the master, with the consent of the bishop.
The woods surrounding the villa remained in possession of the land-
owner, but he gave the tenants rights of user. Over all the dwellers
on the estate he exercised a seigniorial jurisdiction.
There still existed, no doubt, alongside of the great estates or zuUae
a number of small estates belonging to freemen. But these small estates
tended to disappear in the course of the seventh century. The fact was
that the small proprietors were unable to defend their estates; they had
no inducement to sell them, for money would have been of little value to
them; accordingly they "commended themselves" to some great man
of the neighbourhood, handing over their property to him. He in
turn gave them the use of it for life, and thus they were at least certain
of occupying it in security until the end of their days. Previously they
had held their lands ex alode or de alode parentum, by inheritance
from their ancestors, with the right of using it as they chose; henceforth
they held it per benejicium, in consequence of a grant made by the
great seignior. When agreements of this kind became frequent, two
varieties of landed property were distinguished, allodial lands which
## p. 153 (#185) ############################################
Origin of the Benefice 153
were held by the owner in person, and "benefices,11 of which the use
was granted by a large proprietor to another person during the lifetime
of the latter.
Many circumstances contributed to multiply these benefices. The
Church, which had large estates and could not get them all cultivated
by its serfs, lidi and coloni, let parts of them to freemen, who culti-
vated them, and at the death of the tenant the land returned, in an
improved condition, into the hands of the Church. This mode of
tenure was already known to the Roman law (precarium). It sometimes
happened that in exchange for a grant of this kind, the grantee made
a gift to the Church of an estate of similar value belonging to himself.
Thenceforward he had the usufruct of both estates, that of the Church
as well as his own; but at his death the Church took possession of both.
The grantee had the advantage during his life of a doubled income, and
on his death the Church doubled its property. But it often happened
that the Church, which was, as we know, very powerful, received the
lands of private persons in the manner described without adding any-
thing of its own, only conceding to the former owner a life-use of the
property. Thus in various ways the allodial lands disappeared, and
benefices became every day more numerous.
Up to this point we have seen the beneficiaries solicit the benefice
and take the initiative in obtaining it. These beneficiaries remained
bound by ties of gratitude to their benefactor, they exerted themselves
to serve him and marched with him when he went to battle; they were
his vassi. Before long a man's power was measured by the number
of his vassi, the army of his clients; and then the great men, in
order to increase their clientage, and consequently their influence, began
themselves to offer benefices to those whom they desired to attach to
themselves and gain as adherents.
The king, or the Mayor of the Palace who replaced him, needed to
be able to count on the great men for the wars, whether foreign or civil,
in which he engaged. Obligation towards the State was too abstract a
conception to be understood, and the mere sense of duty was not strong
enough to keep the great men loyal. The king therefore began to
distribute lands to these great men. At first he gave them abso-
lutely, but before long these lands were assimilated to the benefices.
This evolution took place especially at the time when Charles Martel
laid hands upon the property of the Church and distributed it in his
own name to his warriors. The property of the Church was inalienable,
it could not be given as an absolute possession. The warriors were only
the life-tenants of it, and at their death it reverted to the Church.
These estates were therefore simply ecclesiastical benefices, granted
by the king or the mayor. Once this precedent had been established,
estates granted by the king from his own lands were granted on the
same conditions, merely for the lifetime of the grantee.
## p. 154 (#186) ############################################
154 Charters of Immunity
Another great change took place about the same time. One reason
why Charles Martel made grants of ecclesiastical property to his warriors
was that they had now to support great expense. They served in his
armies no longer as foot soldiers but as cavalry, and their equipment was
very costly. The revenue of the lands which were granted to them
served as an indemnity against the expenses of military service. Thus
it came to be considered that the benefice carried with it the obligation
of military service. Under Charles the Great, the holders of royal lands
were bound to be first at the muster; and before long it was an under-
stood thing that, when a private person who had granted benefices
marched to the wars, all his beneficiaries, who were also his vassals, must
accompany him. Thus at the end of the Merovingian period the
characteristics of the later fief are taking shape. The eleventh century
fief is the direct descendant of the eighth century benefice, of which we
have just traced the origin.
Another characteristic of the fief is that the holder of it exercises
thereon all the powers of the State: he levies taxes, administers justice
and summons the men of the fief to follow him to war. Now even in the
Merovingian period on some of the great domains the State resigned a
portion of its rights to the proprietor or seignior, and thus we find present,
from this time onward, all the germs of the feudal system. We have
seen how great were the powers of the count and the other royal officials:
they often abused these powers, and the proprietors of the great estates
complained to the king of their tyranny. In many cases the king listened
to their complaints and gave them charters of immunity forbidding
all public officials to enter their estates, to claim right of lodging, to try
causes, to levy the Jredus or other impost, or to compel the men to attend
the muster of the royal army. Thenceforward the men of this privileged
territory had nothing more to do with the agents of the government;
the agents of the proprietpr took their place; and before long the
proprietor himself levied the former state-taxes, judged cases in his
private court and regarded it as within his competence to deal with all
offences committed upon his domain. He led his men in person to join
the royal army, and he was naturally tempted to use them also in
the prosecution of his private quarrels. If we remember the extent of
some of the domains, which comprised a number of villae and were some-
times as large as a modern canton, we see how great was the area which
was withdrawn from the authority of the royal officials, if not from that
of the king himself. The estates which enjoyed these immunities were
veritable seigniories. Alongside of the institutions of the State there had
thus arisen another set of institutions which came into collision with the
former and brought about the decay of the authority of the State. All
the elements of feudalism—commendations, benefices, and immunities
—are in existence without its being possible to say that feudalism is as
yet constituted, because the elements are not combined into a system.
## p. 155 (#187) ############################################
Industry and Commerce 155
But before this system came into operation Charles the Great was to
re-establish a strong centralised government; he was to make these social
forces serve the interests of the State itself, and by his genius was to
restore with incomparable brilliancy that Frankish monarchy which at
the close of the Merovingian period had seemed likely to disappear.
The Merovingian period as a whole is without doubt a melancholy
period. It marks in history what must be called an eclipse of civilisation,
and it deserves to be described as a barbaric era. Nevertheless, it must
not be imagined that the two hundred and seventy years, which it
includes were, so to speak, sunk in unbroken gloom. Even in this period
it is possible to note some facts concerning industry and commerce, arts
and letters.
Industry found refuge chiefly in the country districts, where each
estate produced for itself all the supplies necessary to agricultural work
and common life. The towns themselves took on a country-like air.
The ancient buildings—temples, basilicas, baths—had been destroyed
during the invasions and their ruins lay on the ground; the only con-
siderable buildings now erected were churches.
A sparse population
occupied rather than filled the space surrounded by the half-ruined
walls. Many houses had disappeared and wide areas lay vacant;
these were turned into fields or vineyards, and thus in the interior
of formerly populous cities there were closes and culturae. Outside the
ramparts there rose, in many cases, a high-walled monastery—a sacred
city alongside of the secular city—and these monasteries became new
centres of population. Within the decayed cities we nevertheless find,
at all events at first, some traces of industry. There is mention in the
sixth and seventh centuries of workshops for the manufacture of cloth at
Treves, at Metz and at Rheims. There were also potteries, and numerous
specimens of their art have been found in the tombs. The Merovingians
had a taste for finely wrought arms, for sword-belt buckles of damascene
work, for jewellery and gold-plate. The Merovingian goldsmiths were
skilful. Eligius, son of a minter at Limoges, attained by the aid of his
art to the highest posts; he became the counsellor of Dagobert and bishop
of Noyon. There was also in the Merovingian period a certain amount
of commercial activity. The Franks imported from abroad spices,
papyrus and silk fabrics. This merchandise was either brought to the
ports of Marseilles, Aries and Narbonne, or came by way of the Black
Sea and the Danube. In the time of Dagobert a Frankish merchant
named Samo went to trade on the banks of the Elbe, and there formed
a great Slav kingdom which had its centre in Bohemia, and extended from
the Havel to the Styrian Alps. The merchants of the town of Verdun
formed an association in the time of Theudibert, about 540. The king
aided them by lending them, at the request of the bishop Desiderius, 7000
aurei. They were thus enabled to put their business on a sound footing.
## p. 156 (#188) ############################################
156 Kenantius Fortunatus
and in the time of Gregory of Tours the wealth of these merchants was
renowned. But commerce was chiefly in the hands of Byzantines and
Jews. The Byzantines, who were generally known by the name of
Syrians, whether they came from Asia or from Europe, had important
trading-stations at Marseilles, at Bordeaux, at Orleans. When in 585
Guntram made his entry into the last-named city he was welcomed with
cries of acclamation in the Syriac language. Simeon Stylites conversed
with Syrian merchants who had seen Ste Genevieve at Paris. In 591 a
Syrian named Eusebius was even appointed bishop of Paris, and gave
offices in the Church to his compatriots. The Jews, on their part, formed
prosperous colonies. Maintaining friendly relations with their co-
religionists in Italy, Spain, and the East, they were able to give a wide
extension to their business, and, as the Christian Church forbade the
lending of money at interest, all dealing in money, all banking business,
was soon in their hands. Five hundred Jews were settled at Clermont-
Ferrand; at Marseilles and Narbonne they were more numerous still.
The Jew Priscus acted as agent in purchases made by King Chilperic, who
held disputations with him concerning the Holy Trinity.
Intellectual culture naturally declined during the Merovingian
period. Nevertheless in the sixth century there are still two names
which are celebrated in the history of literature, those of the poet
Fortunatus and the historian Gregory of Tours. Fortunatus, it is
true, was born in Italy and educated in the Schools of Ravenna; but
his verses, with their wealth of mythological allusions, pleased the taste
of the Frankish lords and the Merovingian kings, of whom he was
to some extent a flatterer. He sang the praises of all the monarchs
of his period, Charibert, Sigebert and Chilperic; he even lavished
on Fredegund his paid panegyrics:
Omnibus excellens meritis Fredegundis ojnma.
Becoming the adviser of Queen Radegund he settled in her neigh-
bourhood at Poitiers. He there became first priest, and then bishop.
It was at this period that he wrote those charming notes in verse,
thanking Radegund for the delicacies which she sent him and describing,
with a slightly sensual gourmandise, the pleasure he derived from a good
dinner; but at the same time he finds a more energetic strain in which
to deplore the sorrows of Thuringia. And, also doubtless at the request
of his patroness, he wrote the fine hymns which the Church still uses in
the Vexilla regis prodeunt and the Pange lingua.
If Fortunatus was the sole poet of the Merovingian period Gregory
of Tours is almost the sole historian. In his work, the History of the
Franks, this troublous period lives again, with its vices, crimes and
passions. The portraits which he gives us of Chilperic, Guntram and
Brunhild are painted with extraordinary vividness. His work manifests
real literary power. Critics sometimes speak of the naivete of Gregory,
## p. 157 (#189) ############################################
Gregory of Tours 167
but we must not deceive ourselves; this naivete is a matter of deliberate
art Gregory does not of course observe strict grammatical correctness;
he is by no means Ciceronian; he writes the language as it was spoken
in his day. In a few passages only, where he is obviously writing with
conscious effort, he employs rare and poetical expressions, as for example
in the account of the baptism of Clovis, in the description of Dijon, in
the narrative of his quarrels with Count Leudastes. But to these we
prefer those pages where he lets himself go, and writes with his natural
vigour, where he slips in malicious reflexions as it were unconsciously, or
where he excoriates his adversaries. He has the real gift of story-telling
and has justly been called the barbarian Herodotus. After his day
all culture disappeared. A vast difference separates him from his
continuator, the chronicler who has been named—we do not know for
what reason—Fredegar. The chronicle of Fredegar is composed of
scraps and fragments from various sources. One of the authors from
whom extracts are made writes, "The world is growing old; the keenness
of intelligence is becoming blunted in us; no one in the present age can
compare with the orators of past times,'1 and this phrase might be applied
to the whole of the work. Nevertheless there are still found in Fredegar
attempts at portraits of some of the Mayors of the Palace, Bertoald,
Protadius, Aega, whereas in the last chronicler of the period, the Neustrian
who compiled the Liber Historiae Francorum, there is no longer any-
thing of that kind; it is a very meagre chronicle of the rois fainiants.
The lives of the saints, which are still numerous enough, are singularly
monotonous; they rarely inform us of any facts and are as like each
other as one ecclesiastical image is to another.
A certain number of churches were built during the Merovingian
period, such as those of Clermont, Nantes and Lyons, without counting
the abbey churches such as St Martin de Tours and St Vincent or
St Germain-des-Pres at Paris, but of these great buildings no trace
remains to us. The only remnants of buildings of this period belong to
less important edifices, such as the baptisteries of Riez in Provence and
St Jean de Poitiers, the crypt of St Laurent at Grenoble, and of
the abbey of Jouarre. The great churches which are known to us from
descriptions generally have a nave and two side-aisles with a transept, and
are in the form of a Latin cross. At the point of intersection of nave and
transept there was a tower, which at first served by way of "Lantern,''''
but afterwards to hang bells in. On the walls were placed numerous
inscriptions, sentences taken from the Scriptures, verses in honour of the
saints. Pictures recalled to the faithful the history of the saints or
scenes from Scripture. Often, instead of pictures the walls, as well as
the floor, were covered with mosaic-work in which gold was freely used;
a basilica at Toulouse was known for this reason as la Daurade. Sculpture
in high relief was unknown, even in bas-reliefs the human figure appears
very rarely after the sixth century. The artists could no longer even
## p. 158 (#190) ############################################
158 Merovingian Art
trace the outlines of animals, they drew conventional animals which are
difficult to recognise, geometrical designs or roseate and foliate forms.
Some houses which Fortunatus describes to us seem still to have had
a fine appearance. Such was the castle built by Nicetius, bishop of
Treves, on a hill overlooking the Moselle. The single entrance gate was
commanded by a tower; a mechanical contrivance raised water from the
river to turn a mill. This is quite a medieval donjon-keep. There
were great houses too at Bissonnum and Vereginis villa, belonging to
the bishop Leontius of Bordeaux, where under porticoes formed by
three rows of columns guests could promenade sheltered from rays of
the sun. But such dwellings must have been exceptional; the ordinary
houses surrounded by the necessary appurtenances must have resembled
farms rather than castles. Merovingian art however is mainly repre-
sented by the numerous pieces of jewellery which have been discovered,
as was mentioned earlier. This art is certainly of Oriental origin: it
was practised not among the Franks only, but among the other bar-
barian peoples of the West, and even here are found the same decorative
ornaments.
In art as well as in literature the seventh century and beginning
of the eighth are marked by a profound decadence. But just at the
period of blackest barbarism the Frankish kingdom came into contact
with Italy, the mother of arts and sciences, where the monuments of
antiquity were preserved; and with England, where the monks still
studied in their cloisters, and where the Venerable Bede had founded a
school of worthy disciples. The Anglo-Saxons and the Italians brought
to the Franks the treasures they had safely guarded; the Emperor
Charles the Great recognised that it belonged to the duties of his office
to spread enlightenment, to foster art and literature; and at length,
after this night of darkness, there shone forth the brilliance of a true
renaissance.
## p. 159 (#191) ############################################
159
CHAPTER VI.
SPAIN UNDER THE VISIGOTHS.
Of the Gothic kings, it was Euric who really conquered the Iberian
peninsula. We cannot indeed exactly determine the extent of his
conquests. If we accepted in their literal signification the words of
Jordanes, Mas Hispanias, we should have to believe that Euric ruled
over the whole peninsula; but those words are inexact, because we
must except not only the Suevic State, but also other territories of the
south and centre, which were not conquered by the Visigoths until
considerably later. St Isidore, with reference to the campaigns of Euric,
uses the words Hispania superior, which Hinojosa takes to mean Spain
with the exception of Vasconia, Cantabria, and possibly the two
Conventus of Saragossa and Clunia. Other writers allude to the con-
quest of districts in the north-east and south-east; and lastly, from the
decrees of various councils held between 516 and 546, and from other
evidence, we conclude that, near the end of the fifth century, the Visigoths
held in Spain practically the whole of the ancient province Tarraconensis
with the almost certain exception of part of Vasconia—most of the
provinces of Carthaginensis and some portion of Baetica and Lusitania,
and Galicia; while the rest of Lusitania remained in the hands of the
Sueves, and the Balearic Isles still belonged to the Empire. In Gaul
the Visigothic kingdom was bounded on the north-west by the Franks,
on the north-east by the kingdom of Syagrius, and on the east by the
Burgundians; thus it stretched from the Loire to the Pyrenees, and
from the Atlantic to Aries.
International complications immediately confronted the Visigothic
king, Alaric II (485-507). They originated in the ambition of the
Frankish king, Clovis, whose predecessors had fought against Euric.
The first encounter between the two powers was brought about by Clovis1
invasion (486) of the kingdom of Syagrius, whom he defeated, and
forced to take refuge in Toulouse, under the protection of Alaric. The
Frank demanded his surrender. According to Gregory of Tours, Alaric
was afraid of incurring the wrath of Clovis, and consented to give up
Syagrius. But this docility on the part of Alaric did not deter Clovis
from his determination to take possession of as much of Visigothic
Gaul as possible. He could rely on a good deal of help from the
outcome of his conversion to Catholicism in 496. The clergy and the
## p. 160 (#192) ############################################
160 Battle of VougU [507
Catholic inhabitants of Gaul, both in the Burgundian and in the
Visigothic provinces, looked upon Clovis as the leader destined to deliver
them from Arian oppression. Even during the reign of Euric, there
had been serious disagreement between the Catholic element and the
monarch, which had given rise to persecution. The ground was there-
fore well prepared, and from the evidence of contemporary chroniclers
it is clear that Clovis did not fail to take advantage of this inclination
on the part of the Catholics, and that he stirred up public opinion in
his favour. This led Alaric to adopt rigorous measures in the case of
sundry Catholic bishops, whom he banished on the more or less well-
founded charge of conspiring with the Franks. In due course Alaric
prepared for war. He summoned to arms all his subjects, Visigoths and
Gallo-Romans, clergy and laymen, collected sums of money, and when war
was imminent (506) he tried to conciliate the Catholic clergy and the
Roman element as a whole by the publication of the code which bears
his name (the Breviarium Alarici), and by other demonstrations of
tolerance. The code consisted of passages of Roman Law, which only
applied to questions of private legislation among the non-Visigothic
population. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who was related by
marriage to Alaric and Clovis, attempted to avert war by personal
mediation, to which, at his instigation, were added the entreaties of the
Burgundians, Thuringians, Warni and Heruli, old friends of Euric.
This mediation, to which Cassiodorus alludes, only served to postpone the
crisis.
War broke out in 507. On the part of Clovis it was a war of
religion, to free Gaul from the Arian heretics. Yet his policy was not
quite so effectual as we might have expected, for a considerable part of
Alaric's Catholic subjects fought on his side, displaying great courage.
This was the case with the people of Auvergne, who, under the command
of Apollinaris, son of the famous bishop Sidonius, formed an important
element of the Visigothic army. It was a short campaign. The decisive
battle was fought in the Campus Vocladensis, which seems to corre-
spond to Vouille, near Poitiers, on the banks of the river Clain1.
The battle proved disastrous to Alaric, who was himself slain by
Clovis. As a result of this victory, the Franks possessed themselves
of the greater part of Gothic Gaul. At the close of 507, Clovis
seized Bordeaux; in the spring of 508, he took Toulouse, where he laid
hands on the treasure of Alaric; shortly afterwards, he entered Angouleme.
His son Theodoric conquered the country round Albi and Rodez, and
the small towns on the Burgundian frontier. Moreover, the dioceses of
Eauze, Bazas and Auch were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom.
To the Visigoths remained only the district afterwards called Septimania,
bounded by the Cevennes, the Rhone and the sea, with its capital at
Narbonne.
1 There is some dispute about the exact site
## p. 161 (#193) ############################################
498-mi] Death of Clovis 161
In addition to this war with the Franks, Alaric had to contend with
a rebellion of the Bagaudae of Tarragona, whose chief, Burdurellus, was
taken prisoner at Toulouse, and there slain (498). On the death of
Alaric, the Visigothic magnates chose for their king his illegitimate son
Gisalic, instead of Amalaric, his legitimate heir. Theodoric, the king
of the Ostrogoths and grandfather of Amalaric, opposed him by armed
intervention, and thus re-established the right of succession to the
throne and saved the Visigothic kingdom from total destruction.
Gisalic, who is represented by the historians of the period as being very
wicked and cowardly, was defeated in the neighbourhood of Narbonne
by the Burgundians, at that time the allies of Clovis. He fled to
Barcelona, whence he was expelled by the troops of Theodoric. He
then took refuge in Africa at the court of the king of the Vandals,
who refused to support his claims; afterwards, under the protection of
Clovis, he returned to Gaul, and was killed there. Meanwhile, the
Burgundians, who had taken possession of Narbonne, combined with
the Franks, and besieged Aries: but they were defeated by the army of
Theodoric, under command of his general Ibbas, who compelled them to
withdraw from Carcassonne. Thus, almost all the cities of the province
of Narbonne, including the capital, were reconquered, and the whole of
Visigothic Spain was placed in subjection to Theodoric, albeit in the
name of Amalaric. The final episode of the war was the raising of the
siege of Aries in 510; this city was heroically defended by its inhabitants
assisted by the Ostrogothic general Tulum. Shortly afterwards (511)
Clovis died, and the city of Rodez reverted to the Visigoths. The part
of Provence which Theodoric had conquered remained, for the time
being, united to the other territories, but, on the death of Theodoric,
it became part of the Ostrogothic kingdom in consequence of a treaty
between Amalaric and Theodoric's successor Athalaric.
As regards internal policy, matters were settled on the following
terms: Amalaric, a minor, was to be king of the Visigoths, and his
grandfather Theodoric acted as his guardian. Indeed, for fifteen years,
Theodoric was the real ruler of the kingdom both in Gaul and Spain.
Theodoric tried to make his rule agreeable to the Visigoths. He adhered
to the system, privileges and customs of the time of Alaric; he remitted
taxation in the districts which had been especially impoverished by the
war; he supplied Aries with money and provisions, and in order that
his troops might not prove a burden to the inhabitants, he sent them
corn and gold from Italy. His conduct as a guardian was particularly
advantageous to Spain. He there displayed all the wise and vigorous
policy which had rendered so illustrious his rule in Italy and which was
all the more vital to Spain on account of the immorality and anarchy
which had crept into the government during the decline of the
Empire. Theodoric recovered for the Crown the exclusive right to
coin money, which was being exercised by a few private individuals; he
C. MED. B. VOt. II. CH. VI. 11
## p. 162 (#194) ############################################
162 Amalaric [526-533
contrived to put an end to the extortions practised by the collectors of
taxes and by the administrators of the royal patrimony (conductores
villici) to the detriment of the State funds. It appears that, in the
name of Theodoric, the Peninsula was at one time governed by two
officials, viz. Ampelius and Liberius, and at another by one alone, viz.
Theudis. Some of the chronicles allude to these officials as consules,
and it is probable that their authority extended over every branch of
the administration. On the death of Theodoric in 526, his ward
Amalaric assumed complete royal power over the Visigoths. The Frankish
peril, which had hitherto been held at bay by the prestige of the Ostro-
goths, still presented a threatening aspect. The sons of Clovis were
longing to extend their dominion in Gaul by the conquest of the part
occupied by the Visigoths. Amalaric attempted to avert the danger
by means of an alliance and, after repeated demands, he succeeded in
obtaining the hand of Clotilda, daughter of Clovis; but this marriage,
which he had regarded as a means of salvation, supplied the Frankish
kings with the very pretext they desired. Amalaric did his utmost to
make Clotilda abjure the Catholic Faith and embrace Arianism, and
according to Gregory of Tours actually ill-treated her. Clotilda made
complaint to her brother Childebert, and he hastened to declare open
war in Septimania. Near Narbonne he defeated the army of Amalaric
(531); the latter fled, but, according to Jordanes and Isidore, he was
shortly afterwards slain by his own soldiers. Childebert took possession
of Narbonne, where he joined his sister, and seized considerable treasure.
The position of the Visigoths could hardly have been worse. With-
out the hope of finding a powerful defender such as Theodoric, they
found themselves threatened by the Franks, a nation naturally war-
like, and further emboldened by its conquest of Aquitaine. In fact,
dating from the defeat of Amalaric, the Visigothic kingdom may be
regarded as consisting of Spanish territory, and its capital was then
transferred from Gaul to the Iberian peninsula. But they had the
good fortune to find a man who was equal to the occasion. This was
Theudis the Ostrogoth, who had been governor of Spain in the time
of Theodoric, and who had settled in the Peninsula, where he had
married a very wealthy Spanish woman, the owner, according to
Procopius, of more than 2000 slaves and dependents. When Theudis
had been formally elected king, he began to make preparations for the
ejection of the Franks, who, in this same year (531), had entered the
kingdom by way of Cantabria, and in 532 had annexed a small territory
near Beziers. In 533 Childebert joined forces with his brother, Chlotar I,
invaded Navarre, took possession of Pampeluna, and marched as far as
Saragossa, to which he laid siege. The inhabitants resisted bravely:
thus the Visigoths had time to send two armies to their assistance; of
these one was commanded by Theudis himself, and the other by bis
general Theudegesil. At their approach the Franks retreated as fax
▼^
## p. 163 (#195) ############################################
533-554] Athanagild 163
as the Pyrenees. They were seriously defeated by the army of Theudis;
but Theudegesil, whom they succeeded in bribing, permitted them to
escape, and to bear with them the treasures which they had acquired
during the campaign. Among these was the body of St Vincent, the
martyr, for which they built near Paris a church, that afterwards known
as St Germain-des-Pres. After having thus ejected the Franks, Theudis
undertook an expedition to the coast of Africa, which was being conquered
by the army of the Byzantines. By this expedition, made in 543, Theudis
only acquired temporary possession of Ceuta, which was shortly after-
wards retaken by the Emperor, for in 544 Justinian alludes to it as his
own. Four years later, in 548, Theudis was assassinated in Seville by
a man who pretended to be mad. His successor, Theudegesil, only
reigned for sixteen months. We know nothing more of him than that
he was a man of immoral conduct, and that in 549 he too was assassi-
nated in Seville.
The fact that the Visigoths possessed Seville does not mean that they
ruled over the whole of Baetica. On the contrary, the greater part of
it was independent, controlled by the Spanish-Roman nobles, who since
the time of Majorian, and even before, had obtained possession of the
country. Agila, the successor of Theudegesil, set himself to conquer
these independent territories; he was defeated before Cordova by the
Andalusians, who slew his son, and possessed themselves of the royal
treasure. This defeat (which the chroniclers regard as a divine punishment
for Agila's profanation of the tomb of St Acisclus), his tyrannical
behaviour and his hostility to the Catholics, who constituted the bulk
of the Spanish population, were turned to account by Athanagild, a
Visigothic noble who had designs on the crown. In order to make sure
of success, he solicited the support of the Emperor Justinian, who sent
him a powerful army under the command of his general Liberius (544).
The Byzantines were probably assisted by the inhabitants of the country
who, on account of their Catholic Faith, were bound to welcome the
imperial forces and the person of Athanagild, concerning whom Isidore
himself states that he was secretly a Catholic. They had, therefore, no
difficulty in possessing themselves of the most important towns on the
coasts of the Mediterranean, more particularly those in the east and
south, i. e. the district round Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia. Agila
was defeated near Seville by the combined forces of Athanagild and
Liberius, and withdrew to Merida, where he was assassinated by his own
followers, who forthwith acknowledged the usurper.
Thus when Athanagild became king in 554, the power of Justinian
in the Peninsula was extensive, for he was not content with playing the
part of helper, but claimed a substantial acknowledgment of his services.
It is probable that Athanagild rewarded him by an offer of territory, but
we have no exact information on the subject, because the text of the treaty
which ensued has not been preserved. But it is certain that Liberius
CH. VI. 11—2
## p. 164 (#196) ############################################
164 Brunteld and Galswintha [564-567
encroached on the boundaries agreed upon, for he seized all the land lying
between the Guadalquivir and the Jucar (going from west to east),
together with that between the sea and the mountains of Gibalbin,
Ronda, Antequera and Loja, the Picacho de Veleta, the mountains of
Jaen, Segura and Alcaraz, the pass of Almansa (in the province now
called Albacete), the territories of Villena, Monovar and Villajoyosa
(from the south-west and the north-east, following the line of the
Penibaetian mountain range, and the continuation on the east which
connects it with Iberica). The situation was all the more serious
because to the great military strength of the Eastern Empire was now
added the aggregate force of all the Spanish-Roman element in Baetica
and Carthaginensis, that is to say, all who had remained independent
of the Visigoths, and whom Agila had attempted to subdue. These
Spanish-Romans who, by reason of their religion, were opposed to the
Visigoths, naturally regarded the rule of Justinian as the prolongation
of the Empire whereof they had formed a part until the coming of the
Goths. Hence the tradition that the inhabitants of these regions
rebelled against the Visigoths and proclaimed Justinian as their sovereign
is most probably authentic.
Athanagild did not submit to this treachery, but immediately pro-
ceeded to make war on the Byzantines, and established his capital at
Toledo, an excellent position from the strategical point of view. He
attempted to flatter the Catholics, by means of a benevolent policy,
which was intended to estrange them from the Empire. The war
lasted for thirteen years, that is, throughout the whole of the reign of
Athanagild, who had also to fight against the Franks in order to defend
Septimania, which was still in the hands of the Visigoths, and against
the Vascons, who were continually struggling for independence. But
this perpetual warfare did not prevent Athanagild from strengthening
his kingdom from within, or from increasing its prosperity. The fame
of his wealth and the splendour of his court; the fame of his two
daughters, Brunhild and Galswintha, spread to the neighbouring
kingdoms. Two Frankish kings, Sigebert of Austrasia and Chilperic of
Neustria, were inspired thereby to seek an alliance with him; the former
became the husband of Brunhild and the latter of Galswintha. Of
these marriages, and more particularly of the second, which took place in
567 and ended in tragedy, we possess detailed accounts in the chronicle
of Gregory of Tours, and in the Carminum Liber of Venantius Fortunatus.
A few months after the marriage of Galswintha, Athanagild died at
Toledo (Nov. ,or Dec. 567).
The throne remained vacant for several months, until the spring of
568, but we do not know the reason of this. The interregnum came to
an end with the accession of Liuwa or Leuwa, a brother of Athanagild,
who (why or for what purpose we are unable to say) shared the govern-
ment with his brother Leovigild or Liuvigild, to whom he entrusted
## p. 165 (#197) ############################################
42&-580] Leovigild. The Sueves 165
the Spanish part, keeping for himself the territory in Gaul. It has been
observed that John of Biclar, a chronicler of the latter part of the
sixth century, states that Leovigild obtained ffispania Citerior. This
phrase seems to confirm what has been said before, that from the
beginning of the reign of Athanagild, Hispania Ulterior, or the greater
part of the districts which belonged to it, was either in the hands of the
Byzantines or, at any rate, was not loyal to the Visigoths. This evidence,
viewed in connexion with the results of Leovigild's campaigns, shews
that several districts of north-western Spain, such as Oviedo, LeOn,
Palencia, Zamora, Ciudad Rodrigo, etc.
was quite ready to supersede Brunhild in the task of directing the
Frankish Church; he would like to make Candidus, who was the
administrator of the papal patrimony in Provence, a kind of legate
beyond the Alps. There can be no doubt that Gregory I, had he lived,
would have succeeded by his able policy in re-establishing in Gaul the
papal authority as it had been exercised by Leo I before the fall of the
Empire. But after the death of Gregory in 604 relations between
Rome and the Franks became very rare for more than a century.
There are only one or two instances of such relations to which we can
point. Pope Martin I (649-655), for example, requested the sons of
Dagobert to assemble councils in order to combat the Monothelete
heresy, which was supported by the Byzantine Emperors. Relations
were not effectively resumed until the eighth century, but they were then
to have an immense influence upon general history.
We have already seen how, in their opposition to the Emperors of
Constantinople, the popes sought the aid of the Mayors of the Palace,
and how this alliance was concluded. We have also noticed, in passing,
how Boniface brought under the authority of the Holy See the Germanic
races whom he converted to the Christian faith. But, besides this, with
the aid of Carloman and Pepin (after 739), Boniface accomplished another
task. After the death of Dagobert the Frankish Church had fallen
into profound decadence, and Charles Martel had sunk it still lower by
conferring bishoprics and abbeys on rude and ignorant laymen. These
bishops and abbots never wore clerical vestments, but always sword
and baldric. They dissipated the property of the Church and sought
to bequeath their offices to their bastards. For eighty years no
council was called. Every vestige of education and civilisation was in
danger of being swamped. A complete reform of the Church was
necessary in the interests of society itself. To Carloman and Pepin
belongs the merit of having perceived this, and they entrusted this great
work to Boniface. Once more a series of councils was held, in the
dominions of Carloman as well as in those of Pepin; there was even a
general council of the whole kingdom in March 745 at Estinnes in
Hainault. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was restored, measures were
taken against priests of scandalous life; the clergy were encouraged to
## p. 147 (#179) ############################################
Monasteries 147
become better educated. Above all, this reformed clergy was placed
under the authority of the Papacy; the road to Rome became familiar
to them. On the one hand there was a political alliance between the
popes and the Mayors of the Palace; on the other relations were renewed
between the clergy of what had been Gaul and the Papacy. Thus was
recovered the idea of Christian unity in one sole Church under the
authority of the Pope, as the successor of the apostle Peter.
We have hitherto spoken chiefly of the secular Church, but in even
a summary account of the Church of the Merovingian period a place
must be found for the monasteries. As early as the fifth century, before
the conquest of Clovis, famous abbeys had arisen upon Gallic soil.
Such were Liguge near Poitiers, Marmoutier and St Martin in the
territory of Tours, St Honorat on one of the islands of Lerins, St
Victor at Marseilles. In the time of Clovis Caesarius founded in the
town of Aries one monastery for men and another for women. Under
Clovis and his successors monasteries rapidly increased in number.
Childebert I founded that of St Vincent, close to the gates of Paris,
afterwards to be known as St Germain-des-Pres; Chlotar I founded
St Medard of Soissons, while Radegund, the Thuringian wife whom
he had repudiated, built Ste Croix of Poitiers. To Guntram is due
the foundation of St Marcel of Chalon-sur-Saone, and the extension
of St Benignus of Dijon. Private persons followed the example of
the kings. Aridius, a friend of Gregory of Tours, founded on one
of his estates the monastery which from his name was known as
St Yrieix. All these monasteries were placed under the charge of
the bishop, who visited them and if necessary recalled the monks to
their duty. At the head of the household was placed an abbot,
generally chosen by the founder or his descendants, but in some cases
elected by the community, subject to the bishop's confirmation. Each
monastery was independent of the rest, and had a rule—regula—of its
own, based upon principles borrowed from the early monks in Egypt,
from Pachomius, Basil and the writings of Cassian and Caesarius of
Aries. The abbeys did not as yet form congregations obeying the same
rule. Since they confined themselves to serving as a refuge for souls
wounded in the battle of life, they had no influence on the outside world.
They were not centres of the religious life radiating an influence beyond
the walls of the cloister and exercising a direct action upon the Church.
This type of monastic life was the creation of an Irish monk, Colum-
banus, who landed on the Continent about the year 585. He settled in
the kingdom of Guntram, and established, in the neighbourhood of the
Vosges, three monasteries, Annegray, Luxeuil (known in Roman times
for its medicinal baths), and Fontaines. These three houses were under
his direction and he gave them a common rule, which was distinguished
by its extreme severity. Obedience was required of the monk "even
unto death," according to the example of Christ, who was faithful to
ch. v. 10—2
## p. 148 (#180) ############################################
148 Columbanus and his Disciples
His Father even unto the death of the cross. The smallest peccadillo,
the least negligence in service, was punished with strokes of the rod.
The monk must have no possessions; he must never even use the word
"my. " This rule became common to all the other abbeys which were
founded subsequently by Columbanus himself or his disciples. For
Columbanus did not remain undisturbed within the walls of Luxeuil.
Twice he was torn from his refuge by Brunhild, whose orders he
refused to obey. He wandered through Champagne, and under his
influence a monastery arose at Rebais and convents for women at
Faremoutiers and Jouarre. Later he found his way to the shores of the
Lake of Constance in Alemannia where his disciple Callus founded the
monastery which bore his name, St Gall. He ended his days on
23 November 615 in Italy, where the monastery of Bobbio claims him
as its founder. Loyal disciples of his had reformed or founded in Gaul
a large number of monasteries; in no similar period were so many
founded as between the years 610 and 650. We can mention only the
most famous—Echternach, Prlim, Etival, Senones, Moyenmoutier, St
Mihiel-sur-Meuse, Malmedy and Stavelot. Many of these monasteries
received from one hundred to two hundred monks.
All these abbeys obeyed the same rule and were animated by the
same spirit; they formed a sort of congregation. In general they
declared themselves independent of the bishop—ad modum Luxoven-
sium. They chose their abbots and administered their property freely.
Moreover these monks did not confine themselves within the walls
of their monasteries; they desired to play a part in the Church.
St Wandrille claimed that the monks should not merely be allowed to
count the years which they spent in the cloister, but those also in which
they travelled in the service of God. The disciples of Columbanus
were preachers like himself; they proclaimed the necessity of penance,
the expiation of every mistake according to a fixed scale, as in the rule of
the monastery, and at this time penitentials began to be widely circulated.
The sense of sin became very keen among the people, and they multiplied
gifts to the Church in order to atone for their transgressions. The monks
also became missionaries; each abbey was, so to speak, the head-quarters
of a mission. St Gall completed the conversion of the Alemans, Eustasius
abbot of Luxeuil converted the heretical Warasci in the neighbourhood
of Besancon and went to preach the Gospel in Bavaria. But the very
number of these monasteries caused the defects of the rule of Colum-
banus to be quickly perceived. This rule did not provide for the
administration of the monastery; it did not prescribe, hour by hour,
the employments of the day; then, again, it was too severe, too crush-
ing, and often reduced men to despair. Now, about a hundred years
earlier (c. 529), Benedict of Nursia had given to the monastery of Monte
Cassino an admirable rule; this rule was not known in France until
after the death of Columbanus and the remarkable growth of monasteries
## p. 149 (#181) ############################################
Spread of the Benedictine Rule 149
connected with him, but once known its advantages were soon recognised.
All the questions which Columbanus had left unsettled here received a
practical solution. It regulated the relations of the abbot with the
monks and of the monks with one another; it prescribed the employ-
ments of the day and the hours to be divided between prayer, manual
work and study. Mystical speculations are left aside; there is something
of the legal spirit of ancient Rome in these clearly-drawn precepts.
The rule of St Benedict at first appeared as a rival alongside of that of
St Columbanus; but after the great ecclesiastical reform associated with
the name of Boniface it reigned alone; and a little later Louis the
son of Charles the Great imposed it (817) upon all the monasteries of
his realm. The impetuous torrent which Columbanus had let loose
was thus turned into a wide channel, in which its waters could flow
calmly.
Merovingian society was composed of remarkably definite gradations,
each man having his fixed price, so to speak, marked by the wergeld.
At the bottom of the scale was the slave. The Germans as well as the
Romans had possessed slaves, and their number was increased in the
Merovingian period. After a war the prisoners were often reduced to
servitude; many of these unfortunates belonged to the Slav race, and
the name slave gradually took the place of servus. There were also
slave-dealers who went to seek their human merchandise overseas; young
Anglo-Saxons were much sought after on account of their beauty. Then
again, a man who could not pay his debts, or a fine inflicted by the courts,
fell into servitude; and a freeman who married a slave lost his freedom.
Slaves were looked on as chattels; the master could sell them or give
them away at his pleasure. Anyone who stole or killed a slave paid
a fine of thirty solid/, just the same amount as was paid for stealing a
horse, and this compensation was paid to the master: the slave was not
considered to have any family. Slaves were often very cruelly treated
by their masters; Duke Rauching for example made his slaves put out
torches by pressing them against their naked legs. The Church however
took up their cause; it declared unions between slaves which had been
blessed by the priest to be legitimate, and earnestly exhorted masters
not to separate husband and wife, parents and children.
Slaves could escape from their condition by enfranchisement. In the
Merovingian period there were two kinds of solemn enfranchisement,
that per denarium before the king, by which the former slave acquired
the rights of a Frankish freeman, and that of the Church, by which
he became a free Roman. In both cases he was discharged from all
obligation towards his former master, but remained in a certain
dependence on the king, who fell heir to the property of slaves if
they had no children born after their enfranchisement. But usually the
slave was simply freed by a written statement to that effect given by the
## p. 150 (#182) ############################################
150 Classes of Society
master, and a freedman of this kind, known as libertus or lidus, remained
in a position of close dependence upon his former master. He could, it
is true, plead in the courts and enter into binding agreements, but he
paid his patron a yearly fee known as the ltdimonium, and if he died
without issue his patron became his heir. The freedman usually retained
the land which he had cultivated as a slave, but instead of being a
servilts holding it became a lidilis holding.
On the large estates there was a third class of holding, the marm
ingenuiles. These were held by the coloni, the descendants of the
former Roman coloni. Theoretically these coloni were free, but they
were bound to their holdings; they could not quit them without the
permission of the owner, and if they ran away they were brought back
by force. But, on the other hand, so long as they paid their rent,
they could not be expelled from their holdings and might cultivate
them as they chose. They thus form an intermediate class between the
slaves who were tied to one place and the freemen, to whom all roads
stood open.
The freemen might belong either to the conquering race, the Franks,
or the conquered race, the Gallo-Romans; and the two races were under
different laws. The Salic law fixes the wergeld of a Salian Frank at two
hundred golidi, that of the Roman at one hundred only. But we must
not conclude from this that there was a great gulf fixed between the two
races. Where both parties to a case were Gallo-Romans, they were
judged according to the Roman law; when a Gallo-Roman was accused
by a Frank, judgment was still given according to the Roman law; it
was only in a case where a Frank was the defendant that the Salic law
was applied, and it is quite natural that this law should be more severe
upon the murder of a man of the same race than on that of a Roman.
Besides, the further we advance in Merovingian history, the more the
two races become intermingled. The Franks admired the Roman
civilisation and endeavoured to assimilate it; they learned the common
language of Gaul, which was in process of becoming Romanic; they
even prided themselves on learning to speak pure Latin. The Gallo-
Romans, on their part, adopted the military customs of the barbarians.
They frequently gave Germanic names to their children. Both nations
were Christian, and the common faith contributed to bring them
together.
In theory all these freemen were equal, but little by little dis-
tinctions arose among them. In default of a nobility with hereditary
privileges, there grew up an aristocracy, potentes, priores, who exercised a
powerful influence. These great men belonged generally to the ancient
Gallo-Roman senatorial families, who held vast estates and possessed
great wealth. From these families the king chose the great officers of
state and the people of the cities chose their bishops; thus there was
added to their wealth political power, or the veneration attaching to
## p. 151 (#183) ############################################
Origin of Vassalage 151
the sacred office of the priesthood. The Franks who possessed large
estates became assimilated to these Roman senators and there thus grew
up an aristocracy composed of members of the two races.
In consequence of the troublous times which were the rule in Gaul
in the seventh century, the poor and the weak could not depend on the
protection of the State, and sought protection from one or other of these
powerful personages. They put themselves under his mundeburdis as it
was called in Germanic; they "commended" themselves to him, accord-
ing to the expression borrowed from Roman usage, and this expression
is suitable enough, for they became in fact clients of these great men.
The patron undertook to maintain his clients, to support them in
law cases, to further their interests; in return, the client promised to
serve his patron on all occasions, to defend him if he were attacked,
and to take the field along with him if he attacked anyone else. Each
of these great personages had thus under his orders a more or less
numerous body of men. To mark these new social conditions new terms
were created, or a new sense was given to ancient terms. The protector
was called the senior; the client was called vassus. In the Salic law
the term vassal simply meant a slave attached to the personal service
of his master; at the close of the Merovingian period it always
means one of these voluntary dependents. Those who felt the need
of protection could "commend" themselves not only to wealthy
private persons but also to royal officers, to the dukes and counts,
to the officials of the palace; but above all they could commend
themselves to the king himself. In that case the sovereign exercised
a double authority over them; first, his public authority as king, and
secondly a more special protection, parallel, in so far, to that of the
seignior. In time the strength of the king came to depend in large
measure on the number of his vassals. The subjection of the individual
to the State was replaced by a personal subjection to the king, and the
population of the country came to be composed of groups of men bound
to one another by personal ties. Thus we find the germs of the feudal
system already present in the seventh century.
A time was to come when to this subordination of persons there
should be added a subordination of lands. In order to understand this
evolution, which was to have so great a historical importance, we must
first examine the conditions on which property was held.
With the exception of the towns the soil of Gaul was divided, in
the Merovingian period, into large estates, called villae or fundi. These
estates usually bore the name of their original holder; thus the villae
called Victoriacus had belonged to a man named Victorius, and the
modern villages which have descended from these villae have kept the
old names. Variously transformed according to the district in which
they lie, they are known to-day as Vitrac, Vitrec, Vitre, Vitrey or Vitry.
Similarly villae bearing the name Sabiniacus have become our villages
## p. 152 (#184) ############################################
152 The Merovingian Villa
of Savignae, Savignec, Sevigne, Savigneux. Many of these estates,
especially in the north and east, changed their names after the invasions,
taking the names of their barbarian owners. Thus Theodonis villa,
Thionville, Ramberti villare, Rambervillers, Arnulfi curtis, Harcourt,
Bodegiteli vaUis, Bougival near Paris. In the seventh century some
estates took the name of the saint to whom the church was dedicated:
Dompierre, Dommartin, St Pierre, St Martin. Some villae again took
their names from some particular variety of trees or plantations;
Roboretum has become Rouvray, Rouvres; Rosariae and Cannaberiae have
given us the names of our modern villages Rosieres and Chennevieres.
It often happened that through sale, exchange or division among
brothers, a villa was divided between several owners, but it none the
less retained its unity and organisation.
The lands of the villa were divided into two portions. One, consisting
of the lands lying round about the house of the owner, was farmed
directly by him. The other portion was divided up into lots or holdings
(mansi), of which the owner gave the use to his slaves, his lidi, or to
freemen ; whence comes the distinction between mansi seroiles, lidiles and
ingenviles, of which we have spoken above. Each tenant cultivated his
holding for his own profit, but in return for its use was obliged to pay a
rent to the owner and to render him certain services. The houses
occupied by the tenants were either isolated, in the mountainous districts,
or grouped together within a small area. A villa was self-sufficing;
besides the cultivators there were the workmen who made or repaired
the tools and implements. There was a mill and a wine-press which
served the whole population of the villa, and often there was a forge
also. It had its own chapel, of which the priest (often born on the
estate) was appointed by the master, with the consent of the bishop.
The woods surrounding the villa remained in possession of the land-
owner, but he gave the tenants rights of user. Over all the dwellers
on the estate he exercised a seigniorial jurisdiction.
There still existed, no doubt, alongside of the great estates or zuUae
a number of small estates belonging to freemen. But these small estates
tended to disappear in the course of the seventh century. The fact was
that the small proprietors were unable to defend their estates; they had
no inducement to sell them, for money would have been of little value to
them; accordingly they "commended themselves" to some great man
of the neighbourhood, handing over their property to him. He in
turn gave them the use of it for life, and thus they were at least certain
of occupying it in security until the end of their days. Previously they
had held their lands ex alode or de alode parentum, by inheritance
from their ancestors, with the right of using it as they chose; henceforth
they held it per benejicium, in consequence of a grant made by the
great seignior. When agreements of this kind became frequent, two
varieties of landed property were distinguished, allodial lands which
## p. 153 (#185) ############################################
Origin of the Benefice 153
were held by the owner in person, and "benefices,11 of which the use
was granted by a large proprietor to another person during the lifetime
of the latter.
Many circumstances contributed to multiply these benefices. The
Church, which had large estates and could not get them all cultivated
by its serfs, lidi and coloni, let parts of them to freemen, who culti-
vated them, and at the death of the tenant the land returned, in an
improved condition, into the hands of the Church. This mode of
tenure was already known to the Roman law (precarium). It sometimes
happened that in exchange for a grant of this kind, the grantee made
a gift to the Church of an estate of similar value belonging to himself.
Thenceforward he had the usufruct of both estates, that of the Church
as well as his own; but at his death the Church took possession of both.
The grantee had the advantage during his life of a doubled income, and
on his death the Church doubled its property. But it often happened
that the Church, which was, as we know, very powerful, received the
lands of private persons in the manner described without adding any-
thing of its own, only conceding to the former owner a life-use of the
property. Thus in various ways the allodial lands disappeared, and
benefices became every day more numerous.
Up to this point we have seen the beneficiaries solicit the benefice
and take the initiative in obtaining it. These beneficiaries remained
bound by ties of gratitude to their benefactor, they exerted themselves
to serve him and marched with him when he went to battle; they were
his vassi. Before long a man's power was measured by the number
of his vassi, the army of his clients; and then the great men, in
order to increase their clientage, and consequently their influence, began
themselves to offer benefices to those whom they desired to attach to
themselves and gain as adherents.
The king, or the Mayor of the Palace who replaced him, needed to
be able to count on the great men for the wars, whether foreign or civil,
in which he engaged. Obligation towards the State was too abstract a
conception to be understood, and the mere sense of duty was not strong
enough to keep the great men loyal. The king therefore began to
distribute lands to these great men. At first he gave them abso-
lutely, but before long these lands were assimilated to the benefices.
This evolution took place especially at the time when Charles Martel
laid hands upon the property of the Church and distributed it in his
own name to his warriors. The property of the Church was inalienable,
it could not be given as an absolute possession. The warriors were only
the life-tenants of it, and at their death it reverted to the Church.
These estates were therefore simply ecclesiastical benefices, granted
by the king or the mayor. Once this precedent had been established,
estates granted by the king from his own lands were granted on the
same conditions, merely for the lifetime of the grantee.
## p. 154 (#186) ############################################
154 Charters of Immunity
Another great change took place about the same time. One reason
why Charles Martel made grants of ecclesiastical property to his warriors
was that they had now to support great expense. They served in his
armies no longer as foot soldiers but as cavalry, and their equipment was
very costly. The revenue of the lands which were granted to them
served as an indemnity against the expenses of military service. Thus
it came to be considered that the benefice carried with it the obligation
of military service. Under Charles the Great, the holders of royal lands
were bound to be first at the muster; and before long it was an under-
stood thing that, when a private person who had granted benefices
marched to the wars, all his beneficiaries, who were also his vassals, must
accompany him. Thus at the end of the Merovingian period the
characteristics of the later fief are taking shape. The eleventh century
fief is the direct descendant of the eighth century benefice, of which we
have just traced the origin.
Another characteristic of the fief is that the holder of it exercises
thereon all the powers of the State: he levies taxes, administers justice
and summons the men of the fief to follow him to war. Now even in the
Merovingian period on some of the great domains the State resigned a
portion of its rights to the proprietor or seignior, and thus we find present,
from this time onward, all the germs of the feudal system. We have
seen how great were the powers of the count and the other royal officials:
they often abused these powers, and the proprietors of the great estates
complained to the king of their tyranny. In many cases the king listened
to their complaints and gave them charters of immunity forbidding
all public officials to enter their estates, to claim right of lodging, to try
causes, to levy the Jredus or other impost, or to compel the men to attend
the muster of the royal army. Thenceforward the men of this privileged
territory had nothing more to do with the agents of the government;
the agents of the proprietpr took their place; and before long the
proprietor himself levied the former state-taxes, judged cases in his
private court and regarded it as within his competence to deal with all
offences committed upon his domain. He led his men in person to join
the royal army, and he was naturally tempted to use them also in
the prosecution of his private quarrels. If we remember the extent of
some of the domains, which comprised a number of villae and were some-
times as large as a modern canton, we see how great was the area which
was withdrawn from the authority of the royal officials, if not from that
of the king himself. The estates which enjoyed these immunities were
veritable seigniories. Alongside of the institutions of the State there had
thus arisen another set of institutions which came into collision with the
former and brought about the decay of the authority of the State. All
the elements of feudalism—commendations, benefices, and immunities
—are in existence without its being possible to say that feudalism is as
yet constituted, because the elements are not combined into a system.
## p. 155 (#187) ############################################
Industry and Commerce 155
But before this system came into operation Charles the Great was to
re-establish a strong centralised government; he was to make these social
forces serve the interests of the State itself, and by his genius was to
restore with incomparable brilliancy that Frankish monarchy which at
the close of the Merovingian period had seemed likely to disappear.
The Merovingian period as a whole is without doubt a melancholy
period. It marks in history what must be called an eclipse of civilisation,
and it deserves to be described as a barbaric era. Nevertheless, it must
not be imagined that the two hundred and seventy years, which it
includes were, so to speak, sunk in unbroken gloom. Even in this period
it is possible to note some facts concerning industry and commerce, arts
and letters.
Industry found refuge chiefly in the country districts, where each
estate produced for itself all the supplies necessary to agricultural work
and common life. The towns themselves took on a country-like air.
The ancient buildings—temples, basilicas, baths—had been destroyed
during the invasions and their ruins lay on the ground; the only con-
siderable buildings now erected were churches.
A sparse population
occupied rather than filled the space surrounded by the half-ruined
walls. Many houses had disappeared and wide areas lay vacant;
these were turned into fields or vineyards, and thus in the interior
of formerly populous cities there were closes and culturae. Outside the
ramparts there rose, in many cases, a high-walled monastery—a sacred
city alongside of the secular city—and these monasteries became new
centres of population. Within the decayed cities we nevertheless find,
at all events at first, some traces of industry. There is mention in the
sixth and seventh centuries of workshops for the manufacture of cloth at
Treves, at Metz and at Rheims. There were also potteries, and numerous
specimens of their art have been found in the tombs. The Merovingians
had a taste for finely wrought arms, for sword-belt buckles of damascene
work, for jewellery and gold-plate. The Merovingian goldsmiths were
skilful. Eligius, son of a minter at Limoges, attained by the aid of his
art to the highest posts; he became the counsellor of Dagobert and bishop
of Noyon. There was also in the Merovingian period a certain amount
of commercial activity. The Franks imported from abroad spices,
papyrus and silk fabrics. This merchandise was either brought to the
ports of Marseilles, Aries and Narbonne, or came by way of the Black
Sea and the Danube. In the time of Dagobert a Frankish merchant
named Samo went to trade on the banks of the Elbe, and there formed
a great Slav kingdom which had its centre in Bohemia, and extended from
the Havel to the Styrian Alps. The merchants of the town of Verdun
formed an association in the time of Theudibert, about 540. The king
aided them by lending them, at the request of the bishop Desiderius, 7000
aurei. They were thus enabled to put their business on a sound footing.
## p. 156 (#188) ############################################
156 Kenantius Fortunatus
and in the time of Gregory of Tours the wealth of these merchants was
renowned. But commerce was chiefly in the hands of Byzantines and
Jews. The Byzantines, who were generally known by the name of
Syrians, whether they came from Asia or from Europe, had important
trading-stations at Marseilles, at Bordeaux, at Orleans. When in 585
Guntram made his entry into the last-named city he was welcomed with
cries of acclamation in the Syriac language. Simeon Stylites conversed
with Syrian merchants who had seen Ste Genevieve at Paris. In 591 a
Syrian named Eusebius was even appointed bishop of Paris, and gave
offices in the Church to his compatriots. The Jews, on their part, formed
prosperous colonies. Maintaining friendly relations with their co-
religionists in Italy, Spain, and the East, they were able to give a wide
extension to their business, and, as the Christian Church forbade the
lending of money at interest, all dealing in money, all banking business,
was soon in their hands. Five hundred Jews were settled at Clermont-
Ferrand; at Marseilles and Narbonne they were more numerous still.
The Jew Priscus acted as agent in purchases made by King Chilperic, who
held disputations with him concerning the Holy Trinity.
Intellectual culture naturally declined during the Merovingian
period. Nevertheless in the sixth century there are still two names
which are celebrated in the history of literature, those of the poet
Fortunatus and the historian Gregory of Tours. Fortunatus, it is
true, was born in Italy and educated in the Schools of Ravenna; but
his verses, with their wealth of mythological allusions, pleased the taste
of the Frankish lords and the Merovingian kings, of whom he was
to some extent a flatterer. He sang the praises of all the monarchs
of his period, Charibert, Sigebert and Chilperic; he even lavished
on Fredegund his paid panegyrics:
Omnibus excellens meritis Fredegundis ojnma.
Becoming the adviser of Queen Radegund he settled in her neigh-
bourhood at Poitiers. He there became first priest, and then bishop.
It was at this period that he wrote those charming notes in verse,
thanking Radegund for the delicacies which she sent him and describing,
with a slightly sensual gourmandise, the pleasure he derived from a good
dinner; but at the same time he finds a more energetic strain in which
to deplore the sorrows of Thuringia. And, also doubtless at the request
of his patroness, he wrote the fine hymns which the Church still uses in
the Vexilla regis prodeunt and the Pange lingua.
If Fortunatus was the sole poet of the Merovingian period Gregory
of Tours is almost the sole historian. In his work, the History of the
Franks, this troublous period lives again, with its vices, crimes and
passions. The portraits which he gives us of Chilperic, Guntram and
Brunhild are painted with extraordinary vividness. His work manifests
real literary power. Critics sometimes speak of the naivete of Gregory,
## p. 157 (#189) ############################################
Gregory of Tours 167
but we must not deceive ourselves; this naivete is a matter of deliberate
art Gregory does not of course observe strict grammatical correctness;
he is by no means Ciceronian; he writes the language as it was spoken
in his day. In a few passages only, where he is obviously writing with
conscious effort, he employs rare and poetical expressions, as for example
in the account of the baptism of Clovis, in the description of Dijon, in
the narrative of his quarrels with Count Leudastes. But to these we
prefer those pages where he lets himself go, and writes with his natural
vigour, where he slips in malicious reflexions as it were unconsciously, or
where he excoriates his adversaries. He has the real gift of story-telling
and has justly been called the barbarian Herodotus. After his day
all culture disappeared. A vast difference separates him from his
continuator, the chronicler who has been named—we do not know for
what reason—Fredegar. The chronicle of Fredegar is composed of
scraps and fragments from various sources. One of the authors from
whom extracts are made writes, "The world is growing old; the keenness
of intelligence is becoming blunted in us; no one in the present age can
compare with the orators of past times,'1 and this phrase might be applied
to the whole of the work. Nevertheless there are still found in Fredegar
attempts at portraits of some of the Mayors of the Palace, Bertoald,
Protadius, Aega, whereas in the last chronicler of the period, the Neustrian
who compiled the Liber Historiae Francorum, there is no longer any-
thing of that kind; it is a very meagre chronicle of the rois fainiants.
The lives of the saints, which are still numerous enough, are singularly
monotonous; they rarely inform us of any facts and are as like each
other as one ecclesiastical image is to another.
A certain number of churches were built during the Merovingian
period, such as those of Clermont, Nantes and Lyons, without counting
the abbey churches such as St Martin de Tours and St Vincent or
St Germain-des-Pres at Paris, but of these great buildings no trace
remains to us. The only remnants of buildings of this period belong to
less important edifices, such as the baptisteries of Riez in Provence and
St Jean de Poitiers, the crypt of St Laurent at Grenoble, and of
the abbey of Jouarre. The great churches which are known to us from
descriptions generally have a nave and two side-aisles with a transept, and
are in the form of a Latin cross. At the point of intersection of nave and
transept there was a tower, which at first served by way of "Lantern,''''
but afterwards to hang bells in. On the walls were placed numerous
inscriptions, sentences taken from the Scriptures, verses in honour of the
saints. Pictures recalled to the faithful the history of the saints or
scenes from Scripture. Often, instead of pictures the walls, as well as
the floor, were covered with mosaic-work in which gold was freely used;
a basilica at Toulouse was known for this reason as la Daurade. Sculpture
in high relief was unknown, even in bas-reliefs the human figure appears
very rarely after the sixth century. The artists could no longer even
## p. 158 (#190) ############################################
158 Merovingian Art
trace the outlines of animals, they drew conventional animals which are
difficult to recognise, geometrical designs or roseate and foliate forms.
Some houses which Fortunatus describes to us seem still to have had
a fine appearance. Such was the castle built by Nicetius, bishop of
Treves, on a hill overlooking the Moselle. The single entrance gate was
commanded by a tower; a mechanical contrivance raised water from the
river to turn a mill. This is quite a medieval donjon-keep. There
were great houses too at Bissonnum and Vereginis villa, belonging to
the bishop Leontius of Bordeaux, where under porticoes formed by
three rows of columns guests could promenade sheltered from rays of
the sun. But such dwellings must have been exceptional; the ordinary
houses surrounded by the necessary appurtenances must have resembled
farms rather than castles. Merovingian art however is mainly repre-
sented by the numerous pieces of jewellery which have been discovered,
as was mentioned earlier. This art is certainly of Oriental origin: it
was practised not among the Franks only, but among the other bar-
barian peoples of the West, and even here are found the same decorative
ornaments.
In art as well as in literature the seventh century and beginning
of the eighth are marked by a profound decadence. But just at the
period of blackest barbarism the Frankish kingdom came into contact
with Italy, the mother of arts and sciences, where the monuments of
antiquity were preserved; and with England, where the monks still
studied in their cloisters, and where the Venerable Bede had founded a
school of worthy disciples. The Anglo-Saxons and the Italians brought
to the Franks the treasures they had safely guarded; the Emperor
Charles the Great recognised that it belonged to the duties of his office
to spread enlightenment, to foster art and literature; and at length,
after this night of darkness, there shone forth the brilliance of a true
renaissance.
## p. 159 (#191) ############################################
159
CHAPTER VI.
SPAIN UNDER THE VISIGOTHS.
Of the Gothic kings, it was Euric who really conquered the Iberian
peninsula. We cannot indeed exactly determine the extent of his
conquests. If we accepted in their literal signification the words of
Jordanes, Mas Hispanias, we should have to believe that Euric ruled
over the whole peninsula; but those words are inexact, because we
must except not only the Suevic State, but also other territories of the
south and centre, which were not conquered by the Visigoths until
considerably later. St Isidore, with reference to the campaigns of Euric,
uses the words Hispania superior, which Hinojosa takes to mean Spain
with the exception of Vasconia, Cantabria, and possibly the two
Conventus of Saragossa and Clunia. Other writers allude to the con-
quest of districts in the north-east and south-east; and lastly, from the
decrees of various councils held between 516 and 546, and from other
evidence, we conclude that, near the end of the fifth century, the Visigoths
held in Spain practically the whole of the ancient province Tarraconensis
with the almost certain exception of part of Vasconia—most of the
provinces of Carthaginensis and some portion of Baetica and Lusitania,
and Galicia; while the rest of Lusitania remained in the hands of the
Sueves, and the Balearic Isles still belonged to the Empire. In Gaul
the Visigothic kingdom was bounded on the north-west by the Franks,
on the north-east by the kingdom of Syagrius, and on the east by the
Burgundians; thus it stretched from the Loire to the Pyrenees, and
from the Atlantic to Aries.
International complications immediately confronted the Visigothic
king, Alaric II (485-507). They originated in the ambition of the
Frankish king, Clovis, whose predecessors had fought against Euric.
The first encounter between the two powers was brought about by Clovis1
invasion (486) of the kingdom of Syagrius, whom he defeated, and
forced to take refuge in Toulouse, under the protection of Alaric. The
Frank demanded his surrender. According to Gregory of Tours, Alaric
was afraid of incurring the wrath of Clovis, and consented to give up
Syagrius. But this docility on the part of Alaric did not deter Clovis
from his determination to take possession of as much of Visigothic
Gaul as possible. He could rely on a good deal of help from the
outcome of his conversion to Catholicism in 496. The clergy and the
## p. 160 (#192) ############################################
160 Battle of VougU [507
Catholic inhabitants of Gaul, both in the Burgundian and in the
Visigothic provinces, looked upon Clovis as the leader destined to deliver
them from Arian oppression. Even during the reign of Euric, there
had been serious disagreement between the Catholic element and the
monarch, which had given rise to persecution. The ground was there-
fore well prepared, and from the evidence of contemporary chroniclers
it is clear that Clovis did not fail to take advantage of this inclination
on the part of the Catholics, and that he stirred up public opinion in
his favour. This led Alaric to adopt rigorous measures in the case of
sundry Catholic bishops, whom he banished on the more or less well-
founded charge of conspiring with the Franks. In due course Alaric
prepared for war. He summoned to arms all his subjects, Visigoths and
Gallo-Romans, clergy and laymen, collected sums of money, and when war
was imminent (506) he tried to conciliate the Catholic clergy and the
Roman element as a whole by the publication of the code which bears
his name (the Breviarium Alarici), and by other demonstrations of
tolerance. The code consisted of passages of Roman Law, which only
applied to questions of private legislation among the non-Visigothic
population. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who was related by
marriage to Alaric and Clovis, attempted to avert war by personal
mediation, to which, at his instigation, were added the entreaties of the
Burgundians, Thuringians, Warni and Heruli, old friends of Euric.
This mediation, to which Cassiodorus alludes, only served to postpone the
crisis.
War broke out in 507. On the part of Clovis it was a war of
religion, to free Gaul from the Arian heretics. Yet his policy was not
quite so effectual as we might have expected, for a considerable part of
Alaric's Catholic subjects fought on his side, displaying great courage.
This was the case with the people of Auvergne, who, under the command
of Apollinaris, son of the famous bishop Sidonius, formed an important
element of the Visigothic army. It was a short campaign. The decisive
battle was fought in the Campus Vocladensis, which seems to corre-
spond to Vouille, near Poitiers, on the banks of the river Clain1.
The battle proved disastrous to Alaric, who was himself slain by
Clovis. As a result of this victory, the Franks possessed themselves
of the greater part of Gothic Gaul. At the close of 507, Clovis
seized Bordeaux; in the spring of 508, he took Toulouse, where he laid
hands on the treasure of Alaric; shortly afterwards, he entered Angouleme.
His son Theodoric conquered the country round Albi and Rodez, and
the small towns on the Burgundian frontier. Moreover, the dioceses of
Eauze, Bazas and Auch were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom.
To the Visigoths remained only the district afterwards called Septimania,
bounded by the Cevennes, the Rhone and the sea, with its capital at
Narbonne.
1 There is some dispute about the exact site
## p. 161 (#193) ############################################
498-mi] Death of Clovis 161
In addition to this war with the Franks, Alaric had to contend with
a rebellion of the Bagaudae of Tarragona, whose chief, Burdurellus, was
taken prisoner at Toulouse, and there slain (498). On the death of
Alaric, the Visigothic magnates chose for their king his illegitimate son
Gisalic, instead of Amalaric, his legitimate heir. Theodoric, the king
of the Ostrogoths and grandfather of Amalaric, opposed him by armed
intervention, and thus re-established the right of succession to the
throne and saved the Visigothic kingdom from total destruction.
Gisalic, who is represented by the historians of the period as being very
wicked and cowardly, was defeated in the neighbourhood of Narbonne
by the Burgundians, at that time the allies of Clovis. He fled to
Barcelona, whence he was expelled by the troops of Theodoric. He
then took refuge in Africa at the court of the king of the Vandals,
who refused to support his claims; afterwards, under the protection of
Clovis, he returned to Gaul, and was killed there. Meanwhile, the
Burgundians, who had taken possession of Narbonne, combined with
the Franks, and besieged Aries: but they were defeated by the army of
Theodoric, under command of his general Ibbas, who compelled them to
withdraw from Carcassonne. Thus, almost all the cities of the province
of Narbonne, including the capital, were reconquered, and the whole of
Visigothic Spain was placed in subjection to Theodoric, albeit in the
name of Amalaric. The final episode of the war was the raising of the
siege of Aries in 510; this city was heroically defended by its inhabitants
assisted by the Ostrogothic general Tulum. Shortly afterwards (511)
Clovis died, and the city of Rodez reverted to the Visigoths. The part
of Provence which Theodoric had conquered remained, for the time
being, united to the other territories, but, on the death of Theodoric,
it became part of the Ostrogothic kingdom in consequence of a treaty
between Amalaric and Theodoric's successor Athalaric.
As regards internal policy, matters were settled on the following
terms: Amalaric, a minor, was to be king of the Visigoths, and his
grandfather Theodoric acted as his guardian. Indeed, for fifteen years,
Theodoric was the real ruler of the kingdom both in Gaul and Spain.
Theodoric tried to make his rule agreeable to the Visigoths. He adhered
to the system, privileges and customs of the time of Alaric; he remitted
taxation in the districts which had been especially impoverished by the
war; he supplied Aries with money and provisions, and in order that
his troops might not prove a burden to the inhabitants, he sent them
corn and gold from Italy. His conduct as a guardian was particularly
advantageous to Spain. He there displayed all the wise and vigorous
policy which had rendered so illustrious his rule in Italy and which was
all the more vital to Spain on account of the immorality and anarchy
which had crept into the government during the decline of the
Empire. Theodoric recovered for the Crown the exclusive right to
coin money, which was being exercised by a few private individuals; he
C. MED. B. VOt. II. CH. VI. 11
## p. 162 (#194) ############################################
162 Amalaric [526-533
contrived to put an end to the extortions practised by the collectors of
taxes and by the administrators of the royal patrimony (conductores
villici) to the detriment of the State funds. It appears that, in the
name of Theodoric, the Peninsula was at one time governed by two
officials, viz. Ampelius and Liberius, and at another by one alone, viz.
Theudis. Some of the chronicles allude to these officials as consules,
and it is probable that their authority extended over every branch of
the administration. On the death of Theodoric in 526, his ward
Amalaric assumed complete royal power over the Visigoths. The Frankish
peril, which had hitherto been held at bay by the prestige of the Ostro-
goths, still presented a threatening aspect. The sons of Clovis were
longing to extend their dominion in Gaul by the conquest of the part
occupied by the Visigoths. Amalaric attempted to avert the danger
by means of an alliance and, after repeated demands, he succeeded in
obtaining the hand of Clotilda, daughter of Clovis; but this marriage,
which he had regarded as a means of salvation, supplied the Frankish
kings with the very pretext they desired. Amalaric did his utmost to
make Clotilda abjure the Catholic Faith and embrace Arianism, and
according to Gregory of Tours actually ill-treated her. Clotilda made
complaint to her brother Childebert, and he hastened to declare open
war in Septimania. Near Narbonne he defeated the army of Amalaric
(531); the latter fled, but, according to Jordanes and Isidore, he was
shortly afterwards slain by his own soldiers. Childebert took possession
of Narbonne, where he joined his sister, and seized considerable treasure.
The position of the Visigoths could hardly have been worse. With-
out the hope of finding a powerful defender such as Theodoric, they
found themselves threatened by the Franks, a nation naturally war-
like, and further emboldened by its conquest of Aquitaine. In fact,
dating from the defeat of Amalaric, the Visigothic kingdom may be
regarded as consisting of Spanish territory, and its capital was then
transferred from Gaul to the Iberian peninsula. But they had the
good fortune to find a man who was equal to the occasion. This was
Theudis the Ostrogoth, who had been governor of Spain in the time
of Theodoric, and who had settled in the Peninsula, where he had
married a very wealthy Spanish woman, the owner, according to
Procopius, of more than 2000 slaves and dependents. When Theudis
had been formally elected king, he began to make preparations for the
ejection of the Franks, who, in this same year (531), had entered the
kingdom by way of Cantabria, and in 532 had annexed a small territory
near Beziers. In 533 Childebert joined forces with his brother, Chlotar I,
invaded Navarre, took possession of Pampeluna, and marched as far as
Saragossa, to which he laid siege. The inhabitants resisted bravely:
thus the Visigoths had time to send two armies to their assistance; of
these one was commanded by Theudis himself, and the other by bis
general Theudegesil. At their approach the Franks retreated as fax
▼^
## p. 163 (#195) ############################################
533-554] Athanagild 163
as the Pyrenees. They were seriously defeated by the army of Theudis;
but Theudegesil, whom they succeeded in bribing, permitted them to
escape, and to bear with them the treasures which they had acquired
during the campaign. Among these was the body of St Vincent, the
martyr, for which they built near Paris a church, that afterwards known
as St Germain-des-Pres. After having thus ejected the Franks, Theudis
undertook an expedition to the coast of Africa, which was being conquered
by the army of the Byzantines. By this expedition, made in 543, Theudis
only acquired temporary possession of Ceuta, which was shortly after-
wards retaken by the Emperor, for in 544 Justinian alludes to it as his
own. Four years later, in 548, Theudis was assassinated in Seville by
a man who pretended to be mad. His successor, Theudegesil, only
reigned for sixteen months. We know nothing more of him than that
he was a man of immoral conduct, and that in 549 he too was assassi-
nated in Seville.
The fact that the Visigoths possessed Seville does not mean that they
ruled over the whole of Baetica. On the contrary, the greater part of
it was independent, controlled by the Spanish-Roman nobles, who since
the time of Majorian, and even before, had obtained possession of the
country. Agila, the successor of Theudegesil, set himself to conquer
these independent territories; he was defeated before Cordova by the
Andalusians, who slew his son, and possessed themselves of the royal
treasure. This defeat (which the chroniclers regard as a divine punishment
for Agila's profanation of the tomb of St Acisclus), his tyrannical
behaviour and his hostility to the Catholics, who constituted the bulk
of the Spanish population, were turned to account by Athanagild, a
Visigothic noble who had designs on the crown. In order to make sure
of success, he solicited the support of the Emperor Justinian, who sent
him a powerful army under the command of his general Liberius (544).
The Byzantines were probably assisted by the inhabitants of the country
who, on account of their Catholic Faith, were bound to welcome the
imperial forces and the person of Athanagild, concerning whom Isidore
himself states that he was secretly a Catholic. They had, therefore, no
difficulty in possessing themselves of the most important towns on the
coasts of the Mediterranean, more particularly those in the east and
south, i. e. the district round Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia. Agila
was defeated near Seville by the combined forces of Athanagild and
Liberius, and withdrew to Merida, where he was assassinated by his own
followers, who forthwith acknowledged the usurper.
Thus when Athanagild became king in 554, the power of Justinian
in the Peninsula was extensive, for he was not content with playing the
part of helper, but claimed a substantial acknowledgment of his services.
It is probable that Athanagild rewarded him by an offer of territory, but
we have no exact information on the subject, because the text of the treaty
which ensued has not been preserved. But it is certain that Liberius
CH. VI. 11—2
## p. 164 (#196) ############################################
164 Brunteld and Galswintha [564-567
encroached on the boundaries agreed upon, for he seized all the land lying
between the Guadalquivir and the Jucar (going from west to east),
together with that between the sea and the mountains of Gibalbin,
Ronda, Antequera and Loja, the Picacho de Veleta, the mountains of
Jaen, Segura and Alcaraz, the pass of Almansa (in the province now
called Albacete), the territories of Villena, Monovar and Villajoyosa
(from the south-west and the north-east, following the line of the
Penibaetian mountain range, and the continuation on the east which
connects it with Iberica). The situation was all the more serious
because to the great military strength of the Eastern Empire was now
added the aggregate force of all the Spanish-Roman element in Baetica
and Carthaginensis, that is to say, all who had remained independent
of the Visigoths, and whom Agila had attempted to subdue. These
Spanish-Romans who, by reason of their religion, were opposed to the
Visigoths, naturally regarded the rule of Justinian as the prolongation
of the Empire whereof they had formed a part until the coming of the
Goths. Hence the tradition that the inhabitants of these regions
rebelled against the Visigoths and proclaimed Justinian as their sovereign
is most probably authentic.
Athanagild did not submit to this treachery, but immediately pro-
ceeded to make war on the Byzantines, and established his capital at
Toledo, an excellent position from the strategical point of view. He
attempted to flatter the Catholics, by means of a benevolent policy,
which was intended to estrange them from the Empire. The war
lasted for thirteen years, that is, throughout the whole of the reign of
Athanagild, who had also to fight against the Franks in order to defend
Septimania, which was still in the hands of the Visigoths, and against
the Vascons, who were continually struggling for independence. But
this perpetual warfare did not prevent Athanagild from strengthening
his kingdom from within, or from increasing its prosperity. The fame
of his wealth and the splendour of his court; the fame of his two
daughters, Brunhild and Galswintha, spread to the neighbouring
kingdoms. Two Frankish kings, Sigebert of Austrasia and Chilperic of
Neustria, were inspired thereby to seek an alliance with him; the former
became the husband of Brunhild and the latter of Galswintha. Of
these marriages, and more particularly of the second, which took place in
567 and ended in tragedy, we possess detailed accounts in the chronicle
of Gregory of Tours, and in the Carminum Liber of Venantius Fortunatus.
A few months after the marriage of Galswintha, Athanagild died at
Toledo (Nov. ,or Dec. 567).
The throne remained vacant for several months, until the spring of
568, but we do not know the reason of this. The interregnum came to
an end with the accession of Liuwa or Leuwa, a brother of Athanagild,
who (why or for what purpose we are unable to say) shared the govern-
ment with his brother Leovigild or Liuvigild, to whom he entrusted
## p. 165 (#197) ############################################
42&-580] Leovigild. The Sueves 165
the Spanish part, keeping for himself the territory in Gaul. It has been
observed that John of Biclar, a chronicler of the latter part of the
sixth century, states that Leovigild obtained ffispania Citerior. This
phrase seems to confirm what has been said before, that from the
beginning of the reign of Athanagild, Hispania Ulterior, or the greater
part of the districts which belonged to it, was either in the hands of the
Byzantines or, at any rate, was not loyal to the Visigoths. This evidence,
viewed in connexion with the results of Leovigild's campaigns, shews
that several districts of north-western Spain, such as Oviedo, LeOn,
Palencia, Zamora, Ciudad Rodrigo, etc.
