Part 35

Such legislation as there was appears to have been effected by the king, supported by a Royal Council or a more general assembly of the barons. It was only by degrees that the Royal ordinances came to be current in the fiefs of the greater vassals. It was Philip the Fair who introduced the general assembly of the Three Estates. This assembly very soon claimed the right of granting and refusing money as well as of bringing forward grievances. The kings of France, however, sought to avoid convocation of the States General by obtaining grants from provincial assemblies of the Three Estates.

The old system of jurisdiction by elected officers was superseded by feudal jurisdiction, having three degrees of power, and acting according to recognised local customs, varied by the right to ordeal by combat. The Crown began to encroach on these feudal jurisdictions by the establishment of Royal courts of appeal; but there also subsisted a supreme Court of Peers to whom were added the king's household officers. The peers ceased by degrees to attend this court, while the Crown multiplied the councillors of inferior rank; and this body became known as the Parliament of Paris--in effect an assembly of lawyers.

The decline of the feudal system was due mainly to the increasing power of the Crown on the one hand, and of the lower ranks on the other; more especially from the extension of the privileges of towns. But the feudal principle itself was weakened by the tendency to commute military service for money, enabling the Crown to employ paid troops.

II.--Italy and Spain

After the disruption of Charlemagne's empire the imperial title was revived from the German, Otto the Great of Saxony. His imperial supremacy was recognised in Italy; the German king was the Roman emperor. Italian unity had gone to pieces, but the German supremacy offended Italy. Still from the time of Conrad of Franconia the election of the King of Germany was assumed, at least my him, to convey the sovereignty of Italy. In the eleventh century Norman adventurers made themselves masters of Sicily and Southern Italy. In Northern Italy on the other hand the emperors favoured the development of free cities, owning only the imperial sovereignty and tending to self-government on Republican lines. The appearance on the scene in the twelfth century of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa introduced a period characterised by a three-fold change: the victorious struggle of the northern cities for independence; the establishment of the temporal sovereignty of the Papacy in the middle provinces; and the union of the kingdom of Naples to the dominions of the Imperial House. The first quarrels with Milan led to the formation of the Lombard league, and a long war in which the battle of Legnano gave the confederates a decisive victory. The mutual rivalries of the States, however, prevented them from turning this to good account. Barbarossa's grandson, Frederick II., was a child of four when he succeeded to the Swabian inheritance, and through his mother to that of Sicily.

It was now that the powerful Pope Innocent III. so greatly extended the temporal power of the Papacy, and that the rival parties of Guelfs and Ghibelins, adherents the one of the Papacy, the other of the Empire, were established as factions in practically every Italian city. When the young Frederick grew up he was drawn into a long struggle with the Papacy which ended in the overthrow of the Imperial authority. From this time the quarrel of Guelfs and Ghibelins for the most part became mere family feuds resting on no principles. Charles of Anjou was adopted as Papal champion; the republics of the North were in effect controlled by despots for a brief moment. Rome revived her republicanism under the leadership of Rienzi. In the general chaos the principle interest attaches to the peculiar but highly complicated form of democracy developed in Florence, where the old Patrician families were virtually disfranchised. Wild and disorderly as was the state of Florence, the records certainly point to the conditions having been far worse in the cities ruled by the Visconti and their like.

Of Genoa's wars with Pisa and with Venice a detailed account cannot be given. Of all the northern cities Venice achieved the highest political position; isolated to a great extent from the political problems of the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany, she developed her wealth and her commerce by the sea. Her splendour may, however, be dated from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, when she became effectively Queen of the Adriatic and Mistress of the Eastern Mediterranean. In effect her government was a close oligarchy; possessed of complete control over elections which in theory were originally popular. The oligarchy reached its highest and narrowest development with the institution of the famous Council of Ten.

Naples and Sicily came under the dominion of Charles of Anjou when he was adopted as Papal champion. The French supremacy, however, was overthrown when the Sicilians rose and carried out the massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers. They offered the Crown to the King of Aragon. It was not till 1409, however, that Sicily was definitely united to the Crown of Aragon and a few years later the same king was able to assert successfully a claim to Naples.

When the Roman empire was tottering the Visigoths established their dominion in Spain. In 712 Saracen invaders made themselves masters of the greater part of the peninsula. The Christians were driven into the more northern parts and formed a number of small States out of which were developed the kingdoms of Navarre, Leon and Castille, and Aragon. Frontier towns acquired large liberties while they were practically responsible for defence against the Moors. During the thirteenth century great territories were recovered from the Moors; but the advance ceased as the Moors were reduced to the compact kingdom of Granada. In the fourteenth century the struggle for Castille between Pedro the Cruel and his brother established the house of Trastamare on the throne. The Crowns of Castille and Aragon were united by the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand.

The government of the old Gothic monarchy was through the Crown and a Council of Prelates and Nobles. At a comparatively early date, however, the "Cortes" was attended by deputies from the town, though the number of these was afterwards closely limited. The principle of taxation through representatives was recognised; and laws could neither be made nor annulled except in the Cortes. This form of constitutionalism was varied by the claim of the nobles to assume forcible control when matters were conducted in a fashion of which they disapproved.

The union of Castille and Aragon led immediately to the conquest of Granada completed in 1492; an event which in some respects counterbalanced the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks.

III.--The German Empire and the Papacy

When the German branch of the Carlovingian dynasty became extinct the five German nations--Franconia, Swabia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Lorraine--resolved to make the German kingship elective. For some generations the Crown was bestowed on the Saxon Ottos. On the extinction of their house in 1024, it was succeeded by a Franconian dynasty which came into collision with the Papacy under Pope Gregory VII. On the extinction of this line in 1025 Germany became divided between the partisans of the Houses of Swabia and Saxony, the Wibelungs and Welfs,--the origin of the Hibelines and Guelfs. The Swabian House, the Hohenstauffen, gained the ascendancy in the person of Frederick Barbarossa. The lineal representatives of the Saxon Guelfs are found to-day in the House of Brunswick.

The rule of the Swabian House is most intimately connected with Italian history. In the thirteenth century the principle that the right of election of the emperor lay with seven electors was apparently becoming established. There were the Archbishops of Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, the Duke of Saxony, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the King of Bohemia, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. In all other respects, however, several other dukes and princes were at least on an equality with the electors.

In 1272 the election fell on the capable Rudolph of Hapsburg; and for some time after this the emperors were chosen from the Houses of Austria, Bavaria, or Luxemburg.

Disintegration was greatly increased by the practice of the partition of territories among brothers in place of primogeniture. A preponderating authority was given to the electors by the Golden Bull of Charles IV. in 1355. The power of the emperor as against the princes was increased, as that of the latter was counterbalanced by the development of free cities. Considerable reforms were introduced at the close of our period mainly by Maximilian.

The depravity of the Greek empire would have brought it to utter ruin at a much earlier date but for the degeneration which overtook Mohammedanism. Incidentally the Crusades helped the Byzantine power at first to strengthen its hold on some of its threatened possessions; but the so-called fourth crusade replaced the Greek Empire by a Latin one with no elements of permanency. When a Greek dynasty was re-established, and the crusading spirit of Western Europe was already dead, the Byzantine Princes were left to cope with the Turks single handed, and the last of the Cæsars died heroically when the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453.

Throughout the early middle ages the Church acquired enormous wealth and Church lands were free from taxation. It was not till a comparatively late period that the payment of tithes was enforced by law. Not infrequently the Church was despoiled by violence, but the balance was more than recovered by fraud. By the time of Charlemagne the clergy were almost exempt from civil jurisdiction and held practically an exclusive authority in matters of religion. The state, however, maintained its temporal supremacy. When the strong hand of Charlemagne was removed ecclesiastical influence increased.

It was under Gregory the Great that the Papacy acquired its great supremacy over the Provincial Churches. As the power of the Church grew after the death of Charlemagne, partly from the inclination of weak kings to lean on ecclesiastical support, the Papal claims to authority developed and began to be maintained by the penalties of excommunication and interdict.

A period of extreme laxity in the tenth century was to be brought to a close in the eleventh partly by the pressure brought to bear on the Papacy by the Saxon emperors, but still bore by the ambitious resolution of Gregory VII. This remarkable man was determined to assert the complete supremacy of the Holy See over all secular powers. He refused to recognise the right of secular princes to make ecclesiastical appointments within their own dominions; and he emphasised the distinction between the priesthood, as a cast having divine authority, and the laity, by enforcing with the utmost strictness the ecclesiastical law of celibacy, which completely separates the churchman from the normal interests and ambitions which actuate the layman.

In the contest between Gregory and the emperor, it seemed for the moment as if the secular power had won the victory; but, in fact, throughout the twelfth century; the claims which Gregory had put forward were becoming practically effective partly from the great influence exercised through the Crusades. These Papal pretensions reached their climax in the great Pope Innocent III., who asserted with practical success the right to pronounce absolutely on all disputes between princes or between princes and their subjects, and to depose those who rejected his authority. Throughout the thirteenth century Rome was once more mistress of the world.

The Church derived great influence from the institution of mendicant orders, especially those of St. Dominic and St. Francis which recovered much of the esteem forfeited by the old Monastic orders. Another instrument of Papal influence was the power of granting dispensations both with regard to marriages and as to the keeping of oaths. If the clergy were free for the most part from civil taxation, they were nevertheless severely mulcted by the Papacy. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction encroached upon the secular tribunals; the classes of persons with respect to whom it claimed exclusive authority were persistently extended, in spite of the opposition of such Princes as Henry II. and Edward I.

At last, however, the Papal aggressor met his match in Philip the Fair. When Boniface VIII. died, his successors first submitted to the French monarchy and then became its nominees; while they resided at Avignon, virtually under French control. The restoration of the pontificate to Rome in 1375 was shortly followed by the Great Schism. For some years there were two rival Popes, each of whom was recognised by one or the other half of Western Christendom. This was terminated by the Council of Constance, which incidentally affirmed the supremacy of general councils over the Pope. The following council at Basle was distinctly anti-papal; but the Papacy had the better of the contest.

IV.--England

The Anglo-Saxon polity limited the succession of the Crown to a particular house but allowed a latitude of choice within that house. The community was divided into Thames or gentry, Ceorls or freemen, and serfs. The ceorls tended to sink to the position known later as villeinage. The composition of the king's great council called the Witenagemot is doubtful. The country was divided into shires, the shire into districts called hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings. There appears to be no adequate authority for the idea that trial by jury was practised; the prevailing characteristic of justice was the system of penalty by fine, and the responsibility of the tithing for the misdeeds of any of its members. There is no direct evidence as to the extent to which feudal tenures were beginning to be established before the Norman conquest.

The Norman conquest involved a vast confiscation of property and the exclusion of the native English from political privileges. The feudal system of land tenure was established; but its political aspect here and in France was quite different. There were no barons with territories comparable to those of the great French feudataries. That the government was extremely tyrannical is certain. The Crown derived its revenues from feudal dues, customs duties, tallages--that is, special charges on particular towns,--and the war tax called the Danegelt; all except the first being arbitrary taxes. The violence of King John led to the demand of the barons for the Great Charter, the keystone of English liberty, securing the persons and property of all freemen from arbitrary imprisonment or spoliation. Thenceforth no right of general taxation is claimed. The barons held themselves warranted in refusing supplies.

The King's Court was gradually separated into three branches, King's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas. The advance in the study of law had the definite effect of establishing a fixed rule of succession to the Crown. One point must still be noticed which distinguishes England from other European countries; that the law recognises no distinction of class among freemen who stand between the peers and villeins.

The reign of Edward I. forms an epoch. The Confirmation of the Charters put an end to all arbitrary taxation; and the type of the English Parliament was fixed. In the Great Councils the prelates and greater barons had assembled, and the lesser barons were also summoned; the term baron being equivalent to tenant in chief. A system of representation is definitely formulated in Montfort's Parliament of 1265. Whether the knights were elected by the freemen of the shire or only by the tenants in chief, is not clear. Many towns were self governing--independent, that is, of local magnates--under charters from the Crown. Montfort's Parliament is the first to which towns sent representatives. Edward established the practice in his Model Parliament; probably in order to ensure that his demands for money from the towns might in appearance at least receive their formal assent.