All the possessions of the clergy were exempt from taxation. Tithes, at first limited to a tenth of the products of the soil, were, by ecclesiastical artifice and Papal rapacity, extended and made to include the entire yield of every crop, the increase of every herb, the labor of every artisan. Without taking into account the territorial area in the hands of the See of Rome at the period of the Reformation, the monastic guilds and corporations had absorbed half of the livings of Great Britain. The revenues of some religious foundations in that country were not less than fifty thousand pounds sterling, reckoning voluntary donations alone. In the thirteenth century the English clergy bore to the laity the ratio of one to four hundred in number, while their lands amounted to thirty-three per cent. of the entire real property of the kingdom. In Spain during the same period the proportion of ecclesiastics was one to seven, and fifty per cent. of the landed possessions under Christian control belonged to them. The pressing necessities of grasping and irreverent princes, who did not scruple to appropriate under various pretexts the riches of the ecclesiastical order, alone prevented the eventual exclusion of the laity of Europe from all ownership of or jurisdiction over the soil.

No religious service could be more solemn, no spectacle more awe-inspiring, than the celebration of a Church festival in one of the grand old abbey chapels in mediæval times. The edifice itself was the ideal of architectural beauty. Through the elegant designs of painted windows, the light, in iridescent hues, shone in tempered radiance over the richly sculptured tombs of prelate and crusader and the checkered pavement brilliant with its graceful patterns of tile and marble mosaic. The walls of nave and transept were hung with tapestry, embroidered sometimes with representations of scriptural events, sometimes with the figures of departed abbots or the portraits of a line of famous kings. The altar, before whose holy presence constantly burned rows of waxen tapers, glittered with ornaments bestowed by the hand of opulent piety and massive reliquaries set with priceless gems. The resounding notes of the Gregorian chant filled the air; the officiating monks in splendid vestments, the pomp of crucifix and incense, added to the impressiveness of the ceremonial and imparted to the scene a striking representation of divine worship which could hardly be paralleled in Rome itself. Truly, in its palmy days the monastery was an important adjunct to Papal power and grandeur!

From the consideration of the manifold vices and flagrant corruption with which the life of monastic institutions was tainted, it becomes a pleasure to enumerate the benefits that these establishments conferred upon humanity. First in importance is the fact that they were the depositories of learning during the Dark Ages. The requirements of the sacred profession, whose dogmas they were designed to uphold and propagate, demanded the possession of some degree of knowledge. The standard of intelligence was far higher in the monastery than in the chapter house of the cathedral or in the episcopal palace. Many of the secular clergy could neither read nor write; their exposition of the sacraments was pronounced in an incoherent jargon, and a canon who understood grammar was an object of general wonder and respect. The lewd and profane character of the discourses from the pulpit was often such that it would not be tolerated for an instant by the fastidious delicacy of a modern audience. The enjoyment of abundant leisure, the praiseworthy impulse of accumulating information which might prove of advantage, both in disseminating the truths of the Gospel and in magnifying the importance of their order, actuated a certain number of the inmates of every cloister to the transcription of books, to the study of authors, to the illumination of missals. Some wrote poems in Latin. Others, like Hrotswitha, the German nun of Gandersheim, composed dramas in imitation of the classics. These literary efforts, while often coarse in sentiment, immoral in tendency, and crude in execution, seem prodigies of learning when we recall the dense atmosphere of ignorance in which they were produced. In the abbey were preserved contemporaneous records not only of all transactions in which that institution was concerned, but also many details of affairs of national interest, which furnished in after ages invaluable data to the historian. In many convents there existed schools where novices as well as the children of the peasantry could receive rudimentary instruction. Books, among which is mentioned the Fables of Æsop, were chained to tables in the halls for the benefit of those pupils. The great impulse given to intellectual progress by Wyclif’s incomplete translation of the Bible in the fourteenth century is indicated by the ludicrous complaint of an old monkish chronicler, who lamented that “Women are now grown more versed in the New Testament than learned clerks.” Coincident with that auspicious event, the monopoly of letters, so long enjoyed and perverted by the clergy, came to an end. In cases where the interests of religion were thought to be imperilled, the monks did not hesitate to obstruct the path of knowledge. Through their influence the study of physics and of law was forbidden in the twelfth century to the students of the University of Montpellier. In contradistinction to this spirit of offensive bigotry, it must not be forgotten that the first printing-presses used in Europe were placed in monasteries.

The seclusion of monasticism encouraged to a considerable extent the love of the arts. In beauty of design and completeness of finish the efforts of the Gothic architect have never been surpassed. Bookmaking was carried to an advanced state of perfection. From unwieldy volumes with wooden leaves, bound in leaden covers, manuscripts developed into the exquisite specimens of calligraphic and decorative elegance so prized by modern collectors. Some were written in gold and silver letters on purple vellum. The illuminations—whence was derived the first inspiration of modern painting—were often the work of years. The bindings were of carved ivory or of the precious metals, not infrequently enriched with jewels. Those volumes destined for the service of the altar sometimes enclosed a reliquary and became doubly precious, as well by reason of the sacred memento they contained as on account of their costly materials and the labor expended upon them. The art of the sculptor owes much to the diligence and skill displayed by the mediæval wood-carver, whose handiwork is visible in the stalls and altar-screens of Gothic cathedrals. The embroidered vestments wrought by nuns during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are marvels of ornamentation, patience, and dexterity. Constant practice in the choir led to a considerable advance in the knowledge of poetry and music. Nor were philosophical pursuits, despite their confessed antagonism to the Church, altogether neglected. The name and acquirements of Pope Sylvester II. were to his contemporaries as well as to posterity long suggestive of a compact with the Devil and the practice of magic. Modern science, in its indiscriminate censure of monasticism, should not forget that the great natural philosophers of the Middle Ages, Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, belonged to the orders of mendicant friars, for the one was a Franciscan and the other a Dominican.

In the monastery was dispensed not only medical aid, so far as the rudeness and ignorance of the superstitious practitioner allowed, but also unstinted and gratuitous hospitality. The conventual establishment was at once the hospital and the hotel of mediæval society. In the thinly peopled districts usually selected by its founders, no public provision was made for the relief of the sufferings of the invalid or the necessities of the traveller, and both found within its walls a generous and cordial greeting. Its sanctuary covered the trembling victim of feudal oppression with the mantle of its comfort and protection. Its towers, secure in their sacred character, passed unscathed through the wreck of dynasties and the perils of revolutionary violence. The substantial walls of donjon and barbican went down under the assaults of Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Lombard, but the abbey, defenceless save in the immunity afforded by the holy calling of its inmates, remained unchanged amidst these scenes of universal disorder and ruin, the depository of ancient learning, the refuge of the remnant of those elegant social courtesies which had survived the fall of imperial greatness, the asylum of the persecuted, the home of the arts, the preserver of civilization in a martial and unenlightened age.

While Rome was the centre of ecclesiastical and temporal power, Constantinople was the undisputed seat of the refinement and culture of Christian Europe. The transfer of the government of the Empire to the confines of Asia had not, however, destroyed the prestige which the Eternal City had obtained by her glorious achievements in arts, in arms, in literature, in politics, during so many centuries. The new capital of the Cæsars could not properly be called a Roman city. Its population, after the first fifty years following its foundation, was more Greek than Latin, but its most distinctive features were always Asiatic. The ordinary idiom of its citizens was that of Ionia and Attica. The despotism of its court, the manners of its people, bore the pronounced stamp of the Orient. Its society was cosmopolitan, and the relations it maintained through the channels of trade with remote countries constantly filled its thoroughfares with picturesque and barbaric costumes. The brutality of the West, the vices of the East, the superstitions of Africa, the cruelty of Italy, found a congenial home on the shores of the Bosphorus. The successors of Constantine claimed and exercised prerogatives wholly inconsistent with the security of the community or the principles of equity. They interposed their authority to annul the sentences of judicial tribunals. They inflicted frightful tortures without the warrant of law or precedent. They imposed taxes which impoverished even the wealthiest of their subjects. They permitted their flatterers to extort ransoms, traffic in justice, and dispose of employments without even the decorous pretext of concealment. The mutual hatred existing between the bloodthirsty factions of the capital, the ancient enmity of the nobles, the jealousy of rival princes, which had more than once caused disastrous riots, the tumultuous fury of the rabble, induced the emperors to habitually distrust the fidelity of those statesmen whose birth and education best qualified them to direct the policy of a great empire. As a necessity, therefore, eunuchs were intrusted with the management of affairs of state and filled the responsible offices of the imperial household. Surrounded by a crowd of dependents and flatterers, these monsters were the fountain of all honor and the recipients of all homage; while the sovereign of the East, shorn of his actual power, was left to the society of monks and parasites. An excessive love of pomp and of magnificent attire was a marked trait of the Byzantine character. The imperial train often included more than twenty thousand servants, the majority of whom were eunuchs. The eunuch was the most conspicuous personage in the government, in the hierarchy, in commercial adventure, in social amusement, in political intrigue. He discharged the functions of a general often with credit, sometimes with consummate skill. His secretive habits and demeanor admirably fitted him for the tortuous paths and insidious methods of diplomatic intercourse. He was a power in the Byzantine hierarchy. Members of his caste were exalted to high positions in the ecclesiastical order. Some attained to the supreme dignity of Patriarch, an office for centuries of greater importance than that of Bishop of Rome. Others controlled the wealthiest sees of the Eastern Church. Monastic life seemed to possess a peculiar attraction for them, and many convents in Constantinople were peopled exclusively by the victims of man’s deliberate cruelty. Some of these institutions contained nearly a thousand inmates. The prominent part taken by this odious class in establishing the standard of modern orthodoxy, through its influence on the ladies of the imperial household in the early days of Christianity, is familiar to every reader of Church history. The insatiable avarice and rapacity of the eunuch impelled him to the accumulation of wealth through the legitimate channels of foreign commerce and domestic enterprise, as well as by the more questionable means of servility and corruption. His ships were known in every port of the Mediterranean. He was identified with the largest mercantile establishments of the capital. In every social assembly he was conspicuous, in every conspiracy his concealed but powerful hand was felt. His equipage was the gayest, his train the most imposing on the streets. In the circus he took precedence of haughty patricians, whom he far eclipsed in splendor of costume. Ever with an eye to his own aggrandizement, he whispered treason in the ears of the nobles and instigated the rabble to revolt. The sentiments of gratitude, of sympathy, of charity, were unknown to him. The frightful punishments inflicted by the court on political offenders were notoriously suggested by his malignant genius. With the loss of his procreative power seemed to have vanished every trace of honor, of justice, of humanity, of loyalty, of devotion. He was execrated by the Byzantine populace, whose feelings were expressed by the current saying, “If you have a eunuch, kill him; if you have none, buy one and kill him!”

The government of the Byzantine Empire exhibited a curious mixture of irresponsible power and abject dependence. The emperors displayed all the insignia and all the arrogance of despotism, while at the same time they were really the slaves of their parasites. The career of a sovereign was certain to be a short one if he manifested an inclination to independence and to the assertion of his legal prerogatives. In the court of Constantinople poisoning was reduced to a science, and eunuchs, astrologers, priests, and charlatans were ready instruments of ambition and revenge. The formalities attending the intercourse of members of the royal family and the aristocracy were so complicated as to require a long course of study to master them. They were reduced to a code, familiarity with whose rules was considered the greatest accomplishment of a courtier. While this frivolous ceremonial was being sedulously perfected, the constantly receding frontiers of the Empire were abandoned to the encroachments of the barbarians of the Baltic and the Caspian. The state revenues were squandered by ecclesiastics and insatiable favorites. Rapacious tax-collectors displayed the character and adopted the customs of licensed brigands. Their extortions became so excessive and the distress of the people was so great that three-fourths of the inhabitants of the monarchy were officially inscribed upon the public registers as mendicants.

From the eighth to the twelfth century Constantinople was, in all probability, the most opulent and populous city in the world. It had inherited the traditions of the ancient Roman capital, while it had in a great measure discarded the policy which had made those traditions famous. The most exquisite of the works of art that had escaped the fury of the barbarous hordes of Scythia and Gaul had been conveyed within its walls. Its streets were lined with magnificent mansions, colonnades, temples. Everywhere rose suggestive mementos of that great power whose name had been renowned and feared from the Highlands of Scotland to the banks of the Oxus. In forum and garden the mean and stolid visages of sainted monk and anchorite stood side by side with the noble busts and statues of the most illustrious heroes and citizens of classic Rome. The royal palaces were modelled, some after the beautiful villas which had once adorned the Campagna, others after plans suggested by the Saracen architects of Bagdad. The churches also bore evidence of the imitative character of Byzantine art, which borrowed its inspiration from Greece and the Orient. It is said that in 1403 there were three thousand of them in the city. Monolithic columns of different colored marble supported their domes,—sometimes as many as five in number,—roofed with tiles of gilded bronze. Their walls were incrusted with lapis-lazuli and jasper. The sculpture in relief was covered with gold. Elaborate patterns of arabesques in mosaics embellished the walls and formed the pavements. The fountains were of silver and their basins were filled with wine instead of water, for the benefit of the Byzantine mob, whose struggles often diverted the indolent leisure of the monarch and his luxurious court. A separate dwelling was used by the Emperor during each season of the year, and the appointments and furniture of each of them were adapted to the atmospheric vicissitudes of the climate of Constantinople. In all the decorations of these sumptuous edifices jewels were lavished in ostentatious and semi-barbaric profusion. The perverted ingenuity of the Byzantine inventor was expended in the construction of curious toys that might delight the simplicity of childhood, but which could hardly be expected to engage the attention of royalty, even in a degenerate age. One of the masterpieces of these skilful artisans was a tree of the precious metals with foliage occupied by golden birds, whose shrill notes filled the halls of the palace. Notwithstanding its vast expenditure of treasure, such were the resources of the Byzantine monarchy that even after its territory was contracted almost to the walls of the capital, it still embraced the wealthiest community in Christendom. The unrivalled commercial facilities enjoyed by Constantinople more than counterbalanced for centuries the disadvantages of political incapacity, national idleness, and official corruption. The losses resulting from ecclesiastical quarrels, the sanguinary revolutions of political factions, the ravages of Crusaders and the pestilence were speedily supplied from the cities of Greece and the colonies of Asia Minor. The heterogeneous elements of its population, thus recruited from so many sources, early caused it to assume the appearance and the character of the most cosmopolitan of cities; and as the capital was the type of the entire region subject to the sovereign, it has been remarked, not incorrectly, that the Byzantine Empire was a government without a nation.

So marked, however, was the religious and intellectual debasement of contemporaneous Europe that the weakness and crimes of the Greek emperors passed unnoticed amidst the recognized superiority of the civilization which their wanton extravagance polluted. The extent and magnitude of their commerce, the splendor of their embassies, the munificence with which they rewarded their allies, afforded the most exaggerated ideas of their importance and power. The pomp which invested their presence concealed the deplorable conditions under whose restraints they were compelled to direct the affairs of their empire. The political imbecility of the Greeks was, therefore, not visible to their neighbors. These observed only the gorgeous theatrical effects which sustained the prestige of a decaying monarchy, and the alliance of the princes of Constantinople was solicited alike by the khalifs of Bagdad, Cairo, and Cordova, by the emperors of the West, and by the kings of England. In the social polity of the Greeks the court was everything and the people nothing. The natural law of progress, by which man is encouraged to accumulate wealth by the knowledge that he can enjoy it unmolested, and is impelled to intellectual pursuits through the hope of political advancement,—a law practically annulled by the Cæsars of Rome,—was entirely abolished under the emperors of Byzantium. Little security could be expected from a government which attempted to extort from the wretched peasant, whose harvests had been swept away by the barbarian, the same tax demanded from the prosperous merchant, and made no allowance for the destitution for which its own incapacity and corruption were responsible.

The most pernicious ideas relative to the duties and privileges of citizenship had been imported from Italy. The people were divided into castes. The aristocracy considered all occupations carried on for profit as disgraceful to a patrician. It was a maxim with the populace, and one which it would have been dangerous to controvert, that the state owed it sustenance and amusement. In maintaining such a principle, the lower classes could have no motive for labor, and the rabble of Constantinople had not forgotten that the Roman citizen who so far disregarded his dignity as to become an artisan was ignominiously driven from his tribe. The only career open to the aspiring plebeian was through the Church. To obtain a commanding position in the hierarchy, the favor and assistance of a eunuch or of a princess of the royal family was indispensable. The duties of the priesthood required the possession of little intelligence and less education. The affairs of palace and cathedral were usually administered by emasculated monks, indebted for their places to the ostentatious devotion or convenient servility by which they demonstrated their usefulness in furthering the designs of ambitious patrons. While the general licentiousness which scandalized the papal court did not prevail to an equal extent among the clergy of Constantinople, the lives of many of the patriarchs were stained with vices equal in baseness and impiety to any that defiled the character of the worst of the pontiffs. Soldiers, eunuchs, parasites, and tools of intriguing statesmen were elevated in turn to the most eminent dignity of the Eastern Church. Some carried with them into the episcopal palace the manners and the license of the camp. Others, by enlisting the services of the monks and the populace, fomented sanguinary and disastrous revolutions. Others again, by the monstrous extravagance of their behavior and the irreverence which they displayed in the discharge of their sacred functions, aroused the indignation and incurred the censure of the devout. Of the latter, Theophylactus offers a conspicuous example. The sale of ecclesiastical preferments furnished him regularly with means for the gratification of his unholy passions. He was raised to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople at the age of twelve years. He introduced into the Greek ritual absurd ceremonies and licentious hymns which, strange to relate, survived him for almost two centuries. To this practice are traceable the riotous and obscene festivals of the Middle Ages, when religion was travestied and the rites of the Church profaned by license as gross as that which characterized the excesses of the decadent empire of the Cæsars. He deprecated the wrath of the Devil with heathen sacrifices. In his stable were two thousand horses, which were fed on almonds and figs steeped in wine, regaled with costly liquors, and sprinkled with the most exquisite perfumes. Not infrequently in the midst of the mass he left his congregation to visit the stall of some favorite charger. Could piety or virtue be expected from a people whose spiritual necessities were ministered to by such a prelate?

With moral degeneracy came also intellectual decrepitude. A scanty but inestimable remnant of the vast stores of learning which had instructed and delighted the Pagan world had been rescued from the hands of the ruthless barbarian and preserved on the shores of the Bosphorus. But the scarcity of writing materials and the ignorance and prejudice of the unlettered ecclesiastics into whose hands many of these treasures fell insured their destruction. Great numbers of the productions of classic authors were erased from the precious parchment to make room for the legendary miracles of fictitious saints. Others perished by mould and mildew in the dripping vaults of monasteries and churches. Near the Cathedral of St. Sophia there stood in the eighth century a great basilica of unique and elegant design called the Octagon. It was approached by eight magnificent porticos supported by pillars of white marble. The edifice itself displayed the taste and skill of the Grecian architect, whose type, while suggestive of the decline of an art once carried to a perfection without parallel, was, even in its decadence, superior to the masterpieces of all other nations. Erected by Constantine the Great for purposes of religious worship, Julian had consecrated it to literature, had deposited within its halls his extensive library, and had established there an academy in imitation of the famous Museum founded by the Ptolemies at Alexandria. Here a corps of teachers, maintained at the expense of the state, imparted instruction gratuitously on all branches of theology and the arts. The library was open to every student of whatever creed or nationality. A number of expert calligraphists and scholars were constantly employed in adding to the collection, or in reproducing manuscripts that had been damaged by abuse or neglect. The professors of this university—the only institution worthy of the name in the entire realm of the empire—were held in the highest reverence. Sometimes their opinions were taken on important questions of law and diplomacy. Often their mediation was solicited by the heads of contending factions. By the pre-eminence of their acquirements and the weight attaching to their decisions, they averted many a national catastrophe. The incumbents of the most exalted places in the Church were frequently taken from their ranks. During the season of its prosperity no institution of learning outside of the dominions of the khalifs wielded such a salutary influence or was regarded with such respect and homage by all classes of mankind as the Octagon of Constantinople. In the reign of Zeno, when it was consumed by fire, this famous edifice contained a library of a hundred and twenty thousand volumes. Among the treasures lost in the conflagration was a wonderful manuscript of the works of Homer, more than one hundred feet long, composed of serpent skins inscribed with characters of gold. Restored by the emperors to some degree of its former splendor, Leo the Isaurian, who, after repeated interviews, had failed to convert to his iconoclastic views the teachers of the University, determined to effectually silence those who had so signally refuted his arguments. Secretly, and during the night, an immense quantity of combustibles was distributed about the building, the torch was applied, detachments of troops prevented all attempts at rescue, and the assembled wisdom and learning of the Byzantine Empire perished in one indiscriminate ruin. From this inexcusable act of vandalism dates the disappearance of many of the greatest works of the poets, philosophers, and historians of antiquity. What the iconoclast had begun the crusader completed. The storming of the capital by the Latins dealt another destructive blow to literature. The martial fanaticism of the West saw nothing to admire and much to execrate in the immortal productions of Pagan genius. The ignorant monks who followed in the train of the Count of Flanders and the Marquis of Montferrat showed scant consideration to such of the classics as fell into their hands. The precious remains that survived this age of violence, superstition, and intellectual apathy rested uncared for and forgotten in the seclusion of private libraries and the sacred recesses of the cloister until they were resurrected by the insatiable demand for knowledge which distinguished the people of Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

In every phase of social as well as of intellectual life, the national inferiority of the Byzantine was manifest. He could copy with a fair degree of skill, but he could not originate. He absorbed little and created almost nothing. The works of art in which he took most pride were rather indebted for their value to the nature of their materials than to the labor and ingenuity that had produced them. In the style of ornamentation,—especially as regards the pattern of textile fabrics and the settings of jewels,—the Syrian taste, which delighted in floral designs and the forms of grotesque animals, predominated. There was little in the work of the Byzantine sculptor to call to mind the simplicity and delicacy that pre-eminently distinguished the exquisite products of the Attic chisel. Yet its imitative tendency induced the genius of the Eastern Empire to borrow from all its neighbors, and especially from Greece, whose art had greatly retrograded even before the accession of Constantine. The adoption of Christianity as the religion of the state was most unfavorable to sculpture, which was associated by the ignorant with the representation and worship of the gods of antiquity. The term “Byzantine,” as applied to decoration, is most comprehensive, and, employed by writers at will, has become indefinite. When examples of this style possess marked characteristics, however, and can readily be identified, they show clearly the impress of foreign influence, resulting commercial activity, and intimate diplomatic relations of the Greek Empire with nations of the most discordant customs and religious traditions. The mural designs in mosaic peculiar to Constantinople were reproduced in temples dedicated to the ceremonial of widely different creeds, as the Mosque of Cordova, the Church of St. Mark at Venice, and the Cathedral of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg.

The division of society into castes was the most serious and insurmountable impediment to progress encountered by the people of the Greek Empire. Public opinion was voiced by the court at the instigation of the clergy. There was one law for the members of the imperial household and another for all who did not enjoy that adventitious privilege. What was a crime in the citizen was scarcely considered an error in the patrician. The tradesmen, who to some extent constituted a middle class, were not wealthy or influential enough to own slaves,—a criterion of social importance,—and in nine cases out of ten sympathized with, if they did not actually support, the claims of the rabble. The cultivator of the soil, uncertain whether he would be permitted to enjoy the fruit of his labors, through the rapacity of the imperial officials or the relentless fury of the barbarians, pursued his useful vocation to little purpose. In a region proverbial for fertility, under a sky unusually favorable to the husbandman, there was no uniformity in the amount of the yield, no certainty of even a moderate harvest. Under the same atmospheric conditions a year of famine often succeeded a year of the greatest abundance. The most lucrative branch of commerce was the slave-trade. The Saracen pirates, who swarmed in the Mediterranean, exchanged their captives in the markets of Byzantium for Baltic amber, Chinese silks, Arabian spices, and Indian jewels. These slaves, both male and female, were sold to Jews, who disposed of them to the Moslems of Persia, Egypt, Mauritania, and Spain. The manufacture of eunuchs was not only a profitable industry, but was often resorted to with a view to the future political or ecclesiastical promotion of the unfortunate subject. Parents mutilated their children in the hope that they might rise to the administration of important dignities in the palace or the Church. Unsuccessful aspirants to the throne were compelled to undergo this painful and dangerous operation, and were then confined for life in some secluded monastery. The abject degeneracy of the nation further revealed itself by the infliction of even more inhuman and revolting punishments. Political conspirators were flayed alive. Vivisection was practised upon criminals not sufficiently adroit or wealthy to escape the vigilance of the magistrate. Offenders guilty of public sacrilege were scourged, crucified, or burnt. With the intellectual debasement indicated by the enjoyment of human suffering were mingled the most puerile superstitions. Every class of society, from the emperor to the peasant, was a firm believer in visions, omens, auguries. The flight of birds was observed, the entrails of a slaughtered animal examined with an eagerness never surpassed by that of the votaries of Paganism. The occurrence of an inauspicious event, an unusual dream, an apparent prodigy, overwhelmed the unhappy Byzantine with dismay. Still tinctured with the idolatrous superstition of his fathers, he secretly placed gifts upon the defaced altars of ruined temples, consulted the silent oracles, endeavored to propitiate the neglected gods by nocturnal sacrifices. Belief in the evil-eye was universal, a delusion not extinct even in our day among the more ignorant peasantry of Italy, who think that the possession and exercise of this mysterious power is one of the prerogatives of the Pope. In such a community the charlatans who thrive by the weakness of mankind were not wanting. Astrologers were considered necessary appendages to the grandeur of the imperial court. They abounded in every quarter of the city, and were regarded by the populace with feelings of mingled fear and veneration. Even members of the priesthood, terrified by some unfamiliar natural phenomenon, which their ignorance suggested might portend an imminent calamity, did not hesitate to openly visit these impostors.

To the hands of these two great powers, the Papacy of Rome and the Empire of the Greeks, were virtually intrusted the destinies of the vast and constantly increasing population of Europe. Their evil influence over the minds of men was incalculable. What the unprincipled methods and insolent pretensions of the former failed to effect was supplied by the political duplicity of the latter. While often apparently at variance, they were in reality, though unconsciously, seeking to compass a common end,—the moral, social, and intellectual degradation of humanity. No conceptions of honor, consistency, generosity, or patriotism affected the policy of either. Is it surprising that under such circumstances and with such masters the society of the Christian world should have remained for many centuries absolutely stagnant, without advancement in the arts, without incentives to literary effort, without exertion in the fascinating domain of science, almost without the consolation of hope beyond the grave? When we consider the boundless opportunities for good in the grasp of these two great enemies of human progress, and the energy and ability employed by one of them especially to stifle all inquiry and every aspiration for mental improvement, we may realize the extent of the darkness which enveloped the society of Europe for nearly a thousand years, and appreciate the efforts of the Mohammedan nations, whose self-instructed genius illumined with such a brilliant light the path of civilization and knowledge.

The most pernicious and debasing conditions of Byzantine society prevailed to even a greater degree in the brutalized communities of Central and Western Europe. In no country of that continent did there exist a firmly established or legally constituted government. The authority of the sovereign was nominal and complimentary,—obeyed when it was more convenient to do so than to dispute it, and practically recognized under protest. The order of succession was perpetually violated. Ambitious vassals overturned thrones won by the valor of great chieftains, or ruled with despotic power in the names of their feeble progeny. Anarchy prevailed throughout those provinces whose population was not intimidated by the immediate presence of the court. Property and life were at the mercy of banditti in the pay and under the protection of powerful nobles, who complacently shared the spoils and the infamy of these highway plunderers. The savage and absurd customs imported by barbarians from the forests of Germany and Britain usurped the office of laws approved by the wisdom and practice of Roman jurisprudence. The decay of that science under the later emperors, and especially under the system established by Constantine, must be attributed to the increasing interest in religious doctrines and theological controversy, which ignored the talents and ambition once exercised in the profession of the civil law. The priest had become the successful rival of the advocate, and ecclesiastical preferment was prized more highly by the educated than the triumphs of judicial learning and forensic eloquence. The arm of the strongest determined the justice of a cause without the formalities of evidence and argument. A graduated tariff of compensation for bodily injury existed, and any offence could be expiated by the payment of a stipulated sum. The imposition and collection of taxes were not regulated by any established principles, and the obvious rules of political economy were violated in the application and enforcement of the fiscal regulations. Amidst the universal disorder, the Church lost no opportunity to increase her acquisitions and consolidate her power. She encouraged the continuance of the incredible ignorance and inhumanity of the age. She resolutely set her face against every attempt of the laity to shake off the fetters imposed upon it by violence and superstition. She punished with atrocious severity the slightest manifestation to question the genuineness of her pretensions or the validity of her canons.

The warlike and pugnacious spirit of an age governed by force affected even a profession generally associated with the offices of mercy and peace. For centuries among the Saxons it was the bishop and not the king who conferred the distinction of knighthood. In martial assemblies no difference existed in the appearance of the prelate and the warrior. The panoply and weapons of the field were often also a feature of ecclesiastical convocations. Godfrey, Archbishop of Narbonne, presided in complete armor over councils called to determine points of religious doctrine. The Bishop of Cahors, in Provence, refused to say mass unless his sword and gauntlets had been previously deposited on the altar. The Treasurer of the Cathedral of Nevers appeared in the choir armed to the teeth and with his hawk upon his wrist. In Languedoc, during the thirteenth century, it was the practice of priests to settle questions in dispute by fisticuffs.

After the destruction of the Roman Empire, the first attempt to reorganize society was made by the institution of the Feudal System. It was an instance of the selection of the lesser of two evils. In consideration of protection, the vassal paid homage to his lord and promised him military and other services under certain ill-defined conditions. Defective and susceptible of enormous abuses as this arrangement was, it alleviated to some degree the misery of the lower orders. Its jurisdiction was coextensive with the dominions formerly embraced by the empire of Charlemagne. The temptation it held out to oppression more than neutralized the benefits it occasionally conferred. It organized and perpetuated the most vexatious of thraldoms, the tyranny of caste. It appropriated all property in the soil, and a person not of noble birth or ecclesiastical distinction was doomed to the humiliating dependence of vassalage or serfdom. The nominal liberty originally enjoyed by the descendants of the ancient Roman colonists was easily forfeited by the non-payment of taxes, whose amount was regulated by the caprice of the lord; the failure to perform military service or even the neglect to observe obligations of trifling importance of themselves was sufficient to reduce the offender to a condition of servitude.

The serfs were divided into two principal classes, known to the technical jargon of the law as villains in gross and villains regardant. The authority of the lord over both of these was absolute and irresponsible; the former were attached to his person and, like other chattels, could be sold or otherwise disposed of; the latter belonged to the soil and could under no circumstances be alienated. In every case villains were inventoried and valued as beasts of burden. They experienced all the hardships that greed and malice could invent or cruelty inflict. Not only were they exposed to the violence and rapacity of their superiors, but they were subject to the exaction of certain privileges which could only have been tolerated in an age wholly devoid of the principles of honor, justice, and decency. A conveyance for the transfer of a fief scarcely deigned to mention the wretched creatures who in the eye of the law formed a part of the glebe, and one from which the latter derived its principal value. The avarice of unfeeling lords compelled the peasant to labor throughout the night and to share the lodgings of the cattle. Around his neck was soldered a metal collar, sometimes of brass, often of silver, on which were engraved his name and that of his master. His manhood was entirely destroyed; he possessed no rights, enjoyed no liberties, participated in no diversions. His identity was lost, his very being was merged into the soil on whose surface he toiled from early childhood until released by death. No more pathetic and forlorn example of the deplorable effects of human tyranny and human suffering exists than that presented by the life of the villain regardant of the Middle Ages.

The code of seignioral rights which governed the lord in the relations he maintained with his vassals is one of the most curious and remarkable collections in the entire system of jurisprudence. Voluminous treatises have been written upon it. Dictionaries have been compiled in explanation of the obscure and technical terms by which its customs are designated. The abuse of its prerogatives has led to more than one event whose effects have been experienced in the fall of empires, the institution of anarchy, the weakening of religious sentiment, the destruction of social order.

By the provisions of this code, whose authority was usually presumed to be based upon charters or capitularies conferred by reigning monarchs, the suzerain, always an individual of noble lineage or clerical importance, was invested with all the powers of despotism, so far as the jurisdiction of his estates was concerned. The infliction of the death penalty was within his discretion. He could impose taxes at will, and there was no check upon his rapacity except that suggested by considerations of private interest. The rights of legalized plunder were multiplied to an astonishing degree—for every important action of life, for the performance of every labor, for every change of condition, for birth, death, marriage, for the gathering of harvests, for the construction of buildings, for the keeping of animals, permission was required and a contribution demanded. The virtue of the female serf was absolutely at the mercy of her lord. She was the subject of the most flagitious and degrading section in this code of infamy. The charters or the prescriptive regulations of many fiefs conceded to the lord the exercise of certain prior rights over the bride of a vassal. Where such a privilege existed, none of any rank who owed homage to prince or noble were exempt from its enforcement. Known in different countries by various names,—in France, as Cuissage; in Italy, as Cazzagio; in Flanders, as Bednood; in Germany, as Reit-Schot; in England, as Maidenrent,—it was one of the most widely diffused of all feudal exactions. The gentlemen of the clergy practised it most assiduously; they were among the first to adopt and the last to relinquish it. This odious privilege attached to the estates of most of the great abbeys and sees of Catholic Europe. Its exertion might be commuted for a sum of money, but this was a matter entirely dependent on the caprice of him who enjoyed it. In different localities the interpretation of the general law which sanctioned its use was, by common consent, enlarged, and its indiscriminate infliction was not infrequently imposed upon the serfs of a neighbor as a penalty for trespass and other misdemeanors. Modern propriety will not tolerate the enumeration of the curious and revolting details concerning the “Droit de prélibation,” with which the ancient charters of mediæval times are filled. The evils resulting from this custom frequently aroused the indignation of even the meek and plodding villain, and incited him to assassination and rebellion. It is an extraordinary circumstance, however, that the victim most nearly affected by the operation of this iniquitous law, which had a direct tendency permanently to impair domestic happiness and cast a stigma upon the offspring of every family, never complained of its hardships. Among all the remonstrances and memorials presented during the Middle Ages to monarchs and legislative bodies which have been preserved, and many of which are signed by women, not a single instance can be found where a female vassal requested the abolition of a custom whose continuance was a constant menace to her modesty and virtue.

The essential principles of feudalism were territorial and martial. The right to receive homage implied the possession of real property and the privilege of private warfare. The soldier was the controlling power in the state. Questions affecting the integrity or loyalty of an individual, the liability for civil forfeiture or criminal punishment, the settlement of a boundary, the vindication of personal honor, were referred, not to a judicial tribunal to be determined by the application of well-established rules and precedents, but to the wager of battle. In cases where heresy was suspected, other and even more absurd tests, such as the ordeals by fire and water, were adopted. No rational ideas existed for the ascertainment of truth or the dispensation of justice. Every nation was subject to a haughty and cruel aristocracy, whose tyranny was sometimes tempered and sometimes aggravated by the influence of the clerical order, as its interests or its passions at the time might dictate. Whenever a rebellious spirit was evinced by the peasantry, and the authority of the barons was not strong enough to suppress it, bands of foreign mercenaries and outlaws were enlisted, who were paid with the effects of the serfs which had escaped the rapacity of the suzerain. The maintenance of a system which countenanced the settlement of private feuds by the sword and admitted the virtual independence of the nobles was, of course, inimical to the dignity and power of the sovereign. In France the seignioral fiefs bestowed by charters numbered five thousand, and their lords exercised jurisdiction over thirty thousand villages. There were abbeys whose domains were tilled by as many as twenty thousand serfs attached to the glebe. This enumeration did not include the villains in gross, who sometimes exceeded in number all the other retainers and dependents of the lords. The greater portion of the vast territory administered by the hierarchy under the customs of feudalism was obtained from wealthy pilgrims and crusaders, who sacrificed their earthly possessions to the thrifty priesthood for a trifle in the vain expectation of securing a celestial inheritance. By means of this folly, as well as through the effects of ecclesiastical oppression and torture, France lost thirty-three per cent. of its population during the thirteenth century. In Saxon England the peasants had absolutely no guaranty of protection. Their property was appropriated and their persons enslaved by the petty kings and piratical chieftains who contended in incessant warfare for control of the affairs of Britain. The conquest by the Normans was productive of little improvement. A tyranny of race and caste arose, aggravated by the worst features of the Feudal System, and the despised and humiliated Saxon was degraded almost to the level of a brute. During this unhappy epoch the law of force was paramount throughout Europe. The moral influence exerted by the clergy through the medium of superstitious fear afforded the only instance where obedience was not dependent upon the sword. Where the privileges of feudalism were combined with the exactions of sacerdotal avarice and intolerance, the lot of the serf was indeed grievous. But in cases that did not compromise the prestige or affect the revenues of the hierarchy, the Church not infrequently interposed to protect the victim of aristocratic persecution and injustice. The savage baron, all but omnipotent elsewhere, dared not invade the hallowed precincts of her sanctuary. Under the beneficent shadow of her altar the fugitive peasant was safe from the vengeance of his oppressor. By the tender of her mediation in the quarrels of powerful chieftains, peace was re-established over extensive provinces where anarchy and implacable hatred had long held sway. And it was by her aid, combined with the efforts of the outraged Third Estate, and encouraged by monarchs whose prerogatives had been usurped, that the offensive and cruel rights of feudalism were finally abolished. The Crusades struck a fatal blow at the system by impoverishing the lords through the alienation of their estates and the consequent overthrow of their power. For this service, if for no other, posterity owes to the priesthood an incalculable debt of gratitude. So firmly rooted were many of the practices of the Feudal System that to this day they have not been entirely eradicated. Ceremonies unquestionably derived from seignioral privileges are still observed in remote districts of France and Italy. The statutes of England and her colonies have not yet been purged of provisions and terms which suggest to the legal antiquary the mutual obligations of vassal and suzerain.

The relative position of nations in the scale of barbarism or civilization is largely determined by the nature of their tastes and favorite occupations, by their pastimes, by the means which they invent or adopt to add to the comforts and conveniences of daily life. During the greater portion of the period under consideration in this chapter, the existence of the people of Europe, without distinction of rank or resources, was a purely animal one. The necessities of the fortress, the camp, and the hovel were easily supplied. Articles of the simplest construction and most inexpensive materials, whose uses must have occurred spontaneously to the most unimaginative mind, and are now considered indispensable in every household, were unknown. The castle of the noble partook of all the forbidding characteristics of a prison. Its frowning donjon, its impassable moat, its embattled walls, its jealously guarded portals, were suggestive of tyranny and disorder. The interior was not more inviting. The halls were cold and cheerless; the gloomy chambers, into whose damp recesses the rays of the sun struggled with difficulty through narrow, unglazed windows, the stone seats, the massive furniture and mildewed tapestry were typical of the coarse simplicity and unsettled condition of society in that age. The banqueting hall, where hospitality was dispensed on state occasions with rude magnificence, was at almost every meal the scene of gluttony and uncontrolled inebriety.

The decorations and their surroundings exhibited the greatest possible incongruity. Hangings of silk and velvet embroidered with gold were suspended against whitewashed walls. Plate of the precious metals was served upon tables of rough and uneven boards. The mailed foot of the knight and the dainty slipper of the chatelaine reposed upon undressed flags, whose coldness was somewhat counteracted by a covering of straw or fragrant herbs. In the viands abundance was considered rather than excellence of flavor, which, however, on extraordinary occasions was supposed to be supplied by the use of rose-water profusely sprinkled over every dish. The repast, where incredible quantities of food were consumed, was characterized by coarse jests and barbaric revelry. The favorite beverage was beer, often brewed in the castle and indulged in to disgusting excess; for through its potency the festivities became the fatal cause of indescribable libertinism and sanguinary encounters. The guests were served by squires and pages, youths of rank, who, inmates of the castle, acquired there a knowledge of arms as well as an acquaintance with the more doubtful accomplishments of gaming and amorous intrigue. The intimate associations and domestic character of mediæval society arising from a sparse population removed all suspicion of menial service from this duty, which was considered highly honorable, and was gladly performed by the proudest noble at the board of his royal suzerain.

The amusements of the feudal lord were confined to war or its substitute, the chase. In the intervals of peace the tournament supplied the necessary practice in arms as well as the military pomp and excitement of the field. One of the favorite diversions of both the nobility and the wealthier clergy was flying the falcon. An extraordinary importance attached to the possession and use of these birds of prey. Property in them was inviolate. They were inseparably connected with the aristocratical or personal privileges of the owner, and could not be alienated, even with his consent, for the ransom of their master. Persons of plebeian station were not permitted to purchase or keep them. They were universally recognized symbols of suzerainty. Kings, bishops, abbots, ladies never went abroad without these birds upon their fists. Warriors carried them in battle. Prelates deposited them in the chancel while they recited the service of the altar. The regulations of falconry constituted a science only to be mastered after months of assiduous study. The education of these birds required the exertion of great skill and boundless patience. Each falcon was carried upon a glove which could not be used for any other. It bore the arms of the master, and was often embroidered with gold and ornamented with jewels. In many kingdoms the office of Grand Falconer was one of the greatest distinction and importance. In France the emoluments of this dignitary were eighty thousand francs a year, and gentlemen of rank eagerly competed for the subordinate employments at his disposal.

The supreme ambition of baronial life was the fame that attached to martial deeds and romantic adventure. The first care of the noble was to secure himself against the treachery and violence of his neighbors. His castle, perched upon a lofty eminence, was furnished with every device to render it impregnable. The most incessant vigilance was adopted to provide against surprise. In front of the gateway, or projected from the summit of the keep and overhanging the moat, was a gibbet, a significant reminder to malefactors of the consequences of violated law or resisted oppression. By the over-scrupulous, immunity was purchased from the Church with the proceeds of the spoliation of the helpless. On all sides—in the bloody traditions of the moated stronghold, with its subterranean dungeons and its instruments of torture; in the license of the armored troop that rode down the ripening harvest and levied blackmail on the trader and the pilgrim; in the perpetual labors of the uncomplaining serf; in the outraged modesty of weeping womanhood; in the summary execution of suspected offenders against feudal privilege,—everywhere were visible the brutalizing effects of unrestrained cruelty and irresponsible power.

But with all their defects, the baronial institutions of mediæval times bestowed upon society advantages that in some measure compensated for the evil which they too often occasioned. The military tastes of the age gave rise to the laws of chivalry and the institution of knighthood, whence in turn were derived graces and amenities of social intercourse hitherto unpractised by the savage warriors of Gallic and Saxon Europe.

The tournament was, as might be imagined, the most popular of the diversions of the Middle Ages. From far and near multitudes flocked to the scene of martial skill and splendor. The town where it was held presented the aspect of an immense fair. For leagues around the country was dotted with tents, and with pavilions surmounted by the pennons of the chivalry of many lands. The retinues of prince and noble not infrequently assumed the dimensions of an army. The followers of Gottfried, Duke von Löwen, at Trazignies in 1169 numbered three thousand. At a tournament near Soissons in 1175, Count Baldwin von Hennegau appeared with an escort of a hundred knights and twelve hundred esquires. The blazons of the most ancient and celebrated houses of Europe were conspicuous in the vast encampment. Kings frequently held their courts within its precincts. All classes were in holiday garb. The magnificence of the spectacle was enhanced by gorgeously caparisoned horses, damascened harnesses, waving plumes, many colored silks, sparkling jewels, the parade of men-at-arms, the pomp of marching squadrons, the resplendent charms of female beauty. The contest, repeatedly, but without effect, prohibited by the edicts of Pope and Council, was conducted with all the ferocity of battle. The thirst of blood predominated over every other sentiment. It was not an unusual occurrences for scores of knights to be carried lifeless from the lists after one of these fierce encounters.

The point of honor which inspired the conduct of the mediæval champion of distressed innocence and avenger of privileged oppression had no existence among the most civilized races of antiquity. The individuality implied by its exercise could not be comprehended by communities whose members, while capable of renouncing every tie of kindred in behalf of the interests of the state and of undergoing the most severe privations to sustain the national supremacy, were prevented by the peculiar circumstances of their surroundings from appreciating the qualities which ennobled even the vices of the knight of the Middle Ages. Without this prominent and compensating feature the condition of society during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries would have been one of unredeemed and unequivocal barbarism.

The coarse though abundant fare of the castle board, the more delicate but still far from dainty viands of the monastic refectory, the boisterous amusements which occupied the leisure and menaced the safety of the participants, the drunken revels of gluttonous banquets, the incessant perils of domestic warfare, to which baron and monk were alike exposed, were suggestive of absolute happiness and luxury when contrasted with the conditions under which was sustained the miserable existence of the serf. His habitation was shared by beasts of burden, the companions of his daily and nightly toil. Composed of unhewn logs or of sticks wattled with rushes, thatched with straw and plastered with mud, its primitive and defective construction afforded little security against the vicissitudes of the climate or the inclemency of the seasons. Through a hole in the centre of the roof the smoke emerged and the storm descended; the walls were blackened with soot; the earthen floor was covered with a trampled litter of hay, mingled with bones and the decaying fragments of many a repast which the occupants had never taken the trouble to remove. Of furniture there was almost none; a bench, perhaps, and a table of unsmoothed planks answered the simple requirements of the hapless villain. He reposed upon a heap of straw with a block of wood for a pillow; the few culinary utensils he possessed were of the rudest description, and had been fashioned by the hand of the owner. No provision was made for the decencies of life or the safeguards of virtue, which were indeed unknown; the family occupied a common apartment, and often a single bed, while the grunting of swine and the lowing of oxen, which animals ranged at will through the dwelling, were sounds too familiar to disturb the slumbers of the drowsy household. The accumulated filth of years, combined with indescribable personal neglect and revolting customs, attracted and multiplied swarming multitudes of every species of vermin. The garments of the peasant, usually of skins, descended uncleansed and unchanged from father to son through many generations, bearing in their contaminated folds the germs of pestilence and death. Where the circumstances of the serf were not sufficiently prosperous to afford even this protection against the weather, his shivering limbs were wrapped with ropes of straw. His head was uncovered, often even in the depth of winter. The most obvious precautions of hygiene were neglected; the simplest precepts of medical science had not yet penetrated to the isolated communities of Western Europe or were sedulously discountenanced by the interests of superstition; and the plague, assisted by favorable climatic conditions, as well as by the physical debasement and the fears of the people, at each visitation numbered its victims by myriads. With game in every grove and fish in every stream, the famishing peasant was often reduced to appease his hunger with unwholesome roots and bark when the meal of chestnuts and acorns, his most luxurious fare, was wanting. The severity of the forest laws visited upon the poacher, even when impelled by the pangs of starvation to trespass on the seignioral demesnes, the most barbarous of punishments. Around the monastery and the castle were visible the signs of unskilled and reluctant cultivation; but not far away was a wilderness diversified with vast forests, majestic rivers, and pestilential marshes. Intercommunication was irregular and limited to populous districts; many villages of no inconsiderable dimensions were as completely separated from the outside world as if they stood on islands in the midst of the ocean. Barter of commodities necessarily prevailed in the almost entire absence of money; there was no opportunity for the establishment of trade; no incitement to agricultural industry; no work for the artisan. The accumulation of property was effectually discouraged through the incapacity of the laborer to retain or enjoy it when his hopes were constantly frustrated by the insinuating artifices of the priest or the significant threats of the noble. The extortions of the inexorable tax-receiver, the inhumanity of licensed hirelings, the enormities countenanced by baronial tyranny, carried dismay into every hamlet. Epidemics appeared without warning, and spread with mysterious and appalling rapidity; the death-rate was frightful; fatal symptoms developed almost with the first attack, while in the ignorance of rational treatment the application of relics and the mummeries of the clergy proved signally ineffectual to avert what was considered the vengeance of Heaven.

Confined in the lazar-house with hundreds of his fellow-sufferers or banished to a lonely hut, far from the haunts of men, the hapless leper dragged out his melancholy existence in pain, in disgrace, in penury. The law declared him civilly dead. With a ceremony not less solemn than that performed over the remains of a Christian actually deceased, the priest announced his final separation from the society of mankind. His body was enveloped in a shroud. He was laid upon a bier. With the repetition of the legal formula which consigned him to a life of odium and sorrow, a few garments and necessary utensils were placed in his hands. He was forbidden to eat with any person but a leper; to wash his hands in running water; to give away any object he had touched; to frequent places of public resort; even to enter the house of a relative or a friend. With his shoulders covered with a tattered scarlet mantle,—a danger-signal, visible from afar,—hideous to the sight, emaciated to a skeleton, and horribly scarred with disease, he crouched by the wayside, sounding his rattle to arouse the compassion and solicit the charity of the passer-by. Deprived of civil rights and debarred from invoking the protection of the law, he was, however, not wholly an outcast, for with the exclusion from these privileges he became the ward and vassal of the Church. So loathed and dreaded was his malady—often considered a divine penalty for crime or sacrilege—that no physician could be induced to employ the scanty medical science of the day for the alleviation of his sufferings; and, even if wealthy, he was abandoned to the suspicious ministrations of wizards, barbers, and charlatans. Shunned as accursed and repulsive during his lifetime, when dead he was unceremoniously buried under the floor of his hovel.

The segregation of lepers in the Middle Ages, as a measure of public safety, was productive of singular results in subsequent times. The disease, which at different periods seems to have been both infectious and contagious, gradually disappeared. But the prejudice attaching to the posterity of the unfortunate outcasts, formerly cut off from all intercourse with their fellow-men, and who formed isolated communities, still remained. The origin of that prejudice was completely forgotten. The people in their ignorance attributed the cause of their enmity to religious differences. It was believed that the objects of their unreasoning aversion were variously sprung from the Goths, the Jews, the Saracens, the Albigenses. Modern research, however, has definitely established the fact that the former pariahs of Southwestern Europe, known in Languedoc and Gascony as Capots and Gahets, in Brittany as Cacous, in the Pyrenees as Cagots, in Spain as Agotes, were the descendants of mediæval lepers. A century has hardly elapsed since these victims of popular antipathy have been divested of that suspicion of uncleanness which was their ancient and unhappy heritage.

In the disorganized state of society which everywhere prevailed, facilities for the profitable and friendly intercourse which promote the intelligence and contribute to the temporal welfare of nations could not exist. Even in provinces of the same country the professional robber and the bandit noble united to imperil the life and seize the merchandise of the trader. The courses of the old Roman highways, unused for centuries, concealed by rubbish and sometimes overgrown with forests, had been utterly lost. There was no provision made by the state for the protection of commerce, and the universal insecurity discouraged the schemes of private enterprise. The mortality resulting from habitual violation of the most obvious sanitary laws, from the use of insufficient and innutritious food, from the hardships of incessant toil, and from daily exposure to the elements, effectually retarded the increase of population. That district was fortunate indeed where even a uniform standard was preserved. In many localities in kingdoms where modern civilization has achieved her most signal triumphs, a solitary shepherd pasturing his flock, or a tottering hovel standing in the centre of a dismal waste, alone proclaimed the presence of man.

The condition of the towns, where an improvement in the manner of living might reasonably have been expected, was in but few respects superior to that of the scattered villages and isolated settlements of the country. Even the main thoroughfares were narrow, tortuous, and dirty. Without drainage or adequate municipal supervision, they were receptacles for the refuse of the household and the offensive carcasses of dead and decaying animals. Even as late as the reign of Francis I., the hogs belonging to the monks of St. Anthony, who asserted and exercised special privileges for the animals sacred to their patron, wandered at will through the fashionable quarters of the metropolitan city of Paris. From the overhanging balconies filthy slops were dashed, without warning, upon the head of the unwary passer-by. By night, daring criminals, secure from the risk of punishment, plied their lawless calling in these dismal and unlighted lanes. He who ventured, unattended, to thread the maze of alleys that wound through even the most frequented quarters of great cities did so at peril of his life. Each corner formed a convenient lair for the lurking assassin. The projecting gables of the houses aided in obscuring the gloomy footways. As the citizen stood in constant fear of robbers, his dwelling was always barred and silent. No light was visible anywhere save the flickering gleam in the lantern carried by the trembling pedestrian, always on his guard against some prowling assailant. Sometimes the mud was so deep that locomotion was impossible for the bearers of sedans, and women were carried from place to place upon the backs of porters, as the narrow and crooked streets precluded the use of vehicles drawn by horses. In the habitations of even those considered wealthy, a general air of discomfort was prevalent. The apartments were dark, ill-ventilated, and unclean. In the windows plates of horn and sheets of oiled paper supplied the place of glass, which was practically unknown. No carpet covered the floors, which were strewn with rushes. The foul surroundings assisted materially in the propagation of fevers and the spread of contagion. Provision for frequent ablution, so conducive to personal comfort as well as to immunity from disease, was unheard of. In many of the most populous capitals of Europe not a single public bath could be found. The attire of the prosperous burgher and merchant was prescribed by sumptuary laws dictated by the jealous spirit of the aristocracy, who could not tolerate a display of plebeian splendor to which their own resources were unable to attain. Their garments were limited to coarse woollen stuffs, whose cut and fashion were regulated according to the capricious decisions of the court. The use of golden ornaments and jewels, so indispensable to the gratification of female vanity, was prohibited to the wives and daughters of their households, who were also restricted to a sombre and unattractive garb. In some instances this contemptible exercise of authority went still further. It dictated the quantity and quality of the food and the beverages to be consumed at the table of the citizen, the description and the price of the light which illumined his home and of the fuel that warmed him. If he had anything to sell, he was paid by his superiors in the product of a debased coinage or with counterfeit money, whose manufacture was everywhere prosecuted with comparative impunity.

Drunkenness was so prevalent in England during the reign of Edgar that restrictions were placed upon the quantity of liquor to be consumed,—the amount allowed each guest being indicated by a mark on the side of the cup or the drinking-horn. The observance of these tyrannical and senseless ordinances was secured by a harassing system of espionage and informers, and their violation was punished by ruinous fines and by condemnation to the stocks or the pillory. The publication and enforcement of sumptuary laws necessarily prevented the development of commerce, already greatly retarded by the prevalent barbarism and poverty of the age. Countries enjoying unlimited natural resources of soil, minerals, timber, and water-power, and whose noble streams only required a portion of the energy and enterprise of man to bring the fertile regions they traversed into intimate contact with the humanizing influences and exquisite products of the highest civilization, were as backward as the savage kingdoms of central Africa are to-day.

A good index of the force of the bigoted prejudice and public intolerance of the time is discernible in the treatment universally received by the Jew. He was the financier, the physician, the merchant, the broker, the scholar of the Middle Ages. He managed with eminent success the fiscal departments of vast empires and kingdoms. In the great catastrophes which overwhelmed entire nations,—amidst the want and despair occasioned by earthquakes, wars, famine, pestilence,—his shrewdness and his resources always afforded relief to the suffering induced by the prevalent evils, although it must be confessed rarely without exorbitant compensation. His medical talents and surgical skill brought him under the ban of the clergy as a dealer in magic; but neither the statutes of Parliament nor the anathemas of priests could deprive him of the protection and friendship of orthodox monarchs, or of even the Sovereign Pontiff himself. True to the adventurous and acquisitive character of his race, he introduced the knowledge and use of foreign commodities in lands rarely trodden by the foot of the stranger, defying the storms of sea and ocean, braving alike the unprincipled rapacity of the noble, the violence of the highwayman, the perils of remote and unexplored solitudes. In maritime cities he established depôts for the importation and exchange of every description of merchandise. His credit and his tact enabled him to negotiate loans for improvident princes, which, more than once, saved distressed nations from bankruptcy. Amidst the multifarious variety of his occupations, he found time for the recreation derived from the pursuits of literature. In this sphere, as in all others to which he devoted his talents, he attained to the highest distinction. In philosophy, in astronomy, in chemistry, in mathematics, his opinions were regarded by his contemporaries with the reverence attaching to oracles. His poetry and his eloquence delighted such courts as those of Cordova and Bagdad; his erudition instructed and his genius illumined schools like those of Salerno, Montpellier, and Narbonne.

How then did society reward such inestimable benefits? Alas! for the credit of humanity, it must be confessed that the intolerance fostered by centuries of hatred obliterated every generous impulse, every sentiment of gratitude. The remembrance of the decision of the Sanhedrim, the story of the sacrifice on Calvary, extinguished in the minds of the fanatical populace the sense of any subsequent obligation. The anniversary of that tremendous event was the signal for insult and outrage. The most heinous accusations, many of them extravagant and improbable in their very nature, were brought by popular clamor, instigated by ecclesiastical malice, against the defenceless Hebrew. His commercial relations with the East had introduced the leprosy. The plague was caused by poison which he had thrown into the wells. The meat he sold was sometimes whispered to be human flesh; and the milk he dealt in not yielded by the cow, but drawn from the breasts of the females of his household. He kidnapped children, whose blood he made use of in the concoction of magical potions. On Good Friday, aided by his kinsmen, he re-enacted the tragedy of Golgotha, the victim being a Christian youth who played, perforce, the rôle of the Saviour, and who, with unavailing struggles and lamentations, endured the humiliation and agony of the Crucifixion. Kings, merely by proclamation, appropriated the Jews of their realms as the absolute property of the crown. Then, by virtue of this arbitrary proceeding, they confiscated the possessions of these victims of royal avarice, under pretence of fines or ransom. Under these significant circumstances it requires no extraordinary degree of discernment to perceive that the wealth of the Jews was the principal cause of their persecution. By their talents and industry they had reached the highest posts in the learned professions; had monopolized the trade; had controlled, to a greater or less extent, the policy of every government in Christendom. Under Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnair their condition was more prosperous than under succeeding monarchs for eight hundred years. In every walk of life they received the consideration merited by their commanding abilities. Their influence was unrivalled. They maintained royal state. Great concessions were made to their convenience and religious prejudices. Their prosperity excited the envy of the rabble. Their influence with the monarch enraged the courtiers. The clergy, whose profits were reduced by their enterprise and whose monopolies they antagonized by their insinuating arts, regarded them with the double hatred engendered by imperilled temporal interests and ferocious bigotry. Among every class and rank their superior intelligence was believed to be due to sacrilegious bargains with the powers of darkness. The prejudice attaching to their name and religion always afforded a specious pretext for persecution. In every Christian kingdom they were the objects of popular execration. They were unceremoniously robbed by the government. They were banished without notice. Their debtors were encouraged to repudiate contracts made with them. The officials of the Inquisition took exquisite pleasure in burning Hebrews, always selecting the most wealthy for its victims. Of the one hundred and sixty thousand persons burnt or disciplined during the twenty-eight years comprising the administrations of Torquemada and Ximenes as Inquisitors-General, the majority were of that unfortunate race. The cause of a Jew was prejudged before every tribunal, and it was often difficult for him to obtain a hearing, and still more to secure the protection to which he was legally entitled. Under such intolerable oppression it is not strange that he should, by the adoption of unprincipled methods and by the exaction of enormous usury, have endeavored to compensate himself, in some degree, for the degradation and hardships he was compelled to undergo. This course, however, only intensified the popular hatred until the term Jew was considered the epitome of all dishonor, deceit, and unprincipled villany. These discreditable prejudices, dictated by general ignorance and by the sacerdotal malice of the Middle Ages, are still, it is well known, far from being eradicated even by the superior understanding and liberal opinions of the twentieth century.