The jurisprudence of the Emperor was based upon and included the system established by the Normans. Its rules were modified and improved as experience had suggested would be expedient and profitable. The main objects of the laws were the extinction of feudal tyranny, and the enjoyment of private liberty so far as it was not inconsistent with the prerogatives of the crown. No monarch of ancient or modern times was more solicitous for the happiness of his subjects, and none ever more fully appreciated the fact that the test of a nation’s greatness is the benefit derived by mankind from its works, its history, its example. The difficulties encountered in the formation of a uniform code which could be enforced in such a cosmopolitan society as that of Sicily seemed insuperable. Feudal rights and ecclesiastical exemptions; the privileges of the Jews and Saracens, founded on prescription and confirmed by tribute; the jealous contentions of many forms of religious belief; the perpetual encroachments and usurpations of pontifical authority; the skepticism of Moslem philosophers, and the fanatical rage of persecuting zealots,—all of these antagonistic rights, claims, prejudices, and prerogatives it was necessary to correct, rearrange, amend, and embody in one practical, efficient, and harmonious system. The task, though stupendous, was not beyond the abilities and constructive genius of the great law-giver. The turbulence of the nobles was firmly restrained. All members of the clerical order were rendered amenable to the laws of the realm in cases which concerned the dignity and traditions of the empire. In matters relating to marriage alone they were permitted to exercise jurisdiction over those who had not taken the tonsure; the assent of the Emperor was necessary to the validity of an election; the prelate as well as the layman was compelled to assist in defraying the expenses of the government; nor, in any way, could he escape the discharge of duties enjoined by the Imperial Code or plead immunity from burdens necessary to the security of the state or the enforcement of order. The law of mortmain, framed under the direction of the Emperor, preceded the famous statute of Edward I., of which it was the prototype, nearly a century. Upon every individual the maxim was continually impressed that the sovereign was the fountain of justice, authority, and mercy. The criminal procedure, founded on Norman precedents, was singularly free from the legal atrocities generally prescribed by feudal regulations; the penalty of death was only inflicted for the most heinous offences; mutilation was seldom permitted except in the cases of incorrigible criminals; torture, while recognized, was one of the rarest of punishments. The courts were invested with every outward circumstance of official pomp and dignity. From the decision of the supreme tribunal there was no appeal; even in the monarch vexatious litigation was systematically discouraged; judicial bribery was considered a crime of peculiar infamy; and the practice of holding the magistrate responsible for the maintenance of peace in his district was a most efficient check upon the violence and depredations of professional malefactors.

In the statutes relating to the detection and punishment of heresy, the character of Frederick appears to singular and manifest disadvantage. His long wars with the Pope, his close intimacy with infidels, his oppression of ecclesiastics, the repeated acts of sacrilege of which he was guilty, the blasphemous speeches constantly upon his tongue, the profane and mysterious studies in which he delighted, his employment of and confidence in wizards and astrologers, demonstrate beyond contradiction the weakness of his faith or the profoundness of his hypocrisy. But the latitude of opinion and conduct which he allowed himself was in an inverse ratio to that which he vouchsafed to others. No familiar of the Inquisition ever pursued heretics with greater zeal or pertinacity than the famous monarch whose name is constantly associated with all that is liberal, enlightened, and profitable in the annals of human progress, an inconsistency all the more glaring in a prince whose favorite sentiment was, “The glory of a ruler is the safe and comfortable condition of the subject.” History has never been able to advance a satisfactory or even a plausible explanation of this anomaly; its cause, at this distance of time, must remain forever unknown, and may be ascribed, for want of a better solution, to the innate perversity of the human mind, which often by a single glaring defect obscures the brilliant lustre of a character eminently conspicuous for every princely quality, for every generous impulse, and for every literary and artistic excellence.

His commercial regulations were among the principal sources of Frederick’s power and greatness. His genius perceived at a glance the vast advantages which must result from an interchange of commodities with maritime nations; and, in the application of this principle, every facility was afforded those bold spirits whose energy the expectation of gain or the love of adventure directed into the channels of trade. Treaties more liberal in their provisions and more profitable in their effects than any which had heretofore been adopted by the powers of the Mediterranean were concluded with the greatest mercantile communities of Europe,—Constantinople, Venice, Genoa,—as well as with Damascus and Alexandria and the Moorish principalities of Africa and Spain.

The intimacy maintained by Frederick with Mohammedan sovereigns contributed greatly to the prosperity of his dominions. The Sultan of Egypt was his friend. The Emir of Tunis was his tributary. With the other Moslem princes he was on the best of terms. Treaties of commerce, framed for mutual advantage, were frequently negotiated with these potentates, who were only too willing to discriminate against other European monarchs in favor of the Emperor of Germany. In 1241, on the arrival of the Imperial ambassadors, Cairo was illuminated in their honor. The trade of Sicily extended to India. The luxuries of the Orient were brought to the ports of Palermo and Messina. In their markets the arms, the jewels, the stuffs, the porcelain, of countries remote from civilization found a ready sale. In return, immense quantities of grain and manufactured articles were exported. It has been established upon undoubted authority that white female slaves of Christian birth formed no inconsiderable portion of the commodities dealt in by the subjects of Frederick II.

The fortunate geographical situation of Sicily, her magnificent harbors, the productiveness of her soil, the excellence and variety of her manufactures, had, in all ages, been factors of paramount importance in her commercial development. That development was now materially aided by the reciprocal observance of humane and courteous regulations, hitherto unrecognized in the intercourse of nations during the Middle Ages. Merchants in foreign ports were received with lavish hospitality; distrust of strangers gradually subsided; and unfortunates, cast away at sea, were no longer compelled to endure both the violence of the elements and the heartless rapacity of ferocious outlaws or amateur freebooters. In the widely distributed commerce of the monarchy the crown enjoyed no insignificant share. The ships of Frederick were anchored in every harbor; his warehouses were filled with the choicest and most costly fabrics of every country; and his agents, conspicuous for their enterprise and daring, collected, in the distant and almost unknown regions of the Orient, articles whose sale would most contribute to the benefit of the royal treasury. The principles of free trade seem to have been first promulgated in the maritime code of Sicily. The Emperor, however, in the application of those principles, evinced no reluctance in discriminating against his own subjects, whose vessels were not permitted to clear for foreign ports until those of the crown had been a certain time at sea. Every branch of commerce paid tribute to the imperial merchant. His ships carried pilgrims to the Holy Land. The grain he annually sent to Africa returned an enormous and certain profit. His trade with India brought into European markets objects of unfamiliar uses and elaborate workmanship, whose rarity often increased their great intrinsic value. His friendly relations with Mohammedan princes, begun during the Crusade and terminated only by his death, made him frequently the recipient of magnificent presents. We read that on one occasion an eastern potentate sent him a dozen camels laden with silver and gold. All ships trading to Palestine were required to bring back a cross-bow for each of their cables, a measure which, while it replenished the royal arsenals with the most effective weapons of the age, was free from the dangers of official incapacity or corruption, and entailed no expense on the government. A great fleet of galleys, commanded by the Genoese admiral Spinola, maintained the naval power of the kingdom and protected the coasts from the depredations of pirates.

In the internal administration of the kingdom, the most progressive and equitable ideas of commercial honor and common advantage prevailed. No duty could be levied on articles of necessity transported from one province to another. While monopolies were not forbidden, they were restricted to the crown, and the oppression resulting from this measure in other countries was not felt by the subjects of Frederick. Annual fairs were held in all the principal cities; markets existed everywhere. Taxes were apportioned according to the wealth of the district where they were to be collected. Constant war made these impositions onerous at times, but there was some relief in the knowledge that the clergy were forced to contribute their share to the public burdens, an inconvenience from which they were elsewhere exempt. The coinage was one of the purest, the most convenient, the most beautifully executed that had ever been put in circulation by any government. Agriculture, still largely in the hands of the Arabs, was carried to the highest perfection. Every plant or tree, whose culture was known to be profitable and which could adapt itself to a soil of phenomenal fertility, was to be found in the gardens and plantations of Sicily. The regulations of the kingdom concerning the rural economy of its people were minute and specific, even paternal, in their character. They were especially exact in details when directing how the royal demesnes should be administered. Records were kept of the crops produced in each district. Inventories of all the stock, poultry, grain, and fruit were made each year; the methods of their disposition and the prices they brought were noted on the public registers. The very uses to which even the feathers of the domestic fowls were destined was a matter of official inquiry. The breeds of horses, asses, and cattle were improved; the greatest care was taken of these animals. Food, which after experiment was found to be the most nutritious, was adopted; and the Emperor, whose interest in these matters was stimulated by the profit he derived from his stables, personally scrutinized their management with the most assiduous care. The supervision exercised by government officials over all occupations was most precise, and must have often proved vexatious. Weights and measures were prescribed by law, and any departure from honest dealing in this respect was visited with the severest penalties. Officers were appointed in every town for the detection of false weights and the sale of spurious merchandise. The laws of hygiene were understood and enforced with a degree of intelligence unknown to many European communities even at the present day. Unwholesome provisions could not be exposed for sale in the markets. Trades offensive to the senses or injurious to public health were prohibited within the walls of cities. A depth was prescribed for graves, that the exhalations proceeding from them might not contaminate the air. No carrion was permitted to be left on the highways.

In questions of legislation, as well as in those relating to political economy, the kingdom of Sicily was far in advance of its contemporaries. The constitution of England, and especially the organization of the House of Commons, owe much to the Sicilian Parliament. While the duties of its members were ordinarily confined to the registering of royal edicts and the imposition of taxes, it presents the first example of a truly elective, representative assembly that is mentioned in history. From the institutions of Frederick, his relative, Alfonso X. of Castile, appropriated many of the legislative and judicial provisions of Las Siete Partidas,—a compilation for which that monarch is principally entitled for his fame. France and Germany also ultimately experienced the imperceptible but potent impulse communicated to society by the supremacy of law over theology, which had its beginning in Sicily during the thirteenth century.

Extensive and important as were the reforms of Frederick, it was from the munificent and discerning patronage extended to science and literature that is derived his most enduring claim to the gratitude and commendation of posterity. The impressions imparted by Moslem taste, in the prosecution of early studies, during the formation of his character, never lost their power. His court was frequented by the most accomplished Jews and Arabs of the age. They were the favorite instructors of youth. Their opinions, drawn from the sources of classic and Oriental learning, were heard with respect and awe, even by those who dissented from their creeds and deprecated their influence. They filled the most responsible and lucrative offices of the government. Admitted to friendly and confidential audiences with the sovereign, who, himself an excellent mathematician, delighted to pose them with abstruse problems in geometry and algebra, their philosophy was regarded with signal disfavor by distinguished prelates that daily, in halls and antechambers, impatiently awaited the pleasure of the Emperor. So fond was Frederick of these intellectual diversions, that he sent certain questions for solution to the Mohammedan countries of Africa and the East; but no one was found competent to answer them until they reached the court of one of the princes of Moorish Spain. One of the most accomplished of linguists, Frederick sedulously encouraged the study of languages throughout his dominions. Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek were understood and spoken by all who made any pretensions to thorough education. Naples and Salerno were the most famous seats of learning in that epoch,—at the former was the University established by the Emperor; the Medical College of Salerno is justly celebrated as one of the most extraordinary academical institutions that has ever existed. The Faculty of the University was composed of the most eminent scholars who could be attracted by ample salaries, the prospect of literary distinction, and the certain favor of an enlightened monarch. The resources of all countries were diligently laid under contribution to insure the success of this noble foundation. The popularity of Frederick with the Moslem princes of the East gave him exceptional facilities for the acquirement of literary treasures. The collections of Egypt and Syria and of the monasteries of Europe were ransacked for rare and curious volumes with which to furnish the library of the great Neapolitan college. No city was better adapted to the necessities of a large scholastic institution than Naples. Its situation in the centre of the Mediterranean, the salubrity of the climate, the cheapness and variety of its markets, offered unusual inducements to poor and ambitious students desirous of an education. Their interests were protected and their security assured by special and rigorous laws. Extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent their being molested during their journeys to and fro. The prices which might be charged for lodging were clearly and definitely established. Provision was made for loans, at a nominal interest, to such scholars as did not have the funds requisite to successfully prosecute their studies. The preparatory schools of the kingdom were conducted with equal care and prudence, and nowhere else in the world, in that age, could educational advantages of a similar character be enjoyed as in the Sicilian dominions of the Emperor.

Great as it was, the reputation of the University of Naples has been eclipsed by the superior renown of the Medical College of Salerno. There the study of surgery and medicine was pursued under the eyes of the most learned and distinguished practitioners of every nation familiar with the healing art. Ignorance of any language could scarcely be an impediment to the student, for instruction was given in Latin, Greek, German, Hebrew, Arabic. Scientific methods were invariably observed in its curriculum. The prevalent superstitions, which, encouraged by the clergy, appealed to the credulous fears of the vulgar, were contemptuously banished from its halls. While the School of Salerno had existed since the eighth century, and, from its origin, chiefly owed its fame and success to Arabic and Jewish influence, it attained its greatest prosperity under the fostering care of Frederick II. The writers principally relied on by its professors were Hippocrates and Galen, whose works had been preserved from barbarian destruction or oblivion by the Saracens of Egypt and Spain. But while these venerable authorities were always quoted with reverence, no obstinate adherence to tradition, no devotion to errors consecrated by the usages of centuries, characterized the College of Salerno. Its spirit was eminently progressive, inquisitive, liberal. The monk, the rabbi, the imam, the atheist, were numbered among its teachers, and each maintained a position among his fellows in a direct ratio to his intellectual attainments. This anomalous condition, the more conspicuous in an era of general ignorance, and flourishing under the very shadow of the Papacy, itself inimical to all pursuits which tended to mental progress and interference with its spiritual emoluments, rendered the existence of such an institution all the more remarkable. To its researches are to be attributed many maxims, theories, and methods of practice still recognized as correct by modern physicians. Its investigations were thoroughly philosophical and based largely upon experiment. Information was communicated by lectures; anatomical demonstrations, as in modern times, were considered among the most useful and valuable means of instruction. Mediæval prejudice still opposed the mutilation of the human form, which, with the sectarian prohibition of ceremonial uncleanness, had long before been overcome by the Moorish surgeons of Cordova; and, in the Salernitan clinic, anatomists were forced to be apparently content with the dissection of hogs and monkeys. In secret, however, human bodies were not infrequently delivered to the scalpel, and the offices of many internal organs were observed and determined by the aid of vivisection,—a practice indispensable to a proper understanding of surgery, yet reprobated, even in our age of scientific inquiry, by a class of noisy, but well-meaning, fanatics. The unsatisfactory memorials of the School of Salerno which have descended to us—some of doubtful authenticity, others of unknown derivation—nevertheless disclose the extraordinary discoveries its professors had made in anatomy; among them those of the functions of the chyle ducts, of the lymphatic system, of the capillaries, which then received their name; of the different coats and humors of the eye; of the phenomena of digestion, together with detailed descriptions of the office of the ovaries and their tubes, which anticipated the researches of Falloppio by more than four hundred years. Specialists then, as now, devoted their talents to the improvement and perfection of certain branches of medical science. There were many celebrated oculists and lithotomists, and practitioners who were highly successful in the treatment of hernia, of mechanical injuries of every kind, and of the diseases of women. The rules of hygiene, the properties of the various substances of the Materia Medica, the principles of pathology and therapeutics, as laid down by the faculty of Salerno, have been transmitted to us in a lengthy and curious poem entitled, “Flos Medicinæ Scholæ Salerni,” popularly known as Regimen Sanitatis.

This extraordinary production, none of which is probably later than the twelfth century, and whose origin is unknown, has been ascribed by Sprengel to Isaac ben Solomon, a famous Jewish practitioner of Cordova, who died in 950. Careful examination, however, discloses the fact that it is not the work of a single hand, but a compilation of various medical precepts and opinions belonging to different epochs. In its prologue, the pre-eminent value of temperance in all things is diligently inculcated:

It also contains hints on diagnosis and prognosis; information indicating no small degree of anatomical and physiological knowledge; formulas for antidotes of poisons; advice for the care of the body during every month in the year; and astrological indications of the favorable or malign influence of the signs of the zodiac and the stars. From the following couplet, designating the Seven Ages of Man,

seems to have been derived the inspiration of the familiar lines of Shakspeare.

The vitiated taste of an age not yet fully acquainted with the properties of correct literary composition caused the incorporation of verses into many of its most serious and dignified productions. These didactic poems seem singularly out of place in a medical treatise, and especially so where, as is usually the case, the poetry is, in both matter and harmony of numbers, below mediocrity.

Apothecaries and chemists, of whom a competent knowledge of drugs was required, were subject to the corps of physicians who were forbidden to join in their enterprises or share their profits; they were sworn to obey the Code; the number of pharmacies was limited; and they were liable to the visitation of imperial inspectors responsible for the purity of their merchandise and the observance of the law. The precautions required in the sale of poisons; the directions for compounding electuaries and syrups; the most approved methods for the preparation of the love-potions believed to be so efficacious by mediæval credulity; the fabrication of charms for the prevention of disease, are all set forth in the Salernitan Code with minute and tedious exactness.

In the city were many hospitals, the oldest of which was established in the ninth century, and was contemporaneous with similar institutions founded by the Ommeyade dynasty of Cordova. Some of them were richly endowed, others were entirely supported by charitable donations. The strict requirements of medical police were recognized in the isolation of patients suffering from contagious diseases. A systematic distinction was observed in the purposes of these beneficent foundations; they were of various classes and devoted to the care of the poor and the homeless, to the protection of invalid females of rank and fortune, to the support of foundlings; and the most intelligent treatment of every malady was gratuitously afforded. The members of monastic orders, for the most part, had charge of the hospitals, and acted in the capacity of nurses and attendants.

The regulations of Frederick, who united the various schools of Salerno into one vast institution of medical learning, exacted the possession of the highest abilities, dexterity, and experience by the expectant practitioner. A preparatory course of three years in the general branches of literature and philosophy was required of him. Five years at least were to be devoted to study in the colleges, and one year was then to be passed under the eye of an experienced physician before the aspirant for professional distinction was pronounced competent to prescribe for the suffering.

The remarkable attainments and skill of Roger of Parma, the great surgeon, who was famous for the treatment of wounds and fractures and the extirpation of tumors and polypi; of Maurus, Gaulterius, and Matthew Silvaticus, who published treatises on phlebotomy, general practice, and the Materia Medica; of Garipontus, an expert in operations for calculus and other diseases of the pelvic organs; of Giovanni da Procida, the accomplished court physician of Frederick II., all graduates of the School of Salerno, are conspicuous in the annals of mediæval surgery and medicine. Then first appeared the patronymic of Farragut—afterwards destined to such renown in the naval history of the New World—borne by a Jew of Messina, who was educated at Salerno and Montpellier, and whose translation of the “Continent” of Rhazes, made in the latter part of the thirteenth century, was dedicated to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX., King of France.

Students of both sexes were permitted to enjoy the rare advantages afforded by the School of Salerno; no prejudice hampered the acquisition by woman of medical knowledge, in whose application her natural acuteness and sympathy rendered her remarkably proficient and successful. Many female physicians rose to great eminence in the different departments of their profession as lecturers, chemists, operators: among them the names of Rebecca, who wrote on fevers and the embryo; Abella, on generation and prenatal life; Trotula, on the Materia Medica, hernia, and obstetrics; Mercuriade, on general surgery; and Costanza Colenda, whose scientific accomplishments, as well as her beauty, made her famous in Europe, have descended to our time. A college of midwifery existed at Salerno, whose graduates were subjected to examinations fully as strict as those required of candidates for medical honors, and who, sworn to fidelity, enjoyed a lucrative practice in the opulent families of Naples and Messina. Although a lofty sense of professional etiquette distinguished the faculty of Salerno, imperial supervision, which, under Frederick, found nothing too minute for its attention, carefully protected the public from extortion. Fees were fixed by law; their amounts were regulated by circumstances. Even the ordinary number of visits required in a given time was defined; and attendance was accorded without charge to the poor. In our age, so prolific of professional incompetence, the exalted rank and profound attainments of the graduates of the Salernitan school may well excite astonishment; amidst the darkness of mediæval ignorance it was the educational and literary phenomenon of Europe.

A generous patron of every art and occupation which could embellish his domains, benefit his subjects, or enrich his treasury, the Emperor gave also much attention to great public works,—the fortification of cities, the improvement of harbors, the construction of highways. His palaces disclosed a marked partiality for Moorish customs and Moorish architecture. Some of these beautiful edifices had come down from the Saracen domination, but many were constructed after the plans of the royal architect, who personally superintended their erection. They were finished with costly marbles and adorned with bas-reliefs, statues, and paintings. The eagles of Germany were sculptured over their portals. Outworks of vast extent defended their approaches. In all were courts and gardens odorous with the blossoms of jasmine and orange and surrounded by secluded apartments destined for the occupants of the imperial seraglio. Attached to some of these delightful retreats were extensive menageries, aviaries, and miniature lakes filled with gold and silver fish. There was no appliance of Oriental luxury, no means which could contribute to the gratification of the senses, that was not to be found in the Sicilian palaces of Frederick II. In the foundation of new cities, extensive districts were depopulated to provide them with inhabitants. This arbitrary proceeding was often a measure of profound policy, which insured the good behavior of a turbulent population that, removed from the influence of former associations, transplanted among strangers, and regarded by their new neighbors with suspicion and hostility, were rendered incapable of serious mischief. In this manner was established the Saracen colony of Lucera, whose members, composed of rebellious Mussulmans of Sicily, became, soon after their settlement, the most faithful subjects of Frederick and the chief support of the imperial throne.

That city was built on the slope of the Apennines, in a location most advantageous for both the purposes of commerce and defence. Its citadel was a mile in circuit and protected by fortifications of enormous strength. In the centre stood a lofty tower, at once the palace and the treasury of the Emperor. Frederick neglected no opportunity of gratifying the pride and confirming the attachment of his Saracen subjects. The spoils of the Papal states were lavished upon them. The trade of the colony was encouraged by every available means. Armorers and workers in the precious metals were imported from Syria. From Egypt came laborers highly skilled in horticulture. Great orchards were planted in the environs. The soldiers of the imperial body-guard were Moslems of Lucera. Splendidly uniformed and mounted, they were constantly on duty at the palace, on the march, in the camp. Conspicuous in the funeral escort of the deceased monarch, their duties were only relinquished at the grave.

The maintenance of this infidel stronghold in the heart of Christian Europe was a standing reproach to the Papacy; and the horror of the clergy was aggravated by the knowledge that churches had been demolished to supply it with building materials; that the revenues of rich and populous districts were diverted through its agency from the coffers of the cathedral and the monastery; that it enjoyed exclusive and valuable commercial privileges; and that, worst of all, it was able at a moment’s notice to furnish more than twenty thousand well-equipped, valiant, and incorruptible soldiers to the armies of the Emperor.

The patronage of letters, which distinguished this accomplished sovereign, is not the least of his titles to renown. No prince ever sought out books and manuscripts with greater assiduity, or more strenuously endeavored, by the bestowal of scholastic honors and pecuniary emoluments, to attract the learned to his court. Nationality, creed, partisanship, feudal enmity, private grudges, were alike forgotten in the friendly contest for literary pre-eminence. In the royal antechambers, in the halls of the University, no student was entitled to precedence, save only through his established claim to mental superiority. The incessant rivalry of many acute and highly cultivated intellects, stimulated by rewards and unhampered by restrictions, was productive of results most important for the revival of letters and the future benefit of humanity. Great advances were made in all departments of knowledge,—chemistry, natural history, botany, poetry, mathematics. The famous scholar, Michael Scott, whose rare attainments contemporaneous ignorance attributed to magic, and whose simple tomb in Melrose Abbey awakens to-day the veneration of every educated and appreciative traveller, was employed by the Emperor as a translator of the classics, and carried to Palermo vast stores of learning acquired in the schools of the Spanish Moslems. Theodore, called “The Philosopher,” published treatises on geometry and astrology; John of Palermo wrote on arithmetical problems; Leonardo Fibouacci brought to the general notice of Europe the science of algebra as known and used in modern schools; the versatile Pietro de Vinea, statesman, jurist, orator, amused his leisure in the composition of the first Italian lyric poetry, and of epistolary correspondence unsurpassed, in any age, for perspicuity, ease, and elegance of diction. Frederick himself wrote amorous sonnets, and published in Latin a work on hawking and birds of prey, which is even now an authority on the subject. The apocryphal book, De Tribus Impostoribus, an alleged compendium of blasphemy and vileness, attributed to him by the clergy of the Middle Ages, is now known to have been an invention of ecclesiastical malice to blacken a character only too vulnerable to such attacks. At the Sicilian court was formed that melodious and graceful idiom afterwards employed with such success by Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio. The political, social, and literary revolutions of seven centuries have not materially altered the grammatical construction or orthography of the beautiful language spoken and sung by the knights and ladies of Palermo. The enduring fame of such an achievement far exceeds in value and utility the temporary and barren distinctions obtained by the gaining of battles, the sack of cities, the plunder of baronial strongholds, and the humiliation of popes.

Such was the Emperor Frederick II., and such the civilization which, inspired by Moslem precept, tradition, and example, his commanding genius established in Southern Europe. Not only was he the most intelligent, but he was the most powerful and illustrious sovereign of his age. In addition to the imperial dignity, he possessed the titles of King of Naples and Sicily, of Lombardy, of Poland, of Bohemia, of Hungary, of Denmark, of Sardinia, of Arles, and of Jerusalem. In birth and affinity he was first among the great potentates of the earth. He was the grandson of the famous Barbarossa and of King Roger of Sicily. He was the uncle of Jaime I. of Aragon, Lo Conquerador. He was the father-in-law of the Greek Emperor of Nicea. He was the son-in-law of the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. He was the brother-in-law of the King of England. His relations with the Sultan of Egypt, dictated, in a measure, by state policy, but for the most part prompted by personal admiration, were of the most social and friendly character. He exchanged gifts with the chief of the execrated Ismailian sect known as the “Old Man of the Mountain.” Community of ideas, tastes, languages, and mercantile interests, which he shared with Mohammedan rulers, confirmed the intimacy already long existing between the Kingdom of Sicily and the fragments of the Hispano-Arab empire. His authority was respected from the Mediterranean to the Baltic; his matrimonial connections made his influence felt from the banks of the Nile to the Pillars of Hercules. It was this power, exercised over a territory of vast extent and unlimited resources, added to a consciousness of pre-eminent ability, that suggested to Frederick a renewal of the ancient Carlovingian jurisdiction, and the daring but imprudent attempt, by usurping the prerogatives of the Papacy, to realize a dream of more than imperial ambition.

That dream contemplated the foundation of a national, schismatical church, of which he was to be the head and Pietro de Vinea the vicar. The Pope was to be restricted to the exercise of spiritual functions, and finally deposed. In the Emperor were to be centred all the glory, the majesty, the sanctity, of an omnipotent ruler, presumably responsible only to the Almighty; really the sole arbiter of the religious professions and the actions of mankind. How the demands of such a system, which must necessarily be maintained, to a certain extent, by intellectual coercion, could be reconciled with the broad and equitable tolerance which was for the most part the distinguishing characteristic of the policy of Frederick, does not appear. The claim was, as has already been mentioned, that ecclesiastical supremacy was vested in the secular power of the empire, and dated from the time of the Roman emperors. They were the Supreme Pontiffs from whom the Pope derived his title, but not his authority. That office was merged into, and was inferior to, the imperial dignity. Its inheritance by the monarch of Italy rested upon a more secure basis than the ambiguous and disputed commission alleged to have been conferred upon the fisherman of Galilee. Its validity had been strengthened by centuries of prescription. It had been exercised by many generations of sovereigns. The ministrations of the chief priest of a sect embracing millions of worshippers, the revered intermediary between the devotee and Heaven, are only too easily confounded with the attributes of divinity. These advantages were early recognized and diligently improved by Constantine. The Byzantine emperor was the head of the Greek Church. In Mohammed temporal and spiritual functions were united. Such examples, constantly present to the mind of Frederick, exerted no small influence in determining his course. In the eyes of his Sicilian subjects, the claim of the Imperial Crown to religious supremacy was regarded as a royal prerogative, which had been suspended but never relinquished. The usurpation of the Papal power was a favorite project of European monarchs in succeeding ages. It was seriously meditated by Philippe le Bel in France during the fourteenth century. It was effected by Henry VIII. in England during the sixteenth century. The defiance of the Pope by the great German Emperor was, even at the distance of three hundred years, one of the inspiring causes of the Reformation. The spirit of intellectual liberty, oppressed at first, was victorious in the end.

The genius of Frederick II. was five centuries in advance of his time. His most intelligent contemporaries were incapable of understanding his motives or of appreciating his efforts for the regeneration of humanity. No individual of that age accomplished so much for civilization. He improved the condition of every class of society in his dominions. He diffused the learning of the Arabs throughout Europe. He imparted a new impulse to the cause of education in distant countries not subject to his sway; an impulse which, while it was often impeded, was never wholly suppressed. His liberal ideas excited the abhorrence of the devout. His superstitions evoked the anathemas of the clergy. In his expedition for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, his guards and councillors were Mohammedans. He attended service in the mosques. He knighted the Emir Fakr-al-Din at Acre. He feasted the envoy of the Sheik of the Assassins at Amalfi. At his court the astrologer was a more important personage than the logothete.

Under the administration of this great prince personal merit was the best title to official promotion. His most eminent ministers were of plebeian origin. From them he exacted unremitting attention to their duties. His suggestions to his ambassadors recall the maxims of Machiavelli. As a negotiator, he had no rivals in an age of shrewd and crafty politicians. His erudition was vast, varied, and profound. To aid the study of natural history he collected extensive menageries. He read medical works and prescribed rules of hygiene for his family and household. With his own hands he drew the plans for his palace at Capua. Magnificent hospitals, aqueducts, bridges, castles, arsenals, arose in the imperial domains of Sicily and Italy.

With all his accomplishments, Frederick was singularly deficient in military ability and generalship. He cared more for the pomp than for the victories of war. His crusade was a campaign of diplomacy. The defeat he sustained at the hands of the Parmesans, and which shook the foundations of his throne, was effected by a rabble of peasants and women who attacked his camp while he was absent on a hunting excursion.

The gorgeous court of Palermo, with its stately ceremonial, its heterodox opinions, its intellectual atmosphere, and the predominant Moslem influence which controlled its policy, prescribed its customs, and contributed largely to its importance, was at once the envy and the scandal of Christendom. The bulk of the imperial armies was composed of Saracens. Philosophers and statesmen of the latter nationality often engrossed, to the exclusion of all others, the confidence and intimacy of the Emperor. His different consorts, in turn, subjected to Oriental restrictions, were attended by guards of African eunuchs, colossal in stature, hideous in feature, splendidly apparelled. His harems, luxuriant establishments, not confined to Palermo, but scattered through the cities of Southern Italy, were filled with Moorish beauties from Syria, Egypt, Morocco, and Spain. A number of their occupants always formed part of his retinue in both peace and war. They journeyed after the fashion of the East, in closed litters borne by gayly caparisoned camels. Arab ladies, as remarkable for wit and learning as for their personal charms, mingled freely with the brilliant society of the capital. Among the diversions of the court were the dances of the East, feats of jugglers and buffoons, amatory improvisations of minnesinger and troubadour, games, falconry, literary contests, magnificent banquets. In these merry assemblies, where pleasure reigned supreme, the sensual was, however, never permitted to prevail over the intellectual; they were enlivened by philosophical discussions, by the application of proverbs, by the stories of travellers, by the recitation of ballads.

The personal aspect of Frederick did not correspond to the expectations of those who had formed an ideal from the fame of his talents and the extent of his erudition. His stature was short, his shoulders bent, his form ungainly and corpulent. He was bald and near-sighted. His reddish beard indicated the lineage of the Hohenstaufens. So insignificant was his appearance, that an Arab writer, who saw him at Jerusalem, asserts, with astonishment and contempt, that if he had been exposed for sale as a slave he would not have brought two hundred drachms of silver. The general lustre of his character was marred by many serious and fatal defects. He was tyrannical, perfidious, hypocritical, superstitious, and inordinately dissolute, even in a licentious age. The domestic relations of the greatest of mediæval emperors were the reproach of the Papacy and the horror of Christian Europe. Like the infamous Marquis de Sade, he considered tears and suffering the most desirable prelude to libidinous pleasures. The festivals of the imperial palace of Palermo were enlivened by the performances of the singing- and dancing-girls of the East. European females of the same profession, during the Crusade, travelled in the royal train to Acre, where the novelty of their appearance and costume amused the idle moments of the Moslem princes of Egypt and Syria. Nothing in the career of Frederick provoked the ire of the clergy more than this concession to infidel curiosity. The gigantic Nubians who watched over the Empress, and whose faces were compared to “ancient masks,” awakened the amazement of foreign travellers at the Sicilian court.

The most frightful torments, whose ingenious cruelty was long remembered with fear and hatred, were inflicted on his victims. Many were dismembered by wild horses; some were crushed by ponderous cloaks of lead; others were slowly roasted by fire applied to brazen helmets in which their heads had been encased. The special objects of these punishments were the partisans of the Pope, who were charged with the offences of both heresy and rebellion. In the orders issued to his agents, he showed that he was an adept in the arts of deception. Devoted to the forbidden science of astrology, he became the dupe of charlatans; and even the consummation of his marriage with the Princess of England was deferred until the position of the planets was declared to be favorable. His genius was essentially Italian. From early childhood he had been familiar with the arts, the schemes, the casuistry, of unprincipled priests and politicians. In the formation of his character these associations had exercised a most pernicious influence. His education and experience had led him to doubt the existence of the virtues of truth, patriotism, integrity. He never forgave an injury to himself or an insult to his dignity. He sacrificed, without compunction, ministers who had long served him in the most responsible employments, who had profited by his generosity, who had shared his confidence. His utter want of feeling is revealed by a saying attributed to him which is more remarkable for its energy than its elegance, “I have never fattened a hog except to obtain its lard.”

His philosophical indifference to religion did not prevent him from posing as the representative of the orthodox faith and the restorer of primitive Christianity. He compared himself to Elias and to Christ. He humbly solicited enrolment among the monks of Casamara. In a communication to the successor of St. Francis of Assis, he declared his belief in the Scriptures and his hope of eternal salvation. He presided over important religious festivals and assumed the most prominent part in the celebration of their ceremonies. On his death-bed, he wished, in token of his pretended reverence for the humblest ministers of the Gospel, to be clothed with the cowl of a Cistercian friar. Policy caused him to thus profess allegiance to the Church, but there is little doubt that he was an unbeliever, perhaps an atheist. In unguarded moments he scoffed at all religion. One of his favorite jests was in ridicule of the Eucharist. He criticised Divine Wisdom for the selection of the barren land of Palestine, instead of the rich and fertile Sicily, as the abode of the chosen people. In the very cradle of Christianity, at the spot once sanctified by the presence of the Saviour, he edified his Moslem hosts by comparing the throngs of pilgrims who crowded to the shrine to droves of the most stupid and unclean of animals. His unflinching antagonism to the Papacy caused the clergy and the rabble to regard him as Antichrist. He was deposed by the Council of Lyons; was four times excommunicated by the Pope; and was repeatedly disciplined by inferior prelates. In the implacable contest which broke his power and destroyed his house, the ecclesiastical autocracy of Rome, for the moment, triumphed. The civilization he had fostered was checked and obscured. His treasures were scattered. His libraries disappeared. The last of his race perished ignominiously on the scaffold. But the spirit of independent thought which he promoted, and whose exercise he bequeathed to posterity, survived the attack of intolerance and tyranny, to be revived in a better and a more auspicious age.

The South of France, not as yet incorporated into the monarchy, but existing as a semi-independent state, and governed by the Count of Toulouse, one of the most powerful feudatories in Europe, was the scene of another great mediæval revolt of the human mind against Papal despotism and intellectual servitude. From a period so remote that its beginning is lost in tradition, that region had been the seat of a splendid civilization, at once the exemplar and the pride of antiquity. The Phœnicians had early established trading-posts on its shores, and had introduced, with the commercial policy and enterprise of their race, the arts, the learning, and the culture which had laid the foundation of the wealth and renown of Carthage. To the Phœnicians succeeded the Greeks of Phocæa, that flourishing Ionian seaport which, for dignity, elegance of manners, and erudition, ranked among the most famous cities of the Grecian name. Its principal colony, Massilia, exercised dominion over nearly all of the territory south of the Loire; a territory already rich and populous, and containing, among the twenty-five important cities subject to its jurisdiction, such great and opulent communities as Monaco, Nice, Arles, Nîmes, Béziers, Avignon. Unaided by extraneous support, the people of Massilia, in spite of the efforts of barbarian neighbors and jealous rivals, preserved their political and mercantile importance until their conquest by Cæsar degraded their commonwealth to a subordinate rank among the provinces composing the gigantic fabric of the Roman Empire. The policy of that great soldier despoiled them of their dependencies, crippled their resources, and turned to letters and the arts the restless spirit which had formerly been engrossed by the pursuits of commerce and the exercise of arms. Before its political annihilation, the colony of Massilia, in extent, in population, in wealth, and in intelligence, ranked higher than any Grecian republic that had ever existed, save Athens alone. Its possessions were not acquired by conquest. They were gradually absorbed through the imperceptible influence of superior knowledge, the example of prosperity and luxury, the acuteness of sagacious and aggressive rulers, the exhibition of magnificent monuments of artistic genius. Under the Romans, this region, designated as Narbonnese Gaul, was one of the most flourishing provinces of the empire. Its literary culture was proverbial. Its schools were famous. It is mentioned by Livy as having preserved without contamination the arts, the manners, and the laws of Greece. The ancient polity of Massilia is eulogized by Cicero as a scheme of almost ideal perfection. The philosophers of that city enjoyed such a reputation for learning, that the patronage of such of the Roman youth as were ambitious of the most finished education was equally divided between it and Athens. The first three professors of Latin rhetoric at Rome were Gauls educated at Massilia. Its intellectual progress was greatly assisted by the mercantile spirit of its citizens, whose faculties were developed and enlarged by constant and familiar intercourse with other nations. Its navigators possessed all the skill and activity of their Phœnician ancestors. Their vessels were seen on the western coast of Africa, in the Euxine, in the Baltic, in the distant fjords of Norway. Their factories and their agents were established in Germany and Britain. Their internal trade was most extensive and important. They traversed the course of the Rhone and the Loire from their sources to the sea. Every tribe in communication with those waterways paid tribute to their shrewdness and shared the benefits of their experience. The Greek language was familiar to the inhabitants of Gaul; it was even adopted and used by the Druidical priesthood, and eventually became the general medium of commercial and social intercourse. The dark and cruel superstitions and legends of the country were supplanted by the elegant and graceful fictions of Paganism; by the songs, the dances, the floral games, the pomp of sacrifice, the joyous festivals, which characterized the religious ceremonials of Greece and Italy. The existence of such conditions could not fail to exert a marked effect upon the minds of a people, barbarous indeed, yet highly susceptible to impressions which appealed equally to its imagination and its interest. Narbonnese Gaul, under the emperors, maintained the literary and artistic pre-eminence which had, from time immemorial, distinguished it among the provinces of Western Europe. The most copious, elegant, and euphonic of languages was still spoken throughout the various municipalities that formerly acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Massilian Republic. The capital was especially renowned for its philosophers and physicians; for its patronage of letters; for the refinement of its society; and for the number and excellence of its educational institutions, which, in the estimation of many distinguished Romans, took precedence of the schools of Greece. Imperial favor bestowed upon the Narbonnese province monuments whose perfection was eminently worthy of the taste and splendor of the Augustan age. Its cities were adorned with beautiful temples, porticos, and theatres. In the gardens were peristyles of precious marble, mosaic pavements, superb fountains, vases filled with flowers, and statues of gilded bronze. Sumptuous baths administered to the luxury of the populace. In the circus, the chariot race displayed a pomp but little inferior to that exhibited by the imperial spectacles of Rome. Aqueducts of colossal dimensions brought, for a distance of many leagues, the water demanded by the requirements of an immense population. In no portion of the Roman world have such a variety of the architectural memorials of classic elegance survived as in the district of Provence and Languedoc. From the magnificent ruins that still remain, we are enabled to form a grand but inadequate idea of the structures created by imperial munificence and Grecian taste which have perished by the neglect and the violence of thirteen centuries. After the Roman came the Goth, and then the Arab, himself at first but a marauder. By degrees, however, his nobler instincts obtained the mastery over his love of rapine; his predatory strongholds were transformed into centres of trade; and with the habits and religion of the Orient were introduced all the benefits and all the vices of its voluptuous existence. The Moorish principality of Narbonne was subject to the Western Emirate only forty years; yet, during that short period, the impressions produced by Moorish occupancy were so deeply stamped upon the mental and physical characteristics of the population that no subsequent revolutions have ever been able to entirely efface them. The practical genius of the Arab, which considered utility as the first and most valuable of all the objects of civilization, was again exhibited in the improvements applied to all the arts and avocations of life which sprang up in the track of his victorious armies. The Oriental principles of agriculture, with its painstaking tillage of the soil, its perfect irrigating system, its introduction of foreign plants, were applied with wonderful success to the delightful region watered by the Rhone and the Garonne. Many varieties of grain, including the buckwheat, originally brought from Persia, and which at that time obtained its significant name of sarrasin, were imported from Spain. The bark of the cork-tree, still one of the greatest sources of wealth to Catalonia and Provence, was then first made known to Europe. The boundless evergreen forests on the slopes of the Pyrenees were utilized for the manufacture of pitch and rosin. In every district, the breed of horses was improved by crosses with the best blood of Arabia. Innumerable articles of luxury preserved in museums and private collections—beautiful objects of silver, ivory, and crystal, damascened armor, and silken robes—attest the variety and excellence of the Moorish manufactures. The popular dances and other amusements of Southern France are also striking reminiscences of the Moslem ascendency. While Arabic literature must have exercised an important influence upon the public mind of Provence and Languedoc, no historical information has been transmitted to us relative to its character, and even its existence during this period is largely a matter of conjecture. There is no doubt, however, concerning the effects subsequently produced by familiarity with Moorish civilization, established by conquest and perpetuated by the aid of merchants and travellers. The learning, the elegance, the refinement, and the infidelity of the court of Cordova were carried beyond the Pyrenees. The writings of Averroes and other Arabian philosophers were studied with pleasure by the scholars of Southern France. That entire region was more Mohammedan than Christian and more infidel than either. The nobles adopted polygamous habits and maintained harems filled with concubines. A thriving trade in eunuchs was carried on with the Spanish Arabs, whose profits, it was notorious, were principally engrossed by ecclesiastics. A passionate love of poetry developed the troubadour, a most important factor of European intellectual progress, and the counterpart and representative of the Arab bard, whose improvisations had, from time immemorial, been the delight of the emotional tribes of the Desert. A language infinitely sweeter and more melodious than modern French, and exhibiting a strong similarity to the Italian formed at the court of Frederick II., became the vehicle of charming poetical compositions, which satirized the lives of the priesthood, recounted the achievements of the tournament and the foray, and celebrated, in graceful and rhythmic hyperbole, the beauty and fascinations of woman. This tongue, known as the Langue d’Oc, while indirectly derived from the Latin, owed, in fact, nothing to classic associations or influence. It was the first of the numerous family of languages and dialects of Roman origin which, during mediæval times, attained to any marked degree of perfection in grammatical construction or in elegance of expression. It is a significant fact that it only obtained a permanent foothold in countries once subject to Arab domination. It spread eventually all over the South of Europe. It was spoken in Valencia, Barcelona, and the Balearic Isles, whose dialects are now corrupted forms of the ancient Limousin. The productions of which it formed the medium were read in Italy, Germany, Sicily, and England. It adapted itself with such ease to the purposes of the poet that it almost seemed constructed especially for that variety of composition. It early incurred the hostility of the Church on account of the Albigensian heresy; and in 1248, Innocent IV., by a special bull, forbade its study to all good Catholics. The rapidity with which it was perfected, the extent of its distribution, the number of provincial dialects to which it gave rise, the richness of the literature which adopted it, and the suddenness and completeness of its extinction constitute one of the most interesting and extraordinary phenomena in the annals of linguistics.

The literary and social condition of Southern France was, with the single exception of Sicily, which bore to it a remarkable resemblance, anomalous among the countries of civilized Europe. Its population was singularly cosmopolitan; half a score of races had contributed to its formation; it had inherited the culture of the Greek, the Roman, the Arab; mixture of blood and comparison of creeds had produced universal toleration of belief and widespread and uncompromising skepticism. In its courts, its schools, its learned professions, Semitic ideas, traditions, and influence preponderated. Not a few Moslems had established themselves in the cities of Nîmes, Narbonne, and Toulouse, and the Jews abounded in every community which afforded encouragement to scientific attainments or facilities for traffic. The system of public instruction was essentially Hebrew; the faculty of the famous medical school of Montpellier, the successful competitor of that of Salerno, was at first principally composed of Jews and Mohammedans, and retained for centuries, amidst foreign conquest and domestic convulsion, the impress derived from the character of its founders. The closest relations were maintained between the academies of Languedoc and those of imperial Sicily and Moorish Spain. This intimacy was strengthened by the multiplicity of mercantile transactions arising from a constant interchange of commodities dependent upon a vast and profitable trade. The capitals of Cordova, Seville, and Palermo were better known to the people of Provence than any of the Mediterranean cities to the inland towns of continental Europe; now, great centres of wealth, commerce, and civilization; then, despised as semi-barbarous and rarely visited. The continuance of this friendly intercourse with Mohammedan countries, confirmed at once by congenial pursuits and by the powerful influence of pecuniary advantage, was portentous in its effects, and boded ill to the propagation of Christianity and the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline. The succession of numerous forms of worship, distinct in their origin, unlike in their ceremonial, irreconcilably hostile in their polity, each asserting divine infallibility, yet each, in turn, overthrown by a new and more popular belief, was not favorable to the existence of any religion. Strongly attached to the cheerful festivals of Paganism, the inhabitants of Southern France had embraced the precepts of the Gospel with insincerity and reluctance. Their disposition, their traditions, the souvenirs of classic magnificence and beauty which surrounded them, all contributed to confirm the deeply grounded affection they entertained for the creed of their fathers. Nowhere else in Christendom was such a spectacle presented of all that is attractive to the luxurious, and all that is admired by the intellectual, as that disclosed by the life of the polished and corrupt society of Southern France. That entire region was subjected to the highest cultivation of which the soil, naturally fertile and improved by every resource of scientific agriculture, was susceptible. The cities, large and populous, enjoyed every advantage of wealth which could be derived from an extensive traffic. Béziers had sixty thousand inhabitants, a larger number than any town in England. Nîmes, Arles, Carcassonne, were but little inferior in size and grandeur. Every commercial device was familiar to the people. Their shrewdness was proverbial. Their trade was enormous. A knowledge of banking and bills of exchange, with many important fiscal regulations, had been introduced by the Jews of Barcelona.

Toulouse, one of the most beautiful and licentious of mediæval capitals, was the focus of this splendid civilization. It was the seat of the Muses, the home of chivalry, the goal of every devotee of love and of ambition. There the knightly adventurer sought distinction in the tournament and the tilt of reeds, martial amusements borrowed from the Moor. Thither journeyed the troubadour and the jongleur, sure of hospitality and reward in palace and castle, in the comfortable home of the merchant, in the humble dwelling of the laborer. There was crowned the poet, successful in the literary contest, two hundred years before the laurel was placed upon the brow of Petrarch in the Capitol at Rome. There were held the Courts of Love, where women argued and determined, with all the grave impartiality of a judicial tribunal, questions involving the laws of gallantry, their observance and their violation. The potentate, who, under the modest title of count, governed this great and opulent realm, enjoyed a larger measure of authority than most representatives of the royal houses of Europe. His family was of high antiquity, and its rank dated back for many centuries. The rich fiefs of Béziers, Foix, Quercy, Montpellier, and Narbonne, with their numerous important dependencies, acknowledged his authority as suzerain. Wealthier than any of his Christian contemporaries, he was more powerful in all the attributes of monarchical dignity than the King of France. His dominions included the greater part of the territory south of the Loire, and embraced the fertile and flourishing districts bounded by the Garonne, the Isère, the Mediterranean, and the Alps. He had achieved renown in the Crusades. His sword had won for him the principality of Tripoli. He had been an unsuccessful but prominent competitor for the throne of Jerusalem. In his public relations he was the soul of chivalric courtesy; in his personal habits a fastidious voluptuary; in belief a skeptic; in tastes a Mohammedan. The conspicuous valor he displayed on the fields of Palestine was, in some degree, neutralized by a moral cowardice which instinctively shrank from a conflict involving the dearest privileges for which humanity can contend,—the preservation of political integrity and the exercise of the right of intellectual freedom. Brave, impetuous, sensual, vacillating, and insincere, such was Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, the representative of the most polished and dissolute state in Europe.

The political organization of the various cities and provinces composing the County of Toulouse presented a strange anomaly. Some were, in all but name, republican; their magistrates, under the title of consuls, administered the affairs of government, and were elected by the public voice of the people. The civil regulations of others partook rather of the nature of feudal tenures in which the most oppressive privileges had been relaxed or entirely discharged. But neither the feeble copy of the institutions of ancient Rome nor the barbarous laws of mediæval tyranny were sufficient to compel the obedience of such a heterogeneous population. The authority of the elective magistracy was frequently defied. The fealty of the great vassals was but nominal. The jurisdiction of the suzerain was, under various, and sometimes under frivolous, pretexts, questioned or ignored. There was no organized military power to enforce the mandates of the ruling authority. Enervated by pleasure, the people of Languedoc and Provence passed their existence in a constant round of intellectual diversions and refined sensuality. The martial sports of the chase and the tourney did little but recall the profession of arms, once the only occupation worthy of the dignity of the mediæval cavalier. Thus, broken up into semi-independent communities, destitute of military resources, and incapable of systematic defence or united action, the power of the Count of Toulouse was ready to crumble at the approach of the first resolute aggressor. The civilization represented by that power lacked the indispensable essentials of every permanent government,—loyalty and religion. Want of centralization, and a multiplicity of rulers, weakened the patriotic attachment of the people, and discouraged the growth of an enlightened and healthy public sentiment. National pride could not exist when there was no royal personage to whom all could appeal, no common country to exalt and defend. In addition to these serious impediments to durability and progress was added an absolute want of religious feeling. Numerous causes had combined to produce this condition. Comparisons of many forms of faith had exposed their defects and inconsistencies, and led to a general rejection of them all. The Crusaders had familiarized all Europe, and especially France, with the manners and religion of the Mussulmans. Hundreds of enterprising merchants had assumed the cross, much less for the piety it was presumed to indicate and the sacred privileges it conferred, than for the worldly advantages to be procured by traffic with distant, and otherwise inaccessible, regions. Their glowing reports of Oriental civilization had dissipated the remaining prejudices of a people whose intercourse with the Moslem kingdoms beyond the Pyrenees had long predisposed them in favor of a race held in peculiar abhorrence by the See of Rome. The silks and gold of Syria and Egypt appealed far more eloquently to the passions of the multitude than the genuflexions of the priest or the rosary and cowl of the friar. Even the sacred profession was invaded by the prevailing spirit of toleration, itself dependent on material interests; the inferior clergy dealt as brokers in the money of the East, and from the mints of bishops and metropolitans were issued coins impressed with Mohammedan texts and symbols. In addition to this extraordinary partiality for infidel customs, and the practical renunciation of the vow of poverty, which were calculated to arouse, especially among the vulgar, a suspicion of heterodoxy, the entire body of the Provençal clergy had become thoroughly debased and profligate. Those of high rank vied with the nobles in prodigal and ostentatious luxury. Prelates constantly abandoned the duties of their office for the fascinations of the chase and the licentious pleasures of intrigue. They travelled in state with numerous trains of ladies and attendants, the richness of whose appointments rivalled that of a royal equipage. The Archbishop of Narbonne kept in his pay a band of foreign outlaws who levied blackmail on opulent citizens, and who, protected by their ecclesiastical patron, defied the weak and disorganized civil power of the land. In every gay assembly where the song of the troubadour recounted the triumphs of love and gallantry, or aimed its satirical shafts at the failings of the priesthood, the bishop was foremost in laughter and applause. It was a common saying among the people that while the apostles were poor, their successors, plunged in luxury, “loved fine horses and splendid garments, white women and red wine.” The vices of the higher class, confirmed by the possession of great wealth and secure from the censure of ecclesiastical tribunals, surpassed, in turpitude and effrontery, the excesses of any other society then existing in Christendom.

The episcopal dignitaries were usually of noble blood and connected with the most ancient and distinguished families of France. Not so, however, with the inferior members of the hierarchy. The avarice, the extortion, the hypocrisy, the drunkenness, and the debauchery universally imputed to all included in that sacred profession had made it infamous. The prelates, indeed, enjoyed all that could be purchased or exacted by eminent birth, boundless opulence, and irresistible power. The priests, however, were nearer the people, and were taken from the lowest ranks of society. Such was their degradation, that it had passed into a proverb. The populace, by way of imprecation, were accustomed to say, “May I become a priest before I do such a thing!” Livings were filled exclusively from the ranks of the coarse and brutal peasantry, for no citizen of the middle class would permit his son to be disgraced by the assumption of the tonsure. Even respectable vassals recoiled from the equivocal honors of the Church, and the lords, who regarded the tithes as a portion of their legal perquisites, were forced to select as candidates for holy orders the most ignorant and degraded of their dependents and slaves. The rude manners and vicious tastes engendered by a debased and plebeian origin increased the hatred and contempt of the scoffing multitude. In some parts of Languedoc public feeling ran so high against the clergy, that priests, to avoid personal violence, were forced to conceal from the passers-by all outward evidences of their calling.

The Pope, long aware of the insults offered to his dignity and of the evils which threatened the faith of Rome, had frequently condemned in unmeasured terms the conditions which imperilled the existence of all religion in the South of France. Ecclesiastical fulminations, however, possessed no terrors for the blithe and careless inhabitants of Provence and Languedoc. The Papal bulls only furnished another amusing theme for the sarcasm of the poet. Interdicts, elsewhere so potent, in that land, alone of all those subject to Christian authority, were treated with derision. The pretensions of the legate of the Apostolic See were ridiculed in his very presence, and even the Holy Father himself was not able to escape the raillery and censure of those whom experience had made acquainted with the shocking venality and license of the Roman court. Every vestige of moral influence upon which rested public consideration for the clergy had disappeared. The churches were all but deserted. Latin, the language of the altar, had been discarded for the Langue d’Oc, the idiom of the skeptical and the dissolute. In many parishes bells had ceased to announce the hour of worship, for no one heeded them. The priest, intent on his pleasures, was only too ready to abandon the duties enjoined by his calling, especially when there were few to listen and still fewer to contribute. The revenues of the Church, greatly diminished, were diverted into channels entirely foreign to the purpose for which they had nominally been collected. Some were appropriated by the nobles, whose vassals had been presented to livings. Vast sums were squandered by licentious prelates in vices whose enormity appalled every sincere Christian. The greatest profits which enured to the benefit of the clergy were derived from the uncanonical and prohibited practices of simony and usury. No effort was made to conceal the existence of these abuses, and the ecclesiastical residence was generally recognized as the head-quarters of brokerage in bills and benefices.

Thus had the Roman Catholic Church, by the corruption and effrontery of its ministers, forfeited the respect of mankind. Its edicts were disregarded. Its lessons were unheard. The pious turned with loathing from the hypocritical exhortations of religious teachers whose lives were stained with every crime, and whose conduct presented examples of flagrant iniquity, which fortunately had few parallels outside of their profession. The reverence once attaching to the Vatican was sensibly impaired. While its policy encouraged the promotion of the humble, its authority necessarily suffered through the enrolment into the priesthood of men without education, refinement, honor, decency, or independence. Public respect could not be retained by a class degraded by servile associations and still subject to the arbitrary caprices of a secular lord. As in every community are to be found many individuals to whom religion is a necessity, so in the Provençal cities and villages devout persons turned from the ancient and discredited hierarchy to other quarters for the inestimable consolations of forgiveness and hope. Such conditions infallibly generate heresy, and the eagerness and unanimity with which heterodox opinions were adopted in that populous region demonstrated at once the extent of the evil and the necessity for the radical measures by which its removal was accomplished.

The centre of intellectual culture in Southern France was the University of Montpellier. It has been well said that the history of the faculty of that famous institution is to a great extent the history of medicine in Europe. During the early part of the twelfth century, Montpellier was the most important emporium of France. The trade of the entire country converged to that point. Its commercial establishments were upon a colossal scale. Its population was cosmopolitan. The conquests of Ferdinand and Jaime, the occupation of Cordova, Seville, Majorca, and Valencia had attracted to Languedoc, and especially to its most thriving city, tens of thousands of Mohammedan refugees. The Jews had long been numerous in that region, and were already conspicuous for wealth, intelligence, and power.

From that epoch dates, in reality, the foundation of the University. A school of medicine had existed there for nearly a century, but to the influx of Moorish and Hebrew learning must be attributed the reputation soon obtained by that institution throughout Europe. The majority of its professors belonged to those two nationalities. They brought with them the experience, the methods, the remedies, and the instruments of the most eminent and successful practitioners of the Peninsula. Many of them from time to time visited the colleges of Granada and Toledo for the purpose of adding to their stock of information, and of profiting by the superior facilities those schools afforded. A broad and catholic spirit controlled the organization and the policy of the University. Sectarian prejudice was unknown. Teacher and scholar were free to worship according to their belief, or to entertain and express the most radical philosophical opinions. Intellectual attainments and marked ability were the principal qualifications for admission to the Faculty.

The Lords of Montpellier, and subsequently the Kings of France, were the patrons of the school. They conferred upon it at different times great and extraordinary privileges. The rights it had enjoyed under the Count were confirmed by the sovereign. Philip of Valois, in 1331, by a special edict placed its doctors under the royal protection. Charles VI., in 1350, granted its beadles permission to carry silver maces as symbols of its dignity. The Duke of Aragon, in 1364, exempted it from taxation. The patents of Charles VIII., in 1484, transferred all causes in which the professors and students were interested to the jurisdiction of the Governor of Montpellier. The execution of legal process could only be made in the presence of the Chancellor. To the officers of the Faculty were committed the supervision and inspection of the apothecary shops of the city, in order to insure the purity of the medicines dispensed.