Chapter XVII: Part 17

This edict was followed up by the celebrated Act of Parliament Concerning Judaism,[85] the object of which seems to have been the same with the policy of Louis IX of France, to force the Jews to abandon usury, and betake themselves to traffic, manufactures, or the cultivation of land. It positively prohibited all usury and cancelled all debts on payment of the principal. No Jew might distress beyond the moiety of a Christian's land and goods; they were to wear their badge, a badge now of yellow, not white, and pay an Easter offering of threepence, men and women, to the King. They were permitted to practise merchandise or labor with their hands, and--some of them, it seems, were still addicted to husbandry--to hire farms for cultivation for fifteen years. On these terms they were assured of the royal protection. But manual labor and traffic were not sources sufficiently expeditious for the enterprising avarice of the Jews. Many of them, thus reduced, took again to a more unlawful and dangerous occupation, clipping and adulterating the coin. In one day, November 17, 1279, all the Jews in the kingdom were arrested. In London alone two hundred and eighty were executed after a full trial; many more in other parts of the kingdom. A vast quantity of clipped coin was found and confiscated to the King's use. The King granted their estates and forfeitures with lavish hand.

But law, though merciless and probably not overscrupulous in the investigation of crime, did not satisfy the popular passions, which had been let loose by these wide and general accusations. The populace took the law into their own hands.

Everywhere there was full license for plunder and worse than plunder. The King was obliged to interpose. A writ was issued, addressed to the justiciaries who had presided at the trials for the adulteration of the coin, Peter of Pentecester, Walter of Heylynn, John of Cobham, appointed justiciaries for the occasion. It recited that many Jews had been indicted and legally condemned to death and to the forfeiture of their goods and chattels; but that certain Christians, solely on account of religious differences, were raising up false and frivolous charges against men who had not been legally arraigned, in order to extort money from them by fear. No Jew against whom a legal indictment had not been issued before May 1, 1280, was to be molested or subject to accusation. Those only arrested on grave suspicion before that time were to be put upon their trial. Jewish tradition attributes the final expulsion of the Jews to these charges, which the King, it avers, did not believe, yet was compelled to yield to popular clamor.

But not all the statutes, nor public executions, nor the active preaching of the Dominican friars, who undertook to convert them if they were constrained to hear their sermons--the king's bailiffs, on the petition of the friars, were ordered to induce the Jews to become quiet, meek, and uncontentious hearers--could either alter the Jewish character, still patient of all evil so that they could extort wealth, or suppress the still increasing clamor of public detestation, which demanded that the land should cast forth from its indignant bosom this irreclaimable race of rapacious infidels. Still worse, if we may trust a papal bull, the presence and intercourse of the Jews were dangerous to the religion of England. In the year 1286 the Pope (Honorius IV) addressed a bull to the Archbishop of Canterbury and his suffragans, rebuking them for the remissness of the clergy in not watching more closely the proceedings of the Jews. The Archbishop, indeed, had not been altogether so neglectful in the duty of persecution. The number and the splendor of the synagogues in London had moved the indignation, perhaps the jealousy, of Primate Peckham. He issued his monition to the Bishop of London to inhibit the building any more of these offensively sumptuous edifices, and to compel the Jews to destroy those built within a prescribed time.

The zeal of the Bishop of London (Robert de Gravesend) outran that of the Archbishop; he ordered them all to be levelled to the ground. The Archbishop, prevailed on by the urgent supplications of the Jews, graciously informed the Bishop that he might conscientiously allow one synagogue, if that synagogue did not wound the eyes of pious Christians by its magnificence.

But the bull of Honorius IV was something more than a stern condemnation of the usurious and extortionate practices of the Jews; it was a complaint of their progress, not merely in inducing Jewish converts to Christianity to apostatize back to Judaism, but of their not unsuccessful endeavors to tempt Christians to Judaism. "These Jews lure them to their synagogues on the Sabbath--are we to suppose that there was something splendid and attractive in the synagogue worship of the day?--and in their friendly intercourse at common banquets, the souls of Christians, softened by wine and good eating and social enjoyment, are endangered." The _Talmud_ of the Jews, which they still persist in studying, is especially denounced as full of abomination, falsehood, and infidelity.

The King at length listened to the public voice, and the irrevocable edict of total expulsion from the realm was issued. Their whole property was seized at once, and just money enough left to discharge their expenses[86] to foreign lands, perhaps equally inhospitable. The 10th of October was the fatal day. The King benignantly allowed them till All Saints' Day; after which all who delayed were to be hanged without mercy. The King, in the execution of this barbarous proceeding, put on the appearance both of religion and moderation. Safe-conducts were to be granted to the sea-shore from all parts of the kingdom. The wardens of the Cinque Ports were to provide shipping and receive the exiles with civility and kindness. The King expressed his intention of converting great part of his gains to pious uses, but the Church looked in vain for the fulfilment of his vows.

He issued orders that the Jews should be treated with kindness and courtesy on their journey to the sea-shore.

But where the Prince by his laws thus gave countenance to the worst passions of human nature, it was not likely that they would be suppressed by his proclamations. The Jews were pursued from the kingdom with every mark of popular triumph in their sufferings; one man, indeed, the master of a vessel at Queenborough, was punished for leaving a considerable number on the shore at the mouth of the river, when, as they prayed to him to rescue them from their perilous situation, he answered that they had better call on Moses, who had made them pass safe through the Red Sea, and, sailing away with their remaining property, left them to their fate. The number of exiles is variously estimated at fifteen thousand and sixty and sixteen thousand five hundred and eleven; all their property, debts, obligations, mortgages, escheated to the King.

Yet some, even in those days, presumed to doubt whether the nation gained by the act of expulsion, and even ventured to assert that the public burdens on the Christians only became heavier and more intolerable. Catholics suffered in the place of the enemies of the Cross of Christ. The loss to the Crown was enormous.[87] The convents made themselves masters of the valuable libraries of the Jews, one at Stamford, another at Oxford, from which the celebrated Roger Bacon is said to have derived great information; and long after, the common people would dig in the places they had frequented, in hopes of finding buried treasure.

EXPLOITS AND DEATH OF WILLIAM WALLACE, THE "HERO OF SCOTLAND"

A.D. 1297-1305

SIR WALTER SCOTT

When the granddaughter and sole heiress of King Alexander
III of Scotland was betrothed, in her sixth year, 1288, to
the son of Edward I of England, an early union of the
English and Scottish crowns seemed assured. But the death of
the little princess, two years later, left the throne of
Scotland vacant, and was followed by the rise of thirteen
claimants, three of whom were entitled to serious
regard--John de Baliol, Lord of Galloway; Robert Bruce, Lord
of Annandale; and John Hastings, Lord of Abergavenny, all
descended from David, brother of William the Lion, King of
Scotland, 1165-1214.

Edward I of England at once assumed all the rights of a
feudal suzerain until the disputed claims should be settled.
Finally the claim of Baliol was recognized, he did homage to
Edward for his services to the realm of Scotland, and for a
time peace prevailed. But when Edward called upon the
Scottish nobles to serve in his foreign wars, and made other
demands implying the dependence of Scotland, the resentment
of Baliol's subjects forced him into an attitude of war. In
1295 he made an alliance against Edward with Philip the Fair
of France. In 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, took Berwick and
slaughtered eight thousand of its citizens; defeated the
Scots at Dunbar; occupied Edinburgh, Stirling, and Perth;
compelled Baliol to surrender, and sent him to the Tower of
London. Edward then made Scotland a dependency of his crown.

This submission was not the act of the people, but of their
leaders. "The Scots assembled in troops and companies, and
betaking themselves to the woods, mountains, and morasses,
prepared for a general insurrection against the English
power."

They found their leader in the outlawed knight, William
Wallace. Wallace was born about 1274. Popular tradition,
which "delights to dwell upon the beloved champion of the
people," has invested him with many striking qualities,
ascribing to him a gigantic stature and enormous strength,
as well as extraordinary courage. Little, if anything, is
really known of his personality and private life; while all
that belongs to history concerning him is told by his
celebrated and admiring fellow-countryman, Sir Walter Scott,
in the following narrative.

Wallace is believed to have been proclaimed an outlaw for the slaughter of an Englishman in a casual fray. He retreated to the woods, collected around him a band of men as desperate as himself, and obtained several successes in skirmishes with the English. Joined by Sir William Douglas, who had been taken at the siege of Berwick, but had been discharged upon ransom, the insurgents compelled Edward to send an army against them, under the Earl of Surrey, the victor of Dunbar. Several of the nobility, moved by Douglas' example, had joined Wallace's standard, but overawed at the approach of the English army, and displeased to act under a man, like Wallace, of comparatively obscure birth, they capitulated with Sir Henry Percy, the nephew of Surrey, and in one word changed sides.

Wallace kept the field at the head of a considerable army, partly consisting of his own experienced followers, partly of the smaller barons or crown tenants, and partly of vassals even of the apostate lords, and volunteers of every condition. By the exertion of much conduct and resolution, Wallace had made himself master of the country beyond Forth, and taken several castles, when he was summoned to Stirling to oppose Surrey, the English Governor of Scotland. Wallace encamped on the northern side of the river, leaving Stirling bridge apparently open to the English, but resolving, as it was long and narrow, to attack them while in the act of crossing. The Earl of Surrey led fifty thousand infantry and a thousand men-at-arms. Part of his soldiers, however, were the Scottish barons who had formerly joined Wallace's standard, and who, notwithstanding their return to that of Surrey, were scarcely to be trusted.

The English treasurer, Cressingham, murmured at the expense attending the war, and, to bring it to a crisis, proposed to commence an attack the next morning by crossing the river. Surrey, an experienced warrior, hesitated to engage his troops in the defile of a wooden bridge, where scarce two horsemen could ride abreast; but, urged by the imprudent vehemence of Cressingham, he advanced, contrary to common-sense as well as to his own judgment. The vanguard of the English was attacked before they could get into order; the bridge was broken down, and thousands perished in the river and by the sword. Cressingham was slain, and Surrey fled to Berwick to recount to Edward that Scotland was lost at Stirling in as short a time as it had been won at Dunbar. In a brief period after this victory, almost all the fortresses of the kingdom surrendered to Wallace.

Increasing his forces, Wallace, that he might gratify them with plunder, led them across the English border, and sweeping it lengthwise from Newcastle to the gates of Carlisle, left nothing behind him but blood and ashes. The nature of Wallace was fierce, but not inaccessible to pity or remorse. As his unruly soldiers pillaged the church of Hexham, he took the canons under his immediate protection. "Abide with me," he said, "holy men, for my people are evil-doers, and I may not correct them." When he returned from this successful foray, an assembly of the states was held at the Forest Church in Selkirkshire, where Wallace was chosen guardian of the kingdom of Scotland. The meeting was attended by Lennox, Sir William Douglas, and some few men of rank: others were absent from fear of King Edward, or from jealousy of an inferior person, like Wallace, raised to so high a station.

Conscious of the interest which he had deservedly maintained in the breast of the universal people of Scotland, Wallace pursued his judicious plans of enforcing general levies through the kingdom and bringing them under discipline. It was full time, for Edward was moving against them. The English monarch was absent in Flanders when these events took place, and, what was still more inconvenient, before he could gain supplies from his parliament to suppress the Scottish revolt, Edward found himself obliged to confirm Magna Charta, the charter of the forest, and other stipulations in favor of the people; the English being prudent, though somewhat selfishly disposed to secure their own freedom before they would lend their swords to destroy that of their neighbors.

Complying with these demands, Edward, on his return from the Low Countries, found himself at the head of a gallant muster of all the English chivalry, forming by far the most superb army that had ever entered Scotland. Wallace acted with great sagacity, and, according to a plan which often before and after proved successful in Scottish warfare, laid waste the intermediate country between Stirling and the frontiers, and withdrew toward the centre of the kingdom to receive the English attack, when their army should be exhausted by privation.

Edward pressed on, with characteristic hardihood and resolution. Tower and town fell before him; but his advance was not without such inconvenience and danger as a less determined monarch would have esteemed a good apology for retreat. His army suffered from want of provisions, which were at length supplied in small quantities by some of his ships. As the English King lay at Kirkliston, in West Lothian, a tumult broke out between the Welsh and English in his army, which, after costing some blood, was quelled with difficulty. While Edward hesitated whether to advance or retreat, he learned, through the treachery of two apostate Scottish nobles, the earls of Dunbar and Angus, that Wallace, with the Scottish army, had approached so near as Falkirk.

This advance was doubtless made with the purpose of annoying the expected retreat of the English. Edward, thus apprised that the Scots were in his vicinity, determined to compel them to action. He broke up his camp, and, advancing with caution, slept the next night in the fields along with the soldiers. But the casualties of the campaign were not yet exhausted. His war-horse, which was picketed beside him, like that of an ordinary man-at-arms, struck the King with his foot and hurt him in the side. A tumult arose in the camp, but Edward, regardless of pain, appeased it by mounting his horse, riding through the cantonments, and showing the soldiers that he was in safety.

Next morning, July 22, 1298, the armies met. The Scottish infantry were drawn up on a moor, with a morass in front. They were divided into four phalanxes or dense masses, with lances lowered obliquely over each other, and seeming, says an English historian, like a castle walled with steel. These spearmen were the flower of the army, in whom Wallace chiefly confided. He commanded them in person, and used the brief exhortation, "I have brought you to the ring; dance as you best can."

The Scottish archers, under the command of Sir John Stewart, brother of the Steward of Scotland, were drawn up in the intervals between the masses of infantry. They were chiefly brought from the wooded district of Selkirk. We hear of no Highland bowmen among them. The cavalry, which amounted to only one thousand men-at-arms, held the rear.

The English cavalry began the action. The Marshal of England led half of the men-at-arms straight upon the Scottish front, but in doing so involved them in the morass. The Bishop of Durham, who commanded the other division of the English cavalry, was wheeling round the morass on the east, and, perceiving this misfortune, became disposed to wait for support. "To mass, Bishop!" said Ralph Basset of Drayton, and charged with the whole body. The Scottish men-at-arms went off without couching their lances; but the infantry stood their ground firmly. In the turmoil that followed, Sir John Stewart fell from his horse and was slain among the archers of Ettrick, who died in defending or avenging him.

The close bodies of Scottish spearmen, now exposed without means of defence or retaliation, were shaken by the constant showers of arrows; and the English men-at-arms finally charging them desperately while they were in disorder, broke and dispersed these formidable masses. The Scots were then completely routed, and it was only the neighboring woods which saved a remnant from the sword. The body of Stewart was found among those of his faithful archers, who were distinguished by their stature and fair complexions from all others with which the field was loaded. Macduff and Sir John the Grahame, "the hardy wight and wise," still fondly remembered as the bosom friend of Sir William Wallace, were slain in the same disastrous action.

Popular report states this battle to have been lost by treachery; and the communication between the earls of Dunbar and Angus and King Edward, as well as the disgraceful flight of the Scottish cavalry without a single blow, corroborates the suspicion. But the great superiority of the English in archery may account for the loss of this as of many another battle on the part of the Scots. The bowmen of Ettrick Forest were faithful; but they could only be few. So nearly had Wallace's scheme for the campaign been successful, that Edward, even after having gained this great battle, returned to England, and deferred reaping the harvest of his conquest till the following season. If he had not been able to bring the Scottish army to action, his retreat must have been made with discredit and loss, and Scotland must have been left in the power of the patriots.

The slaughter and disgrace of the battle of Falkirk might have been repaired in other respects, but it cost the Scottish kingdom an irredeemable loss in the public services of Wallace. He resigned the guardianship of the kingdom, unable to discharge its duties, amid the calumnies with which faction and envy aggravated his defeat. The Bishop of St. Andrew's, Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and Sir John Comyn were chosen guardians of Scotland, which they administered in the name of Baliol. In the mean time that unfortunate Prince was, in compassion or scorn, delivered up to the Pope by Edward, and a receipt was gravely taken for his person from the nuncio then in France. This led to the entrance of a new competitor for the Scottish kingdom.

The Pontiff of Rome had been long endeavoring to establish a claim, to whatsoever should be therein found, to which a distinct and specific right of property could not be ascertained. The Pontiff's claim to the custody of the dethroned King being readily admitted, Boniface VIII was encouraged to publish a bull claiming Scotland as a dependency on the see of Rome because the country had been converted to Christianity by the relics of St. Andrew.

The Pope, in the same document, took the claim of Edward to the Scottish crown under his own discussion, and authoritatively commanded Edward I to send proctors to Rome to plead his cause before his holiness. This magisterial requisition was presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the King, in the presence of the council and court, the prelate at the same time warning the sovereign to yield unreserved obedience, since Jerusalem would not fail to protect her citizens, and Mount Zion her worshippers. "Neither for Zion nor Jerusalem," said Edward, in towering wrath, "will I depart from my just rights while there is breath in my nostrils."

Accordingly he caused the Pope's bull to be laid before the Parliament of England, who unanimously resolved "that in temporals the King of England was independent of Rome, and that they would not permit his sovereignty to be questioned." Their declaration concludes with these remarkable words: "We neither do, will, nor can permit our sovereign to do anything to the detriment of the constitution, which we are both sworn to and are determined to maintain"--a spirited assertion of national right, had it not been in so bad a cause as that of Edward's claim of usurpation over Scotland.

Meantime the war languished during this strange discussion, from which the Pope was soon obliged to retreat. There was an inefficient campaign in 1299 and 1300. In 1301 there was a truce, in which Scotland as well as France was included. After the expiry of this breathing space, Edward I, in the spring of 1302, sent an army into Scotland of twenty thousand men, under Sir John Seward, a renowned general. He marched toward Edinburgh in three divisions, leaving large intervals between each.

While in this careless order, Seward's vanguard found themselves suddenly within reach of a small but chosen body of troops, amounting to eight thousand men, commanded by Sir John Comyn, the guardian, and a gallant Scottish knight, Sir Simon Fraser. Seward was defeated, but the battle was scarce over when his second division came up. The Scots, flushed with victory, reestablished their ranks, and having cruelly put to death their prisoners, attacked and defeated the second body also. The third division came up in the same manner. Again it became necessary to kill the captives, and to prepare for a third encounter. The Scottish leaders did so without hesitation, and their followers, having thrown themselves furiously on the enemy, discomfited that division likewise, and gained--as their historians boast--three battles in one day.

But the period seemed to be approaching in which neither courage nor exertion could longer avail the unfortunate people of Scotland. A peace with France, in which Philip the Fair totally omitted all stipulations in favor of his allies, left the kingdom to its own inadequate means of resistance, while Edward directed his whole force against it. The castle of Brechin, under the gallant Sir Thomas Maule, made an obstinate resistance. He was mortally wounded and died in an exclamation of rage against the soldiers, who asked if they might not then surrender the castle. Edward wintered at Dunfermline, and began the next campaign with the siege of Stirling, the only fortress in the kingdom that still held out. But the courage of the guardians altogether gave way; they set the example of submission, and such of them as had been most obstinate in what the English King called rebellion, were punished by various degrees of fine and banishment.

With respect to Sir William Wallace, it was agreed that he might have the choice of surrendering himself unconditionally to the King's pleasure, provided he thought proper to do so; a stipulation which, as it signified nothing in favor of the person for whom it was apparently conceived, must be imputed as a pretext on the part of the Scottish nobles to save themselves from the disgrace of having left Wallace altogether unthought of. Some attempts were made to ascertain what sort of accommodation Edward was likely to enter into with the bravest and most constant of his enemies; but the demands of Wallace were large, and the generosity of Edward very small. The English King broke off the treaty, and put a price of three hundred marks on the head of the patriot.

Meantime Stirling castle continued to be defended by a slender garrison, and, deprived of all hopes of relief, continued to make a desperate defence, under its brave governor, Sir William Olifaunt, until famine and despair compelled him to an unconditional surrender, when the King imposed the harshest terms on this handful of brave men.

But what Edward prized more than the surrender of the last fortress which resisted his arms in Scotland was the captivity of her last patriot. He had found in a Scottish nobleman, Sir John Monteith, a person willing to become his agent in searching for Wallace among the wilds where he was driven to find refuge. Wallace was finally betrayed to the English by his unworthy and apostate countryman, who obtained an opportunity of seizing him at Robroyston, near Glasgow, by the treachery of a servant.

Sir William Wallace was instantly transferred to London, where he was brought to trial in Westminster Hall, with as much apparatus of infamy as the ingenuity of his enemies could devise. He was crowned with a garland of oak, to intimate that he had been king of outlaws. The arraignment charged him with high treason, in respect that he had stormed and taken towns and castles, and shed much blood. "Traitor," said Wallace, "was I never." The rest of the charges he confessed and proceeded to justify them. He was condemned, and executed by decapitation, 1305. His head was placed on a pinnacle on London bridge, and his quarters were distributed over the kingdom.

Thus died this courageous patriot, leaving a remembrance which will be immortal in the hearts of his countrymen. This steady champion of independence having been removed, and a bloody example held out to all who should venture to tread in his footsteps, Edward proceeded to form a species of constitution for the country, which, at the cost of so much labor, policy, and bloodshed, he had at length, as he conceived, united forever with the English crown.

Ten commissioners chosen for Scotland and twenty for England composed a set of regulations for the administration of justice, and enactments were agreed upon by which the feudal law, which had been long introduced into Scotland, was strengthened and extended, while the remains of the ancient municipal customs of the original Celtic tribes, or the consuetudinary laws of the Scots and Bretts--the Scotto-Irish and British races--were finally abrogated. This was for the purpose of promoting a uniformity of laws through the islands. Sheriffs and other officers were appointed for the administration of justice. There were provisions also made for a general revision of the ancient laws and statutes of Scotland.

FIRST GREAT JUBILEE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

A.D. 1300

FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS

Benedetto Gaetani, born at Anagni, Italy, about 1228--whom
contemporary poets and historians also consigned to
infamy--occupied the pontifical throne but ten years,
1294-1303, but those were years of almost continual strife.
It is indeed likely that partisanship painted him, in some
respects, with colors too black, attributing to him crimes
of which he was not guilty. But even these exaggerations of
dispraise were due to the unquestioned facts of his
character and career. When at length Boniface was worsted in
his quarrel with Philip the Fair, a widespread reaction
began on the part of the laity against ecclesiastical
assumptions, and the great dramatic act by which, under
Hildebrand, the papacy first displayed its power had its
counterpart in the manner of its decline. "The drama of
Anagni is to be set against the drama of Canossa."

But Boniface enjoyed one year of triumph scarcely paralleled
in all the experience of his fellow-pontiffs. This was the
closing year of the thirteenth century. Taking advantage of
a fresh wave of religious enthusiasm which then swept over
Europe, the Pope called upon the Christian world--almost at
peace from long warfare--to celebrate a jubilee. The
institution of the Catholic jubilee is generally considered
as dating from this celebration, though some writers refer
its establishment to the pontificate of Innocent III, a
century earlier.

Boniface VIII inaugurated the fourteenth century with a pilgrimage festival which has become renowned. The centennial jubilee had been celebrated in ancient Rome by magnificent games; the recollections of these games, however, had expired, and no tidings inform us whether the close or beginning of a century was marked in Christian Rome by any ecclesiastical festival. The immense processions of pilgrims to St. Peter's had ceased during the crusades; the crusades ended, the old longing reawoke among the people and drew them again to the graves of the apostles. The pious impulse was fostered in no small degree by the shrewdness of the Roman priests.

About the Christmas of 1299--and with Christmas, according to the style of the Roman curia, the year ended--crowds flocked both from the city and country to St. Peter's. A cry, promising remission of sins to those who made the pilgrimage to Rome, resounded throughout the world and forced it into movement. Boniface gave form and sanction to the growing impulse by promulgating the bull of jubilee of February 22, 1300, which promised remission of sins to all who should visit the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul during the year. The pilgrimage of Italians was to last for thirty days, that of foreigners for fifteen. The enemies of the Church were alone excluded. As such the Pope designated Frederick of Sicily, the Colonnas and their adherents, and, curiously enough, all Christians who held traffic with Saracens. Boniface consequently made use of the jubilee to brand his enemies and to exclude them from the privileges of Christian grace.

The pressure toward Rome was unexampled. The city presented the aspect of a camp where crowds of pilgrims, that resembled armies, thronged incessantly in and out. A spectator standing on one of the heights of the city might have seen swarms like wandering tribes approach along the ancient Roman roads from north, south, east, and west; and, had he mixed among them, might have had difficulty in discovering their home. Italians, Provençals, Frenchmen, Hungarians, Slavs, Germans, Spaniards, even Englishmen came.

Italy gave free passage to pilgrims and kept the Truce of God. The crowds arrived, wearing the pilgrim's mantle or clad in their national dress, on foot, on horseback, or on cars, leading the ill and weary, and laden with their luggage. Veterans of a hundred were led by their grandsons; and youths bore, like Æneas, father or mother on their shoulders. They spoke in many dialects, but they all sang in the same language the litanies of the Church, and their longing dreams had but one and the same object.

On beholding in the sunny distance the dark forest of towers of the holy city they raised the exultant shout, "Rome, Rome!" like sailors who after a tedious voyage catch their first glimpse of land. They threw themselves down in prayer and rose again with the fervent cry, "St. Peter and St. Paul, have mercy." They were received at the gates by their countrymen and by guardians appointed by the city to show them their quarters; nevertheless, they first made their way to St. Peter's, ascended the steps of the vestibule on their knees, and then threw themselves in ecstasies on the grave of the apostle.

During an entire year Rome swarmed with pilgrims and was filled with a perfect babel of tongues. It was said that thirty thousand pilgrims entered and left the city daily, and that daily two hundred thousand pilgrims might have been found within it. An exemplary administration provided for order and for moderate prices. The year was fruitful, the Campagna and the neighboring provinces sent supplies in abundance. One of the pilgrims who was a chronicler relates that "bread, wine, meat, fish, and oats were plentiful and cheap in the market; the hay, however, was very dear; the inns so expensive that I was obliged to pay for my bed and the stabling of my horse (beyond the hay and oats) a Tornese groat a day. As I left Rome on Christmas eve, I saw so large a party of pilgrims depart that no one could count the number. The Romans reckon that altogether they have had two millions of men and women. I frequently saw both sexes trodden under foot, and it was sometimes with difficulty that I escaped the same fate myself."

The way that led from the city across the bridge of St. Angelo to St. Peter's was too narrow; a new street was therefore opened in the walls along the river, not far from the ancient tomb known as Meta Romuli. The bridge was covered with booths, which divided it in two, and in order to prevent accidents it was enacted that those going to St. Peter's should keep to one side of the bridge; those returning, to the other. Processions went incessantly to St. Paul's without the walls and to St. Peter's, where the already renowned relic, the handkerchief of Veronica, was exhibited. Every pilgrim laid an offering on the altar of the apostle, and the same chronicler of Asti assures us, as an eye-witness, that two clerics stood by the altar of St. Paul's, day and night, who with rakes in their hands gathered in untold money.

The marvellous sight of priests, who smilingly shovelled up gold like hay, caused malicious Ghibellines to assert that the Pope had appointed the jubilee solely for the sake of gain. Boniface in truth stood in need of money to defray the expenses of the war with Sicily, which swallowed up incalculable sums. If instead of copper, the monks in St. Paul's had lighted on gold florins, they would necessarily have collected fabulous wealth, but the heaps of money, both in St. Peter's and St. Paul's, consisted mainly of small coins, the gifts of poor pilgrims.

Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi pointedly comments on the fact, and laments the change of times, when only the poor gave offerings, and when kings no longer, like the three magi, brought gifts to the Saviour. The receipts of the jubilee, which the Pope was able to devote to the two basilicas for the purchase of estates, were sufficiently considerable. If in ordinary years the gifts of pilgrims to St. Peter's amounted to thirty thousand four hundred gold florins, we may conclude how much greater must have been the gains of the year of jubilee. "The gifts of pilgrims," wrote the chronicler of Florence, "yield treasures to the Church, and the Romans all grow wealthy by the sale of their goods."

The year of jubilee was for them indeed a year of wealth. The Romans, therefore, treated the pilgrims with kindness, and nothing is heard of any act of violence. If the fall of the house of Colonna had aroused enemies to the Pope in Rome, he disarmed them by the immense profits which accrued to the Romans who have always lived solely on the money of foreigners. Their senators at this time were Richard Anibaldi of the Colosseum, from which the Anibaldi had already expelled the Frangipani, and Gentile Orsini, whose name may still be read on an inscription in the Capitol. These gentlemen did not permit the pious enthusiasm of the pilgrimage to prevent them from making war in the neighborhood. They allowed the pilgrims to pray at the altars, but they themselves advanced with the Roman banners against Toscanella, which they subjugated to the Capitol.

We may imagine on how vast a scale Rome sold relics, amulets, and images of saints, and at the same time how many remains of antiquity, coins, gems, rings, statues, marble remains, and also manuscripts were carried back by the pilgrims to their homes. When they had sufficiently satisfied their religious instincts, these pilgrims turned with astonished gaze to the monuments of the past.

Ancient Rome, through which they wandered, the book of the _Mirabilia_ in their hand, exercised its profound spell upon them. Besides the recollections of antiquity other memories of the deeds of popes and emperors, from the time of Charles the Great, animated this classic theatre of the world in the year 1300. Every mind, alive to the language of history, must have felt deeply the influence of the city at this time, when troops of pilgrims from every country, wandering in this world of majestic ruins, bore living testimony to the eternal ties which bound Rome to mankind. It can scarcely be doubted that Dante beheld the city in these days, and that a ray from them fell on his immortal poem which begins with Easter week of the year 1300.

The sight of the capital of the world inspired the soul of another Florentine. "I also found myself," writes Giovanni Villani, "in that blessed pilgrimage to the holy city of Rome, and as I beheld the great and ancient things within her, and read the histories and the great deeds of the Romans--which Vergil, Sallust, Lucan, Titus Livius, Valerius, Paul Orosius, and other great masters of history have described--I took style and form from them, although as a pupil I was not worthy to do so great a work. And thus in 1300, returned from Rome, I began to write this book to the honor of God and St. John and to the commendation of our city of Florence." The fruit of Villani's creative enthusiasm was his history of Florence, the greatest and most naive chronicle that has been produced in the beautiful Italian tongue; and it is possible that many other talented men may have received fruitful impressions from Rome at this time.

For Boniface the jubilee was a real victory. The crowds that streamed to Rome showed him that men still retained their belief in the city as the sacred temple of the united world. The monster festival of reconciliation seemed to flow like a river of grace over its own past, and to wipe away the hated recollection of Celestine V, of his war with the Colonnas, and all the accusations of his enemies. In these days he could revel in a feeling of almost divine power, as scarcely any pope had been able to do before him. He sat on the highest throne of the West, adorned by the spoils of empire, as the "vicar of God" on earth. As the dogmatic ruler of the world, the keys of blessing and destruction in his hand, he beheld thousands from distant lands come before his throne and cast themselves in the dust before him as before a higher being. Kings, however, he did not see. Beyond Charles Martel, no monarch came to Rome to receive, as a penitent, absolution for his sins. This shows that the faith, which the battles of Alexander III and Innocent III had formerly won, was extinguished at royal courts.

Boniface VIII closed the memorable festival on Christmas Eve of the year 1300. It forms an epoch in the history of the papacy, as in that of Rome. The year of jubilee and enthusiasm was followed, in terrible contrast, by the tragic end of the Pope, the fall of the papacy from its height, and the decline of Rome to a condition of awful solitude.

CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY

EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME

A.D. 1162-1300

JOHN RUDD, LL.D.

CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY

EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME A.D. 1162-1300

JOHN RUDD, LL.D.

Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals following give volume and page.

Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page references showing where the several events are fully treated.

A.D.

1162. Surrender and destruction of the city of Milan; the whole of Lombardy submits to Frederick.

Thomas Becket, appointed archbishop of Canterbury, resigns the chancellorship. See "ARCHIEPISCOPATE OF THOMAS BECKET," vi, i. Flight of Pope Alexander III into France.

1163. Council of Tours; Alexander declares void all the acts of his opponents; stringent decrees against the heretics of Southern France, called Manicheans, Paulicians, and afterward Albigenses.

1164. Henry II convokes an assembly of barons and prelates; they enact the Constitutions of Clarendon. See "ARCHIEPISCOPATE OF THOMAS BECKET," vi, i.

1165. Pope Alexander returns to Rome.

1166. Emperor Frederick I reenforces his army and again invades Italy.

1167. General league of the Lombard cities formed; Milan rebuilt. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa defeats the Sicilian auxiliaries of Pope Alexander, captures Rome, and seats Antipope Paschal.

1168. Success of the Lombard League; they found a new city, named Alessandria, in honor of the Pope. See "THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE," vi, 28.

Death of Antipope Paschal III; Antipope Callistus III set up.

1169. Richard Strongbow, with other knights, begins the English conquest of Ireland; Wexford, Waterford, and Dublin captured.

1170. Peter Waldo, a citizen of Lyons, founds a preaching society, afterward called Waldenses.

Murder of Thomas Becket. See "ARCHIEPISCOPATE OF THOMAS BECKET," vi, i.

1171. End of the Fatimite dynasty in Egypt; Saladin, acting for Noureddin, becomes supreme head.

Henry II lands with an army at Waterford, Ireland; his own knights and many Irish chiefs do homage to him for their lands.

1173. Henry II appears before the papal legates and receives absolution for Becket's death; his Queen, Eleanor, jealous of Fair Rosamond, incites her sons to rebel against their father; Louis, King of France, supports them, and David of Scotland invades England.

1174. Saladin becomes independent sultan of Egypt.

Henry II does penance at Becket's tomb; he defeats and captures the King of Scotland, and quells the insurrection of his sons. The Leaning Tower of Pisa commenced.

1175. English conquest of Ireland completed.

1176. Frederick I is defeated at Legnano by the forces of the Lombard League. See "THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE," vi, 28.

Peter Coleman commences the erection of the first stone bridge across the Thames at London.

1177. Meeting of Emperor Frederick and Pope Alexander; a treaty is concluded between them.

Henry II divides England into six circuits, through which he sends justices twice a year to administer the law in each county.

1178. A fleet is sent by the King of Sicily to assist the Christians in Palestine.

1179. Eleventh general council, Third of the Lateran, declares that the true pope must be elected by two-thirds of the cardinals; one of its canons condemns the Waldenses, and their translation of their Bible is suppressed.

1180. Death of Louis VII; his son Philip Augustus succeeds to the French throne.

Henry the Lion, placed under the ban of the empire, has his Bavarian domains sequestered and his Saxon kingdom partitioned.

About this time the Gothic style of architecture is introduced.

1182. France expels the Jews.

1183. Lombard cities secure their freedom. See "THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE," vi, 28.

Baldwin IV, disabled by leprosy, resigns the crown of Jerusalem to his nephew, Baldwin V.

Saladin takes Damascus, Aleppo, and Mosul, and sets aside the Turkish Sultan.

1184. Diet of Mainz; the functions and dignities of the electors of Germany settled.

Council of Verona; excommunication of the Roman people and the Waldenses.

1185. Tumults at Constantinople; Andronicus murdered, which ends the Comneni dynasty; Isaac Angelus made emperor.

Prince Arthur, grandson of Henry II, born after the death of his father, Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany.

1186. Marriage of the Emperor's son, Henry, to Constance, heiress of the throne of the Two Sicilies; they are crowned king and queen of Italy at Milan.

Revolt of Bulgaria and Wallachia (Roumania); they throw off the Byzantine yoke.

1187. Battle of Tiberias. See "SALADIN TAKES JERUSALEM FROM THE CHRISTIANS," vi, 41.

Pope Gregory VIII urges a new crusade. York Minster, England, founded.

1188. Imposition of the "tithe of Saladin," on behalf of the crusaders in England. King Richard says he "would sell London itself" to aid the cause. See "THE THIRD CRUSADE," vi, 54.

Pope Clement III again makes Rome the papal residence.

1189. Massacre of Jews in England.

Sancho, King of Portugal, takes Silvas and Beja.

Tancred, natural son of Roger, is invited by the Sicilians to occupy the throne; he is supported by the Pope against Constance and her husband.

Frederick Barbarossa sets out on the Third Crusade. See "THE THIRD CRUSADE," vi, 54.

1190. King Richard of England claims the dowry of his sister, Joan, widow of the late King of Sicily.

Emperor Frederick is drowned. See "THE THIRD CRUSADE," vi, 54. A wealthy German, to aid his poor countrymen at Acre, founds the order of Teutonic Knights. See "THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS," vi, 68.

1191. Pope Celestin III allows the Romans to destroy Tusculum; the expelled inhabitants build Frascati.

The city of Bern, Switzerland, built.

1192. The Order of the Garter said to have been originated by Richard I of England at Acre.

After leaving Palestine, Richard is shipwrecked near Aquileia; he is imprisoned and held for ransom by Emperor Henry VI.

1193. Pope Celestin III threatens to excommunicate the princes who hold King Richard in captivity.

John Lackland, brother of Richard, King of England, attempts to usurp the throne; he is resisted by the barons.

Discord and wars among the municipal republics of Italy.

1194. Richard, after having been a captive for more than a year, is released for a ransom of 150,000 marks, raised by his subjects. He returns to England, declares war against Philip Augustus, and invades Normandy. He pardons his brother John.

Emperor Henry VI puts an end to the Norman line in Sicily; he founds the Hohenstaufen dynasty there.

1195. Battle of Alarcos; Alfonso the Noble, King of Castile, defeated by the Moors.

1196. Crusade of German barons to Palestine.

1197. Death of Henry VI of Germany; his heir is an infant son, Frederick II.

1198. Contest for the crowns of Germany and Italy between Philip of Swabia, supported by the Ghibellines, and Otho of Brunswick, son of Henry the Lion, aided by the Guelfs.

Florence becomes an independent republic.

Battle of Gisors, France; Richard Coeur de Lion defeats the French; his war-cry, "_Dieu et mon droit_" later became the motto to the arms of England.

1199. Richard Coeur de Lion is slain while contesting with one of his French vassals. John usurps the throne of England to the exclusion of Prince Arthur. See "PHILIP OF FRANCE WINS THE FRENCH DOMAINS OF THE ENGLISH KINGS," vi, 86.

A quarrel between Parma and Placentia inflames a general war among the cities of Lombardy.

1200. King John and Philip Augustus, the latter forsaking Arthur's cause, come to terms.

Pope Innocent III compels Philip Augustus to take back his queen, whom he had divorced.

1201. Fourth Crusade undertaken by Baldwin of Flanders, Simon de Montfort, and Boniface of Montserrat; treaty of the nobles of France and Flanders with Venice.

Chartering of the University of Paris, by Philip.

1202. Venice secures the help of the crusaders by agreeing to transport them to Palestine, in place of a part of the payment, in the conquest of the city of Zara, then in rebellion.

Prince Arthur made prisoner by his uncle, King John, who murders him. See "PHILIP OF FRANCE WINS THE FRENCH DOMAINS OF THE ENGLISH KINGS," vi, 86.

1203. Constantinople attacked and taken by the Venetians and crusaders, who restore the emperor Isaac Angelus.

A great Mongol empire raised by Ghengis Khan. See "FOUNDING OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE BY GHENGIS KHAN," vi, 103.

1204. Constantinople in revolt. See "VENETIANS AND CRUSADERS TAKE CONSTANTINOPLE," vi, 121.

Loss of Normandy and other French possessions by King John of England. See "PHILIP OF FRANCE WINS THE FRENCH DOMAINS OF THE ENGLISH KINGS," vi, 86.

Foundation of the Latin Empire of the East. See "LATIN EMPIRE OF THE EAST," vi, 140.

1205. Boniface sells Crete to the Venetians.

1206. Henry of Flanders elected emperor of Constantinople; he vainly attempts to remedy the civil and ecclesiastical confusion in his dominions.

Theodore Lascaris, son-in-law of Alexius III, establishes the Greek empire of Nicaea.

1207. Stephen Langton consecrated archbishop of Canterbury by Innocent III; resistance of King John. See "INNOCENT III EXALTS THE PAPAL POWER," vi, 156.

1208. Tuscany ceases to be a separate state, except the republic of Florence.

A crusade against the Albigenses is proclaimed by Innocent III.

An interdict laid on England as King John persists in rejecting Stephen Langton. See "INNOCENT III EXALTS THE PAPAL POWER," vi, 156.

Assassination of Philip of Swabia by Otho, Count of Wittelsbach; Otho IV becomes emperor of Germany in place of his father.

1209. Foundation of the order of Franciscans.

Defeat of the Scots under William I in an invasion of England.

Salinguerra, leader of the Ghibellines at Ferrara, expels the marquis Azzo and the Guelfs.

Massacre of the Albigenses by the crusaders, at Beziers, France. See "INNOCENT III EXALTS THE PAPAL POWER," vi, 156.

1210. Emperor Otho IV claims Sicily of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen; he attempts its conquest. He is excommunicated by the Pope.

Fourteen heretics are condemned to the flames by the Council of Paris; the works of Aristotle are ordered to be burned, and the future translation and reading of them forbidden.

1211. Marquis Azzo recovers his influence in Ferrara.

1212. Frederick of Hohenstaufen, supported by Innocent III, wars with Otho for the German crown.

Battle of Navasde Tolosa; the kings of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre crush the Moors and destroy the Almohade power in Spain.

Children's Crusade from France and Germany. See "THE SIXTH CRUSADE," vi, 208.

1213. King John of England submits to the Pope. See "INNOCENT III EXALTS THE PAPAL POWER," vi, 156.

Subjugation of the Albigenses by Simon de Montfort, who is awarded the principality of Toulouse,

1214. Battle of Bouvines; victory of Philip Augustus over Otho IV, supported by English and Flemish auxiliaries.

1215. Transubstantiation declared, by the twelfth general council, to be a doctrine of the Church; auricular confession enforced; it transfers the greater part of the lands of Count Raymond, the late Albigenses leader, to Simon de Montfort.

Magna Charta signed by King John. See "SIGNING OF MAGNA CHARTA," vi, 175.

In Florence begins the fierce quarrel between the Guelfs and Ghibellines.

Founding of the order of Dominicans.

China invaded by Ghengis Khan; he captures Peking.

1216. Invited by the English barons, Louis, son of Philip Augustus, lands in England with an army; King John marches to meet him; he loses his baggage and many men in the Lincolnshire quicksands; he flees to Newark and there dies of chagrin. Henry III succeeds John; the Earl of Pembroke Protector.

1217. A fifth crusade; Andrew II, King of Hungary, and other princes head the expedition.

Simon de Montfort, during a revolt, is slain at the siege of Toulouse. Louis is defeated by the Protector, Pembroke, and returns to France.

1218. Andrew withdraws from the crusade; it is continued by William I, Count of Holland, and John of Brienne.

1219. Damietta is reduced by the crusaders.

A bull of Pope Honorius III forbids the teaching of the civil law in the University of Paris.

1220. Imperial coronation of the Hohenstaufen Frederick II. Turkestan is overrun by the Mongols, who capture Bokhara and Samarkand.

1221. Disastrous terms are imposed on the crusaders, who evacuate Egypt.

1222. Signing of the Golden Bull of Hungary. See "THE GOLDEN BULL, 'HUNGARY'S MAGNA CHARTA,' SIGNED," vi, 191.

1223. Death of Philip Augustus; his son, Louis VIII, succeeds to the French throne.

Pope Honorius III convenes a congress at Florence; Emperor Frederick pledges himself to proceed on the crusade within two years, and to marry John de Brienne's daughter, Yolanthe.

Hacon V holds the first Norwegian parliament, or storthing, at Bergen.

1224. Victory over the Russians by the Mongols on the Kalka. See "RUSSIA CONQUERED BY THE TARTAR HORDES," vi, 196.

Amaury de Montfort cedes his claim on Toulouse to Louis VIII of France.

1225. Pope Honorius III, annoyed by the Roman senate, retires to Tivoli.

Frederick, after obtaining a further delay of two years for his crusade, marries Yolanthe. See "THE SIXTH CRUSADE," vi, 208.

1226. Death of Louis VIII; his son, Louis IX (St. Louis), succeeds under the regency of his mother, Blanche of Castile.

Renewal of the Lombard League against Emperor Frederick II.

1227. Death of Pope Honorius III; Gregory IX, who succeeds him, urges the crusade; Frederick's first expedition miscarries. See "THE SIXTH CRUSADE," vi, 208.

Great disorders in Italy; the Gyelf partisans are driven out of Verona and Vicenza.

Death of Ghengis Khan; his four sons divide the empire between them.

1228. Death of Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury; his successor, Edmund, preserves Magna Charta from being infringed.

1229. Terms fatal to the Albigenses are accepted by Raymond VII of Toulouse.

Frederick II again departs for Palestine. See "THE SIXTH CRUSADE," vi, 208.

1230. Reconciliation of Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX. First arrival of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia.

Theodor, Emperor of Thessalonica, defeated, made prisoner, and blinded by Asan, King of Bulgaria; his brother, Manuel, usurps the throne.

1231. Summoned to assist the Poles, the Teutonic Knights defeat the pagan Prussians and found their dominions on the shores of the Baltic.

Four hundred families of Oghusian Tartars, driven from Khorassan, effect a settlement near Mount Olympus; from these the Ottomans descend.