Chapter I: Literature (1)

The fall of the western empire was a strange phenomenon. The Roman people did not only abandon the government in its struggles against the barbarous invaders, but when left to themselves, did not attempt any resistance on their own behalf. During the whole protracted conflict, the nation endured all the scourges of war, devastation, and famine, and suffered an entire change in its character and condition, without acting, remonstrating, or even appearing. Their passive submission to inevitable destiny at the great crisis of changeful progress was most complete.

We do wrong to regard the middle age as a blank in human history, a useless void between the refinement of antiquity and the freedom of modern times. No vital element of civilization actually died, though all may have fallen into deep sleep, from which they awoke in a wonderful and sublime manner after a thousand years. The substantial portion of antique knowledge and civilization never was forgotten, nor was its better spirit disused, but through subsequent and superior invention has re-appeared in many of the best and noblest productions of modern genius. The fullness of creative fancy characterized the period between the Trojan adventurers and the times of Solon and Pericles, the fountain-head of that variety, originality, and beauty, which marked the unrivaled productions of a later era. What that primary growth was to the richest harvest of Greece, the early centuries of mediæval literature were to all the diversified wealth of modern Europe. The frigid tempestuousness of winter essentially precedes the silent process of vernal vegetation, just as spring must go before the rich maturity of autumnal fruit. When the sources of life were drying up in the immense body of Rome, the fountain of northern energy broke upon the mighty colossus, whose head was still of iron, though its feet were of clay. It fell for its own good and the welfare of the human race; for the sap of a loftier development was so to imbue it, that soon it should be created anew, full of a diviner strength and nobler life. The two opposing poles thus came into a needful contact with each other, and, by means of the elemental struggle occasioned by the civilization of the one, and the barbarism of the other, a happy equilibrium was established between both. The rugged North has always redeemed the effete South, and, by a succession of such amalgamations, secured to humanity perpetual improvement. It is only in this way that new races are assimilated to the old and raised above their level. The inert principle of barbarism at least possesses granite strength, to sustain the active element of civilization and bear it forward. An armful of green fuel thrown upon a dying fire, seems to quench it in clouds of smoke; but soon the moisture is evaporated, the fibres kindle to living flames, and the hearth glows with a purer and more grateful brightness than before.

The Middle Ages, according to the ordinary use of the term, comprise a thousand years, and extend from the invasion of France by Clovis, to that of Naples by Charles VIII. But in the sense of our own designation, the age of Leo X. includes that period, and just so much additional time as was requisite to the full expansion of the mediæval spirit, when it was superseded by another age as unlike its predecessor as this is different from the two which in succession went before. We should guard against exaggerating the influence of the Germanic invasions, lest we assign an accidental character to the temporal condition of the times under review. The invasions themselves were a necessary result of the final extinction of Roman domination. In our late sketch of the progressive greatness of that power, we saw that the Roman empire was bounded on one side by the great oriental theocracies, too remote and uncongenial for incorporation; and westward, by hunting or shepherd hordes, who, not being settled nations, could not be effectually subdued. The process of invasion was gradual as that of conquest, though its apparent success could not be permanent till the vigor of the Roman heart was exhausted. The incorporation of barbarians in the imperial armies, and the abandonment of certain provinces, on condition that new invaders should be kept in check, prepared the way for that radical and marked transition which was consummated in the fifth century. The age of martial force was superseded by the age of scientific invention; an age full of military activity in its first centuries, but which essentially changed its character as the civilized world assumed its new position. It almost immediately lost its offensive attitude, and exercised those defensive functions which so strongly characterized feudal life. Political dispersion soon prevailed over the preceding system of concentration; and this afforded both motive and scope for the direct and special participation of individuals, rather than the thorough subordination of all partial movements to the absolute direction of centralized authority.

As in the preceding ages, so in this, the East was the source of all subsequent worth. Italy, in the northern deluge, was the predestined Mount Ararat; the last reached by the flood, and the first left. The history of modern Europe must necessarily be referred to Florence, as the history of all-conquering force has ever been ascribed to Rome. The great ascendancy of the Medici, and the influence of Italian genius at that epoch on literature, art, science, philosophy, and religion of the world, made that fair city the centre of light, the sovereign of thought, the beautifier of life, and the metropolis of civilization. The fall of old Rome and the rise of new Italy, were events as desirable as they were inevitable. The mission of the former had ceased before any foreign nation ventured across the Alps. With an animal instinct the superannuated body summoned all the remnants of vital energy to the heart, only to witness the fatal prostration of its members, and realize its final doom. Says Mariotti, "The barbarian invasion had then the effect of an inundation of the Nile. It found a land exhausted with its own efforts, burning and withering under the rays of the same tropical sun which had called into action its productive virtues, and languishing into a slow decay, from which no reaction could ever redeem it. Then, from the bosom of unexplored mountains, prepared in the silence of untrodden regions, the flood roared from above: the overwhelming element washed away the last pale remnants of a faded vegetation; but the seasons had their own course. Gardens and fields smiled again on those desolate marshes. Palms and cedars again waved their crests to the skies in all the pride of youth, as if singing the praises of the Creator, and attesting that man alone perishes, and his works--but Nature is immortal."

Until the age of Odoacer and Theodoric, A.D. 493, there was nothing but ravage and ruin; but then the morning star of a brighter day arose, and under the auspices of these two monarchs, the foundation was commenced of the new social edifice. Alboin, king of the Lombards, was crowned in Italy, about A.D. 568, an epoch in which the great crisis which divided the ancient from the modern world was passed. This people were in Italy what the Saxons were in England. They were the bravest, and freest, as well as most barbarous of the Teutonic races. The conquest of the South not having cost them a drop of blood, it is said that the whole host, as they descended from their Alpine fastnesses, settled on the lands of fair Italy, rather as new tenants than conquerors. They carried along with them their wives and families, and cherished their adopted home with ardent enthusiasm. Their martial spirit eventually gave place to other not less active and laborious habits; and through their love of home, together with other domestic virtues, the German nations gave Italy, as well as Europe, that form of government of which our own age has witnessed the final catastrophe--the feudal system.

The Roman frontier on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, with its long line of castles, fortresses, and cities, lay mainly within the German territory. Here the nations of central Europe saw their brethren of a kindred race living under the control of laws which the freer classes sought to repel by force of arms; but they could but observe the superior advantages of civilization, and desire to penetrate those beautiful countries whence they were derived. Consequently the Suevi, the Saxons, and the Goths opposed to the Roman fortifications a living frontier-wall, and moving westward, not only possessed themselves of, but soon peopled with new nations and vivifying powers both the South and North. The protracted contest between the kings of Lombardy and the Greek Exarchs of Ravenna, provoked the arbitration of the Franks, and led to the establishment of their protectorate over Italy; as afterwards they became the head of the great Christian empire throned in Germany. Thenceforward the Franks constituted the leading state of the West. In the meantime its rival power in the East, the Byzantine empire, was sinking even lower in the scale of moral, political, and intellectual degradation. At the fitting moment, the Saracenic empire was called into provisional existence, and made to gather under the tedious uniformity of its despotic protection whatever of civilizing elements remained in the orient, and plant them where they might unfold a more salutary life from the fresh soil of the European West.

The Eastern Empire, founded by Constantine, had no ennobling traditions of any kind, for it was neither Greece nor Rome. It possessed neither the power nor the energy requisite to discover and appreciate the new end of activity introduced by Christian ideas. Hence, there was no progress in the intellectual domain, or in the fine arts; hence, also, every thing that tended to ameliorate the social state and exalt all ranks, advanced with languor at Byzantium. It was her office simply to guard the palladium of human weal during the ten centuries of western formations, and then to fall to rise no more till a succeeding cycle shall redeem her in common with the entire old hemisphere.

Greek literature continued to decline under the Greek emperors. A vast number of books, produced during this period, have been preserved, but only a very small portion of them inspire much interest. It is a singular fact, that, even when the Latin language was in its highest cultivation, no Greek seems to have studied it, much less to have attempted to write it. But the Latins, on the contrary, so long as any taste remained among them, did not cease to admire and to cultivate the language of Greece. Like every other valuable current, taste and learning move westward only. Placed between Asia and Europe, Byzantium became the great centre to which learned men could resort, and stimulate each other by mutual collision. Justinian reigned from A.D. 527 to 565. He was a talented prince, who, among the noblest objects of ambition, disdained not the less illustrious name of poet and philosopher, lawyer and theologian, musician and architect. It might have been expected that under such auspices literature and art would not only claim the highest patronage, but produce corresponding results. Few works, however, of any eminence appeared, except the laborious compilations on jurisprudence, under the titles of the Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes, which were partly extracted from the writings of former civilians, and digested into a complete system of law, by the great scholar and statesman Tribonian. Justinian espoused such labors as were connected with his own glory; while in other respects he has been represented as an enemy to learning, when, by an edict, he imposed a perpetual silence on the schools of Athens; and when, from rapacity, or from the real want of money to complete the expensive edifices on which he was engaged, he confiscated the stipends, which, in many cities, had been appropriated from a remote period to support the masters of liberal arts.

As the tide ebbs here, it rises elsewhere. When the Mohammedan civilization had spread with the rapidity of lightning toward the West, where it was overpowered by France, Charlemagne created the first real elements of national organization; he so modified sacred and secular legislation as to establish civil power on the basis of spiritual authority. This followed immediately upon that fusion and variety to which Europe is indebted for all that manifoldness of excellence which may be traced in modern literature, art, and science. During ten centuries, a general confusion and fermentation was all that the superficial might observe; but a deeper investigation revealed an utility in the decrees of Providence of the sublimest moment, for it produced a new civilization, the richest and most fertile earth had borne. Instead of universal ruin, every thing bore the impress of regeneration. There was darkness, indeed, but it was a gloom out of which auspicious light arose, a healthy, vigorous barbarism which contained the latent seed of loftiest culture. Society at large was for a long time a chaotic mass, not, however, of dead matter, but of living and moving germs ready to spring into full bloom at the first touch of creative power. As from the bosom of primeval night, the brightness, vitality, and order of the universe were gradually unfolded, so the political and religious institutions of the Teutonic race, the mighty fabric of mediæval civilization, sprung from the inborn vigor of noble barbarism. Mind was not less active nor less powerful than that in earlier ages, but still contained within itself the eternal elements from which a new creation was to spring. The waters subsided, and fertile soils again teemed with life; but new trees and plants, and new races appeared, and but few vestiges remained of the ancient order of things. It is cheering to contemplate the progressive national development, the fullness of life, the stir, the activity, manifested in the commerce and industry, art and science of Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and England, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, compared with the mournful monotony which pervaded the Byzantine empire. The dead treasures of Grecian knowledge were never turned to account till they were grasped by the vigorous Teutonic intellect in its maturity, and when, on the destruction of the eastern empire, the seeds of that immortal literature were scattered over the wide domain of the free West. The habits of mental exertion, prior to Pericles, which led to supreme political and intellectual dominion over the East, were confirmed by the emergencies of a foreign invasion. The genius of the Augustan age was matured in the civil wars which rocked the cradle of Rome and nourished her growth. But the restoration of literature and the arts in western Europe was achieved through an instrumentality utterly unlike the preceding steps of human advancement; and which, in vivacity and universality of interest prompted thereby, has no parallel in the progress of our race. The passionate exhilaration then kindled by great popular events, such as the attempt to recover the Holy Land, transformed all susceptible classes too powerfully to admit of a relapse into apathy or ignorance.

Thus the line of demarcation is clear, and the course of mediæval progress is not less evident. The tenth year of the fifth century saw Alaric with his Goths within the walls of Rome. By the year 476 of our era, Africa obeyed the Vandals; Spain and part of Gaul were subject to the Goths; the Burgundians and Franks occupied the remainder; and the Saxons ruled the most of Britain. From the great "Storehouse of Nations" were poured forth successive swarms of those barbarous tribes who were our progenitors, and who, in the moral course of things, pressed on from change to change, as humanity is ever compelled to ascend the arduous steep of excellence. From the fifth to the tenth century, the various races mingled without being compounded; but the collision of mighty nations, and the mixture of diverse mother-tongues, soon confounded all the dialects, and gave rise to new ones in their place. During these centuries of confusion which preceded and prepared the way for modern languages, it was impossible for Europe to possess any native literature. The talent for writing was small, and, indeed, the very materials were yet more limited. Parchment was enormously dear, and paper was not yet invented, or introduced by commerce into the West. It is said that the most sublime works of antiquity were sometimes erased, for the purpose of substituting some private agreement or some legendary tale.

Literature, the immortality of speech, embalms all monarchs of thought, and guards their repose in the eternal pyramids of fame. "What is writing?" asked Pepin, the son of Charlemagne. Alcuin replied, "It is the guardian of history." The sumptuous cities which have lighted the world since the beginning of time, and all the progressive heroes who have constituted the vanguard of national improvement, are now seen only in the light furnished by the great annalists of early triumphs. The dart that pierced the Persian breast-plate molders in the dust of Marathon, and the gleam of the battle-axe, wielded by the impassioned crusader, has passed away; but the arrow of Pindar still quivers with the life of his bow, and the romantic adventures of mediæval zeal are perpetuated in the unwasting freshness of new-born letters. When Gothic night descended, the ancient classics were for a time forgotten; but in secluded retreats the ritual of genius continued to be solemnized, and the sacred fire of learning burned upon its shattered shrines, until torch after torch carried the flame to the remotest quarter in the track of the sun. That light never sets, but sheds itself upon succeeding generations in diversified hues of splendor. Homer glows in the softened beauty of Virgil, and Dantè passed the purified flambeau to Milton's mightier hand. Literature, like art, suffers fearful vicissitudes and mutilations; but, unlike her more fragile sister, she can not be easily destroyed. A casualty may shatter into dust that statue of Minerva whose limbs seemed to breathe under the flowing robe, and her lips to move; but the fierceness of the Goth, the fanaticism of the crusader, and the frenzy of the iconoclast, have not extirpated Penelope and Electra, nor defaced the calm beauty of sublime martyr worth.

Poetry is the making of thought, and not the least interesting are the primitive productions of those who created the vernacular dialects of modern Europe. They call glorious shadows into the crystal of memory, as the Charmer of their day peopled his glass with faces of the absent. Mirrors of magic represent the inventions of the minstrel; and with the thrill of national affinity in our heart, our eyes perhaps lend a fascinating brightness to the providential wonders they behold.

The irruption of barbarians above described gradually shut out from the world the old Roman literature, and a period of general darkness transpired before the new languages arose to compensate for the loss. But while the corrupt Latin was retiring, the Italian and German languages were assuming their native form. The _langue d'oc_ of the south of France was flourishing, closely connected with the Catalan; and the _langue d'oïl_ of the north was rapidly becoming the French language. France was then the literary centre of Europe. Through the Normans, her language was spread from Sicily to England; her vernacular literature was imitated in Germany, and became naturalized in both Italy and Spain. The _Troubadours_ of the south and the _Trouvères_ of the north diffused a taste for letters in every direction, and their _gay science_ was the partial inspirer and faithful companion of chivalry. The great age of Leo was commenced when the common people were addressed in their own native tongue, and it was indignantly, but truthfully, said, that "all the splendid distinctions of mankind were thereby thrown down; and the naked shepherd levelled with the knight clad in steel." The most valuable works were translated into the dialect of each tribe or nation, and the effect of this circumstance was very great in multiplying the number of readers and of thinkers, and in giving stability to the mutable forms of oral speech. Thus the foundations of the great social movements of European civilization were laid, in those modern languages which were the result of a slow popular elaboration, and in which the corresponding civilization is reflected. The Italians led the way, and lit that torch which was passed over to Switzerland, and thence to Germany, France, Holland, England, and the still remoter West. The grave of the old civilization was the cradle of the new; a more auspicious dispensation, whose divinest apostles, as in preceding cycles, were requited with crucifixion and martyrdom.

The first period of Leoine literature arose in the scholastico-romantic epoch, which extended down to the renaissance, or epoch of enthusiasm for pagan antiquity. The temporal supremacy of this was prepared when Pepin the Younger undertook to defend "the Holy Church of the Republic of God" against the Lombards, and compelled them to evacuate the territory held by the Exarchate. He placed the keys of the conquered towns on the altar of St. Peter, and in this act he laid the foundation of the whole temporal power of the popes. Thenceforward the Gallic archbishops and monarchs received both pallium and crown from Rome, and all great powers were exercised in the West. The Merovingian race of kings had perished, and the Carlovingian house ruled with imperial splendor. While all the East was sinking into one common ruin, and the whole world appeared about to become the prey of the Moslem, the founder of this famous family, Pepin of Heristral caused the civil power to coalesce with ecclesiastical dominion under Gregory the Second, and presented the first effectual resistance to the Mahometan conquerors. The alliance between the pope and the emperor which was thus begun, Charlemagne perfected, and received his reward when, on Christmas-eve, A.D. 800, the diadem of the western empire was laid upon his head by the supreme pontiff in the ancient metropolis. Says Guizot, in his History of Representative Government, "Charlemagne desired conquests, in order to extend his renown and dominion; the Franks were unwilling to be without a share in their own government; Charlemagne held frequent national assemblies, and employed the principal members of the territorial aristocracy as dukes, counts, _missi-dominici_, and in other offices. The clergy were anxious to possess consideration, authority, and wealth. Charlemagne held them in great respect, employed many bishops in the public service, bestowed on them rich endowments, and attached them firmly to him, by proving himself a munificent friend and patron of those studies of which they were almost the only cultivators. In every direction toward which the active and energetic minds of the time turned their attention, Charlemagne was always the first to look; and he proved himself more warlike than the warriors, more careful of the interests of the church than her most devout adherents, a greater friend of literature than the most learned men, always foremost in every career, and thus bringing every thing to a kind of unity, by the single fact that his genius was every where in harmony with his age, because he was its most perfect representative, and that he was capable of ruling it because he was superior to it. But the men who are thus before their age, in every respect, are the only men who can gain followers; Charlemagne's personal superiority was the indispensable condition of the transitory order which he established." This new and wonderful stage of progress in the social relations of men, and this transformation of the popular mind under the auspices of a Christian form of government, marked the seven centuries which elapsed from the reign of Charlemagne to the discovery of the New World, and the commencement of the Reformation.

That vast series of emigrations which planted tribes of Gothic blood over large tracts of Europe, and established that race as sovereigns in remote regions, came also into the British Islands. But the Anglo-Saxon invaders, instead of planting stationary garrisons, like the Romans, merely to overawe, introduced colonies, with an immense stream of active population. The gloom which long covered this field of high designs was that which goes before the dawn, and bright rays were soon observed to shine forth. The fierce savages who fought under Caractacus, Boadicea, or Galgacus, and those Britons who at a later period occupied the stately Roman towns in the south and west of the island, or cultivated the fertile districts that lay around their walls, were succeeded by a much superior race. Here, as elsewhere, literature began to be nourished by the consolidation of the new languages, which were successively developed in all European countries to such a degree that they were fully adequate as instruments for recording and using the results of human advancement. It was the age of Theodoric, Charlemagne, and Alfred, to whose royal influence, probably, together with the dispersion of the Normans, should be accredited the principal occasions, if not causes, of revived intellect.

At the accession of Charlemagne, we are told that no means of education existed in his dominions; but Theodulf of Germany, Alcuin of England, and Clement of Ireland, were the true Paladins who repaired to his court. With the help of these masters, schools were established in all the chief cities; nor was the noble monarch ashamed to be the disciple of that in his own palace under the care of Alcuin. As early as the ninth century, Lyons, Fulda, Corvey, Rheims, and other large towns, enjoyed flourishing establishments of learning. At an earlier period, Pepin requested some books from the pontiff, Paul I. "I have sent to you what books I could find," replied his holiness. To such a benefactor to the apostolic see, the selection, doubtless, was as munificent as gratitude could make it; but, in fact, only seven works were sent, all Greek compositions. From the beginning, however, books fell into the channel common to all progress, and traveled westward only.

In the sixth century lived Gregory of Tours, whose ten volumes of original annals entitle him to be called the father of French and German story. In A.D. 668, Theodore, an Asiatic Greek by birth, was sent to old England by the pope, through whom and his companion, Adrian, some knowledge of the classics was diffused among the Anglo-Saxon race. Early in the eighth century arose the great ornament of that age and island, the Venerable Bede, who surpassed every other name in primitive literature of indigenous growth. The central school of York was established, whence the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin came to be the great luminary at the court of Charlemagne. But during the long wars waged by the successors of that great agent of Providence, all seemed to relapse into utter confusion again, and ignorance stretched its roots deeper down, to the year one thousand of our era, which has been considered as the lowest extreme of degradation, the nadir of human intelligence. It was indeed an iron age, but compared with the seventh and eighth centuries, the tenth possessed superior illumination as a whole. Darkness and calamity were still the concomitants of progress, but the shadows grew fainter as night declined, and the nations rejoiced in the new twilight which reddened into the lustre of a higher day. The intellectual energies of mankind might be impeded, but they were never in an absolutely stationary condition; but nations, as well as individuals, were born in the fitting time and place to advance the landmarks of popular improvement and the general weal. At the moment when the great West lay apparently torpid, in the silent formation of a powerful amalgamation of all old historical elements, a new nation was suddenly produced to gather up whatever valuable relics remained in the East, and bring them across continents to the great fountain of subsequent improvement. Masters of the country of the Magi, and the Chaldeans, whence the first light had shone over mankind; of Egypt, the storehouse of human science; of Asia Minor, that fertile and beautiful land, where poetry and the fine arts had their origin; and of the burning plains of Africa, that dark domain of Ham, the country of impetuous eloquence, and subtle intellect; Arabian adventurers, the splendid bastard progeny of Shem, in a manner combined within themselves the advantages of all the nations which they had subjugated, and laid the invaluable treasures they accumulated at the feet of Japhet, on the throne of the West.

Of the new languages which were produced at the close of the tenth century, one appeared to prevail over all others, and became widely spread. Innumerable writers almost cotemporaneously employed this recent vernacular, which owed nothing of its originality to what is usually termed classical literature. They rapidly spread their reputation from Spain to Italy, and from Germany to England, and as suddenly disappeared. While the nations were yet listening in wonder, the voice of the Troubadours became silent, the Provençal dialect was abandoned, and its productions were ranked among the dead languages. This, too, was a part of that process in the moral world, as in the natural, wherein the fresh germ is hidden beneath decay, and that which we in our short-sightedness deplore, is most essential to the new life already proceeding from death. The greatest excellence is often elaborated amid the severest trials, and the calamities we would gladly avert, have most of all contributed to progress, intellectual and moral.

Simultaneous with the Provençal poetry, chivalry had its rise. It was the soul of the new literature, and gave to it a character generically different from any thing in antiquity. Chivalry is not synonymous with the feudal system; on the contrary, it is the ideal world, such as it existed in the imagination of the romance writers. Devotion to woman, and to honor, constituted its essential character. It is difficult to decide who were the inventors of that chivalric spirit which burned in the mediæval romances; but no one can fail to be astonished as he observes how splendid and sudden was that burst of genius which the Troubadours and Trouvèrs exemplified. That it did not originate in the manners and traditions of the Germans, seems quite evident. Their brave, loyal, but rude habits, could never have contributed to the development of the sentiment and heroism of chivalry. The romance writers of the twelfth century placed the age of chivalry in the time of Charlemagne, and caused the Paladins of his court, as well as the famous emperor himself, to figure in many of the gorgeous fictions of loyalty, virtue, and grace. Chivalry existed rather in gallantry and sentiment, than in imagination; it was a lyric to be sung, and not an epic to be read. Its spirit hovered over the age at large, but the first romances actually composed, were produced in northern France, and especially in Normandy. As the renovating tempest deepened its tumultuous might, heaven came down to mitigate the savageness of earth, and religious gallantry soon made humane gentleness an indispensable accompaniment of true valor. Thus the spirit of chivalry was a consequence of feudal life, as it was an antidote against its evils. By the mediæval poets and romancers, we are carried into an exalted realm, wherein all things are great and marvelous. On every hand we come in contact with feats of prowess, tempered by generosity. The fierce spirit of the northern genius combines with the enthusiastic zeal of courteous bearing common to the south; and the imagination is often elevated to its highest pitch by the tremendous solemnities of Gothic superstition. Revelations of enrapturing beauty are mingled with the most frightful scenes of magical incantation, and such other images of terror as could have originated only in the wild conceptions of Teutonic mind.

In the opinion of many scholars, romance originated in Arabia, and was brought by that imaginative people from the remote East. That Odin came into Saxony out of Asia, is a Scandinavian tradition; and Tacitus mentions in his work on the manners of the Germans, a legend according to which, Ulysses came in the course of his wanderings into central Germany, and there founded the city of Asciburgum. What Solon was to the Homeridæ, Charlemagne was to the primitive bards of his land, for he caused all the popular songs to be collected and committed to writing. The substance of many of those early poems we still possess in the Lay of the Nibelungen, and the Heldenbuck, or Book of Heroes, but these were produced at a period later than well-defined romance in France. Properly speaking, chivalry was a Norman invention, whose heroes were never tired of roving through France, Brittany, England, Scotland, and Ireland. It began far back in the middle age, and was perfected in the thirteenth century.

In the first portion of the mediæval epoch, that of Charlemagne, down to the time of pope Gregory the Seventh, and the convulsive movements of the crusades, the prevailing character of the age was great and simple, earnest, but mild withal. It soon became characterized by a marvelous daring, by lofty enthusiasm, and universal enterprise in real life, as well as in the domain of imagination. The age of chivalry, crusades, romance, and minstrelsy, was a special season of unfolding intellect and mental blossoming; it was the precursor of accelerated progress, the great intellectual spring-tide among all the nations of the West. If the literature of any nation is not preceded by a poetical antiquity before arriving at the period of mature and artistic development, it can never attain a national character, nor breathe the spirit of independent originality. What the heroical period was to the age of Pericles, and again to the age of Augustus, the first centuries of the age of Leo X. were to modern Europe. The fullness of creative fancy was the distinguishing characteristic alike in each successive instance. Legendary literature was exceedingly prevalent and influential from the seventh to the tenth century, that is, just about the time when modern civilization was struggling into existence. Guizot happily expresses the truth on this point. "As after the siege of Troy there were found, in every city of Greece, men who collected the traditions and adventures of heroes, and sung them for the recreation of the people, till these recitals became a national passion, a national poetry; so, at the time of which we speak, the traditions of what may be called the heroic ages of Christianity had the same interest for the nations of Europe. There were men who made it their business to collect them, to transcribe them, to read or recite them aloud, for the edification and delight of the people. And this was the only literature, properly so called, of that time."

The crusades were not less providential in their origin, than they were contagious in their progress, and revolutionary in their consequences. A sudden frenzy took possession of the minds of the western world, and poured itself upon the exhausted realms of the East, to the end that whatever remnants of good might yet remain therein, should be borne as a timely contribution to the new and more auspicious field. This important movement originated in the cultivated mind of Gerbert, in the first year of his pontificate; was accelerated by Hildebrand, and carried into most effectual execution by Urban II. and the eloquent Peter the Hermit. The first army marched A.D. 1096, and in 1099 Jerusalem was taken. The advantages derived from this event, in a literary point of view, were very great. The western champions of the cross in general passed through the great capital of the East; and in their transit the gates of Constantinople, and the palaces and churches, with their sumptuous and splendid decorations, were thrown open to their admiring view. This intercourse with a refined people, however transient, afforded the experience of many social conveniences, fresh conceptions of the refinements of polished letters and arts, together with the partial knowledge of a language in which few could be ignorant that works of immortal renown had been composed. Moreover, many Greek scholars, who could no longer find either employment or Security at home, emigrated into different regions of the West, and contributed largely to the promotion of learning, and to awaken the first feelings of a laudable curiosity which subsequent events more fully satisfied.

It should be also noted as a curious incident in the labyrinth of human affairs, that these crusading armies in their march toward the East, with a religious intent, most effectually promoted the political amelioration of the West. Individuals began to be freely and personally attached to other individuals, while all in common were attached to some particular town or city. This tie, which among the earlier barbarian tribes began under the relationship of chief and companion, at the crusading era was fortified by the relation of sovereign and vassal. Under this latter form, the principle had a wide and mighty influence upon the progress of civilization until its use had ceased, and better agencies supervened. Confusion and disorder prevailed for a while, but man is evermore haunted by a taste for order and improvement. He may be rude, headstrong, and ignorant, but there is within him a still small voice, an instinct which aspires toward another and a higher destiny. Modern liberty is the offspring of feudalism. That system broke into pieces the before unbroken empire of despotism. It contained prolific seeds which took root in a rugged soil, ready to be transplanted where they would grow more stately and gracefully, and bear a better and more abundant fruit. The crusades struck the deathblow to the feudal system, created the only available transition from despotism to monarchy, and thus opened that westward avenue which was the grand arena of struggles for liberty. It was feudalism that gave birth to all that was noble, generous, and faithful, in the sentiments of truth and honor which graced the humble village shrine, or lofty baronial hall. The first literary delights which Europe tasted while emerging from barbarism, sprung up under the protection of feudalism; and it is to the same source that all the intellectual monuments of Germany, France, and England, are to be traced.

At the close of the ninth century appeared Rollo, who led the flower of the Norwegian nobles, the chivalry of western Scandinavia. They embarked not for plunder, but to lay the foundations of empire, to seek an appropriate field whereon to work out the great destiny for which they were reserved. They founded the order of _Gentlemen_, whose mission was to diffuse that spirit of chivalry which had but dimly dawned on the imagination of the older world, in the isolated careers of a Pericles, Epaminondas, or Scipio. To them belonged a rank and a nobility that resides not in prerogative, and has no necessary connection with coronets and ermine. It was that innate dignity which kings can not give, or parliaments annul; a distinction the Norman might well be proud to recognize as the birth-right of his fathers and his own. The best qualities of the Teutonic nations, to whom the cause of universal civilization is intrusted, find their germ in the genius of the Norman race. It is for that reason that we should linger reverently through the aisles once echoing to their tread, by the columns once darkened with their shadows, the fortresses that sheltered them while living, and the tombs that received them when dead. Let us never forget that while the monasteries were preserving the precious monuments of the old world, the recesses of baronial heights witnessed the first essays of literature, and fostered the earliest productions of European imagination. But letters continued to decline from the fall of the western empire, for nearly five hundred years; they then gradually improved for about the same period, until they arrived at the highest splendor in the golden age of Leo X. From the opening of the eleventh century the prospects of literature began to brighten. Gerbert, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, and Roger Bacon, were resplendent lights to herald yet mightier names.

During the long period which elapsed from the growth of feudality out of the ruins of the Roman empire, and the complete development of the principle of monarchy out of the feudal system, only one country guarded the elements of representative government, and caused them finally to prevail. From the beginning, the Anglo-Saxons lived most upon their own resources, and gave birth to their own civilization. From the fifth to the eleventh century, their institutions received the most natural and perfect development. Soon after the Saxon Heptarchy had been founded, as early as A.D. 582, the Danes and Romans made their way into England, and contributed greatly to the national worth. Alfred was a glorious exemplification of the truth, at a later period illustrated by Gustavus Vasa and Henry IV. of France, that the greatest princes are those who, though born to the throne, are nevertheless obliged to conquer its possession. Canute, the Dane, ascended the throne after Alfred, and was succeeded by Edward the Confessor, who was the last of the old Saxon dynasty restored. William, Duke of Normandy, contested the English throne with Harold, after Edward died, and on the 14th of October 1066, triumphed on the field of Hastings. Thus were the feudal institutions introduced into England when in their fullest vigor on the continent. All this was most opportune, since it bound the Normans to one another, and united the Saxons among themselves. It brought the two nations into the presence of each other with mutual powers and rights, and effected an amalgamation of the two systems of institutions under the sway of a strong central power, the most auspicious of ulterior results. This led directly to the predominance of a system of free government in England, and was consummated at exactly the right place and hour.

It could not be expected that much literary worth would appear immediately after the Norman conquest. But the twelfth century, from the accomplished Henry Beauclerc to the chivalrous Cœur de Lion, was greatly distinguished for classical scholarship, and continental literature of a recent formation began to be studied in England. In the thirteenth century, the Great Charter was extorted from King John, and intellectual progress was equalled only by commercial advancement and constitutional freedom. During all this perpetual progress through its fluctuating stages, the English universities were founded or regularly organized, as the guarantees of mental enfranchisement; and the single-handed heroism of Wallace in Scotland gave assurance of that patriotic spirit which was predestined to achieve a thousand triumphs beyond the field of Bannockburn.

The commencement of the twelfth century saw the enfranchisement of the communes in France. Louis le Gros was the first monarch who granted royal charters to free cities, if he was not the first to found them. Kings began by granting privileges of freedom to towns, in order to use them in bridling the power of the nobility; but, contrary to human designs, the towns ended by exercising their newly developed rights in restricting the power of both kings and nobility. The old forms of dependencies dissolved, and the breaking up of the system of servitude caused the whole frame of society to be better adjusted than it was ever before. At this time, too, commenced the true nationality of Italy, which was signalized by the rise of a splendid literature in the vernacular tongue, and which, though it was different from that produced by the cotemporary spirit of the North, was equally prophetic of great improvement to the world. One common impulse for the attainment of a higher civilization reigned throughout the western world, and was now approaching the highest type of perfection. At this epoch commenced the ballad poetry, which was the foundation of all the best literature of modern times. Then was written those invaluable chronicles, which have preserved the living picture, the very form and pressure of society as it existed in the early centuries of chivalry and romance. Thus that feudal system, which was introduced into Italy by the Lombard kings, and proved fatal to its institutors, ended by snatching the sceptre from their hands. Democracy rose against feudalism with the same success with which feudalism had overthrown monarchy, and on the same eastern edge of empire, rose a new tide of yet more ennobling might which swept gloriously westward over the field so providentially prepared. As we ascend the stream of time, successive generations and their achievements vanish like bubbles from the surface; but they nevertheless swell the precious undercurrent of civilization which, with perpetually augmented wealth and momentum, flows onward to its goal.

During this entire cycle, Florence was the great centre around which all elements gathered and were blended in an identity of character and influence. Under the Medici, the first Cosmo, and Lorenzo the Great, this fair city became the central seminary of elegant letters and profound erudition before the culminative excellence of art therein was reached under the auspices of Leo X. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries classical learning was highly esteemed, and a thorough acquaintance with it was an absolute necessity to any one with pretensions to learning. Tuscany soon revelled in a glorious native literature, one as fresh as when it grew on the rich soils of Rome and Greece. Its truths were everywhere received, as Bacon beautifully says, like "the breath and purer spirit of the earliest knowledge floating to us in tones made musical by Grecian flutes." Unlike the Augustan age of literature, the Leoine was not suffocated under the wealth it had plundered. If the knowledge of modern Europe had been otherwise compounded, it would have been neither so permanent nor effectual. Just enough of classic art and literature remained to facilitate and direct the growth of original excellence, and too little to destroy the characteristics of native worth. The materials of a former world were subordinated to a new structure, but both plan and elevation bore the aspect of a mightier spirit and more progressive race.

To the Phœnicians, a nation of merchants, the ancient world was indebted for the invention of letters; and to the Florentines, a city of merchants, the modern world is indebted for the greatest literary improvements. As the commercial republics of Greece were the first to carry to perfection the arts of poetry, sculpture, and painting, the commercial republics of Italy and the Netherlands were the first to promote them at the revival, and to add new inventions to the ancient heritage. From the remains of Byzantine libraries, and the scriptoria of British and German monasteries, a merchant of Florence collected the long forgotten works of antique writers, and greatly enriched the first library of the West, by importations from Alexandria and Greece. A descendant of that merchant, in the same city, instituted a school for the study of antiquities; and, as the friend of Michael Angelo, was the munificent patron of learning and genius. A son of the latter followed in the same glorious career, and by his exertions in behalf of liberal culture, like Augustus and Pericles, gave his name to a brilliant age.

As Florence was the central city of the age now under review, so Dantè Alighieri was its central literary light. He represented in perfect balance the moral and intellectual faculties then employed, and in him the romantic element reached at once the most distinct and noble development. Born at Florence, A.D. 1265, in harmony with the manifest rule of Providence he appeared at the time and place wherein he could best do his appointed work. The epoch in which he lived followed immediately upon that in which the Swabian minstrelsy began to echo on the northern side of the Alps; and it would seem that he emulated their picturesqueness as he described the moving breeze, the trembling light of the gently moving sea, the bursting of the clouds, the swelling of the rivers, and the entrance into the thick grove of the earthly paradise. Modern poetry began with Dantè, who, in a great measure, perfected the Italian tongue, which was before rude and inharmonious, but by him was fitted for the muses to adopt as their own. In 1302, the political party he had espoused was vanquished, and Dantè was forced into exile. But he continued to prosecute his glorious career until 1321, when he died at Ravenna.

Hiding its infancy amid the darkness of ages, the Italian language became silently matured by the working of the secret people, until the moment arrived for a literature of life to spring full-grown and armed, like Minerva, from the head of its great father, Dantè. He was not, like Homer, the creator of poetry in the simplicity of childhood out of the arms of mother earth; rather, he was like Noah, the father of a second poetical world, fraught with all the treasures of antediluvian wealth, and yet glowing amidst superior charms of more recent growth. This fact he has himself strikingly portrayed, by representing his awful pilgrimage through other worlds as being made under the guidance of Virgil. The influence of the great epic by Dantè upon Italy has been compared to that which was exerted by the spark of the sun upon the personified clay of Prometheus. And yet his pen was a strong chisel rather than a delicate one; by a few bold strokes giving the outlines of life to the rough marble, but requiring the hand of a finer organization to elaborate the rude unfinished block.

To meet this want, Petrarch was born A.D. 1304. He was gifted with a gentler temper than his great predecessor, and steered his bark with a rare prosperity amidst the perils of a stormy age. Invited to the same courts where Dantè had languished in neglect, Petrarch acted the part of a mediator; and his presence was solicited by opposite factions like that of the blind old Œdipus, produced by turns by his unnatural sons, as a pledge of the justice of their claims in the eyes of the Thebans. Petrarch had seen Dantè at his paternal house, in Arezzo, and the stern features of that solitary genius left an indelible impression among the gorgeous dreams of his young mind. Following the destinies of his parent, and of universal humanity, he went early to the western court at Avignon, where he dissolved his heart in his writings, and anticipated the laurel which was to press heavily on his dazzling but weary brow.

If Dantè and Petrarch are to be regarded as the morning stars of modern literature, it should be noted that the bright luminary of Boccaccio came early into the auspicious group. The latter was born A.D. 1313, at Paris. Petrarch gave purity and elegance to the Italian sonnet, and Boccaccio created the first masterpiece of native prose. These two kindred minds, coming into efficient co-operation at the close of Dantè's tempestuous career, took up the mantle at the moment it fell from the shoulders of the great prophet, and achieved the consummation of his mission. They first met at the court of King Robert in Naples, and thenceforth strengthened a mutual esteem, while they indulged genial tastes in the favorite haunts of their evening walks around Virgil's tomb.

By a rare phenomenon, these three creative and predominant minds were produced in the same country, in the same age, and their grandest works were executed in the same city. Each of them was so tempered as to adapt the timely triad to widely different and yet equally important purposes. These supreme lights, however, did not shine alone, but each was accompanied by subordinate planets and satellites, which, as they received their effulgence from the supreme luminary, so were they gradually eclipsed, until they disappeared in the distance of age. The three patriarchs of literature in the cycle of Leo X., thus rapidly glanced at, turned the attention of their countrymen from the bewilderments of romance to more substantial worth. Dantè, with the energies of a Titan, threw out great masses of thought; and the lyrical finish of Petrarch, with the garrulous graces of Boccaccio opened other quarries of attractive material. The two last mentioned both died in 1374.

The beginning of the fifteenth century witnessed great ardor for antiquity. A prouder sense of nationality had seized upon the popular heart, and there was a growing ambition to emulate the past and improve the future. Petrarch fired the general enthusiasm for antique monuments, and Rienzi eloquently revived patriotic associations connected therewith. Each leading city became a new Athens, and the revived age could boast its historians, poets, and orators. Naples, Rome, Venice, Bologna, and Florence, vied with each other, not in arms, but in the splendid triumphs of genius. Books were multiplied by numerous expert copyists at Bologna and Milan; while Florence, under the auspices of the Medici, became the great metropolis of original productions. The middle of this century formed the culminating point of classical enthusiasm, and marked an age of great mental enlargement in every department of literature. Hallam, referring to the intellectual pope Nicholas V., in contrast with his famous predecessor Gregory I., who denounced ancient learning, says: "These eminent men, like Michael Angelo's figures of Night and Morning, seem to stand at the two gates of the middle ages, emblems and heralds of the mind's long sleep, and of its awakening."