The western barbarians persecute the

degrees, of their other dominions; and thus the Ottoman empire, which was still an object of terror to the Christians, was established upon the ruins of the Saracen dominion." II. In the western provinces the Christians had much to suffer from the hatred and cruelty of those who remained under the darkness of paganism. The Christians. Normans, during a great part of this century, committed, in several parts of France, the most barbarous hostilities, and involved the Christians, wherever they carried their victorious arms, in numberless calamities. The Sarmatians, Sclavonians, Bohemians, and others, who had either conceived an aversion for the gospel, or were sunk in a stupid ignorance of its intrinsic excellence and its immortal blessings, not only endeavoured to extirpate Christianity out of their own territories by the most barbarous efforts of cruelty and violence, but infested the adjacent countries, where it was professed, with fire and sword, and left, wherever they went, the most dreadful marks of their unrelenting fury. The Danes moreover did not cease to molest the Christians, until they were subdued by Otho the Great, and thus, from being the enemies, became the friends of the Christian cause. The Hungarians also contributed their part to the sufferings of the church, by their incursions into several parts of Germany, which they turned into scenes of desolation and misery; while the fierce Arabs, by their tyranny in Spain, and their depredations in Italy and the neighbouring islands, spread calamity and oppression all around them, of which no doubt the Christians, established in these parts, had the heaviest portion.

lamities.

III. Whoever considers the endless vexations, persecuThe effects tions, and calamities, which the Christians sufferof these ca ed from the nations that continued in their ancient superstitions, will easily perceive the reason of that fervent and inextinguishable zeal, which Christian princes discovered for the conversion of these nations, whose impetuous and savage fury they experienced from time to time. A principle of self-preservation, and a prudent regard to their own safety, as well as a pious zeal for the propagation of the gospel, engaged them to put in practice every method that might open the eyes of their barbarous adversaries, from a rational and well-grounded

b For a more ample account of these revolutions, see the Annales Turcici of Leunclavius; as also Georgii Elmacini Historia Saracenica, p. 190, 203, 210.

hope that the precepts of Christianity would mitigate, by degrees, the ferocity of these nations, and soften their rugged and intractable tempers. Hence it was that Christian kings and emperors left no means unemployed to draw these infidels within the pale of the church. For this purpose, they proposed to their chiefs alliances of marriage, offered them certain districts and territories, auxiliary troops to maintain them against their enemies, upon condition that they would abandon the superstition of their ancestors, which was so proper to nourish their ferocity, and to increase their passion for blood and carnage. These offers were attended with the desired success, as they induced the infidel chiefs not only to lend an ear themselves to the instructions and exhortations of the Christian missionaries, but also to oblige their subjects and armies to follow their examples in this respect.

PART II.

INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.

CONCERNING THE STATE OF LETTERS AND PHILOSOPHY DURING THIS CENTURY.

letters among

I. THE deplorable ignorance of this barbarous age, in which the drooping arts were totally neglected, The state of and the sciences seemed to be upon the point of the Greeks. expiring for want of encouragement, is unanimously confessed and lamented by all the writers who have transmitted to us any accounts of this period of time. Nor indeed will this fatal revolution, in the republic of letters, appear astonishing to such as consider on the one hand the terrible vicissitudes, tumults, and wars that turned all things into confusion both in the eastern and western world, and on the other the ignominious stupidity and dissoluteness of those sacred orders who had been appointed as the guardians of truth and learning. Leo, surnamed the Philosopher, who ascended the imperial throne of the Greeks toward the commencement of this century, was himself an eminent lover of learning, and an auspicious and zealous protector of such as distinguished themselves in the culture of the sciences. This noble and generous disposition appeared with still the greater lustre in his son Constantine Porphyrogeneta, who not only discovered the greatest ardour for the revival of the arts and sciences in Greece, but also employed the most effectual measures for the accomplishment of this excellent purpose. It was with this view that he spared no expense in drawing to his court, and supporting in his dominions, a variety of learned men, each of whom excelled in some of the different branches of literature, and in causing the most diligent search to be made after the writings of the ancients. With this view, also, he became himself an author, and thus

c See Jo. Alb. Fabricii Biblioth. Grae. lib. v. pars ii. cap. v. p. 363.

d Fabricius, Bibi. Græc. lib. v. pars ii. cap. v. p. 486.

Pe We have yet remaining of Constantine Porphyrogeneta, son of Leo the Phifosopher, the following productions:

animated by his example, as well as by his protection, men of genius and abilities to enrich the sciences with their learned productions. He employed, moreover, a considerable number of able pens, in making valuable extracts from the commentaries and other compositions of the ancients; which extracts were preserved in certain places for the benefit and satisfaction of the curious; and thus, by various exertions of liberality and zeal, this learned prince restored the arts and sciences to a certain degree of life and vigour. But few of the Greeks followed this great and illustrious example; nor was there any among the succeeding emperors who equalled these two excellent princes in zeal for the advancement of learning, or in lending, by their protection and encouragement, an auspicious hand to raise out of obscurity and dejection, neglected and depressed genius. But what is still more remarkable, Constantine Porphyrogeneta, whom we have now been representing as the restorer of letters, and whom the Greeks unanimously admire in this character, is supposed by some to have done considerable prejudice to the cause of learning by the very means he employed to promote its advancement. For by employing learned men to extract from the writers of antiquity what they thought might contribute to the improvement of the various arts and sciences, he gave too much occasion to neglect the sources, and flattered the indolence of the effeminate Greeks, who confined their studies to these extracts, and neglected, in effect, the perusal of the writers from whom they were drawn. And hence it unfortunately happened, that many of the most celebrated authors of antiquity were lost, at this time, through the sloth and negligence of the Greeks.

II. This method, as the event manifestly showed, was really detrimental to the progress of true learning and genius. And accordingly we find among the Greek writers of this century, but a small num

The life of the Emperor Basilius.

Few eminent writers the Greeks.

song

A Treatise upon the art of Governing, in which he investigates the origin of several nations, treats of their power, their progress, their revolutions, and their decline, and gives a series of their princes and rulers.

A Discourse concerning the manner of forming a Land Army and Naval force in Order of Battle.

Two books concerning the eastern and western Provinces. Which may be considered as an account of the state of the empire in the time of this prince.

f All this appears evident from the accounts left upon record by Zonaras, in his Annales, tom. iii. p. 155, edit. Paris.

ber, who acquired a distinguished and shining reputation in the republic of letters; so that the fair and engaging prospects which seemed to arise in the cause of learning from the munificence and zeal of its imperial patrons, vanished in a short time; and though the seeds of science were richly sown, the natural expectations of an abundant harvest were unhappily disappointed. Nor did the cause of philosophy succeed better than that of literature. Philosophers indeed there were; and, among them, some that were not destitute of genius and abilities; but none who rendered their names immortal by productions that were worthy of being transmitted to posterity; a certain number of rhetoricians and grammarians; a few poets who were above contempt; and several historians, who, without deserving the highest encomiums, were not however totally void of merit. Such were the members which composed at this time the republic of letters in Greece, whose inhabitants seemed to take pleasure in those kinds of literature alone, in which industry, imagination, and memory are concerned.

The state of learning among the Saracens.

III. Egypt, though at this time it groaned under a heavy and exasperating yoke of oppression and bondage, produced writers, who in genius and learning were nowise inferior to the most eminent of the Grecian literati. Of the many examples we might mention to prove the truth of this assertion, we shall confine ourselves to that of Eutychius, bishop of Alexandria, who cultivated the sciences of physic and theology with the greatest success, and cast a new light upon them both by his excellent writings. The Arabians, during this whole century, preserved that noble passion for the arts and sciences, which had been kindled among them in the preceding age; and hence they abounded with physicians, mathematicians, and philosophers, whose names and characters, together with an account of their respective abilities and talents, are given by Leo Africanus and other literary historians.

In the western

IV. The Latins present to us a spectacle of a very different kind. They were almost without excepprovinces. tion, sunk in the most brutish and barbarous ignorance; so that, according to the unanimous accounts of the most credible writers, nothing could be more melancholy and deplorable than the darkness that reigned