3. In the year 723, being ordained a bishop by Gregory II. at Rome and being supported by the authority and the aid of Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace to Hist. cent. viii. chap. iv.) is an admirer of Boniface. and collected various letters of Boniface which he has monastery. The abbacy of Nuscelle was now offered 4. On account of his vast labours in propagating Christianity among the Germans, Boniface has gained the title of the Apostle of Germany; and a candid estimate of the magnitude of his achievements will show him to be not altogether unworthy of this title.' Yet as an apostle, he was widely different from that pattern which the first and genuine apostles have left us. For not to mention that the honour and the king of the Franks, Boniface returned to his Hessians and Thuringians, and resumed his labours among them with much success. He was now assisted by several learned and pious persons of both sexes, The best among the original biographers of this famous who repaired to him out of England and man are Willibald, one of his disciples, and a German France. In the year 738, having gathered monk named Othlon who lived in the eleventh century, more Christian churches than one man inserted in his narrative. Both these biographies with alone could govern, he was advanced to the valuable notes are contained in Mabillon, Acta Sanctor. rank of an Archbishop by Gregory III. and Ord. Bened. tom. iv. p. 1-84, ed. Venet. 1734. According to these writers, Boniface was born at Kirton by his authority and with the aid of Carlo[Crediton] in Devonshire about a D. 680. When but man and Pepin, the sons of Charles Martel, four or five years old he showed a strong inclination he established various bishoprics in Gerfor a monastic life, which his father first endeavoured to eradicate but afterwards favoured. He first entered many, as those of Würtzburg, Buraburg a monastery at Exeter, whence he removed to the [near Fritzlar in Hesse-Cassel] Erfurth, and monastery of Nuscelle in Hants, as a better place for study. At the age of thirty he was ordained a presby- Eichstadt; to which he added in the year ter. About A.D. 715, he undertook a voluntary mission 744 the famous monastery of Fulda. The to Friesland with two monks for companions. But final reward of his labours decreed to him Radbod, the pagan king of the country, being at war with the Franks and hostile to the Christians, gave in the year 746 by the Roman pontiff him no encouragement; and he returned again to his Zacharias was, to be constituted archbishop him, but he refused it because he preferred a more of Mentz and primate of Germany and active employment. Soon after, having projected a Belgium. In his old age he travelled once mission to the pagans in Germany, he set out for Rome to obtain the papal sanction and support to his enter- more among the Frieslanders, that his prise. Having obtained this he now visited Germany, ministry might terminate with the people preached in Bavaria and Thuringia, and learning that Radbod was dead he went to Friesland, and for three among whom it commenced; but in the years assisted Willibrord, the aged bishop of Utrecht, year 755 he was murdered with fifty clerin spreading the Gospel and erecting churches among gymen who attended him, by the people of the neighbouring pagans. He now visited Rome a second time in the year 723, was closely examined by that nation. the pope, as to his faith and his adherence to the see of Rome; and upon his swearing perpetual allegiance to the pope, he was created a bishop and had his name changed from Winifrid to Boniface. With numerous letters of recommendation to princes, bishops, and others, and a good stock of holy relics, Boniface returned through France, where Charles Martel received him cordially, and furnished him with a safe conduct throughout the empire. He first went among the Hessians, where he suppressed the remains of idolatry, and intrepidly cut down the consecrated oak of Jupiter, which broke into four equal parts in its fall. This prodigy silenced all objections, and out of the wood of this tree a chapel was built dedicated to St. Peter. From Hesse he went to Thuringia, where he effected a similar reform. On the accession of Gregory III. to tially converted to Christianity. With the aid of the papal chair A.D. 731, Boniface sent an embassy to several clergymen and monks, he had brought many Rome giving account of his proceedings, and proposing persons of both sexes to submit to baptism; and having several questions respecting ecclesiastical law, for so-appointed the 5th of June for a general meeting of the lution. The pope answered his inquiries, sent him a converts to receive the right of confirmation at Dockum fresh supply of relics, and also the archiepiscopal pal- on the Bordne between East and West Friesland, on lium, with instructions when and how to wear it. In the morning of the day appointed a party of pagan the year 738 he visited Rome a third time attended by Frieslanders assaulted his camp. His young men a large retinue of priests and monks, and was gra- began to prepare for battle, but Boniface forbade it and ciously received by the pope. On his return through exhorted all to resign themselves up to die as martyrs. Bavaria as pa pal legate, he divided that country into He and his fifty-two companions were all murdered, four bishoprics, and placed bishops over them, at Saltz- and their camp was plundered. The remains of Boniburg, Freisingen, Regensburg [Ratisbon], and Passau. face were carried to Mentz and thence to Fulda. In the year 74 I be erected four more bishoprics in Ger- Boniface left behind him forty-two epistles, thirty-six many, namely, those of Würtzburg, Eiclistadt, Bura- ecclesiastical rules, fifteen discourses, and a part of a burg, and Erfurth. Hitherto Boniface had been arch- work on penance.-Mur. bishop of no particular place; but in the year 745 he 1 If the man deserves the title of an Apostle, who procured the deposition of Gevilieb, archbishop of goes among the heathen, preaches to them the Gospel Mentz, charging him in a provincial council with according to his best knowledge of it, encounters many baving slain in single combat the man who had slain hardships, makes some inroad upon idolatry, gathers his own father in battle, and with having kept dogs and churches, erects houses of worship, founds monasteries, birds for sport. This council decreed the vacant see and spends his life in this business, then Boniface of Mentz to Boniface. As archbishop of Mentz, Boni-justly merits this title. But if that man only can be face claimed jurisdiction over the bishop of Utrecht, which claim was contested by the archbishop of Cologne. Boniface, as archbishop and as papal legate, presided in several councils in France and Germany, and was very active in enforcing uniformity of rites, and rigid adherence to the canons of the church of Rome. In the year 754, being far advanced in life, he left his bishopric at Mentz under the care of Lullus, whom he ordained his colleague and successor, and undertook a mission among the Frieslanders, who were but par called an Apostle, who is in all respects like to Peter and Paul, who in all his efforts looks only to the honour of Christ and the dissemination of truth and virtue, and for attaining these ends employs no means but such as the first Apostles of Christ used, then manifestly Boniface was wholly unworthy of this name. He was rather an Apostle of the pope than of Jesus Christ; he had but one eye directed towards Christ, the other was fixed on the pope of Rome, and on his own fame which depended on him.-Schl. majesty of the Roman pontiff whose minis- and a great degree of ignorance not only of 3 5. Besides Boniface, others also attempted to rescue the unevangelized nations of Germany from the thraldom of superstition. Such was Corbinian, a French Benedictine monk, who after various labours for the instruction of the Bavarians and other nations, became bishop of Freysingen. Such also was Pirmin, a French monk, nearly contemporary with Boniface, who taught 1 The French Benedictine monks ingenuously ac- 4 A large part of the questions which Boniface subknowledge that Boniface was a sycophant of the Ro-mitted to the consideration of the popes, betray his man pontiff, and showed him more deference than was ignorance. But still more so does his decision of the fit and proper. See Hist. Litter. de la France, tome case of conscience, when a Bavarian priest who did iv. p. 106. "Il exprime son dévouement pour le 8. not understand Latin had baptized with these words: Siége quelquefois en des termes qui ne sont pas assez Baptizo te in nomine patria et filia et spiritua sancta, proportionnés à la dignité du caractère Episcopal." which baptism he pronounced to be null and void; and [We need only to read his epistles to be satisfied on this likewise his persecution of the priest Virgilius in Bapoint. He says (Ep. xci. p. 126, ed. Serrar.), that all varia, who maintained that the earth is globular and he had done for six-and-thirty years while legate of the consequently habitable on the other side of it, and holy see, was intended for the advantage of the church there enlightened by the sun and moon. Boniface at Rome; to the judgment of which so far as he had looked upon this as a gross heresy; and he accused the erred in word or deed, he submitted himself with all man before the pope who actually excommunicated humility. Cringing enough for an archbishop of the him for a heretic. See the tenth Epistle of Zacharias German church! In a letter to Pope Zacharias (Ep. in Harduin, Concilia, tom. iii. p. 1912.-Schl. [In this Bonif. cxxxii. p. 181) he writes, that he wished to and the preceding notes Schlegel has laboured with maintain the general faith and union with the church of the zeal of a prosecutor to substantiate the heavy Rome, and would not cease to urge and persuade all charges of Mosheim against Boniface. I have carehis pupils who were about him to be obedient to the see fully read the original lives of this missionary, and also of Rome. In another letter addressed to Stephen III. a considerable part of his correspondence; and I must (Ep. xcvii. p. 132) upon occasion of his contest with say, I think Mosheim and his annotator Schlegel have the bishop of Cologne respecting the bishopric of not done impartial justice to this eminent man. He Utrecht, he represents the bishop of Cologne as wishing appears to me to have been one of the most sincere and exclusively to make the bishop who should preach to honest men of his age; though he partook largely in the Frieslanders, independent of the see of Rome; the common faults of his time-an excessive attachwhereas he (Boniface was exerting all his powers to ment to monkery, and a superstitious regard for the make the bishopric of Utrecht entirely dependent on canons of the church and the externals of religion. the see of Rome.- Schl. With all his imperfections he deserves to be classed with those who followed Christ according to the best light they had, and who did much to advance true religion among men.--Mur. It is unquestionable that this apostle of the Germans marched into Thuringia at the head of an army, and that at the time he was murdered by the Frieslanders, he had soldiers with him as his body-guard; and so in all his enterprises he had the support of the civil arm afforded to him by Charles Martel, Carloman, and Pepin. His arguments also may have been not the best if he followed the directions of Daniel, bishop of Winchester; for whom as his epistles show he had a high respect. (See Ep. Bonif. iii. p. 5, and that of Daniel to him, Ep. lxvii. p. 79, &c.) For here Daniel advises him to ask the pagans, how they can believe that the gods reward the righteous and punish the wicked in this life, since they see the Christians, who have destroyed their images and prostrated their worship all over the world, remain unpunished? And how comes it to pass that the Christians possess the fruitful countries which produce wine and oil in abundance, while the pagans inhabit the cold and barren corners of the earth? He must also represent to the pagans that the Christians now ruled the whole world, whereas the pagans were few in number and powerless; and this great change in their condition had taken place since the coming of Christ, for before that event the pagans had vast dominion. It is likewise undeniable that Boniface gloried in fictitious miracles and wonders.- Schl. 8 Consider only his conduct towards those bishops and presbyters, who had before received ordination and refused to receive it again from him according to the Romish rites, and would not in general subject themselves to Romish supremacy and Romish forms of worship. These must be regarded as false brethren, heretics, blasphemers, servants of the devil, and forerunners of Antichrist. They must be excommunicated, be cast Into prisons, and receive corporal punishments. See with what violence he breaks out against Adelbert, Clemens, Sampson, Gottschalk, Ehremwolf, Virgilius, and others, in his epistles; how bitterly he accuses them before the popes, and in presence of councils, &c.-Schl. 5 Baronius, Annales, tom. viil. ad ann. 716, sec. 10, &c.; Meichelbeck, Hist. Frisingensis, tom. i. [The life of Saint Corbinian was written by one of his pupils and successors, Aribo; and may be seen in Mabillon, Acta Sanctor. Ord. Bened. tom. iii. p. 470–485, and in Meichelbeck, Hist. Frising. tom. i. par. ii. p. 3-21 Corbinian was born at Chartres, near Paris about A.D. 680. He early devoted himself to a monastic life, and to escape from society and enjoy solitude, he travelled into Italy about the year 717, and begged the pope to assign him some obscure retreat. But the pope oraained him a bishop, and sent him back to France. His miracles and his marvellous sanctity now drew such crowds around him, that after seven years he determined to go to Rome, and beg the pope to divest him of the episcopal dignity. The pope however would not release him from the episcopacy, and he returned by the way he came as far as Freisingen in Bavaria, where Grimoald, the reigning prince, detained him for the benefit of himself and subjects. After six years' labours at Freisingen, he died, as alleged, in a very extraordinary manner. He foresaw his death, and having made arrangements for it he arose in the morning in perfect health, bathed, dressed himself in his pontificals, performed public service, returned and placed himself upon his bed, drank a cup of wine, and immediately expired. His biographer makes no inention of his efforts to enlighten his flock, or to spread the knowledge of the Gospel. He was a most bigoted monk and exceedingly irascible. Prince Grimoald once invited him to dine. Corbinian said grace before dinner and made the sign of the cross over the food. While they were eating Grimoald threw some of the food to his dog. Corbinian in a rage kicked over the table and left the room, declaring to the prince that he deserved no blessings who had given food which was blessed to his dog.-Mur. Christianity amidst various sufferings in Helvetia, Alsace, and Bavaria, and presided over several monasteries.' Such likewise was Lebwin, an Englishman, who laboured with earnestness and zeal, though with little success, to persuade the warlike Saxon nation, the Frieslanders, the Belgæ, and other nations, to embrace Christianity. Others of less notoriety are omitted. Nei ther shall I mention Willibrord and others, who commenced their missionary labours in the preceding century, and continued them with great zeal in this. 6. In the year 772 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, undertook to civilize and to convert from idolatry the extensive nation of the Saxons who occupied a large portion of Germany, and were almost perpetually at war with the Franks respecting their 1 Bruschius, Chronologia Monaster. German. p. 30; boundaries and other things; for he hoped, Pagi, Critica in Annal. Baron. tom. ii. ad ann. 759, sec. 9, &c.; Hist. Littér, de la France, tome iv. p. if their minds should become imbued with 124. [The life of St. Pirmin written by Warmann, the Christian doctrines, they would grabishop of Constance at the beginning of the 11th century, may be seen in Mabillon, Acta Sanctor. Ord. dually lay aside their ferocity and learn Benedict. tom. iv. p. 124-139. According to this to yield submission to the empire of the biography, Pirmin was first the bishop of either Meaux or Metz in France, where he was a devout and zealous Franks. The first attack upon their heapastor. Sintlax, a Suabian prince, procured his re- thenism produced little effect, being made moval to the neighbourhood of Constance, where there was great need of an active and exemplary preacher. not with force and arms, but by some bishops He established the monastery of Reichenau in an island and monks whom the victor had left for that near Constance, and afterwards nine or ten other mopurpose among the vanquished nation. nasteries in Swabia, Alsatia, and Switzerland; and was very active in promoting monastic piety in those coun- But much better success attended the subtries. He is supposed to have died about A.D. 758.- sequent wars which Charlemagne undertook 2 Hucbaldus, Vita S. Lebvini, in Surius, Vite Sanc- in the years 775, 776, and 780, against that torum, die 12 Novem. p. 277; Möller's Cimbria Li-heroic people, so fond of liberty and so imterata, tom. ii. p. 464. [Lebwin was an English Bene- patient especially of sacerdotal domination dictine monk and presbyter of Ripon in Yorkshire, about A.D. 690. With twelve companions he went over For these people who were attached to the to West Friesland on the borders of the pagan Saxons, superstitions of their ancestors were so efand for several years travelled and preached in that region and in Heligoland. At length he settled down fectually assailed not only with rewards but at Deventer in Overyssel, where he preached with con- with the sword and punishments, that they reluctantly ceased to resist, and suffered themselves to be baptized by the teachers whom Charlemagne sent among them." Mur. siderable success till his death, about A.D. 740. See Möllerus, ubi supra.- Mur. 3 Among these were the following. 1. Othmar, a German monk, founder of the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland. At the close of a long and exemplary life, he was maliciously accused of unchastity by some noblemen who had robbed his monastery, and was thrown into prison, where he languished four years and then died. Numerous miracles were wrought at his tomb. His life written by Walafrid Strabo is in Mabillon, Acta Sanctor. Ord. Bened. vol. iv. p. 139, &c. 2. Willibald, bishop of Eichstadt, was an Anglo-Saxon monk of honourable birth, educated in a monastery near Winchester. When arrived at manhood he and his younger brother Wunebald left England, travelled through France and Italy, sailed to Asia Minor and the Holy Land, where they spent seven years. Returning to Italy they resided in the monastery of Mons Cassinus, during ten years or till A.D. 739. The pope then sent them into Germany to assist Boniface. Willibald was placed at Eichstadt, ordained priest A.D. 740, and hishop the year following. His death is placed A.D. 786. His life written by a kinswoman, a contemporary nun of Heidenheim, is extant in Mabillon, Acta Sanctor. Ord. Bened. tom. iv. p. 330-354. 3. Alto, a Scotch monk, who travelled into Bavaria and there established the monastery called from him Altomunster. The monastery was endowed by King Pepin, and dedicated by Boniface. The life of Alto is in Mabillon, ubi supra, p. 196, &c. 4. Sturmius, a native of Noricum and follower of Boniface. Under the direction of that archbishop he erected and presided over the monastery of Fulda from A.D. 744 till his death A.D. 779, except one year which he spent in Italy, to learn more perfectly the rules of St. Benedict; and two other years in which Pepin king of the Franks held him prisoner, under false accusations of disloyalty. In the last years of his life he aided Charlemagne in compelling the Saxons to embrace Christianity. His life well written by Eigil, his pupil and successor, is extant in Mabillon, ubi sup. p.242-259. 5. Virgilius, whom Boniface accused of heresy for believing the world to be globular, was an Irishman of good education and talents. He went to France in the reign of Pepin, who patronised him and In the year 766 procured for him the bishopric of Saltsburg, which he held till his death, A.D. 780. While at Saltsburg he did much to extend Christianity to the eastward of him, among the Slavonians and Huns. His life is in Mabillon, ubi supra, p. 279, &c.-Mur. [See more of him in Lanigan's Eccles. Hist. of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 179, &c.—R. 4 I cannot dispense with quoting a passage from a very credible author, Alcuin, which shows what it was especially that rendered the Saxons averse from Christianity, and how preposterously the missionaries sent among them conducted themselves. Alcuin, Ep. civ. in his Opp. p. 1647, says :-"Had the easy yoke of Christ with his light burthen been preached to the stubborn Saxons, with as much earnestness as the payment of tithes and legal satisfaction for the very smallest faults were exacted, perhaps they would not have abominated the sacrament of baptism. Let the Christian teachers learn from the example of the Apostles. Let them be preachers, not plunderers." Look at this portrait of the apostles who lived in this century! Yet they are said to have wrought great miracles. Alcuin, as cited by William of Malmsbury, De Ges tis Regum Anglorum, lib. i. cap. iv. published in the Rerum Anglicar. Scriptores, Francf. 1601, fol. uses this language:-"The ancient Saxons and all the Frieslanders, being urged to it by King Charles, who plied some of them with rewards and others with threats, were converted to the Christian faith." See also the Capitularia Regum Francor. tom. i. p. 246, and p. 252. From the first of these passages, it appears that the Saxons who would renounce idolatry were restored to their ancient freedom forfeited by conquest, and were freed from all tribute to the king. The last of these passages contains this law: If any person of the Saxon race shall contemptuously refuse to come to baptism, and shall resolve to continue a pagan, let him be put to death. By such penalties and rewards the whole world might be constrained to profess Christianity without miracles. But what sort of Christians the Saxons so converted must have been, need not be told. See Lau O.. De Veteri More baptizandi Judæos et Infideles, cap. v. vi. p. 703, &c. Opp. tom. ii. par. ii. where he Widekind and Albion indeed, who were | Christian missionaries to the pagans are two of the most valiant Saxon chiefs, reported to have wrought in this century, renewed their former insurrections, and at- have now wholly lost the credit which they tempted to prostrate once more by violence once had. The corrupt moral principles and war that Christianity which had been set of the times allowed the use of what are up by violence. But the martial courage and improperly called pious frauds; and those the liberality of Charlemagne at length heralds of Christianity thought it no sin to brought them, in the year 785, solemnly to terrify or beguile, with fictitious miracles, declare that they were Christians, and would those whom they were unable to convince continue to be so. That the Saxons might by reasoning. Yet I do not suppose that not apostatize from the religion which they all who acquired fame by these miracles unwillingly professed, bishops were esta-practised imposition. For not only were lished, schools in various parts of their country set up, and monasteries erected. The Huns inhabiting Pannonia were treated in the same way as the Saxons; for Charlemagne so exhausted and humbled them by successive wars, as to compel them to prefer becoming Christians to being slaves. 7. For these achievements of Charlemagne in behalf of Christianity the gratitude of posterity decreed him the honours of a saint; and in the twelfth century the emperor of the Romans, Frederic I. desired Paschal III. whom he had created sovereign pontiff, to enrol him among the tutelary saints of the church. He undoubtedly merited this honour, according to the views which prevailed in what are called the middle ages; when a man was accounted a saint who had enriched the priesthood with goods and possessions, and had extended by whatever means the boundaries of the church. the nations so rude and ignorant as to mistake almost anything for a miracle; but their instructors also were so unlearned and so unacquainted with the laws of nature, as to look upon mere natural events, if unusual and unexpected, as special interpositions of divine power. This will be manifest to one who will read with candour and without superstitious emotions, the (Acta Sanctorum) Legends of the saints of this and the subsequent centuries." CHAPTER II. THE ADVERSITIES OF THE CHRISTIAN No 1. THE Byzantine empire experienced so many bloody revolutions and so many intestine calamities, as necessarily produced a great diminution of its energies. emperor there reigned securely. Three of with various contumelies, and sent into them were hurled from the throne, treated exile. Under Leo III. the Isaurian, and his son Constantine Copronymus, the pernicious controversy respecting images and the worship of them, brought immense evils But to those who estimate sanctity according to the views of Christ, Charlemagne must appear to be anything rather than a saint and a devout man. For not to mention his other vices which were certainly not inferior to his virtues, it is evident that in compelling the Huns, Saxons, and Frieslanders to profess Christianity, he did it more for the sake of gaining subjects to himself than to Jesus Christ. And therefore he did not hesitate to cultivate friend-hand-mill, when he left it to say his prayers, would ship with the Saracens, those enemies of the Christian name, when he could hope to obtain from them some aid to weaken the empire of the Greeks who were Christians. 8. The numerous miracles which the 6 Many of the miracles of this age are altogether ridiculous. Take the following as specimens. In the life of St. Winnock (in Mabillon, Acta Sanctor. Ord Bened. tom. iii. p. 195) it is stated as a miracle that his turn itself. And when an inquisitive monk looked through a crevice to see the wonder, he was struck blind for his presumption. The biographer of St. Pardulphus (ibid. p. 541, sec. 18) makes a child's cradle to rock day after day without hands; while if touched it would stop and remain immoveable. In the life of St. Guthlack of Croyland (ibid. p. 263, sec. 19) while the saint was praying at his vigils, a vast number of devils entered his cell, rising out of the ground and issuing tells us that the Roman pontiff, Hadrian I. approved through crevices, "of direful aspect, terrible in form, of this mode of converting the Saxons to Christianity. with huge heads, long necks, pale faces, sickly counteEginhard, De Vita Caroli Magni Adamus Bre-nances, squalid beards, bristly ears, wrinkled foreheads, mens. lib. i. cap. viii. p. 3, &c. and all the historians of malicious eyes, filthy mouths, horses' teeth, fire-emitthe achievements of Charlemagne, who are enumerated ting throats, lantern jaws, broad lips, terrific voices, by Fabricius, Biblioth. Lat. medii ævi, tom. i. p. singed hair, high cheek bones, prominent breasts, scaly 959, &c. thighs, knotty knees, crooked legs, swollen ancles, inverted feet, and opened mouths, hoarsely clamorous." These bound the saint fast, dragged him through hedges and briers, lifted him up from the earth, and carried him to the mouth of hell, where he saw all the torments of the damned. But while they were threatening to confine him there, St. Bartholomew appeared in glory to him, the devils were affrighted, and he was conducted back to his cell by his celestial deliverer. These are only a few, among scores of others which might be adduced.- Mur. 2 Life of St. Rudbert, in Canisius, Lection. Antiq. tom. iii. par. ii. p. 340, &c.; Paulus Debrecenus, Hist. Eccles. Reformat. in Hungar. et Transylvania, a Lampio edita, par. i. cap. ii. p. 10, &c. 3 Canisius, Lectiones Antiq. tom. iii. par. ii. p. 207; Walch, De Caroli Mag. canonizatione. See the last will of Charlemagne in Baluze, Capitularia Regum Francor. tom. i. p. 487. See Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tome ix. chap. ii. p. 40, &c. who afterwards frequently laid waste the neighbouring provinces with fire and sword. Charles Martel indeed upon their invasion of Gaul in the year 732, gained a great victory over them at Poictiers; but the vanquished soon after recovered their strength and courage. Therefore Charlemagne in the year 778 marched a large army into Spain with a design to rescue that country from them. But though he upon the community and weakened incal- of Gaul, from the Pyrenean mountains to culably the resources of the empire. Hence the Rhone, was seized by these Saracens, the Saracens were able to roam freely through Asia and Africa, to subdue the fairest portions of the country, and everywhere to depress and in various places wholly to exterminate the Christian faith. Moreover about the middle of the century, a new enemy appeared still more savagenamely, the Turks; a tribe and progeny of the Tartars, a rough and uncivilized race which, issuing from the narrow passes of Mount Caucasus and from inaccessible met with considerable success, he did not regions, burst upon Colchis, Iberia, and Albania, and then proceeding to Armenia first subdued the Saracens and afterwards the Greeks.1 2. In the year 714 these Saracens, having crossed the sea which separates Spain from Africa and Count Julian acting the traitor, routed the army of Roderic, the king of the Spanish Goths, and subdued the greater part of that country. Thus was the kingdom of the West Goths in Spain, after it had stood more than three centuries, wholly obliterated by this cruel and ferocious people. Moreover all the sea-coast fully accomplish his wishes. From this warlike people not even Italy was safe; for they reduced the island of Sardinia to subjection, and miserably wasted Sicily. In Spain therefore and in Sardinia under these masters, the Christian religion suffered a great defeat. In Germany and the adjacent countries, the nations who retained their former superstitions, inflicted vast evils and calamities upon the others who embraced Christianity." Hence in several places castles and fortresses were erected to restrain the incursions of the barbarians. PART II THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. THE STATE OF SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. 1. AMONG the Greeks, there were here and there individuals both able and willing to retard the downfall of learning, had they been supported; but in the perpetual comSee the historians of the Turkish empire, especially De Guignes, Hist. générale des Huns, des Turcs, des Mariana, Rerum Hispanicar. lib. vi. cap. xxi. &c.; Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexand. p 253; Ferreras, Hist. de Espagne, tome ii. p. 425, &c. [Semler in his Hist. Eccles. Selecta Capita, tom. ii. p. 127, &c. conjectures that the popes contributed to the invasion of Spain by the Saracens. And it appears from Baronius Annales ad ann. 701, No. 11, &c.) that the Spanish king and clergy were in some collision with his holiness. Still I can see no evidence that the popes had Count Julian, a disaffected nobleman, was probably the Mogols, &c. 5 vols. 4to, 1756.- Schl. motions which threatened the extinction of both church and state they were unpatronised. Hence scarcely any can be named among the Greeks who distinguished themselves, either by the graces of diction and genius, or by richness of thought and erudiscourses to the people, insipid narratives dition, or acuteness of investigation. Frigid of the lives of reputed saints, useless discussions of unimportant subjects, vehement declamations against the Latins and the friends or the enemies of images, and histories composed without judgment; such were the monuments which the learned among the Greeks erected for their fame. 2. Yet the Aristotelian method of philosophising made great progress everywhere, and was taught in all the schools. For sentiments of Origen, and the rise of the after the many public condemnations of the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies, Plato was nearly banished from the schools to the retreats of the monks. John DaDe Bünau, Teutsche Kayser-u. Reichs- Hist. [after-mascenus distinguished himself beyond wards quoted under its Latin title, Hist. Imperii Romano Germanici.-R.] vol. ii. p. 392, &c.; Ferreras, Hist. de Espagne, tom. ii. p. 506, &c. any concern with the Mohammedan invasion of Spain. sole cause of this calamity to his country.-Mur. 3 Paulus Diaconus, De Gestis Longobard. lib. vi. cap. xlvi. et liii.; Mariana, Rerum Hispanicar. lib. vii. cap. iii.; Bayle, Dictionnaire Historique, article Abderame, tome i. p. 11; Ferreras, Histoire de Es pagne, tome ii. p. 463, &c. [Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Rom. Emp. chap. lii-Mur. 6 See Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 533. > Servatus Lupus, Vita Wigberti, p. 304, and others. i —Schl. |