CHAP. 11. § 3. SECT. III.-STATIONARY CONDITION OF AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY The leading feature in civil society, from the fall of the western Roman empire to the time of the Crusades, is the abject condition of the agricultural classes. No rival of Cincinnatus appears as a hero in medieval history. The labourers, who became warriors and princes, returned no more to their ploughs. Century after century, the ruling classes, kings, priests, nobles, and soldiers, seized the whole surplus wealth which the hand of nature annually bestows on agricultural labour. The cultivator of the soil was only left in possession of the scanty portion necessary to enable him to prolong his existence of hopeless toil, and to rear a progeny of labourers, to replace him in producing wealth with smallest possible consumption of the earth's fruits. Such was the condition of the greater part of Europe, from the commencement of the eighth to the end of the thirteenth century. The general insecurity of property, and decay of commercial intercourse, consequent on the neglect of the old Roman roads, annihilated the middle classes of society, or reduced them to a few individuals, insulated in distant towns, where they belonged to the conquered race, and lived deprived of all political rights. They were despised by their conquerors as belonging to a dastard tribe, and envied by the common people, because they were the possessors of more wealth and knowledge than the rest of their countrymen. This vicious organisation of society produced a perpetual though covert conflict of feelings between the lower and higher classes. The ruling class, whether nobles, gentlemen, or soldiers, viewed the mass of the people with contempt, and treated them with cruelty. The people indulged in vague hopes of being able, by some dispensation of heaven, to exterminate their tyrants, $ 3. and reform society. There hardly exists any European CHAP. 11. history that is not filled with rebellions and civil wars, which can be traced to this source. But the people, where they have not been trained to order by local institutions, creating the sense of responsibility in public affairs, can never form any idea of administration; and, consequently, their political struggles generally end in establishing anarchy as a remedy for oppression. Still we must not forget, that the pictures we possess of popular struggles against governmental oppression have received their colouring from the aristocratic class; and, consequently, that we seek in vain in such records for any notice of the wiser aspirations and better feelings of the patient and thinking individuals among the people. It is possible that the social and political evils which arrested the increase of the agricultural population, during the middle ages, was not entirely without beneficial effects. Cities must be recruited from the agricultural population around them. Now, had the rude peasants of the country increased at that time as rapidly as the agricultural population of Ireland during the last half century has done, there might have been some danger that all civilisation would have been overpowered, and either the ruling class would have been exterminated, or it would have reduced the people to a state of hopeless slavery. A great benefit was, moreover, conferred on society in the west of Europe by the dispersion of the ruling classes over the whole surface of the countries they subdued. The social equality that existed among the conquerors made this dispersion extend its influence through every rank; and the military virtues, as well as the learning of the times, were brought into closer contact with the people than they had been in the days of the Roman domination. The enlightened priest and free-minded poet were oftener to be found in the society of a provincial baron than at the court of a royal Suzerain. The $ 4. CHAP. II. power and intelligence of these teachers invested them with a real authority over the rude multitude, so that, even as early as the eleventh century, some tendency to improvement may be traced in the rural society of western Europe. SECT. IV. CONDITION OF THE NORMANS WHEN THEY CONQUERED The Danes and Normans, following the same necessity of acquiring the means of subsistence by their sword, and incited to constant restlessness by the same unceasing songs about glory, which had impelled the Goths, Franks, and Saxons to become the founders of kingdoms and empires, rushed southward in their pirate boats to attack the conquerors of the Romans. Unable to assemble large armies, they found the sea more favourable to their plundering excursions than the land. For nearly two centuries, the Scandinavian nations carried on a series of piratical attacks on the Franks in Gaul, and on the Saxons in Britain. They wasted the open country, and circumscribed every trace of civilisation within the walls of fortified towns, or of secluded monasteries in inaccessible situations. The records of French and English history commence with details of cruelties committed by these pirates, so frightful that the poetry of their sagas cannot efface the conviction that plunder was dearer to them than glory, and that their favourite exploits were the robbery of industrious villages, or the burning of peaceful monasteries. The daring of these ruthless plunderers was rarely exposed to very severe trials, for the mass of the agricultural population was prevented from bearing arms, lest they should employ them against the ruling classes, and begin their military career by attacking their permanent oppressors. The descendants of Charlemagne preferred paying thousands of pounds' weight of silver to the Normans, in order to purchase immunity from ravage for their own domains, rather than employ the money in arming and disciplining a subject population whose feelings they knew to be hostile. This is one of the causes of the facility the Normans found in effecting their conquests, yet it is hardly noticed by historians.1 Many tales of the inexhaustible wealth and unbounded luxury of the Byzantine empire were current in Scandinavia. Many warriors returned to their country enriched by the wealth they had amassed in the Byzantine service. These men repeated wondrous tales concerning the palaces and the gold of Constantinople, and the luxury and helplessness of the Greeks, to delighted crowds of listeners in their rude dwellings. Harald Hardrada, the gigantic warrior who lost his life at the battle of Stamford Bridge, acting as herald of the Norman conquest, had gained at Constantinople the treasures that enabled him to mount the throne of Norway. These traditions, constantly revived by the sight of the gold byzants which then formed the common circulation of Europe, nourished a longing to reach the Byzantine empire in the breast of every Norman. The wish to see Constantinople, and its immeasurable wealth, mingled with religious ideas in urging the Normans to perform the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. About the commencement of the eleventh century, the Normans established in France began to appear frequently in Italy as pilgrims and military adventurers; and, before the end of the century, they created a new political power at the expense of the Byzantine emperors. In their career from mercenary soldiers to independent chiefs, they advanced much in the same way, and nearly 1 Depping, (Histoire des Expéditions Maritimes des Normands, p. 213, edit. Didier,) cites the following passage, to show the fear entertained by the Franks of any assembly of the agricultural population :-" Vulgus promiscuum inter Sequanam et Ligerim adversos Danos fortiter resistit; sed quia incaute suscepta est eorum conjuratio, a potentioribus nostris facile interficitur.”— Annales Bertin. ad ann. 859. A. D. 1010. § 4. CHAP. II. by the same steps, as the Goths and Lombards had done, when they founded kingdoms in the western Roman empire. Though some distinguished Normans visited Italy as pilgrims, the greater number wandered thither, impelled by the desire to better their condition, by entering into the military service of the Byzantine viceroys of southern Italy and Sicily. The changes that had occurred in northern Europe had put an end to piracy, and degraded the occupation of the brigand, so that adventurous young men were now driven to seek their fortunes in distant lands. The Normans, like the Goths of older times, considered no undertaking too arduous for their ambition; and they feared to tread no path, however dangerous, that promised to conduct them to wealth and fame. The romantic narratives which connect the first appearance of the Normans in Italy immediately with the formation of the Norman principalities, must not be received as true according to the letter. The sudden arrival of a ship of Amalfi, with forty Norman pilgrims, on their return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, may certainly have saved Salerno from the Saracens ; for these forty Normans, in complete panoply, may have rallied round them an army of pilgrims and mercenaries, on the great line of communication between the West and East. The meeting of Mel, the Byzantine rebel chief of Bari, with a few Norman gentlemen who were visiting the shrine of St Michael on Mount Gargano, may also have led to these Normans collecting an army to attack the imperial authorities. But the success of the Norman arms arose from the circumstance that numerous bodies of Norman mercenaries were already serving in the south of Italy. We may reasonably conclude that few men wandered from Normandy to Italy to gain their 1 Compare Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. lvi. vol. x. p. 257; Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes, vol. i. p. 277; Gally Knight, Normans in Sicily, p. 3, and their authorities. |
