Kitabı oku: «The Holy Roman Empire», sayfa 22

Difficulties arising from the nature of the subject.

This is but a small part of what might be said upon an almost inexhaustible theme: inexhaustible not from its extent but from its profundity: not because there is so much to say, but because, pursue we it never so far, more will remain unexpressed, since incapable of expression.

For that which it is at once most necessary and least possible to do, is to look at the Empire as a whole: a single institution, in which centres the history of eighteen centuries – whose outer form is the same, while its essence and spirit are constantly changing. It is when we come to consider it in this light that the difficulties of so vast a subject are felt in all their force. Try to explain in words the theory and inner meaning of the Holy Empire, as it appeared to the saints and poets of the Middle Ages, and that which we cannot but conceive as noble and fertile in its life, sinks into a heap of barren and scarcely intelligible formulas. Who has been able to describe the Papacy in the power it once wielded over the hearts and imaginations of men? Those persons, if such there still be, who see in it nothing but a gigantic upas-tree of fraud and superstition, planted and reared by the enemy of mankind, are hardly further from entering into the mystery of its being than the complacent political philosopher, who explains in neat phrases the process of its growth, analyses it as a clever piece of mechanism, enumerates and measures the interests it appealed to, and gives, in conclusion, a sort of tabular view of its results for good and for evil. So, too, is the Holy Empire above all description or explanation; not that it is impossible to discover the beliefs which created and sustained it, but that the power of those beliefs cannot be adequately apprehended by men whose minds have been differently trained, and whose imaginations are fired by different ideals. Something, yet still how little, we should know of it if we knew what were the thoughts of Julius Cæsar when he laid the foundations on which Augustus built: of Charles, when he reared anew the stately pile: of Barbarossa and his grandson, when they strove to avert the surely coming ruin. Something more succeeding generations will know, who will judge the Middle Ages more fairly than we, still living in the midst of a reaction against all that is mediæval, can hope to do, and to whom it will be given to see and understand new forms of political life, whose nature we cannot so much as conjecture. Seeing more than we do, they will also see some things less distinctly. The Empire which to us still looms largely on the horizon of the past, will to them sink lower and lower as they journey onwards into the future. But its importance in universal history it can never lose. For into it all the life of the ancient world was gathered: out of it all the life of the modern world arose.

THE END

APPENDIX

NOTE A.
On the Burgundies

It would be hard to mention any geographical name which, by its application at different times to different districts, has caused, and continues to cause, more confusion than this name Burgundy. There may, therefore, be some use in a brief statement of the more important of those applications. Without going into the minutiæ of the subject, the following may be given as the ten senses in which the name is most frequently to be met with: —

I. The kingdom of the Burgundians (regnum Burgundionum), founded A.D. 406, occupying the whole valley of the Saone and lower Rhone, from Dijon to the Mediterranean, and including also the western half of Switzerland. It was destroyed by the sons of Clovis in A.D. 534.

II. The kingdom of Burgundy (regnum Burgundiæ), mentioned occasionally under the Merovingian kings as a separate principality, confined within boundaries apparently somewhat narrower than those of the older kingdom last named.

III. The kingdom of Provence or Burgundy (regnum Provinciæ seu Burgundiæ) – also, though less accurately, called the kingdom of Cis-Jurane Burgundy – was founded by Boso in A.D. 877, and included Provence, Dauphiné, the southern part of Savoy, and the country between the Saone and the Jura.

IV. The kingdom of Trans-Jurane Burgundy (regnum Iurense, Burgundia Transiurensis), founded by Rudolf in A.D. 888, recognized in the same year by the Emperor Arnulf, included the northern part of Savoy, and all Switzerland between the Reuss and the Jura.

V. The kingdom of Burgundy or Arles (regnum Burgundiæ, regnum Arelatense), formed by the union, under Conrad the Pacific, in A.D. 937, of the kingdoms described above as III and IV. On the death, in 1032, of the last independent king, Rudolf III, it came partly by bequest, partly by conquest, into the hands of the Emperor Conrad II (the Salic), and thenceforward formed a part of the Empire. In the thirteenth century, France began to absorb it, bit by bit, and has now (since the annexation of Savoy in 1861) acquired all except the Swiss portion of it.

VI. The Lesser Duchy (Burgundia Minor), (Klein Burgund), corresponded very nearly with what is now Switzerland west of the Reuss, including the Valais. It was Trans-Jurane Burgundy (IV) minus the parts of Savoy which had belonged to that kingdom. It disappears from history after the extinction of the house of Zahringen in the thirteenth century. Legally it was part of the Empire till A.D. 1648, though practically independent long before that date.

VII. The Free County or Palatinate of Burgundy (Franche Comté), (Freigrafschaft), (called also Upper Burgundy), to which the name of Cis-Jurane Burgundy originally and properly belonged, lay between the Saone and the Jura. It formed a part of III and V, and was therefore a fief of the Empire. The French dukes of Burgundy were invested with it in A.D. 1384, and in 1678 it was annexed to the crown of France.

VIII. The Landgraviate of Burgundy (Landgrafschaft) was in Western Switzerland, on both sides of the Aar, between Thun and Solothurn. It was a part of the Lesser Duchy (VI), and, like it, is hardly mentioned after the thirteenth century.

IX. The Circle of Burgundy (Kreis Burgund), an administrative division of the Empire, was established by Charles V in 1548; and included the Free County of Burgundy (VII) and the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, which Charles inherited from his grandmother Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold.

X. The Duchy of Burgundy (Lower Burgundy), (Bourgogne), the most northerly part of the old kingdom of the Burgundians, was always a fief of the crown of France, and a province of France till the Revolution. It was of this Burgundy that Philip the Good and Charles the Bold were Dukes. They were also Counts of the Free County (VII).

The most copious and accurate information regarding the obscure history of the Burgundian kingdoms (III, IV, and V) is to be found in the contributions of Baron Frederic de Gingins la Sarraz, a Vaudois historian, to the Archiv für Schweizer Geschichte. See also an admirable article in the National Review for October 1860, entitled 'The Franks and the Gauls.'

NOTE B.
On the Relations to the Empire of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein

The history of the relations of Denmark and the Duchies to the Romano-Germanic Empire is a very small part of the great Schleswig-Holstein controversy. But having been unnecessarily mixed up with two questions properly quite distinct, – the first, as to the relation of Schleswig to Holstein, and of both jointly to the Danish crown; the second, as to the diplomatic engagements which the Danish kings have in recent times contracted with the German powers, – it has borne its part in making the whole question the most intricate and interminable that has vexed Europe for two centuries and a half. Setting aside irrelevant matter, the facts as to the Empire are as follows: —

I. The Danish kings began to own the supremacy of the Frankish Emperors early in the ninth century. Having recovered their independence in the confusion that followed the fall of the Carolingian dynasty, they were again subdued by Henry the Fowler and Otto the Great, and continued tolerably submissive till the death of Frederick II and the period of anarchy which followed. Since that time Denmark has been always independent, although her king was, until the treaty of A.D. 1865, a member of the German Confederation for Holstein.

II. Schleswig was in Carolingian times Danish; the Eyder being, as Eginhard tells us, the boundary between Saxonia Transalbiana (Holstein), and the Terra Nortmannorum (wherein lay the town of Sliesthorp), inhabited by the Scandinavian heathen. Otto the Great conquered all Schleswig, and, it is said, Jutland also, and added the southern part of Schleswig to the immediate territory of the Empire, erecting it into a margraviate. So it remained till the days of Conrad II, who made the Eyder again the boundary, retaining of course his suzerainty over the kingdom of Denmark as a whole. But by this time the colonization of Schleswig by the Germans had begun; and ever since the numbers of the Danish population seem to have steadily declined, and the mass of the people to have grown more and more disposed to sympathize with their southern rather than their northern neighbours.

III. Holstein always was an integral part of the Empire, as it is at this day of the North German Bund.

NOTE C.
On certain Imperial Titles and Ceremonies

This subject is a great deal too wide and too intricate to be more than touched upon here. But a few brief statements may have their use; for the practice of the Germanic Emperors varied so greatly from time to time, that the reader becomes hopelessly perplexed without some clue. And if there were space to explain the causes of each change of title, it would be seen that the subject, dry as it may appear, is very far from being a barren or a dull one.

I. Titles of Emperors.

Charles the Great styled himself 'Carolus serenissimus Augustus, a Deo coronatus, magnus et pacificus imperator, Romanum (or Romanorum) gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam Dei rex Francorum et Langobardorum.'

Subsequent Carolingian Emperors were usually entitled simply 'Imperator Augustus.' Sometimes 'rex Francorum et Langobardorum' was added⁴²¹.

Conrad I and Henry I (the Fowler) were only German kings.

A Saxon Emperor was, before his coronation at Rome, 'rex,' or 'rex Francorum Orientalium,' or 'Francorum atque Saxonum rex;' after it, simply 'Imperator Augustus.' Otto III is usually said to have introduced the form 'Romanorum Imperator Augustus,' but some authorities state that it occurs in documents of the time of Lewis I.

Henry II and his successors, not daring to take the title of Emperor till crowned at Rome (in conformity with the superstitious notion which had begun with Charles the Bald), but anxious to claim the sovereignty of Rome, as indissolubly attached to the German crown, began to call themselves 'reges Romanorum.' The title did not, however, become common or regular till the time of Henry IV, in whose proclamations it occurs constantly.

From the eleventh century till the sixteenth, the invariable practice was for the monarch to be called 'Romanorum rex semper Augustus,' till his coronation at Rome by the Pope; after it, 'Romanorum Imperator semper Augustus.'

In A.D. 1508, Maximilian I, being refused a passage to Rome by the Venetians, obtained a bull from Pope Julius II permitting him to call himself 'Imperator electus' (erwählter Kaiser). This title Ferdinand I (brother of Charles V) and all succeeding Emperors took immediately upon their German coronation, and it was till A.D. 1806 their strict legal designation⁴²², and was always employed by them in proclamations or other official documents. The term 'elect' was however omitted, even in formal documents when the sovereign was addressed or spoken of in the third person; and in ordinary practice he was simply 'Roman Emperor.'

Maximilian added the title 'Germaniæ rex,' which had never been known before, although the phrase 'rex Germanorum' may be found employed once or twice in early times. 'Rex Teutonicorum,' 'regnum Teutonicum⁴²³ ,' occur often in the tenth and eleventh centuries. A great many titles of less consequence were added from time to time. Charles the Fifth had seventy-five, not, of course, as Emperor, but in virtue of his vast hereditary possessions⁴²⁴.

It is perhaps worth remarking that the word Emperor has not at all the same meaning now that it had even so lately as two centuries ago. It is now a commonplace, not to say vulgar, title, somewhat more pompous than that of King, and supposed to belong especially to despots. It is given to all sorts of barbarous princes, like those of China and Abyssinia, in default of a better name. It is peculiarly affected by new dynasties; and has indeed grown so fashionable, that what with Emperors of Brazil, of Hayti, and of Mexico, the good old title of King seems in a fair way to become obsolete⁴²⁵. But in former times there was, and could be but one Emperor; he was always mentioned with a certain reverence: his name summoned up a host of thoughts and associations, which we cannot comprehend or sympathize with. His office, unlike that of modern Emperors, was by its very nature elective, and not hereditary; and, so far from resting on conquest or the will of the people, rested on and represented pure legality. War could give him nothing which law had not given him already: the people could delegate no power to him who was their lord and the viceroy of God.

II. The Crowns.

Of the four crowns something has been said in the text. They were those of Germany, taken at Aachen; of Burgundy, at Arles; of Italy, sometimes at Pavia, more usually at Milan or Monza; of the world, at Rome.

The German crown was taken by every Emperor after the time of Otto the Great; that of Italy by every one, or almost every one, who took the Roman down to Frederick III, by none after him; that of Burgundy, it would appear, by four Emperors only, Conrad II, Henry III, Frederick I, and Charles IV. The imperial crown was received at Rome by most Emperors till Frederick III; after him by none save Charles V, who obtained both it and the Italian at Bologna in a somewhat informal manner. But down to A.D. 1806, every Emperor bound himself by his capitulation to proceed to Rome to receive it.

It should be remembered that none of these inferior crowns was necessarily connected with that of the Roman Empire, which might have been held by a simple knight without a foot of land in the world. For as there had been Emperors (Lothar I, Lewis II, Lewis of Provence (son of Boso), Guy, Lambert, and Berengar) who were not kings of Germany, so there were several (all those who preceded Conrad II) who were not kings of Burgundy, and others (Arnulf, for example) who were not kings of Italy. And it is also worth remarking, that although no crown save the German was assumed by the successors of Charles V, their wider rights remained in full force, and were never subsequently relinquished. There was nothing, except the practical difficulty and absurdity of such a project, to prevent Francis II from having himself crowned at Arles⁴²⁶, Milan, and Rome.

III. The King of the Romans (Römischer König).

It has been shewn above how and why, about the time of Henry II, the German monarch began to entitle himself 'Romanorum rex.' Now it was not uncommon in the Middle Ages for the heir-apparent to a throne to be crowned during his father's lifetime, that at the death of the latter he might step at once into his place. (Coronation, it must be remembered, which is now merely a spectacle, was in those days not only a sort of sacrament, but a matter of great political importance.) This plan was specially useful in an elective monarchy, such as Germany was after the twelfth century, for it avoided the delays and dangers of an election while the throne was vacant. But as it seemed against the order of nature to have two Emperors at once⁴²⁷, and as the sovereign's authority in Germany depended not on the Roman but on the German coronation, the practice came to be that each Emperor during his own life procured, if he could, the election of his successor, who was crowned at Aachen, in later times at Frankfort, and took the title of 'King of the Romans.' During the presence of the Emperor in Germany he exercised no more authority than a Prince of Wales does in England, but on the Emperor's death he succeeded at once, without any second election or coronation, and assumed (after the time of Ferdinand I) the title of 'Emperor Elect⁴²⁸.' Before Ferdinand's time, he would have been expected to go to Rome to be crowned there. While the Hapsburgs held the sceptre, each monarch generally contrived in this way to have his son or some other near relative chosen to succeed him. But many were foiled in their attempts to do so; and, in such cases, an election was held after the Emperor's death, according to the rules laid down in the Golden Bull.

The first person who thus became king of the Romans in the lifetime of an Emperor seems to have been Henry VI, son of Frederick I.

It was in imitation of this title that Napoleon called his son king of Rome.

NOTE D.
Lines contrasting the Past and Present of Rome

 
Dum simulacra mihi, dum numina vana placebant,
Militia, populo, mœnibus alta fui:
At simul effigies arasque superstitiosas
Deiiciens, uni sum famulata Deo,
Cesserunt arces, cecidere palatia divûm,
Servivit populus, degeneravit eques.
Vix scio quæ fuerim, vix Romæ Roma recordor;
Vix sinit occasus vel meminisse mei.
Gratior hæc iactura mihi successibus illis;
Maior sum pauper divite, stante iacens:
Plus aquilis vexilla crucis, plus Cæsare Petrus,
Plus cinctis ducibus vulgus inerme dedit.
Stans domui terras, infernum diruta pulso,
Corpora stans, animas fracta iacensque rego.
Tunc miseræ plebi, modo principibus tenebrarum
Impero: tunc urbes, nunc mea regna polus.
 

Written by Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, and afterwards archbishop of Tours (born A.D. 1057). Extracted from his works as printed by Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus⁴²⁹.