system of Europe. The kings of France, Italy and Burgundy paid him homage, and he disposed of the kingdom of Lorraine in favour of his natural son Zwentibald.

Italy, always the theatre of German ambition, was distracted by the rival pretensions of Guy and Berenger, the powerful dukes of Spoleto and Friuli, both of whom were crowned kings of Italy, as well as emperors. Arnulph interfered in the contest on the part of Berenger, eventually assuming himself the titles of emperor and king. The Italians, impatient of foreign domination, regarded Guy, and Lambert his son and successor, as national kings under whom alone their independence was secure. Lambert had not been able to prevent the coronation of Arnulph as emperor and king of Italy, but his recall by an incursion of the Moravians was followed by the re-accession of Guy, who made peace with Berenger, the Adda being fixed for the boundary of their territories, and reigned as emperor till the last years of the century.

899. Arnulph after his retreat from Italy languished and died at Ratisbon. He was succeeded in the kingdom of Germany by his son Lewis the infant, with whose short and feeble reign was extinguished the German branch of the house of Charlemagne. It seems probable that the German monarchy would have fallen into a state of dissolution from internal anarchy and the barbarian invasions on its eastern frontier, but for the fidelity of Otho, the great duke of Saxony, who as governor of his young brother-inlaw defended with disinterested loyalty the rights of a crown which his posterity wore.

France, overrun by the Northmen, could find no safety but in setting aside the pretensions of Charles the Simple, the legitimate heir, and creating a national sovereignty in the person of Eudes— son of Robert the Strong, count of Paris-a brave soldier who had already distinguished himself in the defence of his country. Some years after the election of Eudes, a German faction called Charles the Simple to the throne of France, and supported by Arnulph, to whom he was a suppliant and gave his homage, Charles also was crowned king of France and obtained possession of some territory on the German frontier. On the death of Eudes he succeeded to the whole of the dominions of which he was lawful heir. His feeble reign of 27 years, prolonged far into

Essays

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the tenth century, has few claims on our notice. It was embittered by the insubordination of the great nobles who for a time held him in captivity, and elected Robert, brother of Eudes, king. Charles the Simple married Egina the eldest of the grand-daughters of Alfred the Great. The most remarkable, and perhaps the most politic act of his administration,—which however belongs to a somewhat later period, having taken place in 911-was the investiture of Rollo the Norman chief in the duchy of Normandy, with the hand of his daughter in marriage. A brave and highminded prince would never have torn so bright a jewel from his crown; but Charles the Simple found in the duchy of Normandy, not only a barrier against fresh invasions of the Northern pirates, but his best defence against the aggressions of his own insubordinate nobles.

In the dismemberment of the empire, to the three great divisions of the European states-Germany, Italy and France, were added two kingdoms of the lesser order. Boson, brother-in-law of Charles the Bald, after losing his duchy of Pavia, had established himself in Cis-juran Burgundy on the death of Lewis le Begue, assuming the title of king of Provence. His son Lewis succeeded him at the time of the general disruption, and in the last year of the century was crowned also emperor and king of Italy, the third of that name.

Transjuran Burgundy, including the territories between the Jura, the Rhone and the Reuss, that is, Switzerland, the Valais, Chablais and the Genevese-was appropriated in the general dislocation of states by Rodolph Welf, with the style of king of Burgundy. He too in the ensuing century was crowned king of Italy, the battle ground of all pretenders. The two Burgundies were afterwards reunited, and continued in the posterity of Rodolph as the kingdom of Arles.

The spectacle which has now been presented to our view—rival kings of Italy and of France, emperors without an empire, and kings possessing but fragments of the kingdoms of which each had received the forms of investiture-discloses a state of affairs from which it may be perceived that the settlement of Europe after the death of Charles the Bald was no more stable than that which had been attempted by the treaty of Verdun, nearly half a century

before. The empire is dismembered, we find five kingdoms instead of three, and the political dissolution is still in progress.

9

It has been well observed that the counts and barons were the real heirs of Charles the Bald. What were Boson and Eudes, Arnulph and Rodolph, Berenger and Guy, but powerful vassals who, in the anarchy of the times, rose to the rank of kings? In every quarter the great feudatories were establishing independent sovereignties differing little but in name from those of the kings. In France alone, before the end of the ninth century, twenty nine provinces or fragments of provinces were already erected into small states, the antient governers of which, under the names of dukes, counts, viscounts, had become their true sovereigns. The importance of these states was not equal, nor their independence absolutely alike; some still kept up frequent relations with the king of France; others were under the protection of a powerful neighbour; certainties united them, and hence certain reciprocal obligations resulted which became the constitution of the feudal society. But the dominant feature was, not the less, isolation-independence; they were evidently so many small states born of the dismemberment of a great territory-local government, formed at the expence of the central of the central power. These powerful fiefs had a long political existence; sovereigns hereditarily succeeded sovereigns; they had their distinct laws and customs, their wars, and their separate histories.

Some of the founders of these fiefs belonged to families which already possessed historic names; such as Gerard of Roussillon and Guiafer of Gascony, the celebrated heroes of romance; and the antient dukes of Brittany who withstood the arms of Charlemagne himself. Others of the great feudatories rose to eminence

(8) Some modern writers reckon six, counting the kingdom of Navarre, which can hardly be considered part of the Carlovingian empire; others SEVEN, including Lorraine, which was only an investiture by Arnulph of part of his own dominions in favour of his son Zwentibold, terminating with him. It has been already remarked that the Anglo-Saxon politicians had very accurate information of continental affairs, and that Alfred's sister Queen Ethelswith was on her way to Rome in the very year when the final dismemberment of the empire had been just accomplished. A most exact account of the division into five kingdoms, with a reference to the superior claims of Arnulph, is inserted in the AngloSaxon Chronicle.

See the Harmony p. 98 of this volume under the years 887-888. ODA or ODO is the German form of the Latinized EUDES, and WITHA, or GWITHA, of GUY.

(9) MICHELET. HISTOIRE DE FRANCE.

-some to royalty-in after times. There were the Gastons and Taillefers of Bearn and Thoulouse, and the counts of Anjou from whom sprung the royal houses of the Capets and Plantagenets; not to mention the Baldwins of Flanders; and the great Norman chiefs, Rollo in Normandy, and Thibaut count of Tours and lord of Chartres, progenitor of the houses of Blois and Champagne, who having changed their names in baptism became naturalized, and shut the Seine and the Loire for ever against the pirates of the north.

The Anglo-Saxon monarchy during the. time of Alfred and for a long period afterwards seems to have suffered but little from that insubordination among the superior nobility which ended in dismembering the empire of Charlemagne. The individual character of such princes as Alfred and Athelstan and Edgar was a guarantee such as that of none of the Carlovingian kings afforded against any encroachment on their rights of sovereignty. Besides, in England the German institutions, which the Anglo-Saxons inherited as well as the Franks, still subsisted almost entire. Royalty in its simpler form borrowed little or nothing from Roman imperial traditions which swelled the pretensions of the Frankish sovereigns. The right of election did not become, as on the continent, a mere form, but the most qualified of the royal race was generally chosen, to the exclusion often of the heir by regular descent, and this was a bond of union between the king and the nobles. They had also a continual voice in the Witenagemot, the national assemblies without whose consent no public measures were decided, which left them without pretence for usurping an undue share of political power; while that of the kings was moderated by the continuance of these assemblies and the free spirit of the people.

The Ealderman, the highest dignity in the state, was simply a magistrate appointed by the sovereign to administer justice and array the people for war or defence-in that particular the type of our present Lieutenants of counties. The dignity was neither territorial nor hereditary. After the accession of Canute the Ealderman became an Earl-the Norwegian Jarl-and when the whole island was subdued and united under one sovereign the fashion was introduced of intrusting great provinces to a single

Earl, while originally the English counties, each under its own Alderman, were not of a size to encourage the usurpation of their governors. From that era the provincial governors began to overpower the royal authority as they had done on the continent, and England under Edward the Confessor was not far removed from the condition of France under Charles the Bald.

The feeble reigns of Charles the Simple in France, and Lewis the Infant in Germany, were commencing, and Italy was divided between Guy and Berenger, at the time that Alfred-unaffected by foreign revolutions and unembarrassed by the insubordination of the great nobles, which palsied the strength of the continental kings-was called upon to oppose with the whole force of his realm a combination of the Northmen more formidable than any which it had yet been his fortune to resist.

The veteran Hastings, driven from the Scheld by a victory which shed lustre on the close of the reign of Arnulph, concentrated his forces at Boulogne and determined on a fresh invasion of England. From the magnitude of his armament, and the combinations which the hoary and experienced pirate effected with the Danes already settled in East Anglia and Northumbria, it appears that he meditated no less than the conquest of the whole island. We are led to think of other conquests, and other menaces of invasion issuing from that coast of the channel, when we are told that having assembled a fleet of 250 ships, he "transported" his whole force "at one time, with their horses withal," and landed them safely on the coast of Sussex. In the fastnesses of the great wood which even now overspreads the Wealden or central districts of Sussex and Kent-the Sylva Anderida, or Coed Andred of the Britons-120 miles in length and 30 in breadth, they were able to maintain themselves building a fort of timber, while their allies in the north were exhausting the strength of Alfred's forces. The war raged for three years from the Humber to the south coast, and from the mouth of the Thames to Exeter and to Chester on the borders of north Wales; and a fortified camp on the river Lea within reach of London, already a place of importance, but not as yet the capital, was held by the main body of the army of Hastings till it was broken up in consequence of a skilful manœuvre of Alfred.