Englishmen claim Common Law as Birthright. 583

limitations. The great council of the nation is opened to the representatives of the commons. They proceed by slow and cautious steps to remonstrate against public grievances, to check the abuses of administration, and sometimes to chastise public delinquency in the officers of the crown. A number of remedial provisions are added to the statutes; every Englishman learns to remember that he is the citizen of a free state, and to claim the common law as his birthright, even though the violence of power should interrupt its enjoyment. It were a strange misrepresentation of history to assert, that the constitution had attained anything like a perfect state in the fifteenth century; but I know not whether there are any essential privileges of our countrymen, any fundamental securities against arbitrary power, so far as they depend upon positive institution, which may not be traced to the time when the house of Plantagenet filled the English throne.

CHAPTER IX.

ON THE STATE OF SOCIETY IN EUROPE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.

PART I.

IT has been the object of every preceding chapter of this work either to trace the civil revolutions of states during the period of the middle ages, or to investigate, with rather more minute attention, their political institutions. There remains a large tract to be explored, if we would complete the circle of historical information, and give to our knowledge that copiousness and clear perception which arise from comprehending a subject under numerous relations. The philosophy of history embraces far more than the wars and treaties, the factions and cabals of common political narration; it extends to whatever illustrates the character of the human species in a particular period, to their reasonings and sentiments, their arts and industry. Nor is this comprehensive survey merely interesting to the speculative philosopher; without it the statesman would form very erroneous estimates of events, and find himself constantly misled in any analogical application of them to present circumstances. Nor is it an uncommon source of error to neglect the general signs of the times, and to deduce a prognostic from some partial coincidence with past events, where a more enlarged comparison of all the facts that ought to enter into the combination would destroy the whole parallel. The philosophical student, however, will not follow the antiquary into his minute details; and though it is hard to say what may not supply matter for a reflecting mind, there is always some danger of losing sight of grand objects in historical disquisition, by too laborious a research into trifles. I may

584

Character and Duration of the Middle Ages.

possibly be thought to furnish, in some instances, an example of the error I condemn. But in the choice and disposition of topics to which the present chapter relates, some have been omitted on account of their comparative insignificance, and others on account of their want of connexion with the leading subject. Even of those treated I can only undertake to give a transient view; and must bespeak the reader's candour to remember that passages which, separately taken, may often appear superficial, are but parts of the context of a single chapter, as the chapter itself is of an entire work.

The middle ages, according to the division I have adopted, comprise about one thousand years, from the invasion of France by Clovis to that of Naples by Charles VIII. This period, considered as to the state of society, has been esteemed dark through ignorance, and barbarous through poverty and want of refinement. And although this character is much less applicable to the two last centuries of the period, than to those which preceded its commencement, yet we cannot expect to feel, in respect of ages at best imperfectly civilised and slowly progressive, that interest which attends a more perfect development of human capacities, and more brilliant advances in improvement. The first moiety indeed of these ten ages is almost absolutely barren, and presents little but a catalogue of evils. The subversion of the Roman empire, and devastation of its provinces by barbarous nations, either immediately preceded, or were coincident with, the commencement of the middle period. We begin in darkness and calamity; and though the shadows grow fainter as we advance, yet we are to break off our pursuit as the morning breathes upon us, and the twilight reddens into the lustre of day.

No circumstance is so prominent on the first survey of society during the earlier centuries of this period as the depth of ignorance in which it was immersed; and as from this, more than any single cause, the moral and social evils which those ages experienced appear to have been derived and perpetuated, it deserves to occupy the first place in the arrangement of our present subject. We must not altogether ascribe the ruin of literature to the barbarian destroyers of the Rom n empire. So gradual and, apparently, so irretrievable a decay had long before spread over all liberal studies, that it is impossible to pronounce whether they would not have been almost equally extinguished, if the august throne of the Cæsars had been left to moulder by its intrinsic weakness. Under the paternal sovereignty of Marcus Aurelius, the approaching declension of learning might be scarcely perceptible to an incurious observer. There was much indeed to distinguish his times from those of Augustus; much lost in originality of genius, in correctness of taste, in the masterly conception and consummate finish of art, in purity of the Latin, and even of the Greek language. But there were men who made the age famous, grave lawyers, judicious historians, wise philosophers; the name of learning was honourable, its professors were encouraged; and along the vast surface of the Roman empire there was perhaps a greater number, whose minds were cultivated by intellectual discipline, than under the more brilliant reign of the first emperor.

It is not, I think, very easy to give a perfectly satisfactory solution of

Diffusion of Literature-Its Advancement.

585

the rapid downfall of literature between the ages of Antonine and of Diocletian. Perhaps the prosperous condition of the empire from Trajan to Marcus Aurelian, and the patronage which those good princes bestowed on letters, gave an artificial health to them for a moment, and suspended the operation of a disease which had already begun to undermine their vigour. Perhaps the intellectual energies of mankind can never remain stationary; and a nation that ceases to produce original and inventive minds, born to advance the landmarks of knowledge or skill, will recede from step to step, till it loses even the secondary merits of imitation and industry. During the third century, not only there were no great writers, but even few names of indifferent writers have been recovered by the diligence of modern inquiry.1 Law neglected, philosophy perverted till it became contemptible, history nearly silent, the Latin tongue growing rapidly barbarous, poetry rarely and feebly attempted, art more and more vitiated; such were the symptoms by which the age previous to Constantine announced the decline of human intellect. If we cannot fully account for this unhappy change, as I have observed, we must, however. assign much weight to the degradation of Rome and Italy in the system of Severus and his successors, to the admission of barbarians into the military and even civil dignities of the empire, to the discouraging influence of provincial and illiterate sovereigns, and to the calamities which followed for half a century the first invasion of the Goths and the defeat of Decius. To this sickly condition of literature the fourth century supplied no permanent remedy. If under the house of Constantine the Roman world suffered rather less from civil warfare or barbarous invasions, than in the preceding age, yet every other cause of decline just enumerated prevailed with aggravated force; and the fourth century set in storms, sufficiently destructive in themselves, and ominous of those calamities which humbled the majesty of Rome at the commencement of the ensuing period, and overwhelmed the Western Empire in absolute and final ruin before its termination.

The diffusion of literature is perfectly distinguishable from its advancement, and whatever obscurity we may find in explaining the variations of the one, there are a few simple causes which seem to account for the other. Knowledge will be spread over the surface of a nation in proportion to the facilities of education, to the free circulation of books, to the emoluments and distinctions which literary attainments are found to produce, and still more to the reward which they meet in the general respect and applause of society. This cheering incitement, the genial sunshine of approbation, has at all times promoted the cultivation of literature in small republics, rather than large empires, and in cities compared with the country. If these are the sources which nourish literature, we should naturally expect that they must have become scanty or dry, when learning languishes or expires. Accordingly, in the later ages of the Roman empire, a general indifference towards the cultivation of letters became the characteristic of its inhabitants. Laws were indeed enacted by Cou

The authors of Histoire Littéraire de la France can only find three writers of Uau, m inconsiderable part of the Roman empire, mentioned upon any authority; two of whom are now lost. In the preceding century the number was considerably greater.

586 Neglect of Literature by the Christian Church.

stantine, Julian, Theodosius, and other emperors, for the encouragement of learned men and the promotion of liberal education. But these laws, which would not perhaps have been thought necessary in better times, were unavailing to counteract the lethargy of ignorance in which even the native citizens of the empire were contented tc repose. This alienation of men from their national literature may doubtless be imputed, in some measure, to its own demerits. A jargon of mystical philosophy, half fanaticism and half imposture, a barren and inflated eloquence, a frivolous philology, were not among those charms of wisdom by which man is to be diverted from pleasure or aroused from indolence.

In this temper of the public mind, there was little probability that new compositions of excellence would be produced, and much doubt whether the old would be preserved. Since the invention of printing, the absolute extinction of any considerable work seems a danger too improbable for apprehension. The press pours forth in a few days a thousand volumes, which scattered, like seed in the air, over the republic of Europe, could hardly be destroyed without the extirpation of its inhabitants. But in the times of antiquity, manuscripts were copied with cost, labour, and delay; and if the diffusion of knowledge be measured by the multiplication of books, no unfair standard, the most golden ages of ancient learning could never bear the least comparison with the three last centuries. The destruction of a few libraries by accidental fire, the desolation of a few provinces by unsparing and illiterate barbarians, might annihilate every vestige of an author, or leave a few scattered copies, which, from the public indifference, there was no inducement to multiply, exposed to similar casualties in succeeding times.

We are warranted by good authorities to assign, as a collateral cause of this irretrievable revolution, the neglect of heathen literature by the Christian church. I am not versed enough in ecclesiastical writers to estimate the degree of this neglect; nor am I disposed to deny that the mischief was beyond recovery before the accession of Constantine. From the primitive ages, however, it seems that a dislike of pagan learning was pretty general among Christians. Many of the fathers undoubtedly were accomplished in liberal studies, and we are indebted to them for valuable fragments of authors whom we have lost. But the literary character of the church is not to be measured by that of its more illustrious leaders. Proscribed and persecuted, the early Christians had not perhaps access to the public schools, nor inclination to studies which seemed, very excusably, uncongenial to the character of their profession. Their prejudices, however, survived the establishment of Christianity. The fourth council of Carthage, in 398, prohibited the reading of secular books by bishops. Jerome plainly condemns the study of them, except for pious ends. All physical science, especially, was held in avowed contempt, as inconsistent with revealed truths. Nor do there appear to have been any canons made in favour of learning, or any restriction on the ordination of persons absolutely illiterate.1 There was, indeed, abundance of 1 Tiraboschi endeavours to elevate higher the learning of the early Christians, Fortin, however, asserts that many of the bishops in the general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon could not write their names.

Destructive Torrent of Superstition.

587 what is called theological learning displayed in the controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries. And those who admire such disputations may consider the principal champions in them as contributing to the glory, or at least retarding the decline of literature. But Ï believe rather that polemical disputes will be found not only to corrupt the genuine spirit of religion, but to degrade and contract the faculties. What keenness and subtlety these may sometimes acquire by such exercise is more like that worldly shrewdness we see in men whose trade it is to outwit their neighbours, than the clear and calm dis crimination of philosophy. However this may be, it cannot be doubted that the controversies agitated in the church during these two centuries must have diverted studious minds from profane literature, and narrowed more and more the circle of that knowledge which they were desirous to attain.

The torrent of irrational superstitions, which carried all before it in the fifth century, and the progress of ascetic enthusiasm, had an influence still more decidedly inimical to learning. I cannot, indeed, conceive any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind, than one which admitted of no middle line between gross dissoluteness and fanatical mortification. An equable tone of public morals, social and humane, verging neither to voluptuousness nor austerity, seems the most adapted to genius, or at least to letters, as it is to individual comfort and national prosperity. After the introduction of monkery and its unsocial theory of duties, the serious and reflecting part of mankind, on whom science most relies, were turned to habits which, in the most favourable view, could not quicken the intellectual energies; and it might be a difficult question, whether the cultivators and admirers of useful literature were less likely to be found among the profligate citizens of Rome and their barbarian conquerors, or the melancholy recluses of the wilderness.

Such, therefore, was the state of learning before the subversion of the Western Empire. And we may form some notion how little probability there was of its producing any excellent fruits, even if that revolution had never occurred, by considering what took place in Greece during the subsequent ages; where, although there was some attantion shown to preserve the best monuments of antiquity, and diligence in compiling from them, yet no one original writer of any superior merit arose, and learning, though plunged but for a short period into mere darkness, may be said to have languished in a middle region of twilight for the greater part of a thousand years.

But not to delay ourselves in this speculation, the final settlement of barbarous nations in Gaul, Spain, and Italy consummated the ruin of literature. Their first irruptions were uniformly attended with devastation; and if some of the Gothic kings, after their establishment, proved humane and civilised sovereigns, yet the nation gloried in its original rudeness, and viewed, with no unreasonable disdain, arts which had neither preserved their cultivators from corruption, nor raised them from servitude. Theodoric, the most famous of the Ostrogoth kings in Italy, could not write his name, and is said to have restrained his countrymen from attending those schools of learning, by which he, or rather perhaps his minister, Cassiodorus, endeavoured to