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whole nation from his dominions; and a council of Toledo published a decree that every Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict. But the tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they delighted to torture, or to deprive themselves of the industrious slaves, over whom they might exercise a lucrative oppression. The Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic kings and bishops at length discovered that injuries will produce hatred and that hatred will find the opportunity of revenge. A nation, the secret or professed enemies of Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and distress; and the intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian conquerors.143

As soon as the Barbarians withdrew their powerful support, Conclusion the unpopular heresy of Arius sunk into contempt and oblivion. But the Greeks still retained their subtle and loquacious disposition; the establishment of an obscure doctrine suggested new questions and new disputes; and it was always in the power of an ambitious prelate, or a fanatic monk, to violate the peace of the church, and, perhaps, of the empire. The historian of the empire may overlook those disputes which were confined to the obscurity of schools and synods. The Manichæans, who laboured to reconcile the religions of Christ and of Zoroaster, had secretly introduced themselves into the provinces; but these foreign sectaries were involved in the common disgrace of the Gnostics, and the Imperial laws were executed by the public hatred. The rational opinions of the Pelagians were propagated from Britain to Rome, Africa and Palestine, and silently expired in a superstitious age. But the East was distracted by the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies; which attempted to explain the mystery of the incarnation, and hastened the ruin of Christianity in her native land. These controversies were first agitated under the reign of the younger Theodosius; but their important consequences extend far beyond the limits of the present volume. The metaphysical chain of argument, the contests of ecclesiastical ambition, and their political influence on the decline of the Byzantine empire, may afford an interesting and instructive series of history, from the general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon to the conquest of the East by the successors of Mahomet.

143 Basnage (tom. viii. c. 13, p. 388-400) faithfully represents the state of the Jews; but he might have added from the canons of the Spanish councils and the laws of the Visigoths many curious circumstances, essential to his subject, though they are foreign to mine.

VOL. IV.

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tion of Gaul

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Reign and Conversion of Clovis-His Victories over the Alemanni,
Burgundians, and Visigoths-Establishment of the French
Monarchy in Gaul-Laws of the Barbarians-State of the
Romans-The Visigoths of Spain-Conquest of Britain by the
Saxons

The revolu THE Gauls,1 who impatiently supported the Roman yoke, received a memorable lesson from one of the lieutenants of Vespasian, whose weighty sense has been refined and expressed by the genius of Tacitus. "The protection of the republic has delivered Gaul from internal discord and foreign invasions. By the loss of national independence, you have acquired the name and privileges of Roman citizens. You enjoy, in common with ourselves, the permanent benefits of civil government; and your remote situation is less exposed to the accidental mischiefs of tyranny. Instead of exercising the rights of conquest, we have been contented to impose such tributes as are requisite for your own preservation. Peace cannot be secured without armies; and armies must be supported at the expense of the people. It is for your sake, not for our own, that we guard the barrier of the Rhine against the ferocious Germans, who have so often attempted, and who will always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul. The fall of Rome would be fatal to the provinces; and you would be buried in the ruins of that mighty fabric which has been raised by the valour and wisdom of eight hundred years. Your imaginary freedom would be insulted and oppressed by a

1 In this chapter I shall draw my quotations from the Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, Paris, 1738-1767, in eleven volumes in folio. By the labour of Dom Bouquet and the other Benedictines, all the original testimonies, as far as A.D. 1060, are disposed in Chronological order and illustrated with learned notes. Such a national work, which will be continued to the year 1500, might provoke our emulation. [For Gregory of Tours, &c., see Appendix 1.]

2 Tacit. Hist. iv. 73, 74, in tom. i. p. 445. To abridge Tacitus would indeed be presumptuous! but I may select the general ideas which he applies to the present state and future revolutions of Gaul.

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savage master; and the expulsion of the Romans would be succeeded by the eternal hostilities of the Barbarian conquerors.' This salutary advice was accepted, and this strange prediction was accomplished. In the space of four hundred years, the hardy Gauls, who had encountered the arms of Cæsar, were imperceptibly melted into the general mass of citizens and subjects; the Western empire was dissolved; and the Germans, who had passed the Rhine, fiercely contended for the possession of Gaul, and excited the contempt or abhorrence of its peaceful and polished inhabitants. With that conscious pride which the The pre-eminence of knowledge and luxury seldom fails to inspire, they derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the north,—their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell. The liberal studies were still cultivated in the schools of Autun and Bordeaux; and the language of Cicero and Virgil he was familiar to the Gallic youth. Their ears were astonished by de the harsh and unknown sounds of the Germanic dialect, and By they ingeniously lamented that the trembling muses fled from the harmony of a Burgundian lyre. The Gauls were endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but, as they wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the victorious Barbarians, by whose clemency ve they held their precarious fortunes and their lives.1

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As soon as Odoacer had extinguished the Western empire, he Euric, king s; sought the friendship of the most powerful of the Barbarians. goths. A.D. It The new sovereign of Italy resigned to Euric, king of the Visigoths, all the Roman conquests beyond the Alps, as far as the n Rhine and the Ocean; and the senate might confirm this liberal gift with some ostentation of power, and without

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any real

loss of revenue or dominion. The lawful pretensions of Euric were justified by ambition and success; and the Gothic nation might aspire, under his command, to the monarchy of Spain and

3 Eadem semper causa Germanis transcendendi in Gallias libido atque avaritia et mutandæ sedis amor; ut, relictis paludibus et solitudinibus suis, fecundissimum hoc solum vosque ipsos possiderent. . . . Nam pulsis Romanis quid aliud quam bella omnium inter se gentium exsistent?

4 Sidonius Apollinaris ridicules, with affected wit and pleasantry, the hardships of his situation (Carm. xii. in tom. i. p. 811).

5 See Procopius de Bell. Gothico, 1. i. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 31. The character of Grotius inclines me to believe that he has not substituted the Rhine for the Rhone (Hist. Gothorum, p. 175) without the authority of some Ms. [The best Mss. have Podarov, but several inferior Mss. have pidavoù, which probably suggested to Grotius his guess 'Pηvov.]

Clovis, king of the Franks.

Gaul. Arles and Marseilles surrendered to his arms; he oppressed the freedom of Auvergne; and the bishop condescended to purchase his recall from exile by a tribute of just, but reluctant, praise. Sidonius waited before the gates of the palace among a crowd of ambassadors and suppliants; and their various business at the court of Bordeaux attested the power and the renown of the king of the Visigoths. The Heruli of the distant ocean, who painted their naked bodies with its cærulean colour, implored his protection; and the Saxons respected the maritime provinces of a prince who was destitute of any naval force. The tall Burgundians submitted to his authority; nor did he restore the captive Franks, till he had imposed on that fierce nation the terms of an unequal peace. The Vandals of Africa cultivated his useful friendship; and the Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful aid against the oppression of the neighbouring Huns. The North (such are the lofty strains of the poet) was agitated, or appeased, by the nod of Euric; the great king of Persia consulted the oracle of the West; and the aged god of the Tiber was protected by the swelling genius of the Garonne. The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents; and France may ascribe her greatness to the premature death of the Gothic king, at a time when his son Alaric was an helpless infant, and his adversary Clovis an ambitious and valiant youth.

While Childeric, the father of Clovis, lived an exile in GerA.D. 481-512 many, he was hospitably entertained by the queen as well as by the king of the Thuringians. After his restoration, Basina escaped from her husband's bed to the arms of her lover; freely declaring that, if she had known a man wiser, stronger, or more beautiful than Childeric, that man should have been the object of her preference.8 Clovis was the offspring of this voluntary

Sidonius, 1. viii. epist. 3, 9, in tom. i. p. 800. Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 47, p. 680) justifies, in some measure, this portrait of the Gothic hero.

I use the familiar appellation of Clovis, from the Latin Chlodovechus, or Chlodovaeus. But the Ch expresses only the German aspiration; and the true name is not different from Luduin, or Lewis (Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 68).

8 Greg. Turon. 1. ii. c. 12, in tom. i. p. 168. Basina speaks the language of Nature: Franks, who had seen her in their youth, might converse with Gregory in their old age; and the bishop of Tours could not wish to defame the mother of the first Christian king. [The story told by Gregory will not sustain criticism and has all the look of being derived from a popular song on the birth of Chlodwig. One of the most striking improbabilities in it is that on expelling Childeric the Franks elected Ægidius as their king. See Junghans, Hist. crit. des règnes de Childerich et de Chlodovech (trans. by G. Monod), p. 8-9. The differences between the

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ed union; and, when he was no more than fifteen years of age, nt, succeeded, by his father's death, to the command of the Salian a tribe. The narrow limits of his kingdom were confined to the ess island of the Batavians, with the ancient dioceses of Tournay of and Arras; 10 and, at the baptism of Clovis, the number of his an, warriors could not exceed five thousand. The kindred tribes of m- the Franks, who had seated themselves along the Belgic rivers, ne the Scheld, the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, were he governed by their independent kings of the Merovingian race; [Gau-könige] re the equals, the allies, and sometimes the enemies, of the Salic he prince. But the Germans, who obeyed, in peace, the heredidtary jurisdiction of their chiefs, were free to follow the standard re of a popular and victorious general; and the superior merit of he Clovis attracted the respect and allegiance of the national conof federacy. When he first took the field, he had neither gold and he silver in his coffers, nor wine and corn in his magazines; 12 but e he imitated the example of Cæsar, who, in the same country, had of acquired wealth by the sword and purchased soldiers with the on fruits of conquest. After each successful battle or expedition,

11

the spoils were accumulated in one common mass; every warrior ic received his proportionable share, and the royal prerogative Is submitted to the equal regulations of military law. The untamed spirit of the Barbarians was taught to acknowledge the advantages of regular discipline. 13 At the annual review of the month of March, their arms were diligently inspected; and, when they

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account of Gregory and those of the later sources (Gesta regum Francorum, and Historia epitomata of Fredegarius) are unimportant. But there is no reason to call in question the name of Chlodwig's mother-Basina; and we may admit that a king named Bisinus may have reigned over the Thuringians in the days of Childeric; for we find Bisinus afterwards as a name of Thuringian monarchs.]

The Abbé Dubos (Hist. Critique de l'Etablissement de la Monarchie François dans les Gaules, tom. i. p. 630-650) has the merit of defining the primitive kingdom of Clovis, and of ascertaining the genuine number of his subjects.

10 Ecclesiam incultam ac negligentiâ civium Paganorum prætermissam, veprium densitate oppletam, &c. Vit. Vedasti, in tom. iii. p. 372. This description supposes that Arras was possessed by the Pagans, many years before the baptism of Clovis. 11[It has been conjectured that the dominions of Chlodwig, Ragnachar (whose residence was at Cambrai, Greg. 2, 42), and Chararich, corresponded respectively to Brabant, Hainault, and Flanders; Junghans, op. cit. p. 21.]

12 Gregory of Tours (1. v. c. 1, in tom. ii. p. 232) contrasts the poverty of Clovis with the wealth of his grandsons. Yet Remigius (in tom. iv. p. 52) mentions his paternas opes, as sufficient for the redemption of captives.

13 See Gregory (1. ii. c. 27, 37, in tom. ii. p. 175, 181, 182). The famous story of the vase of Soissons explains both the power and the character of Clovis. As a point of controversy, it has been strangely tortured by Boulainvilliers, Dubos, and the other political antiquarians.

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