It was about the middle of the period we have thus far contemplated, in the year of our Lord 568, that Mahomet was born in Arabia: and a period more auspicious to his unrivalled craft and overtowering ambition could not possibly have been produced by any concurrence of circumstances. The barbarians of the north had just completed their conquest over regular monarchy; the western empire was tottering to its foundation, while the eastern was shorn of its limits, and weakened by internal oppressions. Yet neither the extent of the territories of the barbarian powers, nor their respective forms of government, were definitely settled; while, at the same time, the fury which had accompanied their progress being exhausted, they had sunk into a state of political lethargy, and no bond of union or co-operation existed between them. Were we to search for that period of the Christian era in which there was least of order, least of power, least of science, and least of intercourse in Europe, we should be compelled to pitch upon the century which immediately preceded, and that which immediately followed, the commencement of the Hegira. Mahomet flourished in the middle of this period. Deriving his immediate descent from the patriarch Abraham, through the line of Ishmael, and, perhaps, eldest son of eldest son, from the commencement of the chain, he was a man of unbounded ambition, most enterprising courage, insinuating address, and instructed in all the science of his day. He beheld his own country without any fixed principles of religion, and ignorantly intermixing the rites of Judaism with the doctrines of Christianity; he beheld the professors of the Christian church engaged in perpetual disputes upon inexplicable mysteries; and excommunicating and massacreing each other, as they alternately possessed the power, upon a mere difference of recondite or speculative points. It was the precise moment for the invention of a new creed, and he invented one accordingly. With a mastery of craft that has never been equalled, even in our own eventful age, he infused into the heterogeneous mass a charm adapted to captivate every party and every passion; and, to destroy every doubt of success, he united the power of the sword to that of the new faith, and threw open the gates of Paradise, and all the enjoyments of the beatified, to every soldier who should fall under the banners of the crescent. Such a religion, launched forth at such a period, and aided by such auxiliaries, it was impossible to oppose by human means. It ran like lightning over the whole of Arabia, and equally subdued before it political friends and political foes. The states of Barbary were compelled to embrace it; the leaders of the Turks, the Mongul Tartars, and the Persians found it admirably adapted to their purpose, and embraced it voluntarily; all the Asiatic provinces of the eastern empire were overrun by the armies of the prophet himself, or his descendants, Abubeker and Omar: who, on succeeding to Mahomet, assumed, from respect and in reference to him, the subordinate title of Caliph, or Vicar. All Syria was invaded by the former for the express purpose, as he openly asserted, "of taking it out of the hands of the infidels;" and Jerusalem itself was captured by the latter, and rendered, shortly afterward, one of the principal bulwarks of the Saracens, as they were soon denominated among the Christian powers. The doctrine fundamentally inculcated by the Saracen chiefs was, that "to fight for the faith is an act of obedience to God;" and on this account they characterized their ferocious and bloody ravages by the name of holy wars. And having been the first to adopt this absurd and contradictory term, they laid down a model, and offered at least an apology for the crusades. And such was the success of their enterprise, that in less than a century from the commencement of the Hegira, they spread the religion of Mahomet from the Atlantic Ocean to India and Tartary, and obtained the whole, or the greater part of the temporal, as well as the spiritual power in Syria, Persia, Egypt Africa, and Spain. Spain, indeed, has since been rescued from their bondage; but the same general success continuing, the whole of the eastern empire was overturned, and Constantinople itself taken possession of in 1453; while, in different directions, they have also pursued the same triumphant career over the kingdoms of Visapour and Golconda, in India; the islands of Cyprus, of Rhodes, and the Cyclades; and have made large territorial acquisitions in Tartary, Hungary, and Greece. Such is a brief but afflictive sketch of the history of the world, during what has been appropriately denominated its dark ages, throughout which it may correctly be said, that No light, but rather darkness visible, In effect, every thing concurred to introduce and establish a universal reign of ignorance and gloom and I shall next proceed to notice more particularly a few of those causes which chiefly co-operated in producing so calamitous a result. And the first that occurs in the course of the survey is, the sinister and contracted views, and the general repugnance to all science and polite learning that so strikingly distinguish that particular set of the barbarous tribes of the north, already noticed, by whom Europe was earliest overrun; all of whom, by a generic term, may be denominated Scandinavians. Judging of these from the only Scandinavian records which have descended to our own times, the fabulous fragments collected by Sæmond and Snorro, and which are respectively called Eddas, all their arts and inventions were rude, and all their passions and pursuits violent. They had poetry, but it was altogether of the terrible kind; the whole muster-roll of their mythology consisted of not more than from forty to fifty gods and goddesses, while those of Greece amounted, in Hesiod's time, to three thousand; and in that of Augustus, to thirty thousand. The same power who, under the name of Loke, was their Ahriman, or Principle of Evil, was also, for want of a larger establishment, their Momus, and their Mercury. As they had their war-songs and their warspeeches, they had also their Apollo; but, like the rest, he, too, was caparisoned with his javelin and his hauberk, and was a god of battles as well as of eloquence. The beatitudes of their paradise, those with which the most valiant of their heroes were rewarded after death, consisted, as we learn from the same bloody legends, in daily encounters of more than mortal fury in the course of which the different combatants, mounted on fiery steeds, and clothed in resplendent armour, mutually wounded, and were wounded in return. Though, when the battle was over, they bathed in fountains of living water; and, being instantly healed, sat down to a sumptuous banquet, at which Oden, their chief deity, presided, and passed the hours of midnight in singing war-songs and drinking goblets of mead. Even the web of future events, woven by their three PARCE, was manufactured of strings of human entrails, the shuttles being formed of arrows dipped in gore, and the weights of the sculls of gasping warriors. It is to this fiction Mr. Gray alludes so finely, but, at the same time, so fearfully, in his Ode entitled "The Fatal Sisters." Horror covers all the heath: Clouds of carnage blot the sun :- The armies of the south of Asia, however, under the banners of Mahomet, were as little disposed, at least on the first spur of their fury, to attend to the voice of literature, as those of the north. Yemen, or Happy Arabia, till the time of this accomplished impostor, was equally the seat of polite learning and of courage. It was in climate and language, as well as in elegant pursuits, the Arcadia of the eastern world. Here the genius of poetry received his birth, and was nursed into maturity with fond and incessant attention. The Persians caught the divine art from the Arabians, as the Greeks afterward caught it from the Persians. The best pastoral poems in the world, or Casseidas, as they are called, and some of the best epic productions, are of Arabian growth. Before the era of Mahomet, a kind of poetical academy was established in this quarter, which used to assemble, at stated times, in a town named Ocadeh; where every tribe attended its favourite poet on his recital of the piece prepared for the occasion, and supported his aspiring pretensions. Those declared by the appointed judges most excellent were transcribed in characters of gold on Egyptian paper, and hung up in the temple of Mecca; and the seven which constitute the Moallakat, or suspended eclogues, best known in Europe, are well worthy of the celebrity they have attained. On the appearance of Mahomet, Arabia thronged with poets of this description, and of high and justly distinguished characters; most of whom, moreover, to their honour, opposed his pretensions, and many of whom ridiculed them with a severity which he never either forgave or forgot. As he advanced, however, in success, poetry and eloquence, and scientific pursuits of every kind, became neglected and even despised, except so far as they could contribute to the promotion of his interest; the refined and elevated contests at Ocadeh were dropped, and every other passion was made to bend to the master-passion of the day. And hence, on the capture of Alexandria by the forces of Omar, the second in succession to Mahomet, the whole of its magnificent library, which had been accumulating from the time of its illustrious founder, was condemned to the flames, and served as fuel to the hot-baths for a period of six months. Amrus, the general of Omar's army, was a lover of letters, and the esteem he had contracted for Philoponus, one of the most learned Alexandrians of the day, strongly inclined him to spare this invaluable treasure. He wrote, therefore, to the Caliph in its behalf, and the answer received from him is well known from Abulpharagius's history: "As to the books of which you make mention, if there be contained in them what accords with the Book of God (meaning the Alcoran), the Book of God is allsufficient without them: but if there be any thing repugnant to that book, we can have no need of them. Order them, therefore, to be all destroyed." The wildfire of Asia enkindled an equal wildfire throughout Europe. Of the purity of the motive upon which the crusades were first founded there can be no doubt; but the unfortunate course they took, and the mistaken views and ferocious passions to which they gave birth, rendered them, on the part of the Christians, as hostile to the cause of science and literature, to say nothing of higher objects, as the fury of the Saracens. Every thing was forsaken and forgotten in the accomplishment of the only object with which Christendom was now pregnant; every knee bowed down before the standard of the Cross; the religion of love was converted into a religion of vengeance; the motto of Mecca became that of the Vatican; to fight for the faith was here also declared to be an act of obedience to God, and every pulse beat high The following is a part of the famous bull of Pope Gregory IX., published in 1234, in which he exhorts and commands all good Christians to assume the Cross and join the expedition at that tin.e preparing against the Holy Land. "The service to which mankind are now invited is an effectual atonement for the miscarriages of a negligent life. The discipline of a regular penance would have discouraged many offenders so much that they would have had no heart to venture upon it: but the HOLY WAR is a compendious method of discharging men from guilt, and restoring them to the Divine favour. Even if they die on their march, the intention will be taken for the deed; and many in this way may be crowned without fighting."-Collier's Eccl. vol i. with an unconquerable determination to rescue the Holy Land, and trample upon its defilers. Hence the origin of the various military orders which form so prominent a feature in the history of this period of the world; of the Knights of Malta, or of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, as they were at first called: the Knights Templars; the Teutonic Order; and the Order of St. Lazarus. Hence, too, that spirit of chivalry and romantic adventure, of tilts and tournaments; which, however it may have laid a basis for a thousand interesting tales of wild exploit and marvellous vicissitude, had a tendency to change the sober order of things; to convert the patriotic citizen into a champion of fortune, and to work up the temperate reality of life into a fitful and visionary phrensy. And hence, too, among those who confined their views altogether to subjects of personal devotion and still life, the extension, though not the rise (for they were already in existence), of religious orders, of pilgrimages, and hermit solitudes; of vows of celibacy and fasting, of severe penance and rigour; under the preposterous idea of propitiating the Supreme Being in favour of his own cause, by directly warring with the best and warmest, the most active and most benevolent passions and instincts which he has imprinted on the human heart for the multiplication of human happiness. The crusades were numerous, but there are only seven that are worthy of particular notice. Of these, the first was led by Godfrey of Bouillon, in 1096, and was the only one that proved really successful; and that actually rescued, though only for a few years, the whole of Palestine from the grasp of the Mahometans. The third is chiefly celebrated for the chivalrous and enthusiastic valour with which it was prosecuted under our own Richard f. in 1189; and for the generous magnanimity of Saladin, who was at that time the Saracen king of Jerusalem. The last two were headed by St. Lewis in 1248 and 1270; and are principally notorious for the piety and valour which he displayed, and the misfortunes which attended him. The scenes of havoc and barbarity to which this infatuating system gave rise on both sides are too shocking for narration, and too long to be recounted, even if we had time. The wild desire of foreign expurgation led to a similar desire of purging the church at home; and hence the establishment of the Holy Wars led to the establishment of the Holy Inquisition;-the extirpation of infiders to the extirpation of heretics. Hence the crusaders under Baldwin, count of France, when advancing towards Palestine, in 1204, by a sudden and delirious impulse, turned aside from their attack upon the Mahometans, and attacked the Greek Church in its stead, on account of its supposed heterodoxies; and took and ransacked Constantinople, instead of taking and restoring Jerusalem. 66 The brutal havoc which followed upon this expedition, and the destruction of all the finest statues and public monuments erected by Constantine on his founding the city, are described with much force and feeling by Nicetas the Chroniate, who was an eye-witness to the transaction, and who justly styles these crusading Vandals, Το καλῦ ἀνεραστοῖ Βαρβαροι : " Barbarians insensible to the fair and beautiful." He especially laments the destruction of the inimitable figures of Hercules and Helen, which, being constructed of brass, were melted down to pay the soldiers. The following is a part of his description of the latter statue, and I quote it from the translation of Mr. Harris, as a proof that Constantinople, even in the thirteenth century, had scholars not altogether destitute of literary taste. "What," says he," shall I say of the beauteous Helen; of her who brought together all Greece against Troy! Does she mitigate these immitigable, these iron-hearted men? No-nothing like it could even she effect, who had before enslaved so many spectators with her beauty. Her lips," continues he, "like opening flowers, were gently parted, as if she were going to speak and as for that graceful smile, which instantly met the beholder and filled him with delight, those elegant curva Sainte-Palaye: Mémoires sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie, tom. 1. p. 153, et seq. † Fabricii Biblioth. p. 412 tures of her eyebrows, and the remaining harmony of her figure; they were what no words can describe and deliver down to posterity."* From the same demoniac spirit proceeded the infuriate crusade against the virtuous Albigeois or Albigenses in the thirteeenth century; and the long and savage persecutions of the Waldenses or Vaudois, which continued almost without intermission for eighty or ninety years; and the depopulation of Spain, by an equal expulsion of Jews and Moors, when the Christian arms had once more proved successful in that country. It was during the crusade against the Albigeois (and it is the only anecdote I need advance in proof of the blind and indiscriminate fury with which these adventures were conducted) that, when a scruple arose among the crusading army as to the propriety of storming the city of Bezieres, after having made preparation for so doing, in consequence of its being peopled with Catholics as well as with heretics, a dexterous casuist settled the point abruptly, by exclaiming, “Kill them all: God knows which are his own."t Independently of any other cause, therefore, it must be obvious that the internal disputes of the Christian church itself, or rather that which was called Christian, in which every nation, and almost every individual, took a part, were alone sufficient to have repelled the progress of liberal and enlightened science. But beyond this, very soon after the introduction of Christianity, a fondness for the philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras prompted the more speculative ecclesiastics to investigate the mysteries of the divinity and humanity of our Saviour with too nice a curiosity; and hence the famous controversies of Praxeas, Sabellius, Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, and various others, most of which led to very extensive proscriptions and persecutions. The schoolmen carried this itch for discussion into the most visionary subtleties of metaphysics, and acquired high-sounding titles by devoting the whole of their lives to an investigation of trifles that would disgrace a nursery. The bishops of Rome, after having advanced themselves to the popedom or supremacy of the Church, and invested themselves with territorial power, soon began to arrogate a temporal as well as a spiritual supremacy throughout Christendom; and hence the different courts of Europe, and at times even the emperors, were in a state of perpetual hostility with them; sometimes the emperors obtaining a triumph and deposing the popes, and sometimes the popes proving successful, and deposing the emperors; and hence the separation of the Greek church from that of Rome, in the middle of the ninth century, and of the English church towards the beginning of the sixteenth. There is another cause, and it is the last I shall notice, which powerfully contributed to the night of error and ignorance, which overspread the moral horizon during the melancholy period before us; and that is, the general chaos which prevailed in the language of almost every nation of the civilized world, and the consequent want of some current medium of communication. It was a maxim of the Roman government, and of a most artful and politic character, and which, in our own day, has been closely copied by the crafty tyrant of France, to plant its vernacular tongue wherever it planted its arms. Greece formed the only exception to this general rule; and, from its admitted superiority of taste and genius, was allowed to teach its conquerors instead of being taught by them. With this exception all the rest of Europe was latinized in a greater or less degree. The latinity, indeed, was of the most barbarous kind imaginable-for the dialect was, in almost every instance, a mongrel breed of Roman and aboriginal terms, with imperfect inflexions and unauthorized idioms, ready for any other change that chance might suggest or future conquest impose. The barbarian conquerors of the north, however, seem to have cared as little about their respective dialects as about their religion; and hence, in both instances, they gave and took alternately with the different nations that submitted to their yoke. Yet, as fresh tides of invaders poured forward, the Harris, ii. 455, 456. † Hist. des Troubadours, i. 193. This lecture was delivered in 1813, during the domineering power of Buonaparte. |