pendence, although unable to accomplish her will. After Italy, France was the country the most enfeebled; and the reason of this lay in its earlier corruption. On the other hand, the evident vigour which Germany displayed soon after Charlemagne's death leads us to conjecture that the growth of her power had early manifested itself, and makes us better understand how Charlemagne came to set such high value upon Germany, and here more than elsewhere sought to extend and uphold his sway.

In a general sketch of whole generations and of great events, those personages only should find a place who have created an epoch, who have changed the aspect of the world, and whose life embodies a world-a whole age in itself. Such characters are no longer to be found among the posterity of Charlemagne. Their destinies and their disputes, the frequent separations and reunions of France and Germany, serve only to fill up the intervening space between Charlemagne and the total severance of France and Germany; when the latter country, having freely elected a king, stood forth a distinct, independent kingdom, and soon reached the summit of power. Now was brought about that great national union of all the Germanic peoples, which in earlier times had been often sought for in vain. From this period, from the elevation of King Conrad to the throne by the election of the whole nation, down to the emperor Rodolph the First, Germany was the mightiest state of Europe; and scarcely can an example be found in history of a like, almost unbroken series of energetic heroes and great sovereigns, succeeding each other upon the throne, as in this great, free, and, for a time at least, firmly united elective empire.

LECTURES VI. & VII.

ON THE GERMAN EMPIRE.

THE empire which Charlemagne founded, as a conqueror, was not of long duration; but far more important in the history of the world has been his part as a lawgiver. In this respect he accomplished much for France in particular, by

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striving to restore her old Frankish constitution, to uphold the arrière-ban, to check the undue ascendancy of the feudal nobility by laws against hereditary succession; in a word, to bring back the nobility, that fundamental power in the state, as far as altered circumstances then allowed, to their original functions. Yet are all these measures of less importance to posterity, because in after-times all these relations were variously modified, and the measures Charlemagne adopted for these objects were enforced only during his lifetime, or at most during the brief period of his dynasty. But a lawgiver he was for all succeeding times, and for all western Europe, by the manner, more especially, in which he fixed the relations of church and state, and the bond of union which he formed between them. For centuries was this union the foundation of the constitution, and even when it was partially changed, it continued to exert the most decided influence even down to our own times. The constitution of the three estates and the political institutions of the middle age first received from Charlemagne a definite form, and the notion of a Christian confederacy of all the western nations appeared visibly and plainly to be the object to which the spirit of the age directed all its efforts. Even under Charlemagne's predecessors a close and constant union was maintained between royalty and the church. Under the earlier Frankish kings the bishops already formed in the realm a separate estate; they took part, like the dukes and counts, in affairs of state, and in the public deliberations, and sat and voted in the Imperial Diets; but chiefly under Charlemagne did all this become a recognised principle, a part of the constitution, and obtain a definite form. Through him the clergy became an estate, which, as a second member of the body politic, might serve as a counterpoise to the nobility. Among the Romans the church had grown up quite independently of the state, quite separately from it; her internal institutions had been fully developed before she became predominant. Hence, even under the Christian emperors, church and state, Christianity and public life, remained quite distinct, some arbitrary intermeddling excepted. But it was quite otherwise among the Germans; when they still adhered to idolatry, they had no distinct priesthood, but all sacerdotal rights and duties were united and intermingled with the political institutions and the

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national concerns. The circumstance expressly mentioned by Tacitus, that the priest of the nation was elected by the assembled people, and the influence on the other hand exerted by the priesthood upon the national judicature and national affairs, would be sufficient to satisfy us of this. This fact easily accounts for a certain mingling of ecclesiastical and civil affairs among the Germans after their conversion to Christianity; they frankly incorporated Christianity with their whole political life, and conceded to it great influence on their public concerns.

Eminently as Christianity was adapted to all nations, yet each, on first receiving it, displayed its own peculiar character in the manner of the reception and in the direction given to it. His inborn melancholy and profoundness of feeling led the Egyptian as a hermit into the rudest deserts. The Greeks brought to religious subjects the dialectical acuteness so peculiar to them, and early enough also the contentiousness conneeted therewith. The Romans, of a more practical turn of mind, organized the ritual requisite for the Christian mysteries with becoming dignity, and instituted a most beautiful ceremonial; and, as every society requires well-defined laws, they drew up with sagacity the rules of life necessary for the larger and smaller ecclesiastical and Christian societies. The Germans, lastly, fought like true knights for the Christian faith, when once they had embraced it, against its fanatical enemies. Moreover, instead of severing Christianity from life, as if care for eternity were a thing apart, they, with a full heartfelt sentiment of the priceless treasure they had acquired, gave a Christian organization to their whole domestic and public life, referring it to and basing it on the church. The effects of this union were soon manifested, and many examples, especially among the Franks, are found of that intermingling of ecclesiastical and civil affairs which sprang from it.

As the bishops took part in the Imperial Diets with the dukes and counts, so also were kings, dukes, and counts often present at the synods and assemblies of the clergy. Christianity and the body politic, church and state, were thoroughly united and interwoven. Charlemagne, who strove to bring back the clergy, like the nobility, to their original functions, marked out and defined as far as possible the respective lines of demarcation between civil and ecclesiastical functions, as in the imperial assemblies he divided the bishops

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and the high nobility into two chambers. The clergy became thereby a peculiar order, a distinct member of the body politic; in part united to the nobility, in part separate from it, sometimes co-operating with it, sometimes limiting its exclusive influence in many ways. The inner structure and organization of the state grew now more compact; but in order to judge correctly of these institutions, and of the ideas whereon they were based, we must look back to all the circumstances and wants of those times. It is certain that the feudal and ministerial nobility, at first the support and instrument of the royal power, now often threatened it with danger. Hence for the regular and uniform security of regal authority nothing was so necessary and desirable as a permanent counterpoise to the nobles, another estate equal to them in power. The citizen-class scarcely existed as an estate, at least it was not sufficiently powerful or developed, to constitute at this period a counter-balance of any importance to the nobility. It was not until long afterwards, that the class of burgesses was added to the two others as a third estate, which thereby completed the constitution of estates; its development was not a little accelerated and furthered by the ecclesiastical order, whose objects were often distinct from the interests and the power of the nobility, or even in opposition to them.

If the nobility, which at that time, from ceaseless wars and feuds, had become altogether military, seemed to contain in itself the concentrated strength of the nation, the intelligence of the latter, whether perpetuated from antiquity or recently revived, was mainly to be found in the clergy. These were the depositaries of all the Christian knowledge, literature, and civilization, derived from Rome, and which in numberless cases the state itself needed. Contrasted with the clergy, this Christian Roman element of the state and of civilization, the nobility may be regarded as the Germanic element of the then constitution, for they were the depositaries and guardians of the primitive German manners and maxims of honour and freedom. The class of nobles and warriors, as the concentred strength of the state, was identified with the particular state, with the particular nation, to which it belonged. But if all Christian nations were to be united into one great confederacy, into one European republic, if one common bond were to embrace them all, it was indispensable that in every state, together

with the national order, namely the nobility, another order should exist as a connecting link with the general body of Christian nations, and in order that the union might be strong and efficacious. These two estates and powers were in those times in many respects complementary of each other, and when Charlemagne (I name him because he created an epoch, as a legislator, although many of his predecessors had already acted before on the same principles, and many of his institutions were developed by one or other of his successors) based the constitution upon these two orders, upon their mutual need of each other, and on their living influences, he was not therein to be blamed. He felt himself great and powerful enough to leave free play to others, and to grant them power and honour within the limits assigned to them by nature and reason. Many of his institutions had undeniably no other object than that of confirming and extending the royal power; but like many of his ancestors, he was also a man of the people. He not only left to the nobility their hereditary rights, but he sought also to infuse fresh life into this member of the old vigorous constitution, as likewise in an especial manner to elevate the clergy, well feeling the necessities of the time. A really vital power does not repose on the destruction of all free life around it; rather will a ruler, of a powerful mind and a great soul, be stronger, the more life and free energy exist in the entire body politic.

The essential mission of the ecclesiastical order to announce God to men, and to lead them to him, is in all times unchangeably the same; but the external relation of that order can never be otherwise dependent on circumstances. This is often overlooked by those who demand that the clergy should be brought back to the condition of the primitive teachers of Christianity. If education is recognised as one of the chief objects of the clerical calling, then surely the education of nations, the softening of manners in warlike times by the cultivation of the land as well as of the mind, cannot be considered alien to the ecclesiastical mission. For this end, power, influence, and wealth were necessary. Money wealth was at that period comparatively rare, hence it was chiefly landed property by which the clergy were enriched. They were thereby still more closely linked to the state, as the Germanic constitution was chiefly based upon landed property.