CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



feature of industrious occupation. Agriculture 

 was especially recommended, and in the middle 

 ages the Benedictine monks were the best hus- 

 bandmen in Europe. Before the death of St 

 Benedict (543), his Rule had found its way into 

 every part of Europe. The clergy now went in 

 crowds into the monasteries, and monks took holy 

 orders in the church. Clergymen who thus lived 

 under Rule in a monastery were called the regular 

 clergy; while bishops and parish priests were 

 distinguished as the secular clergy, from their 

 living in the world. 



The Eastern and Western, or, as they are also 

 called, the Greek and Latin Churches, began early 

 to manifest different tendencies. The main doc- 

 trines held by both as orthodox were the same ; 

 but tn the West a belief in purgatory seems to 

 have prevailed as early as the sixth century, 

 whereas the Greek Church never admitted it. 

 The Latin Church began also to enforce the 

 celibacy of the clergy, while the Greek permitted 

 them to marry ; and in the West the use of carved 

 images was encouraged as an aid to devotion, a 

 tice which the Greek Church utterly con- 

 demned. 



There was a still greater difference in their 

 external relations. The Greek Church continued 

 to retain its original connection with and sub- 

 jection to the civil power. But the disruption of 

 Ml civil authority in the Western Empire threw 

 an immense sway into the hands of the Latin 

 clergy. The individual bishops at first exercised 

 this sway without control. But in the end, the 

 whole came to be organised into a system, the 

 centre of which was the Roman pontiff. On the 

 overthrow of the Western Empire, the very 

 position of the bishop of Rome, as the first per- 

 sonage in what had been the capital of the world, 

 would naturally invest him with great influence, 

 and make him be looked up to for counsel and 

 direction. The moral power thus arising was 

 soon converted into a right, and a theory of 

 supremacy was set up, claiming for the bishops 

 of Rome the 'power of the keys,' as the successors 

 of St Peter. It took centuries, however, to turn 

 this theory into a fact ; and it was not till the 

 papacy of Nicholas I. (858-868) that the Prankish 

 clergy submitted to the authority of the Romish 

 see. The universal primacy of the Roman pon- 

 tiffs in the West was from that date established. 

 About the same time, the Latin and Greek 

 churches came to a decided rupture. Photius, 

 patriarch of Constantinople, had annexed the 

 newly converted Bulgarians to his patriarchate. 

 Nicholas claimed them as belonging to the 

 Roman see, and excommunicated Photius (862) ; 

 and Photius retaliated by excommunicating the 

 pope, and declaring the creed of the Western 

 Church to be in some points heretical. 



II. THE FEUDAL PERIOD : 888-1300 A.D. 

 History of the West. 



During the ninth and tenth centuries, there 

 occurred the irruption of two invading races the 

 Magyars or Hungarian 1 :, and the Normans. The 

 Magyars, a people of the same family of nations 

 as the Turks, leaving their native region to the 

 north of the Caspian, moved gradually westward 

 till, about the year 889, under a chief of the name 



of Arpad, they settled on the Danube, and sub- 

 jugating the Slavonians round about, formed the 

 kingdom of Hungary a kingdom the ruling 

 caste of which was the Magyar invaders, and the 

 subject caste the native Slavonians. From that 

 time forward, the Hungarians were a formidable 

 power in Europe. 



The Normans. The Scandinavians had con- 

 tinued in their primitive condition, under a multi- 

 tude of independent and equal chiefs, until Harold 

 Haarfager, subduing the neighbouring petty kings, 

 succeeded in making himself monarch of all Nor- 

 way (870-895). By a similar process, about the 

 same time, Sweden and Denmark were formed 

 into kingdoms. Many of the dispossessed chiefs, 

 rather than submit to the new rule, took to a life 

 of roving adventure. A band of Swedes, led by 

 Ruric, penetrated into the very heart of Russia, 

 and there established the Grand Dukedom of 

 Muscovy, which constituted the beginning of the 

 power of Russia. The Norwegian and Danish 

 adventurers, known as Vikings, betook themselves 

 to their ships, and became the terror of the popu- 

 lations along the coasts of Western Europe. 

 Some of them settled in Iceland ; others con- 

 quered the Shetland and Orkney Islands, the Isle 

 of Man, and parts of the coasts of England, Scot- 

 land, and Ireland ; and even ravaged the coasts 

 of France and the Mediterranean, where they 

 were known as Normans or ' Northmen/ One of 

 these bands, under their chief, Rolf or Rollo, 

 established themselves (898) at Rouen, on the 

 Seine, and compelled (912) the French king to 

 cede to Rollo, as a dukedom, the territory thence- 

 forward called Normandy. Rollo married the 

 daughter of the French king, and embraced the 

 Christian religion ; and his companions, inter- 

 marrying also with the French, became the pro- 

 genitors of the French-Norman race. 



Adverting now to the several states into which 

 Europe became divided on the final dissolution of 

 the empire of Charlemagne, the histories of the 

 more important during the tenth and eleventh 

 centuries may be thus briefly sketched : 



Spain. The Ommiade califs of Spain con- 

 tinued their independent rule in the south of that 

 peninsula from 749 till 1027, when the califate 

 was extinguished in revolution ; and the various 

 Saracen viceroys set up a number of petty king- 

 doms at Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Lisbon, Sara- 

 gossa, &c. In the north, again, the Christian 

 kingdom of Asturias, Oviedo, or Leon, increased in 

 power as the power of the califs waned. Another 

 Christian kingdom, also, that of Navarre, which 

 had been part of the empire of Charlemagne, 

 arose to be the ally and rival of Leon ; to which 

 was added (1035) a third Aragon. 



France. This kingdom was split up into a 

 number of fiefs, the holders of which were almost 

 independent princes. There was still a succession 

 of kings, of the blood of Charlemagne, but the 

 allegiance paid them by the powerful dukes of 

 Normandy, Francia, Burgundy, &c. was only 

 nominal. The accession of a new dynasty in the 

 person of Hugh Capet, Duke of Francia (987), 

 gave greater strength to the crown, the real root 

 of national unity. 



Germany. The 'states' or noble houses in. 

 Germany acquired from the first a more regular 

 and independent authority than in other feudal 

 countries ; accordingly, on the deposition of 



