HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



he papal chair. In this he triumphed in 1305, 

 id Bertrand, archbishop of Bordeaux, became 

 pe as Clement V. Clement fixed on the French 

 wn of Avignon as the seat of his court ; and for 

 period of seventy years (1305-1376), known in 

 istory as the Babylonish Captivity, the popes, 

 'ho were all Frenchmen, resided at Avignon, and 

 empted to govern Rome by legates. 

 It was during this period that the old republican 

 4 irit of the Romans blazed up for a moment 

 nder the famous Cola di Rienzi, who governed 

 ome for a year (1347) as tribune, and was after- 

 ards appointed senator by the pope, but was 

 nally murdered by the fickle populace (1354). 

 Gregory XI. (1376) at last restored the papal 

 to Rome. On his death (1378), two rival popes 

 re elected a Neapolitan, named Urban VI. 

 the Italian party ; and a Frenchman, named 

 ement VII. by the French party, who desired 

 at the papacy should be transferred back to 

 .vignon. Both popes proceeded to exercise the 

 pal functions Urban at Rome, and Clement at 

 .vignon ; and thus began what historians call the 

 Ireat Schism of the Latin Church. This schism 

 asted forty years, or from 1378 to 1417, during 

 hich period the Catholic world found its alle- ! 

 iance divided between two distinct lines of popes 

 the one residing at Rome, the other at Avignon. 

 e nations of Europe chose which pope they 

 ould obey, and called the other an anti-pope, 

 e Romans, of course, took the side of the 

 oman line of pontiffs. This scandal was ter- 

 inated in 1417 by the Council of Constance, 

 hich cleared away the rival popes and appointed 

 new one. But it was not till the pontificate of 

 icholas V. (1447-1455) that Rome experienced 

 cessation of civil disorder. This illustrious pope 

 shed the factions, and established his govern- 

 ent on a firm basis. He was the first pope who 

 lystematically appointed ecclesiastics to civil 

 offices a policy which has been pursued by all 

 bsequent popes. 



In regard to Hungary, it is only necessary to 

 >te that in the fifteenth century it became the 

 ttle-field of Europe against the Turks, and that j 

 monarchs, John Hunyady and his son, Mat- i 

 las, filled Christendom with the fame of their | 

 our and their victories. 



Rttssia. The grand-dukedom of Russia con- 

 ued under princes of the line of Rttric, till it 

 s overrun (1237) by a host of half a million men 

 der Jujy, a son of Genghis Khan, and thence 

 instituted the westernmost province of the 

 Mongolian Empire. On the breaking-up of this 

 empire, at the death of Kublai Khan (1294), 

 Russia fell to the share of the khans of a horde 

 of Tatars, called the Golden Horde ; who, from 

 their place of encampment between the Caspian 

 and Volga, continued to tyrannise over the 

 country for nearly two centuries, plundering, 

 burning, and destroying at pleasure. At last, a 

 native prince, Ivan III. of Moscow, taking ad- 

 vantage of the dissensions and weakness of the 

 Golden Horde, destroyed the last vestiges of their 

 power (1480), and with his reign (1462-1505) the 

 modern history of Russia begins. Under Ivan 

 and his son Basil (1505-1 533}, Moscow became 

 the capital of an empire covering an area nearly 

 corresponding to that of modern Russia in 

 Europe. 



The Scandinavian Kingdoms. In 1389 a tem- 



porary union took place of the three crowns of 

 Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, under Margaret, 

 called the ' Semiramis of the North ; ' but al- 

 though an attempt was made at a convention held 

 at Calmar (1397) to perpetuate the union, the 

 settlement was soon broken through, and Den- 

 mark and Sweden chose separate kings. 



Progress of Civil Society. During this period, 

 the feudal system continued more and more to 

 crumble down, and its elements to melt into one 

 another. The power formerly exercised by the 

 great feudal lords over their inferior vassals was 

 gradually concentrated in the person of royalty, and 

 distributed by means of courts of law. Another 

 important movement was the enfranchisement of 

 the serfs. The manumission of serfs had always 

 been encouraged by the clergy ; and a king, as 

 soon as he rose to the idea of being the head of 

 a nation, and not merely of a system of fiefs, 

 naturally favoured the same movement, and 

 facilitated it by legal enactments. In this way, 

 and without any direct attempts at general en- 

 franchisement, absolute slavery had nearly died 

 out in some parts of Europe particularly in Italy 

 before the middle of the fourteenth century. In 

 other countries, it required more direct acts of 

 enfranchisement. An edict of Louis X. of France 

 (1315) orders that 'freedom be given on good 

 and fitting conditions,' meaning reasonable com- 

 position. Gradually, therefore, serfdom ceased to 

 exist in France and in the Germanic countries ; 

 although in some parts of Northern Europe, and 

 even in Britain, there were traces of personal 

 serfdom as late as the seventeenth century. In 

 the Slavonian countries, the example was not 

 followed. 



It was during this period that the first germs of 

 constitutional government shewed themselves. In 

 England, parliaments ; in Germany, the diets; in 

 France, the states-general ; and in Spain, the cartes 

 all date their regular organisation from the four- 

 teenth and fifteenth centuries. In their origin, 

 too, all these assemblies were identical ; they were 

 at first nothing more than the great councils of 

 the kings, in which they took advice with their 

 chief nobles on matters of importance. They 

 have since taken very different developments 

 according to the genius of the several nations. 



History of the East : the Progress of Maritime Discovery. 



After the subversion of the power of the Seljuk 

 sultans in Roum or Asia Minor by the Mongol 

 invasions (1258), one of the petty Turkish emirs 

 who shared the territories with the conquerors, 

 soon began to build up a new Turkish Empire out 

 of the ruins. His name was Osman or Ottoman 

 (1289-1326), and the new power that he formed 

 was called that of the Osmanlis or Ottoman 

 Turks. Having established their dominion over 

 Asia Minor, the Ottoman sultans crossed into 

 Europe (1358), and inundated Thrace and Greece. 

 Sultan Amurath I. reduced the Byzantine empire 

 to a corner of Thrace, 1500 miles square. His 

 son, Bajazet I. surnamed Ilderim, or ' Lightning,' 

 reduced the Greek emperor to the condition of 

 a tributary. The irruption of the Tatar hordes 

 under Timur checked for a few years the progress 

 of the Ottoman arms, but in the beginning of 

 the fifteenth century, the successors of Bajazet 

 commenced anew their aggressions on the Greek 



IC7 



