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ON THE MIDDLE OR DARK AGES. 303 



who, dispossessed of their native regions, bore down upon the Vandals, 

 Sueves, and Alans ; and these, flying- before them, entered into Gaul, and from 

 Gaul advanced into Spain ; and on being driven from Spain passed over and 

 invaded Africa; thus making way for a farther advance of the Goths and 

 Huns into the centre of the western empire, which they prosecuted sometimes 

 in conjunction and sometimes alone. Hence, even Italy was in several in- 

 stances overrun, and Rome itself taken and sacked by the Goths under 

 Alaric, towards the beginning of the fifth century ; while the Goths them- 

 selves were in their turn, about forty years afterward, obliged to fly before 

 the victorious arms of Attila, the Hunnish leader, or to enlist under his ban- 

 ners ; a barbarous chieftain, who, descending from the wild and barren moun- 

 tains of Scythia, spread terror and devastation over almost the whole of 

 Europe ; and, possessing a political authority of as extensive a range towards 

 the east, proved a formidable enemy to every sovereign from China to Gaul. 

 The camp of this adventurous and successful soldier, when he was stationary, 

 was pitched on the northern side of the Danube, between the Teiss and the 

 Carpathian mountains ; his court was unrivalled in splendour and magnifi- 

 cence, and his empire extended through a range of not less than seven thou- 

 sand miles in length. On the death of Attila, this enormous but ephemeral 

 empire, which had only " grown with his growth and strengthened with his 

 strength," insensibly crumbled away. " The Huns were melted down into 

 the nations which they conquered; and, if the modern Hungarians be 

 excepted, whose descent from them is rather a plausible conjecture than an 

 historical fact supported by conclusive evidence, few vestiges of them are 

 now discoverable either in Europe or Asia."* 



The history of the Roman empire from this period may be comprised in a 

 few words. Towards the close of the 5th century, during the reign of Au- 

 gustulus, who had regained possession of the central provinces, it was over- 

 thrown by the Herulians under Odoacer, who were themselves shortly after- 

 ward expelled from Italy by Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths. About the 

 year 568, the Lombards, issuing from the mark of Brandenburg, invaded the 

 Higher Italy, as it was named, and founded a powerful state, called the empire 

 of the Lombards ; the Middle and Lower Italy being added to the empire of 

 the east by the brilliant conquests of Justinian's celebrated but ill-requited 

 generals Belisarius and Narses. These, however, were afterward wrenched 

 from it, and incorporated into the new empire of the Lombards; from whom 

 the whole passed, together with almost the entire amplitude of polished 

 Europe, into the hands of Charlemagne, the second sovereign of the second 

 dynasty of the Franks ; a people that, having subdued all Gaul, had esta- 

 blished themselves in that country for about three centuries already; and 

 had, through the greater part of that period, professed the Christian religion. 

 Charlemagne entered Rome in triumph, and was crowned emperor of the 

 Romans, with great pomp and festivity, towards the close of the eighth 

 century. 



While such was the series of misfortunes that attended, and at length 

 totally subverted, the western empire, that of the east had to strive with ditii- 

 culties of another kind, and which produced a still greater change in the 

 political aspect of the world. 



The nations by whom the successive conquests of Europe had been 

 effected proceeded, as we have already beheld, from different, though conti- 

 guous tracts of country, spoke different languages, and were under the com- 

 mand of different leaders. Yet, having originated from a like cradle, from 

 the solitude of mountain-fastnesses, and the savage wild of precipitous 

 scenery, nursed in the midst of snows and howling tempests, they appear to 

 have established, in almost every state which they subdued, nearly the same 

 legislative system : a system known by the name of the Feudal Law, and the 

 introduction of which into Europe constitutes one of the most prominent fea- 

 tures of European history. 



* Butler, rior. Bibl. part. ii. p. 85. 



