308 



ON THE MIDDLE OR DARK AGES. 



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 

 ahnost without intermission for eighty or ninety years ; and the depopulation- 

 of Spain, by an equal expulsion of Jews and Moors, when the Christian armg 

 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 con- 

 ducted) that, when a scruple arose among the crusading army as to the pro- 

 priety 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 ail : 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 en- 

 lightened 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 subtle- 

 lies 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 v;ell as a spiritual supremacy through- 

 out 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 sepa- 

 ration of the Greek church from that of Rome, in the middle of the niiith cen- 

 tury, and of the English church towards the beginning of the sixteenth. 



There is another cause, and it is the last 1 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 charac- 

 ter, 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 

 ktinized 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 

 lanauthorized 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 thai 

 submitted to their yoke. Yet, as fresh tides of invaders poured forward, the 



« Harris, ii. 455, 456. t Hist, des Troubadours, i. 193. 



t This lecture was delivered in 1813, during the domineering power of Buonaparte. 



