THE

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE

VOL. I.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

The work which we have now before us is to trace out the extent of territory which the different states and nations of Europe and the neighbouring lands have held at different times in the world’s history, to mark the different boundaries which the same country has had, and the different meanings in which the same name has been used. It is of great importance carefully to make these distinctions, because great mistakes as to the facts of history are often caused through men thinking and speaking as if the names of different countries, say for instance England, France, Burgundy, Austria, have always meant exactly the same extent of territory. Historical geography, in this sense, differs from physical geography which regards the natural features of the earth’s surface. It differs also from studies like ethnology and comparative philology, which have to do directly with the differences between one nation and another, with their movements from one part of the world to another, and with the relations to be found among the languages spoken by them. But, though it is distinct from these{2} studies, it makes much use of them. For the physical geography of a country always has a great effect upon its political history, and the dispersions and movements of different nations are exactly those parts of history which have most to do with fixing the names and the boundaries of different countries at different times. England, for instance, is, in strictness, the land of the English wherever they may settle, whether in their old home on the European continent, or in the isle of Britain, or in New England beyond the Ocean. But the extent of territory which was in this way to become England was largely determined by the physical circumstances of the countries in which the English settled. And the history of the English nation has been influenced, above all things, by the fact that the great English settlement which has made the English name famous was made in an island. But, when England had become the name of a distinct political dominion, its meaning was liable to change as that dominion advanced or went back. Thus the borders of England and Scotland have greatly changed at different times, and forgetfulness of this has led to many misunderstandings in reading the history of the two countries. And so with all other cases of the kind; the physical nature of the country, and the settlements of the different nations which have occupied it, have always been the determining causes of its political divisions. But it is with the political divisions that historical geography has to deal in the first place. With the nature of the land, and with the people who occupy it, it has to deal only so far as they have influenced the political divisions. Our present business in short is, first to draw the map of the countries{3} with which we are concerned as it appeared after each of the different changes which they have gone through, and then to point out the historical causes which have led to the changes on the map. In this way we shall always see what was the meaning of any geographical name at any particular time, and we shall thus avoid mistakes, some of which have often led to really important practical consequences.

From this it follows that, in looking at the geography of Europe for our present purpose, we must look first at the land itself, and then at the nations which occupy it. And, in so doing, it may be well first of all to distinguish between two kinds of names which we shall have to use. Some names of countries are strictly geographical; they really mean a certain part of the earth’s surface marked out by boundaries which cannot well be changed. Others simply mean the extent of country which is occupied at any time by a particular nation, and whose boundaries may easily be changed. Thus Britain is a strictly geographical name, meaning an island whose shape and boundaries must always be nearly the same. England, Scotland, Wales, are names of parts of that island, called after different nations which have settled in it, and the boundaries of all of which have differed greatly at different times. Spain again is the geographical name of a peninsula which is almost as well marked out by nature as the island of Britain. Castile, Aragon, Portugal, are political names of parts of the peninsula of Spain. They are the names of states whose boundaries have greatly varied, and which have sometimes formed separate governments and sometimes have been joined together.[1] Gaul{4} again is the geographical name of a country which is not so clearly marked out all round by nature as the island of Britain and the peninsula of Spain, but which is well marked on three sides, to the north, south, and west. Within the limits of Gaul, names like France, Flanders, Britanny, Burgundy, and Aquitaine, are political names of parts of the country, whose limits have varied as much at different times as those of the different parts of Britain and Spain. This is the difference between strictly geographical names which do not alter and political names which do alter. No doubt Gaul and Britain were in the beginning political names, names given to the land from those who occupied it, just as much as the names France and England. But the settlements from which those lands took the names of Gaul and Britain took place long before the beginning of trustworthy history, while the settlements from which parts of those lands took the names of France and England happened in times long after trustworthy history began, and for which we are therefore ready with dates and names. Thus Gaul and Britain are the oldest received names of those lands; they are the names which those lands bore when we first hear of them. It is therefore convenient to keep them in use as strictly geographical names, as always meaning that part of the earth’s surface which they meant when we first hear of them. In this book therefore, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and other names of the same kind,{5} will always be used to mean a certain space on the map, whoever may be its inhabitants, or whatever may be its government, at any particular time. But names like France, England, Castile, will be used to mean the territory to which they were politically applied at the time of which we may be speaking, a territory which has been greater and less at different times. Thus, the cities of Carlisle and Edinburgh have always been in Britain since they were built. They have sometimes been in England and sometimes not. The cities of Marseilles, Geneva, Strassburg, and Arras have always been in Gaul ever since they were built. They have sometimes been in France and sometimes not, according to political changes.

§ 1. Geographical Aspect of Europe.

Our present business is with the Historical Geography of Europe, and with that of other parts of the world only so far as they concern the geography of Europe. But we shall have to speak of all the three divisions of the Old World, Europe, Asia, and Africa, in those parts of the three which come nearest to one another, and in which the real history of the world begins. ♦The Mediterranean Lands.♦ These are those parts of all three which lie round the Mediterranean sea, the lands which gradually came to form the Empire of Rome. In these lands the boundaries between the three great divisions are very easily marked. Modern maps do not all place the boundary between Europe and Asia at the same point; some make the river Don the boundary and some the Volga. But this question is of little importance for history. In the earliest historical times, when we have to do only with the countries round the Mediterranean sea, there can{6} be no doubt how much is Europe and how much is Asia and Africa. Europe is the land to the north of the Mediterranean sea and of the great gulfs which run out of it. If an exact boundary is needed in the barbarous lands north of the Euxine, the Tanais or Don is clearly the boundary which should be taken. In all these lands the Mediterranean and its gulfs divide Europe from Asia. But the northern parts of the two continents really form one geographical whole, the boundary between them being one merely of convenience. A vast central mass of land, stretching right across the inland parts of the two continents, sends forth a system of peninsulas and islands, to the north and south. And it is in the peninsular lands of Europe that European history begins.

Alike in Europe and in Asia, the southern or peninsular part of the continent is cut off from the central mass by a mountain chain, which in Europe is nearly unbroken. ♦The peninsulas of Europe and Asia.♦ Thus the southern part of Europe consists of the three great peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and what we may, in a wide sense, call Greece. These answer in some sort to the three great Oceanic peninsulas of Asia, those of Arabia, India, and India beyond the Ganges. But the part of Asia which has historically had most to do with Europe is its Mediterranean peninsula, the land known as Asia Minor. In the northern part of each continent we find another system of great gulfs or inland seas; but those in Asia have been hindered by the cold from ever being of any importance, while in Europe the Baltic sea and the gulfs which run out of it may be looked on as forming a kind of secondary Mediterranean. We may thus say that Europe consists of two insular and peninsular regions, north and south, with a great unbroken{7} mass of land between them. But there are some parts of Europe which seem as it were connecting links between the three main divisions of the continent. Thus we said that the three great peninsulas are cut off from the central mass by a nearly unbroken mountain chain. But the connexion of the central peninsula, that of Italy, with the eastern one or Greece, is far closer than its connexion with the western one, or Spain. Italy and Spain are much further apart than Italy and Greece, and between the Alps and the Pyrenees the mountain chain is nearly lost. We might almost say that a piece of central Europe breaks through at this point and comes down to the Mediterranean. This is the south-eastern part of Gaul; and Gaul may in this way be looked on as a land which joins together the central and the southern parts of Europe. But this is not all; in the north-western corner of Europe lies that great group of islands, two large ones and many small, of which our own Britain is the greatest. The British islands are closely connected in their geography and history with Gaul on one side, and with the islands and peninsulas of the North on the other. In this way we may say that all the three divisions of Europe are brought closely together on the western side of the continent, and that the lands of Gaul and Britain are the connecting links which bind them together.

§ 2. Effect of Geography on History.

Now this geographical aspect of the chief lands of Europe has had its direct effect on their history. We might almost take for granted that the history of Europe should begin in the two more eastern among the three great southern peninsulas. Of these two, Italy and{8} Greece, each has its own character. Greece, though it is the part of Europe which lies nearest to Asia, is in a certain sense the most European of European lands. The characteristic of Europe is to be more full of peninsulas and islands and inland seas than the rest of the Old World. ♦Characteristics of Greece;♦ And Greece, the peninsula itself and the neighbouring lands, are fuller of islands and promontories and inland seas than any other part of Europe. On the other hand, Italy is the central land of all southern Europe, and indeed of all the land round the Mediterranean. It was therefore only natural that Greece should be the part of Europe in which all that is most distinctively European first grew up and influenced other lands. ♦of Italy.♦ And so, if any one land or city among the Mediterranean lands was to rule over all the rest, it is in Italy, as the central land, that we should naturally look for the place of dominion. The destinies of the two peninsulas and their relations to the rest of the world were thus impressed on them by their geographical position.

If we turn to recorded history, we find that it is only a working out of the consequences of these physical facts. Greece was the first part of Europe to become civilized and to play a part in history; but it was Italy, and in Italy it was its most central city, Rome, which came to have the dominion over the civilized world of early times—that is, over the lands around the Mediterranean. These two peninsulas have, each in its own way, ruled and influenced the rest of Europe as no other parts have done. All the other parts have been, in one way or another, their subjects or disciples. ♦Advance of the Roman dominion.♦ The effect of the geographical position of these countries is also marked in the stages by which Rome advanced to the general dominion of the Mediterranean lands.{9} She first subdued Italy; then she had to strive for the mastery with her great rival Carthage, a city which held nearly the same central position on the southern coast of the Mediterranean which she herself did on the northern. Then she subdued, step by step, the peninsulas on each side of her and the other coast lands of the Mediterranean—European, Asiatic, and African. Into the central division of Europe she did not press far, never having any firm or lasting dominion beyond the Rhine and the Danube. Into Northern Europe, properly so called, her power never reached at all. But she subdued the lands which we have seen act as a kind of connecting link between the different parts of Europe, namely Gaul and the greater part of Britain. Thus the Roman Empire, at its greatest extent, consisted of the lands round the Mediterranean, together with Gaul and Britain. For the possession of the Mediterranean land would have been imperfect without the possession of Gaul, and the possession of Gaul naturally led to the possession of Britain.

In this way the early history of Greece and Italy, and the formation of the Roman Empire, were affected by the geographical character of the countries themselves. The same was the case with the other European lands when they came to share in that importance which once belonged to Greece and Italy only. ♦Germany,♦ Thus Germany, as being the most central part of Europe, came at one time to fill something like the same position which Italy had once held. It came to be the country which had to do with all parts of Europe, east, west, north, and south, and even to be a ruler over some of them. ♦France,♦ So, as France became the chief state of Gaul, it took upon it something like the old position of Gaul as{10} a means of communication between the different parts of Western Europe. ♦Spain and Scandinavia.♦ Meanwhile, as the Scandinavian and Spanish peninsulas are both cut off in such a marked way from the mainland of Europe, each of them has often formed a kind of world of its own, having much less to do with other countries than Germany, France, and Italy had. The same was for a long time the case with our own island. Britain was looked on as lying outside the world.

Thus the geographical position of the European lands influenced their history while their history was still purely European. And when Europe began to send forth colonies to other continents, the working of geographical causes came out no less strongly. Thus the position of Spain on the Ocean led Castile and Portugal to be foremost among the colonizing nations of Europe. For the same reason, our own country was one of the chief in following their example, and so was France also for a long time. ♦The colonizing powers.♦ Holland too, when it rose into importance, became a great colonizing power, and so did Denmark and Sweden to some extent. But an Italian colony beyond the Ocean was never heard of, nor has there ever been a German colony in the same sense in which there have been Spanish and English colonies. Meanwhile, the north-eastern part of Europe, which in early times was not known at all, has always lagged behind the rest, and has become of importance only in later times. This is mainly because its geographical position has almost wholly cut it off both from the Mediterranean and from the Ocean.

Thus we see how, in all these ways, both in earlier and in later times, the history of every country has been influenced by its geography. ♦Influence of national character.♦ No doubt{11} the history of each country has also been largely influenced by the disposition of the people who have settled in it, by what is called the national character. But then the geographical position itself has often had something to do with forming the national character, and in all cases it has had an influence upon it, by giving it a better or a worse field for working and showing itself. Thus it has been well said that neither the Greeks in any other country nor any other people in Greece could have been what the Greeks in Greece really were. The nature of the country and the nature of the people helped one another, and caused Greece to become all that it was in the early times of Europe. It is always useful to mark the points both of likeness and unlikeness of the different nations whose history we study. And of this likeness and unlikeness we shall always find that the geographical character, though only one cause out of several, is always one of the chief causes.

§ 3. Geographical Distribution of Races.

Our present business then is with geography as influenced by history, and with history as influenced by geography. With ethnology, with the relations of nations and races to one another, we have to deal only so far as they form one of the agents in history. And it will be well to avoid, as far as may be, all obscure or controverted points of this kind. But the great results of comparative philology may now be taken for granted, and a general view of the geographical disposition of the great European races is needful as an introduction to the changes which historical causes have wrought in the geography of the several parts of Europe.

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In European ethnology one main feature is that the population of Europe is, and from the very beginnings of history has been, more nearly homogeneous, at least more palpably homogeneous, than that of any other great division of the world. ♦Europe an Aryan continent.♦ Whether we look at Europe now, or whether we look at it at the earliest times of which we have any glimmerings, it is pre-eminently an Aryan continent. Everything non-Aryan is at once marked as exceptional. We cannot say this of Asia, where, among several great ethnical elements, none is so clearly predominant as the Aryan element is in Europe. ♦Non-Aryan remnants.♦ There are in Europe non-Aryan elements, both earlier and later than the Aryan settlement; but they have, as a rule, been assimilated to the prevailing Aryan mass. The earlier non-Aryan element consists of the remnants which still remain of the races which the Aryan settlers found in Europe, and which they either exterminated or assimilated to themselves. The later elements consist of non-Aryan races which have made their way into Europe within historical times, in whose case the work of assimilation has been much less complete. It follows almost naturally from the position of Europe that the primæval non-Aryan element has survived in the west and in the north, while the later or intrusive non-Aryan element has made its way into the east and the south. In the mountains of the western peninsula, in the border lands of Spain and Gaul, the non-Aryan tongue of the Basque still survives. In the extreme north of Europe the non-Aryan tongue of the Fins and Laps still survives. The possible relations of these tongues either to one another or to other non-Aryan tongues beyond the bounds of Europe is a question of{13} purely philological concern, and does not touch historical geography. But historical geography is touched by the probability, rising almost to moral certainty, that the isolated populations by whom these primitive tongues are still spoken are mere remnants of the primitive races which formed the population of Europe at the time when the Aryans first made their way into that continent. Everything tends to show that the Basques are but the remnant of a great people whom we may set down with certainty as the præ-Aryan inhabitants of Spain and a large part of Gaul, and whose range we may, with great probability, extend over Sicily, over part at least of Italy, and perhaps as far north as our own island. Their possible connexion with the early inhabitants of northern Africa hardly concerns us. The probability that they were themselves preceded by an earlier and far lower race concerns us not at all. The earliest historical inhabitants of south-western Europe are those of whom the Basques are the surviving remnant, those who, under the names of Iberians and Ligurians, fill a not unimportant place in European history.

When we come to the Aryan settlements, we cannot positively determine which among the Aryan races of Europe were the earliest settlers in point of time. ♦Greeks and Italians.♦ The great race which, in its many sub-divisions, contains the Greeks, the Italians, and the nations more immediately akin to them, are the first among the European Aryans to show themselves in the light of history; but it does not necessarily follow that they were actually the first in point of settlement. ♦Celts.♦ It may be that, while they were pressing through the Mediterranean peninsulas and islands, the Celts{14} were pressing their way through the solid central land of Europe. The Celts were clearly the vanguard of the Aryan migration within their own range, the first swarm which made its way to the shores of the Ocean. Partially in Spain, more completely in Gaul and the British Islands, they displaced or assimilated the earlier inhabitants, who, under their pressure and that of later conquerors, have been gradually shut up in the small mountainous region which they still keep. Of the Celtic migration we have no historical accounts, but all probability would lead us to think that the Celts whom in historic times we find on the Danube and south of the Alps were not emigrants who had followed a backward course from the great settlement in Transalpine Gaul, but rather detachments which had been left behind on the westward journey. Without attempting to settle questions as to the traces of Celtic occupancy to be found in other lands, it is enough for our purpose that, at the beginnings of their history, we find the Celts the chief inhabitants of a region stretching from the Rubico to the furthest known points of Britain. Gaul, Cisalpine and Transalpine, is their great central land, though even here they are not exclusive possessors; they share the land with a non-Aryan remnant to the south-west, and with the next wave of Aryan new-comers to the north-east.

The settlements of these two great Aryan races come before authentic history. After them came the Teutonic races, who pressed on the Celts from the east; and in their wake, to judge from their place on the map, must have come the vast family of the Slavonic nations. ♦Teutons and Slaves.♦ But the migrations of the Teutons and{15} Slaves come, for the most part, within the range of recorded history. Our first glimpse of the Teutons shows them in their central German land, already occupying both sides of the Rhine, though seemingly not very old settlers on its left bank. The long wanderings of the various Teutonic and Slavonic tribes over all parts of central Europe, their settlements in the southern and western lands, are all matters of history. So is the great Teutonic settlement in the British islands, which partly exterminated, partly assimilated, their Celtic inhabitants, so as to leave them as mere a remnant, though a greater remnant, as they themselves had made the Basques. And, as the process which made the north-western islands of Europe Teutonic is a matter of history, so also are the later stages of the process which made the northern peninsulas Teutonic. But it is only the later stages which are historical; we know that in the strictly Scandinavian peninsula the Teutonic invaders displaced non-Aryan Fins; we have only to guess that in the Cimbric Chersonêsos they displaced Aryan Celts. ♦Lithuanians.♦ But beyond the Teutons and Slaves lies yet another Aryan settlement, one which, in a purely philological view, is the most interesting of all, the small and fast vanishing group which still survives in Lithuania and the neighbouring lands. Of these there is historically really nothing to be said. On the eastern shores of the Baltic we find people whose tongue comes nearer than any other European tongue to the common Aryan model; but we can only guess alike at the date when they came thither and at the road by which they came.

These races then, Aryan and non-Aryan, make up the immemorial population of Europe. The remnants{16} of the older non-Aryan races, and the successive waves of Aryan settlement, are all immemorial facts which we must accept as the groundwork of our history and our geography. ♦Movements among the Aryan races.♦ They must be distinguished from other movements which are strictly matters of written history, both movements among the Aryan nations themselves and later intrusions of non-Aryan nations. Thus the Greek colonies and the conquests of the Hellenized Macedonians Hellenized large districts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, partly by displacement, partly by assimilation. The conquests of Rome, and the Teutonic settlements within the Roman Empire, brought about but little in the way of displacement, but a great deal in the way of assimilation. The process indeed was opposite in the two cases. The Roman conqueror assimilated the conquered to himself; the Teutonic conqueror was himself assimilated by those whom he conquered. Britain and the Rhenish and Danubian lands stand out as marked exceptions. The Slavonic settlements in the East wrought far more of displacement than the Teutonic settlements in the West. Vast regions, once Illyrian or Thracian—that is, most likely, more or less nearly akin to the Greeks—are now wholly Slavonic. ♦Later intrusion of Non-Aryan races.♦ Lastly come the incursions on European lands made by non-Aryan settlers in historic times. Their results have been widely different in different cases. ♦Semitic.♦ The Semitic Saracens settled in Spain and Sicily, bringing with them and after them their African converts, men possibly of originally kindred race with the first inhabitants both of the peninsula and of the island. These non-Aryan settlers have vanished. The displacement of large bodies of them is a fact of comparatively recent history, but it can hardly fail that{17} some degree of assimilation must also have taken place. Then come the settlements, chiefly in eastern Europe, of those whom for our purpose it is enough to group together as the Turanian nations. The Huns of Attila have left only a name. The more lasting settlement of the Avars has vanished, how far by displacement, how far by assimilation, it might be hard to say. Chozars, Patzinaks, a crowd of other barbarian races, have left no sign of their presence. ♦Turanian.♦ The Bulgarians, originally Turanian conquerors, have been assimilated by their Slavonic subjects. The Finnish Magyars have received a political and religious assimilation; their kingdom became a member of the commonwealth of Christian Europe, though they still keep their old Turanian language. The latest intruders of all, the Ottoman Turks, still remain as they were when they first came, aliens on Aryan and Christian ground. But here again is a case of assimilation the other way; the Ottoman Turks are an artificial nation which has been kept up by the constant incorporation of European renegades who have thrown aside the speech, the creed, and the civilization of Europe.

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CHAPTER II.

GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES.

§ 1. The Eastern or Greek Peninsula.

The Historical Geography of Europe, if looked at in chronological order, must begin with the most eastern of the three peninsulas of Southern Europe. Here the history of Europe, and the truest history of the world, began. It was in the insular and peninsular lands between the Ionian and Ægæan seas that the first steps towards European civilization were taken; it is there that we see the first beginnings of art, science, and political life. But Greece or Hellas, in the strict sense of the name, forms only a part of the lands which must be looked on as the great Eastern peninsula. It is however its leading and characteristic portion. As the whole peninsular land gradually tapers southwards from the great mass of central Europe, it becomes at each stage more and more peninsular, and it also becomes at each stage more and more Greek. Greece indeed and the neighbouring lands form, as was long ago remarked by Strabo,[2] a series of peninsulas within peninsulas. It is not easy to find{19} a name for the whole region, as it stretches far beyond any limits which can be given to Greece in any age of the world or according to any use of the name. But the whole land seems to have been occupied by nations more or less akin to the Greeks. The history of those nations chiefly consists of their relations to the Greeks, and all of them were brought more or less within the range of Greek influences. We may therefore not improperly call the whole land, as opposed to Italy and Spain, the Greek peninsula. It has also been called the Byzantine peninsula, as nearly answering to the European part of the Eastern division of the Roman Empire, when its seat of government was at Byzantion, Constantinople, or New Rome.

Taking the great range of mountains which divides southern from central Europe as the northern boundary of the eastern or Greek peninsula, it may be said to take in the lands which are cut off from the central mass by the Dalmatian Alps and the range of Haimos or Balkan. It is washed to the east, west, or south, by various parts of the Mediterranean and its great gulf the Euxine. But the northern part of this region, all that lies north of the Ægæan Sea, taking in therefore the whole of the Euxine coast, still keeps much of the character of the great central mass of Europe, and forms a land intermediate between that and the more strictly peninsular lands to the south. Still the boundary is a real one, for all the lands south of this range have come more or less within Greek influences, and have played their part in Grecian history. But when we get beyond the mountains, into the valley of the Danube, we find ourselves in lands which, excepting a few colonies on the coast, have{20} hardly at all come under Greek influences till quite modern times. This region between Haimos and the more strictly Greek lands takes in Thrace, Paionia, and Illyria. Of these, Thrace and Illyria, having a sea coast, received many Greek colonies, especially on the northern coast of the Ægæan and on the Propontis or Sea of Marmora. The Thracian part of this region, as bordering on these more distinctly Grecian seas, became more truly a part of the Grecian world than the other lands to the west of it. ♦Thrace and Illyria.♦ Yet geographically Thrace is more widely cut off from Greece than Illyria is. For there is no such great break on the western shore of the great peninsula as that which, on the eastern side, marks the point where we must draw the line between Greece and its immediate neighbours and the lands to the north of them. This is at the point where a peninsula within a peninsula breaks off to the south, comprising Greece, Macedonia, and Epeiros. There is here no very special break on the Illyrian coast, but the Ægæan coast of Thrace is fenced in as it were at its two ends, to the east by the long narrow peninsula known specially as the Chersonêsos, and to the west by the group of peninsulas called Chalkidikê. These have nothing answering to them on the Illyrian side beyond the mere bend in the coast above Epidamnos. This last point however marks the extent of the earlier Greek colonization in those regions, and which has become a still more important boundary in later times.

Beyond Chalkidikê to the west, the specially Greek peninsula projects to the south, being itself again composed of peninsulas within peninsulas. ♦Greece proper and its peninsulas.♦ The Ambrakian Gulf on the west and the Pagasaian on the east again fence off a peninsula to the south, by{21} which the more purely Greek lands are fenced off from Macedonia, Epeiros, and Thessaly. Within this peninsula again another may be marked off by a line drawn from Thermopylai to the Corinthian gulf near Delphoi. This again shuts out to the east Akarnania, Aitolia, and some other of the more backward divisions of the Greek name. ♦Peloponnêsos.♦ Thus Phôkis, Boiôtia, and Attica form a great promontory, from which Attica projects as a further promontory to the south-east, while the great peninsula of Peloponnêsos—itself made up on its eastern and southern sides of smaller peninsulas—is joined on by the narrow isthmus of Corinth. In this way, from Haimos to Tainaros, the land is ever becoming more and more broken up by greater or smaller inlets of the sea. And in proportion as the land becomes more strictly peninsular, it also becomes more strictly Greek, till in Peloponnêsos we reach the natural citadel of the Greek nation.

§ 2. Insular and Asiatic Greece.

Greece Proper then, what the ancient geographers called Continuous Hellas as distinguished from the Greek colonies planted on barbarian shores, is, so far as it is part of the mainland, made up of a system of peninsulas stretching south from the general mass of eastern Europe. But the neighbouring islands equally form a part of continuous Greece; and the other coasts of the Ægæan, Asiatic as well as Thracian, were so thickly strewed with Greek colonies as to form, if not part of continuous Greece, yet part of the immediate Greek world. The western coast, as it is less peninsular, is also less insular, and the islands on the western side of Greece did not reach the same importance as those on the eastern side.{22} Still they too, the Ionian islands of modern geography, form in every sense a part of Greece. ♦The Islands.♦ To the north of Korkyra or Corfu there are only detached Greek colonies, whether on the mainland or in the islands; but all the islands of the Ægæan are, during historical times, as much part of Greece as the mainland; and one island on each side, Leukas on the west and the greater island of Euboia on the east, might almost be counted as parts of the mainland, as peninsulas rather than islands. To the south the long narrow island of Crete forms a sort of barrier between Greek and barbarian seas. It is the most southern of the purely Greek lands. Sicily to the east and Cyprus to the west received many Greek colonies, but they never became purely Greek in the same way as Crete and the islands to the north of it.

But, besides the European peninsulas and the islands, part of Asia must be looked on as forming part of the immediate Greek world, though not strictly of continuous Greece. The peninsula known as Asia Minor cannot be separated from Europe either in its geography or in its history. With its central mass we have little or nothing to do; but its coasts form a part of the Greek world, and its Ægæan coast was only less thoroughly Greek than Greece itself and the Greek islands. It would seem that the whole western coast of Asia Minor was inhabited by nations which, like the European neighbours of Greece, were more or less nearly akin to the Greeks. And the Ægæan coast of Asia is almost as full of inlets of the sea, of peninsulas and promontories and islands near to the shore, as European Greece itself. All these shores therefore received Greek colonies. The islands and the most tempting spots on the mainland were occupied{23} by Greek settlers, and became the sites of Greek cities. But Greek influence never spread very far inland, and even the coast itself did not become so purely Greek as the islands. When we pass from the Ægæan coast of Asia to the other two sides of the peninsula, to its northern coast washed by the Euxine and its southern coast washed by the Mediterranean, we have passed out of the immediate Greek world. Greek colonies are found on favourable spots here and there; but the land, even the coast as a whole, is barbarian.

§ 3. Ethnology of the Eastern Peninsula.

The immediate Greek world then as opposed to the outlying Greek colonies, consists of the shores of the Ægæan sea and of the peninsulas lying between it and the Ionian sea. Of this region a great part was exclusively inhabited by the Greek nation, while Greek influences were more or less dominant throughout the whole. But it would further seem that the whole, or nearly the whole, of these lands were inhabited by races more or less akin to the Greeks. They seem to have been races which had a good deal in common with the Greeks, and of whom the Greeks were simply the foremost and most fortunate, their higher developement being doubtless greatly favoured by the geographical nature of the country which they occupied. But a distinction must be drawn between the nearer and the more remote neighbours of Greece. It is hardly necessary for our present purpose to determine whether the Greeks had or had not any connexion with Thracians, European or Asiatic, with Phrygians and Lydians, and other neighbouring nations.{24} ♦Nations more remote, but probably kindred.♦ All these were in Greek eyes simply Barbarians, but modern scholarship has seen in them signs of a kindred with the Greek nation nearer than the share of both in the common Aryan stock. We need not settle here whether all the inhabitants of the geographical district which we have marked out were, or were not, kinsmen in this sense; but with some among them the question assumes a deeper interest and a nearer approach to certainty. ♦Illyrians.♦ The great Illyrian race, of whom the Albanians or Skipetars are the modern representatives, a race which has been so largely displaced by Slaves at one end and assimilated by Greeks at the other, can hardly fail to have had a nearer kindred with the Greeks than that which they both share with Celts and Teutons. When we come to the lands which are yet more closely connected with Greece, both in geographical position and in their history, the case becomes clearer still. ♦Epeiros, Macedonia, Sicily and Italy.♦ We can hardly doubt of the close connexion between the Greeks and the nations which bordered on Greece immediately to the north in Epeiros and Macedonia, as well as with some at least of those which they found occupying the opposite coasts of the Ægæan, as well as in Sicily and Italy. The Greeks and Italians, with the nations immediately connected with them, clearly belong to one, and that a well marked, division of the Aryan family. Their kindred is shown alike by the evidence of language and by the remarkable ease with which in all ages they received Greek civilization. Into more minute inquiries as to these matters it is hardly our province to go here. ♦Pelasgians.♦ It is perhaps enough to say that the Pelasgian name, which has given rise to so much speculation, seems to have{25} been used by the Greeks themselves in a very vague way, much as the word Saxon is among ourselves. It is therefore dangerous to form any theories about the matter. Sometimes the Pelasgians seem to be spoken of simply as Old-Hellênes, sometimes as a people distinct from the Hellênes. ♦The Greek nation.♦ Whether the Hellênes, on their entering into Greece, found the land held by earlier inhabitants, whether Aryan or non-Aryan, is a curious and interesting speculation, but one which does not concern us. It is enough for our purpose that, as far back as history or even legend can carry us, we find the land in the occupation of a branch of the Aryan family, consisting, like all other nations, of various kindred tribes. It is a nation which is as well defined as any other nation, and yet it shades off, as it were, into the other nations of the kindred stock. Clearly marked as Greek and Barbarian are from the beginning, there still are frontier tribes in Epeiros and Macedonia which must be looked on as forming an intermediate stage between the two classes, and which are accordingly placed by different Greek writers sometimes in one class and sometimes in the other.

§ 4. The Earliest Geography of Greece and the Neighbouring Lands.

Our first picture of Greek geography comes from the Homeric catalogue. Whatever may be the historic value of the Homeric poems in general, it is clear that the catalogue in the second book of the Iliad must represent a real state of things. It gives us a map of Greece so different from the map of Greece at any later time that it is inconceivable that it can have been invented at any later time. We have in fact a map of Greece at{26} a time earlier than any time to which we can assign certain names and dates. Within the range of Greece itself the various Greek races often changed their settlements, displacing or conquering earlier Greek settlers; and the different states which they formed often changed their boundaries by bringing other states into subjection or depriving them of parts of their territory. The Homeric catalogue gives us a wholly different arrangement of the various branches of the nation from any that we find in the Greece of historic times. The Dorian and Ionian names, which were afterwards so famous, are hardly known; the name of Hellênes itself belongs only to a small district. ♦Tribal divisions of Homeric Greece.♦ The names for the whole people are Achaians, Argeians (Argos seeming to mean all Peloponnêsos), and Danaoi, the last a name which goes quite out of use in historic times. The boundary of Greece to the west is narrower than it was in later times. The land called Akarnania has not yet got that name, if indeed it was Greek at all. It is spoken of vaguely as Epeiros or the mainland,[3] and it appears as part of the possessions of the king of the neighbouring islands, Kephallênia and Ithakê. The islands to the north, Leukas and Korkyra, were not yet Greek. The Thesprotians in Epeiros are spoken of as a neighbouring and friendly people, but they form no part of the Greek nation.{27} The Aitolians appear as a Greek people, and so do most of the other divisions of the Greek nation, only their position and relative importance is often different from what it was afterwards. Thus, to mention a few examples out of many, the Lokrians, who, in historic times, appear both on the sea of Euboia and on the Corinthian gulf, appear in the catalogue in their northern seats only.

When we turn from tribes to cities, the difference is still greater. ♦Groupings of cities.♦ The cities which held the first place in historic times are not always those which are greatest in the earlier time, and their grouping in federations or principalities is wholly unlike anything in later history. Thus in the historic Boiotia we find Orchomenos as the second city of a confederation of which Thebes is the first. In the catalogue Orchomenos and the neighbouring city Aspledôn form a separate division, distinct from Boiôtia. Euboia forms a whole; and, what is specially to be noticed, Attica, as a land, is not mentioned, but only the single city of Athens, with Salamis as a kind of dependency. Peloponnêsos again is divided in a manner quite different from anything in later times. The ruling city is Mykênê, whose king holds also a general superiority over all Hellas, while his immediate dominion takes in Corinth, Kleônai, Sikyôn, and the whole south coast of the Corinthian Gulf, the Achaia of later times. The rest of the cities of the Argolic peninsula are grouped round Argos. Northern Greece again is divided into groups of cities which answer to nothing in later times. And its relative importance in the Greek world is clearly far greater than it was in the historic period.

The catalogue also helps us to our earliest picture{28} of the northern and eastern coasts of the Ægæan and of the Ægæan islands. ♦Extent of Greek colonization.♦ We see the extent which Greek colonization had already made. It had as yet taken in only the southern islands of the Ægæan. Crete was already Greek; so were Rhodes, Kôs, and the neighbouring islands; but these last are distinctly marked as new settlements. The coast of Asia and the northern islands are still untouched, except through the events of the Trojan war itself, in which the Greek conquest of Lesbos is distinctly marked. ♦The Asiatic Catalogue.♦ In Asia, besides Trojans and Dardanians, we find Pelasgians as a distinct people, as also Paphlagonians, Mysians, Phrygians, Maionians, Karians, and Lykians. We find in short the nations which fringe the whole Ægæan coast of Asia and the south-western coast of the Euxine. In Europe again we have Thracians and Paionians, names familiar in historic times, and whose bearers seemingly occupied nearly the same lands which they do in later times. The presence of Thracians in Asia is implied rather than asserted. The Macedonian name is not found. The northern islands of the Ægæan are mentioned only incidentally. Everything leaves us to believe that the whole region, European and Asiatic, to which we are now concerned, was, at this earliest time of which we have any glimpses, occupied by various races more or less closely allied to each other. ♦Phœnician and Greek settlements in the islands.♦ The islands were largely Karian, but the Phœnicians, a Semitic people from the eastern coast, seem to have planted colonies in several of the Mediterranean islands. But Karians and Phœnicians had now begun to give way to Greek settlements. The same rivalry in short between Greeks and Phœnicians must have gone on in the earliest times in the islands of the Ægæan which went on in{29} historical times in the greater islands of Cyprus and Sicily.

§ 5. Change from Homeric to Historic Greece.

The state of things which is set before us in the catalogue was altogether broken up by later changes, but changes which still come before the beginnings of contemporary history, and which we understand chiefly by comparing the geography of the catalogue with the geography of later times. ♦Changes in Peloponnêsos.♦ According to received tradition, a number of Dorian colonies from Northern Greece were gradually planted in the chief cities of Peloponnêsos, and drove out or reduced to subjection their older Achaian inhabitants. Mykênê from this time loses its importance; Argos, Sparta, Corinth, and Sikyôn become Dorian cities; and Sparta gradually wins the dominion over all the towns, whether Dorian or Achaian, within her immediate dominion of Lakonia. To the west of Lakonia arises the Dorian state of Messênê, which is the name only of a district, as there was as yet no city so called. As part of the same movement, an Aitolian colony is said to have occupied Êlis on the west coast of Peloponnêsos. Elis again was at this time the name of a district only; the cities both of Messênê and Êlis are of much later date. First Argos, and then Sparta, rises to a supremacy over their fellow-Dorians and over the whole of Peloponnêsos. Historical Peloponnêsos thus consists (i) of the cities, chiefly Dorian, of the Argolic Aktê or peninsula, together with Corinth on the Isthmus and Megara, a Dorian outpost beyond the Isthmus; (ii) of Lakonikê, the district immediately subject to Sparta, with a boundary towards Argos which changed as Sparta advanced and Argos{30} went back; (iii) of Messênê, which was conquered by Sparta before the age of contemporary history, and was again separated in the fourth century B.C.; (iv) of Elis, with the border-districts between it and Messênê; (v) of the Achaian cities on the coast of the Corinthian Gulf; (vi) of the inland country of Arkadia. The relations among these districts and the several cities within them often fluctuated, but the general aspect of the map of Peloponnêsos did not greatly change from the beginning of the fifth century to the later days of the third.

According to the received traditions, migrations of the same kind took place in Northern Greece also between the time of the catalogue and the beginning of contemporary history. Thus Thessaly, whose different divisions form a most important part of the catalogue, is said to have suffered an invasion at the hands of the half Hellenic Thesprotians. They are said to have become the ruling people in Thessaly itself, and to have held a supremacy over the neighbouring lands, including the peninsula of Magnêsia and the Phthiôtic Achaia. It is certain that in the historical period Thessaly lags in the back ground, and that the true Hellenic spirit is much less developed there than in other parts of Greece. There is less reason to accept the legend of a migration out of Thessaly into Boiôtia; but in historic times Orchomenos no longer appears as a separate state, but is the second city of the Boiotian confederacy, yielding the first place to Thebes with great unwillingness. The Lokrians also now appear on the Corinthian gulf as well as on the sea of Euboia. And the land to the west of Aitôlia, so vaguely spoken of in the catalogue, has become the seat of a Greek people under the name of Akarnania.{31} The Corinthian colonies along this coast, the city of Ambrakia, the island or peninsula of Leukas, the foundation of which is placed in the eighth century B.C., come almost within the time of trustworthy history. They are not Greek in the catalogue; they are Greek when we first hear of them in history. Ambrakia forms the last outpost of continuous Hellas towards the north-west; beyond that are only outlying settlements on the Illyrian coasts and islands.

These changes in the geography of continental Greece, both within and without Peloponnêsos, make the main differences between the Greece of the Homeric catalogue and the Greece of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. ♦Changes in later times.♦ During the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries before Christ there were constant changes in political relations of the Greek states to one another; but there were not many changes which greatly affected the geography. Cities were constantly brought in subjection to one another, and were again relieved from the yoke. ♦B.C. 370-369.♦ In the course of the fourth century two new Peloponnesian cities, Messênê and Megalopolis, were founded. In Boiotia again, Plataia and Orchomenos were destroyed by the Thebans, and Thebes itself was destroyed by Alexander, but these were afterwards rebuilt. ♦B.C. 468.♦ In Peloponnêsos Mykênê was destroyed by the Argeians, and never rebuilt. But most of these changes do not affect geography, as they did not involve any change in the seats of the great divisions of the Greek name. The only exception is that of the foundation of Messênê, which was accompanied by the separation of the old Messenian territory from Sparta, and the consequent establishment of a new or restored division of the Greek nation.

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§ 6. The Greek Colonies.

It must have been in the time between the days represented by the catalogue and the beginnings of contemporary history, that most of the islands of the Ægæan became Greek, and that the Greek colonies were planted on the Ægæan coast of Asia. We have seen that the southern islands were already Greek at the time of the catalogue, while some of the northern ones, Thasos, Lêmnos, and others, did not become Greek till times to which we can give approximate dates, from the eighth to the fifth centuries. ♦Colonies in Asia.♦ During this period, at some time before the eighth century, the whole Ægæan coast of Asia had become fringed with Greek cities, Dorian to the south, Aiolian to the north, Ionian between the two. The story of the Trojan war itself in the land is most likely a legendary account of the beginning of these settlements, which may make us think that the Greek colonization of this coast began in the north, in the lands bordering on the Hellespont. At all events, by the eighth century these settlements had made the Asiatic coast and the islands adjoining it a part, and a most important part, not only of the Greek world, but we may almost say of Greece itself. ♦Their early greatness.♦ The Ionian cities, above all, Smyrna, Ephesos, Milêtos, and the islands of Chios and Samos, were among the greatest of Greek cities, more flourishing certainly than any in European Greece. Milêtos, above all, was famous for the number of colonies which it sent forth in its own turn. But, if their day of greatness came before that of the European Greeks, they were also the first to come under the power of the Barbarians. ♦Lydian and Persian conquests.♦ In the course of the fifth century the Greek cities on the continent of Asia came under the power, first of the Lydian kings and then of{33} their Persian conquerors, who subdued several of the islands also. It was this subjection of the Asiatic Greeks to the Barbarians which led to the Persian war, with which the most brilliant time in the history of European Greece begins. We thus know the Asiatic cities only in the days of their decline. ♦Colonies in Thrace.♦ The coasts of Thrace and Macedonia were also sprinkled with Greek cities, but they did not lie so thick together as those on the Asiatic coast, except only in the three-fingered peninsula of Chalkidikê, which became a thoroughly Greek land. Some of these colonies in Thrace, as Olynthos and Potidaia, play an important part in Greek history, and two among them fill a place in the history of the world. Thermê, under its later name of Thessalonikê, has kept on its importance under all changes down to our own time. And Byzantion, on the Thracian Bosporos, rose higher still, becoming, under the form of Constantinople, the transplanted seat of the Empire of Rome.

The settlements which have been thus far spoken of may be all counted as coming within the immediate Greek world. They were planted in lands so near to the mother-country, and they lay so near to one another, that the whole country round the Ægæan may be looked on as more or less thoroughly Greek. Some parts were wholly Greek, and everywhere Greek influences were predominant. ♦More distant colonies.♦ But, during this same period of distant enterprise, between the time of the Homeric catalogue and the time of the Persian War, many Greek settlements were made in countries much further off from continuous Greece. All of course came within the range of the Mediterranean world; no Greek ever passed through the Straits of Hêraklês to found settlements{34} on the Ocean. But a large part of the coast both of the Mediterranean itself and of the Euxine was gradually dotted with Greek colonies. These outposts of Greece, unless they were actually conquered by barbarians, almost always remained Greek; they kept their Greek language and manners, and they often spread them to some extent among their barbarian neighbours. But it was not often that any large tract of country in these more distant lands became so thoroughly Greek as the Ægæan coast of Asia became. We may say however that such was the case with the coast of Sicily and Southern Italy, where many Greek colonies were planted, which will be spoken of more fully in another chapter. All Sicily indeed did in the end really become a Greek country, though not till after its conquest by the Romans. But in Northern and Central Italy, the Latins, Etruscans, and other Italian nations were too strong for any Greek colonies to be made in those parts. ♦Colonies in the Hadriatic.♦ On the other side of the Hadriatic, Greek colonies had spread before the Peloponnesian war as far north as Epidamnos. The more northern colonies on the coast and among the islands of Dalmatia, the Illyrian Epidauros, Pharos, Black Korkyra, and others, were among the latest efforts of Greek colonization in the strict sense.

In other parts of the Mediterranean coasts the Greek settlements lay further apart from each other. But we may say that they were spread here and there over the whole coast, except where there was some special hindrance to keep the Greeks from settling. ♦Phœnician colonies.♦ Thus, in a great part of the Mediterranean the Phœnicians had got the start of the Greeks, both in their own country on the coast of Syria, and in the{35} colonies sent forth by their great cities of Tyre and Sidon. The Phœnician colonists occupied a large part of the western half of the southern coast of the Mediterranean, where lay the great Phœnician cities of Carthage, Utica, and others. They had also settlements in Southern Spain, and one at least outside the straits on the Ocean. This is Gades or Cadiz, which has kept its name and its unbroken position as a great city from an earlier time than any other city in Europe. The Greeks therefore could not colonize in these parts. In the great islands of Sicily and Cyprus there were both Phœnician and Greek colonies, and there was a long struggle between the settlers of the two nations. In Egypt again, though there were some Greek settlers, yet there were no Greek colonies in the strict sense. That is, there were no independent Greek commonwealths. Thus the only part of the southern coast of the Mediterranean which was open to Greek colonization was the land between Egypt and the dominions of Carthage. ♦Greek colonies in Africa, Gaul, and Spain.♦ In that land accordingly several Greek cities were planted, of which the chief was the famous Kyrênê. On the southern coast of Gaul arose the great Ionian city of Massalia or Marseilles, which also, like the Phœnician Gades, has kept its name and its prosperity down to our own time. Massalia became the centre of a group of Greek cities on the south coast of Gaul and the east coast of Spain, which were the means of spreading a certain amount of Greek civilization in those parts.

Besides these settlements in the Mediterranean itself, there were also a good many Greek colonies on the western, northern, and southern coasts of the Euxine, of which those best worth remembering are the city of{36} Chersonêsos in the peninsula called the Tauric Chersonêsos, now Crimea, and Trapezous on the southern coast. These two deserve notice as being two most abiding seats of Greek influence. Chersonêsos, under the name of Cherson, remained an independent Greek commonwealth longer than any other, and Trapezous or Trebizond became the seat of Greek-speaking Emperors, who outlived those of Constantinople. Speaking generally then, we may say that, in the most famous times of European Greece, in the time of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, the whole coast of the Ægæan was part of the immediate Greek world, while in Sicily and Cyprus Greek colonies were contending with the Phœnicians, and in Italy with the native Italians. Massalia was the centre of a group of Greek states in the north-west, and Kyrênê in the south, while the greater part of the coast of the Euxine was also dotted with Greek cities here and there. In most of these colonies the Greeks mixed to some extent with the natives, and the natives to some extent learned the Greek language and manners. ♦Beginning of the artificial Greek nation.♦ We thus get the beginning of what we call an artificial Greek nation, a nation Greek in speech and manners, but not purely Greek in blood, which has gone on ever since.

§ 7. Growth of Macedonia and Epeiros.

But while the spread of the Greek language and civilization, and therewith the growth of the artificial Greek nation, was brought about in a great degree by the planting of independent Greek colonies, it was brought about still more fully by events which went far to destroy the political independence of Greece itself. This came of the growth of the kindred nations{37} to the north of Greece, in Macedonia and Epeiros. The Macedonians were for a long time hemmed in by the barbarians to the north and west of them and by the Greek cities on the coast, and they were also weakened by divisions among themselves. ♦Reign of Philip, B.C.  360-336.♦ But when the whole nation was united under its great King Philip, Macedonia soon became the chief power in Greece and the neighbouring lands. Philip greatly increased his dominions at the expense of both Greeks and barbarians, especially by adding the peninsulas of Chalkidikê to his kingdom. But in Greece itself, though he took to himself the chief power, he did not actually annex any of the Greek states to Macedonia, so that his victories there do not affect the map. ♦Conquests of Alexander, 336-323.♦ His yet more famous son Alexander, and the Macedonian kings after him, in like manner held garrisons in particular Greek cities, and brought some parts of Greece, as Thessaly and Euboia, under a degree of Macedonian influence which hardly differed from dominion; but they did not formally annex them. The conquests of Alexander in Asia brought most of the Greek cities and islands under Macedonian dominion, but some, as Crete, Rhodes, Byzantion, and Hêrakleia on the Euxine, kept their independence. ♦Epeiros under Pyrrhos, B.C.  295-272.♦ Meanwhile Epeiros became united under the Greek kings of Molossis, and under Pyrrhos, who made Ambrakia his capital, it became a powerful state. And a little kingdom called Athamania, thrust in between Epeiros, Macedonia, and Thessaly, now begins to be heard of.

The conquests of Alexander in Asia concern us only so far as they called into being a class of states in Western Asia, all of which received a greater or less share of Hellenic culture, and some of which may claim a place{38} in the actual Greek world. By the division of the empire of Alexander after the battle of Ipsos, Egypt became the kingdom of Ptolemy, with whose descendants it remained down to the Roman conquest. ♦B.C. 301.♦ The civilization of the Egyptian court was Greek, and Alexandria became one of the greatest of Greek cities. ♦Egypt under the Ptolemies.♦ Moreover the earlier kings of the Ptolemaic dynasty held various islands in the Ægæan, and points on the coast of Asia and even of Thrace, which made them almost entitled to rank as a power in Greece itself. ♦The Seleukid dynasty.♦ The great Asiatic power of Alexander passed to Seleukos and his descendants. The early kings of his house ruled from the Ægæan to the Hyphasis, though this great dominion was at all times fringed and broken in upon by the dominions of native princes, by independent Greek cities, and by the dominions of other Macedonian kings. ♦Circa B.C.  256.♦ But in the third century their dominion was altogether cut short in the East by the revolt of the Parthians in northern Persia, by whom the eastern provinces of the Seleukid kingdom were lopped away. ♦B.C. 191-181.♦ And when Antiochos the Great provoked a war with Rome, his dominion was cut short to the West also. The Seleukid power now shrank up into a local kingdom of Syria, with Tauros for its north-western frontier.

By the cutting short of the Seleukid kingdom, room was given for the growth of the independent states which had already sprung up in Asia Minor. ♦Pergamos.♦ The kingdom of Pergamos had already begun, and the dominions of its kings were largely increased by the Romans at the expense of Antiochos. Pergamos might count as a Hellenic state, alongside of Macedonia and Epeiros. But the other kingdoms of Asia Minor, Bithynia, Kappadokia, Paphlagonia, and Pontos, the kingdom{39} of the famous Mithridates, must be counted as Asiatic. ♦Spread of Hellenic culture.♦ The Hellenic influence indeed spread itself far to the East. Even the Parthian kings affected a certain amount of Greek culture, and in all the more western kingdoms there was a greater or less Greek element, and in several of them the kings fixed their capitals in Greek cities. Still in all of them the Asiatic element prevailed in a way in which it did not prevail at Pergamos. Meanwhile other states, either originally Greek or largely Hellenized, still remained East of the Ægæan. Thus, at the south-western corner of Asia Minor, Lykia, though seemingly less thoroughly Hellenized than some of its neighbours, became a federal state after the Greek model. ♦Seleukeia.♦ Far to the East, Seleukeia on the Tigris, whether under Syrian or Parthian overlordship, kept its character as a Greek colony, and its position as what may be called a free imperial city. Further to the West other more purely Greek states survived. ♦Hêrakleia.
B.C. 188.♦ The Pontic Hêrakleia long remained an independent Greek city, sometimes a commonwealth, sometimes under tyrants; and Sinôpê remained a Greek city till it became the capital of the kings of Pontos. On the north of the Euxine, Bosporos still remained a Greek kingdom.

§ 8. The later Geography of Independent Greece.

The political divisions of independent Greece, in the days when it gradually came under the power of Rome, differ almost as much from those to which we are used during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, as these last differ from the earlier divisions in the Homeric catalogue. The chief feature of these times was the power which was held, as we have before seen, by the Macedonian kings, and the alliances made by the different{40} Greek states in order to escape or to throw off their yoke. The result was that the greater part of Greece was gradually mapped out among large confederations, much larger at least than Greece had ever seen before. ♦The Achaian League, B.C. 280.♦ The most famous of these, the League of Achaia, began among the old Achaian cities on the south of the Corinthian Gulf. ♦B.C. 191.♦ It gradually spread, till it took in the whole of Peloponnêsos, together with Megara and one or two outlying cities. Thus Corinth, Argos, Elis, and even Sparta, instead of being distinct states as of old, with a greater or less dominion over other cities, were now simply members of one federal body. ♦The Aitolian League.♦ In Northern Greece the League of Aitolia now became very powerful, and extended itself far beyond its old borders. Akarnania, Phôkis, Lokris, and Boiôtia formed Federal states of less power, and so did Epeiros, where the kings had been got rid of, and which was now reckoned as a thoroughly Greek state. The Macedonian kings held different points at different times: Corinth itself for a good while, and Thessaly and Euboia for longer periods, might be almost counted as parts of their kingdom.

This was the state of things in Greece at the time when the Romans began to meddle in Greek and Macedonian affairs, and gradually to bring all these countries, like the rest of the Mediterranean world, under their power. But it should be remarked that this was done, as the conquests of the Romans always were done, very gradually. ♦B.C. 229.♦ First the island of Korkyra and the cities of Epidamnos and Apollônia on the Illyrian coast became Roman allies, which was always a step to becoming Roman subjects. ♦B.C. 205.♦ The Romans first appeared in Greece itself, as allies of the Aitolians,{41} but by the Peace of Epeiros Rome obtained no dominion in Greece, and merely some increase of her Illyrian territory. ♦B.C. 200-197.
Progress of Roman conquests.
B.C. 196.♦ The second Macedonian War made Macedonia dependent on Rome, and all those parts of Greece which had been under the Macedonian power were declared free at its close. ♦B.C. 189.♦ As the Aitolians had joined Antiochos of Syria against Rome, they were made a Roman dependency. From that time Rome was always meddling in the affairs of the Greek states, and they may be counted as really, though not formally, dependent on Rome. ♦B.C. 169.
B.C. 149.♦ After the third Macedonian war, Macedonia was cut up into four separate commonwealths; and at last, after the fourth, it became a Roman province. ♦B.C. 146.
Remaining free states incorporated by Vespasian.♦ About the same time the Leagues of Epeiros and Boiôtia were dissolved; the Achaian League also became formally dependent on Rome, and was dissolved for a time also. It is not certain when Achaia became formally a Roman province; but, from this time, all Greece was practically subject to Rome. Athens remained nominally independent, as did Rhodes, Byzantion, and several other islands and outlying cities, some of which were not formally incorporated with the Roman dominion till the time of the Emperor Vespasian.

As we go on with the geography of other countries which came under the Roman dominion, we shall learn more of the way in which Rome thus enlarged her territories bit by bit. But it seemed right to begin with the geography of Greece, and this could not be carried down to the time when Greece became a Roman dominion without saying something of the Roman conquest. From B.C. 146 we must look upon Greece and the neighbouring lands as being,{42} some of them formally and all of them practically, part of the Roman dominion. And we shall not have to speak of them again as separate states or countries till many ages later, when the Roman dominion began to fall in pieces. Having thus traced the geography of the most eastern of the three great European peninsulas down to the time when it became part of the dominion which took in all the lands around the Mediterranean, we will now go on to speak of the middle peninsula, which became the centre of that dominion, namely that of Italy. ♦Special character of Greek history.♦ Greece and the neighbouring lands are the only parts of Europe which can be said to have a history quite independent of Rome, and beginning earlier than the Roman history. Of the other countries therefore which became part of the Roman Empire it will be best to speak in their relation to Italy, and, as nearly as possible, in the order in which they came under the Roman power.

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CHAPTER III.

FORMATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

The second of the three great peninsulas of southern Europe, that which lies between the other two, is that of Italy. ♦Different meanings of the name Italy.♦ The name of Italy has been used in several meanings at different times, but it has always meant either the whole or a part of the land which we now call Italy. The name gradually spread itself from the extreme south to the north.[4] At the time when our survey begins, the name did not go beyond the long narrow peninsula itself; and indeed it hardly took in the whole of that. ♦Its meaning under the Roman commonwealth.♦ During the time of the Roman commonwealth Italy did not reach beyond the little rivers Macra on one side, near Luna, and Rubico on the other side, near Ariminum. The land to the north, as far as the Alps, was not counted for Italy till after the time of Cæsar. But the Alps are the natural boundary which fence off the peninsular land from the great mass of central Europe; so that, looking at the matter as a piece of geography, we may count the whole land within the Alps as Italy. It will be at once seen that the Italian peninsula, though so long{44} and narrow, is by no means cut up into promontories and smaller peninsulas as the Greek peninsula is. Nor is it surrounded by so many islands. It is only quite in the south, where the long narrow peninsula splits off into two smaller ones, that the coast has at all the character of the Greek coast, and there only in a much slighter degree. ♦The Italian islands.♦ Close by this end of Italy lies the great island of Sicily, whose history has always been closely connected with that of Italy. Further off lie the two other great islands of Corsica and Sardinia, which in old times were not reckoned to belong to Italy at all. Besides these there are several smaller islands, Elba and others, along the Italian coast; but they lie a good way from each other, and do not form any marked feature in the geography. There is nothing at all like even the group of islands off western Greece, much less like the endless multitude, great and small, in the Ægæan. Through the whole length of the peninsula, like a backbone, runs the long chain of the Apennines. These branch off from the Alps in north-western Italy near the sea, and run through the whole length of the country to the very toe of the boot, as the Italian peninsula has been called from its shape. From all this it follows that, though Italy was the land which was destined in the end to have the rule over all the rest, yet the people of Italy were not likely to begin to make themselves a name so early as the Greeks did. Least of all were they likely to take in the same way to a sea-faring life, and to plant colonies in far off lands.

§ 1. The Inhabitants of Italy and Sicily.

We seem to have somewhat clearer signs in Italy than{45} we have in Greece of the men who dwelled in the land before the Aryans who appear as its historical inhabitants came into it. ♦Ligurians.♦ On the coast of Liguria, the land on each side of the city of Genoa, a land which was not reckoned Italian in early times, we find people who seem not to have been Aryan. And these Ligurians seem to have been part of a race which was spread through Italy and Sicily before the Aryan settlements, and to have been akin to the non-Aryan inhabitants of Spain and southern Gaul, of whom the Basques on each side of the Pyrenees remain as a remnant. ♦Etruscans.♦ And in historical times a large part of Italy was held, and in earlier times a still larger part seems to have been held, by the Etruscans. These are a people about whose origin and language there have been many theories, but nothing can as yet be said to be certainly known. These Etruscans, in historical times, formed a confederacy of twelve cities in the land west of the Apennines, between the Macra and the Tiber; and it is believed that in earlier times they had settlements both more to the north, on the Po, and more to the south, in Campania. If they were a non-Aryan race, the part of the non-Aryans in the geography and history of Italy becomes greater than it has been in any part of Western Europe except Spain.

But whatever we make of the Etruscans, the rest of Italy in the older sense was held by various branches of an Aryan race nearly allied to the Greeks, whom we may call the Italians. Of this race there were two great branches. One of them, under various names, seems to have held all the southern part of the western coast of Italy, and to have spread into Sicily. Some of the tribes of this branch seem to have been almost as nearly akin{46} to the Greeks as the Epeirots and other kindred nations on the east side of the Hadriatic. ♦Latins.♦ Of this branch of the Italian race, the most famous people were the Latins; and it was the greatest Latin city, the border city of the Latins against the Etruscans, the city of Rome on the Tiber, which became, step by step, the mistress of Latium, of Italy, and of the Mediterranean world. ♦Opicans.♦ The other branch, which held a much larger part of the peninsula, taking in the Sabines, Æquians, Volscians, Samnites, Lucanians, and other people who play a great part in the Roman history, may perhaps be classed together as Opicans or Oscans, in distinction from the Latins, and the other tribes allied to them. These tribes seem to have pressed from the eastern, the Hadriatic, coast of Italy, down upon the nations to the south-west of them, and to have largely extended their borders at their expense.

But part of ancient Italy, and a still larger part of Italy in the modern sense, was inhabited by nations other than the Italians. ♦Iapygians.♦ In the heel of the boot were the Iapygians, a people of uncertain origin, but who seem in any case to have had a great gift of receiving the Greek language and manners. ♦Gauls.♦ And in the northern part, in the lands which were not then counted as part of Italy, were the Gauls, a Celtic people, akin to the Gauls beyond the Alps, and whose country was therefore called Cisalpine Gaul or Gaul on this side of the Alps. They were found on both sides of the Po, and on the Hadriatic coast they seem to have stretched in early times almost as far south as Ancona. ♦Veneti.♦ In the north-east corner of Italy were yet another people, the Veneti, perhaps of Illyrian origin, whose name long after was taken by the city of Venice. But{47} during the whole time with which we have to do, there was no city so called, and the name of Venetia is always the name of a country.

All these nations we may look on as the original inhabitants of Italy; that is, all were there before anything like contemporary history begins.[5] But besides these original nations, there were in one part of Italy many Greek colonies, and also in the island of Sicily. Some cities of Italy claimed to be Greek colonies, without any clear proof that they were so. But there seems no reason to doubt that Kymê or Cumæ on the western coast of Italy, and Ankôn or Ancona on the Hadriatic, were solitary Greek colonies far away from any other Greek settlements. Cumæ, though so far off, is said to have been the earliest Greek colony in Italy. But where the Greeks mainly settled was in the two lesser peninsulas, the heel and the toe of the boot, into which the great peninsula of Italy divides at its southern end. Here, as was before said, there is a nearer approach to the kind of coast to which the Greeks were used at home. Here then arose a number of Greek cities, stretching from the extreme south almost up to Cumæ. As in the case of the Greek cities in Asia, the time of greatness of the Italian Greeks came earlier than that of the Greeks in Greece itself. In the sixth century B.C. some of these Greek colonies in Italy, as Taras or Tarentum, Krotôn or Crotona, Sybaris, and others, were{48} among the greatest cities of the Greek name. But, as the Italian nations grew stronger, the Greek cities lost their power, and many of them, Cumæ among them, fell into the hands of Italian conquerors, and lost their Greek character more or less thoroughly. Others remained Greek till they became subject to Rome, and the Greek speech and manners did not quite die out of southern Italy till ages after the Christian æra.

The geography and history of the great island of Sicily, which lies so near to the toe of the boot, cannot be kept apart from those of Italy. The mainland and the island were, to a great extent, inhabited by the same nations. The Sikanians in the western part of the island may not unlikely have been akin to the Ligurians and Basques; but the Sikels, who gave their name to the island, and who are the people with whom the Greeks had most to do, were clearly of the Italian stock, and were nearly allied to the Latins. ♦Phœnician and Greek colonies.♦ The Phœnicians of Carthage planted some colonies in the western and northern parts of the island, the chief of which was the city which the Greeks called Panormos, the modern capital Palermo. But the western and southern sides of the triangle were full of Greek cities, which are said to have been founded from the eighth century B.C. to the sixth. Several of these, especially Syracuse and Akragas or Agrigentum, were among the chief of Greek cities; and from them the Greek speech and manners gradually spread themselves over the natives, till in the end Sicily was reckoned as wholly a Greek land. But for some centuries Sicilian history is chiefly made up of struggles for the mastery between Carthage and the Greek cities. This was in truth a struggle between the Aryan and{49} the Semitic race, and we shall see that, many ages after, the same battle was again fought on the same ground.

§ 2. Growth of the Roman power in Italy.

The history of ancient Italy, as far as we know it, is the history of the gradual conquest of the whole land by one of its own cities; and the changes in its political geography are mainly the changes which followed the gradual bringing of the whole peninsula under the Roman dominion. But the form which the conquests of Rome took hindered those conquests from having so great an effect on the map as they otherwise might have had. The cities and districts of Italy, as they were one by one conquered by Rome, were commonly left as separate states, in the relation of dependent alliance, from which most of them were step by step promoted to the rights of Roman citizenship. ♦Different positions of the Italian cities.♦ An Italian city might be a dependent ally of Rome; it might be a Roman colony with the full franchise or a colony holding the inferior Latin franchise; or it might have been actually made part of a Roman tribe. All these were very important political differences; but they do not make much difference in the look of things on the map. The most important of the changes which can be called strictly geographical belong to the early days of Rome, when there were important national movements among the various races of Italy. ♦Origin of Rome.♦ Rome arose at the point of union of the three races, Latin, Oscan, and Etruscan, and it arose from an union between the Latin and Oscan races. ♦Rome a Latin city.♦ Two Latin and one Sabine settlements seem to have joined together to form the{50} city of Rome; but the Sabine element must have been thoroughly Latinized, and Rome must be counted as a Latin city, the greatest, though very likely the youngest, among the cities of Latium.

Rome, planted on a march, rose, in the way in which marchlands often do rise, to supremacy among her fellows. Our first authentic record of the early commonwealth sets Rome before us as bearing rule over the whole of Latium. This dominion she seems to have lost soon after the driving out of the kings, and some of her territory right of the Tiber seems to have become Etruscan. Presently Rome appears, no longer as mistress of Latium, but as forming one member of a triple league concluded on equal terms with the Latins as a body, and with the Hernicans. ♦Wars with her neighbours.♦ This league was engaged in constant wars with its neighbours of the Oscan race, the Æquians and Volscians, by whom many of the Latin cities were taken. ♦More distant wars.
B.C. 396.♦ But the first great advance of Rome’s actual dominion was made on the right bank of the Tiber, by the taking of the Etruscan city of Veii. ♦B.C. 343.♦ Fifty years later Rome began to engage in more distant wars; and we may say generally that the conquest of Italy was going on bit by bit for eighty years more. ♦B.C. 296.♦ By the end of that time, all Italy, in the older sense, was brought in one shape or another under the Roman dominion. The neighbouring districts, both Latin and of other races, had been admitted to citizenship. Roman and Latin colonies were planted in various parts of the country; elsewhere the old cities, Etruscan, Samnite, Greek, or any other, still remained as dependent allies of Rome. ♦Incorporation of the Italian states.
B.C. 89.♦ Presently Rome went on to win dominion out of Italy; but the Italian states still remained in{51} their old relation to Rome, till the Italian allies received the Roman franchise after the Social or Marsian war. The Samnites alone held out, and they may be said to have been altogether exterminated in the wars of Sulla. The rest of Italy was Roman.

§ 3. The Western Provinces.

The great change in Roman policy, and in European geography as affected by it, took place when Rome began to win territory out of Italy. The relation of these foreign possessions to the ruling city was quite different from that of the Italian states. The foreign conquests of Rome were made into provinces. ♦Nature of the Roman Provinces.♦ A province was a district which was subject to Rome, and put under the rule of a Roman governor, which was not done with the dependent allies in Italy. But it must be borne in mind that, though we speak of a province as having a certain geographical extent, yet there might be cities within its limits whose formal relation to Rome was that of dependent, or even of equal, alliance. There might also be Roman and Latin colonies, either colonies really planted or cities which had been raised to the Roman or Latin franchise. All these were important distinctions as regarded the internal government of the different states; still practically all alike formed part of the Roman dominion. In a geographical survey it will therefore be enough to mark the extent of the different provinces, without attending to their political, or more truly municipal, distinctions, except in a few cases where they are of special importance.

The provinces then are the foreign dominions of Rome, and they fall naturally into two, or rather three,{52} divisions. There are the provinces of the West, in which the Romans had chiefly to contend with nations much less civilized than themselves, and in which therefore the provincials gradually adopted the language and manners of their conquerors. But in the provinces to the east of the Hadriatic, the Greek language and Greek manners had become the language and manners of civilized life, and their supremacy was not supplanted by those of Rome. And in the more distant parts, as in Syria and Egypt, the Greek civilization was a mere varnish; the mass of the people still kept to their old manners and languages as they were before the Macedonian conquests. In these countries therefore the Latin tongue and Roman civilization made but little progress. The Roman conquests went on on both sides of the Hadriatic at the same time, but it was to the west that they began. The first Roman province however forms a sort of intermediate class by itself, standing between the eastern and the western.

This first Roman province was formed in the great island of Sicily, which, by its geographical position, belongs to the western part of Europe, while the fact that Greek became the prevailing language in it rather connects it with the eastern part. ♦First Roman possessions in the island. B.C. 241.♦ The Roman dominion in Sicily began when the Carthaginian possessions in the island were given up to Rome, as the result of the first Punic war. But, as Hierôn of Syracuse had helped Rome against Carthage, his kingdom remained in alliance with Rome, and was not dealt with as a conquered land. ♦Conquest of Syracuse. B.C. 212.♦ It was only when Syracuse turned against Rome in the second Punic war that it was, on its conquest, formally made a Roman possession. ♦B.C. 132.♦ Eighty years later the condition of Sicily under the{53} Roman government was finally settled, and it may be taken as a type of the endless variety of relations in which the different districts and cities throughout the Roman dominions stood to the ruling commonwealth. ♦State of Sicily.♦ The greater part of the island became simply subject; the land was held to be forfeited to the Roman People, and the former inhabitants held it simply as tenants on payment of a tithe. But some cities were called free, and kept their land; others remained in name independent allies of the Roman People. Other cities were afterwards raised to the Latin franchise; in others Latin or Roman colonies were planted, and one Sicilian city, that of Messana, received the full citizenship of Rome. It must be borne in mind that these different relations, these exceptionally favoured cities and districts, are found, not only in Sicily, but throughout all the provinces. ♦Greek civilization of Sicily.♦ Sicily, by the time of the conquest, was looked on as a thoroughly Greek land. The Greek language and manners had now spread themselves everywhere among the Sikels and the other inhabitants of the island. And Sicily remained a thoroughly Greek land, till, ages afterwards, it again became, as it had been in the days of the Greek and Phœnician colonies, a battle-field of Aryan and Semitic races in the days of the Mahometan conquests.

The two great islands of Sardinia and Corsica seem almost as natural appendages to Italy as Sicily itself; but their history is very different. They have played no important part in the history of the world. The original stock of their inhabitants seems to have been akin to the non-Aryan element in Spain and Sicily. The attempts at Greek colonization in them were but feeble, and they passed under the dominion, first of{54} Carthage and then of Rome, without any important change in their condition. ♦B.C. 238.♦ These two islands became a Roman province, which was always reckoned one of the most worthless of provinces, in the interval between the first and second Punic wars.

Thus far the Roman dominions did not reach beyond what we should look upon as the natural extent of the dominion of an Italian power. Indeed, as long as Italy did not reach to the Alps, we should say that it had not reached the natural extent of an Italian dominion. But the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul cannot be separated from the general conquest of Western Europe. The Roman conquest of Gaul and Spain, by gradually spreading the Latin language and Roman civilization over those countries, created two of the chief nations and languages of modern Europe. But the process was simply the continuation of a process which began within the borders of what we now call Italy. Gaul within the Alps was as strictly a foreign conquest as Spain or as Gaul beyond the Alps. Only the geographical position of Cisalpine Gaul allowed it to be easily and speedily incorporated with Italy in a way which the lands beyond the Alps could not be. The beginnings of conquest in this direction took place after the end of the Samnite wars. ♦Foundation of Sena Gallica. B.C. 282.♦ Then the colony of Sena Gallica, now Sinigaglia, was founded on Gaulish soil, and it was presently followed by the foundation of Ariminum or Rimini. ♦Conquest of Cisalpine Gaul. B.C. 201-191.♦ The Roman arms were carried beyond the Po in the time between the first and the second Punic war; after the second Punic war, Cisalpine Gaul was thoroughly conquered, and was secured by the foundation of many Roman and Latin colonies. ♦B.C. 43.♦ The Roman and Latin{55} franchises were gradually extended to most parts of the country, and at last Cisalpine Gaul was formally incorporated with Italy.

Closely connected with the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul was the conquest of the other non-Italian lands within the boundaries of modern Italy. These were Liguria to the south-east of Cisalpine Gaul and Venetia to the north-west. Both these lands held out longer than Cisalpine Gaul; but by the time of Augustus they were all, together with the peninsula of Istria, counted as part of Italy. ♦Foundation of Aquileia, B.C. 183. ♦ The dominion of Rome in this region was secured at an early stage of the conquest by the foundation of the great colony of Aquileia. We thus see that, not only Venice, but Milan, Pavia, Verona, Ravenna, and Genoa, cities which played so great a part in the after history of Italy, arose in lands which were not originally Italian. But we also see that Italy, with the boundaries given to it by Augustus, took in a somewhat larger territory to the north-east than the kingdom of Italy does now.

The lands within the Alps may be fairly said to have been conquered by Rome in self-defence, and we cannot help looking on the three great islands as natural parts of an Italian dominion. The conquests of the Romans in lands altogether beyond their own borders may be said to have begun in Western Europe with the conquest of Spain, which began before that of Transalpine Gaul. ♦Connexion of Spain and Gaul.♦ Spain and Gaul, using the names in the geographical sense, have much which binds them together. ♦Iberians in Spain.♦ On the borders of the two countries traces are still left of the old non-Aryan inhabitants who still speak the Basque language. These represent the old Iberian inhabitants of{56} Spain and Gaul, who, when our history begins, stretched as far into Gaul as the Garonne. ♦Celts.♦ But the Celts, the first wave of the Aryan migration in Europe, had pressed into both Gaul and Spain; in Gaul they had, when trustworthy history begins, already occupied by far the greater part of the country. ♦Greek and♦ The Mediterranean coasts of Gaul and Spain were also connected together by the sprinkling of Greek colonies along those shores, of which Massalia was the head. And, beside the primitive non-Aryan element, there was an intrusive non-Aryan element also. ♦Phœnician settlements.♦ In southern Spain several Phœnician settlements had been made, the chief of which was Gades or Cadiz, beyond the straits, the one great Phœnician city on the Ocean. And between the first and second Punic wars Carthage obtained a large Spanish dominion, of which New Carthage or Carthagena was the capital.

It was the presence of these last settlements which first brought Spain under the Roman dominion. ♦First Roman province in Spain.♦ Saguntum was an ally of Rome, and its taking by Hannibal was the beginning of the second Punic war. ♦B.C. 218-206.♦ The campaigns of the Scipios during that war led to the gradual conquest of the whole country. ♦B.C. 49.♦ The Carthaginian possessions first became a Roman province, while Gades became a favoured ally of Rome, and at last was admitted to the full Roman franchise. ♦B.C. 133.♦ Meanwhile, the gradual conquest of the rest of the country went on, till, after the taking of Numantia, all Spain, except the remote tribes in the north-west, had become a Roman possession. ♦Final conquest. B.C. 19.♦ These tribes, the Cantabrians and their neighbours, were not fully subdued till the time of Augustus. ♦Romanization of Spain.♦ But long before that time the Latin language and Roman manners had been fast{57} spreading through the country, and in Augustus’ time southern Spain was altogether Romanized. It was only in a small district close to the Pyrenees that the ancient language held out, as it has done ever since.

The conquest of Spain, owing to the connexion of the country with Carthage, thus began while a large part even of Cisalpine Gaul was still unsubdued. And the Roman arms were not carried into Gaul beyond the Alps till the conquest of Spain was pretty well assured. ♦B.C. 122.♦ The foundation of the first Roman colony at Aquæ Sextiæ, the modern Aix, was only eleven years later than the fall of Numantia. The Romans stepped in as allies of the Greek city of Massalia, and, as usual, from helping their allies they took to conquering on their own account. ♦The Transalpine Province. B.C. 125-105.♦ A Roman province, including the colonies of Narbonne and Toulouse, was thus formed in the south-eastern part of Transalpine Gaul. The advance of Rome in this direction seems to have been checked by the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones, but through that long delay Roman influences were able to establish themselves more firmly. This part of Gaul was early and thoroughly Romanized, and part of it still keeps, in its name of Provence, the memory of its having been the first Roman province beyond the Alps. The rest of Gaul was left untouched till the great campaigns of Cæsar.

It is from Cæsar, ethnologer as well as conqueror, that we get our chief knowledge of the country as it was in his day. ♦Boundaries of Transalpine Gaul.♦ Transalpine Gaul, as a geographical division, has well-marked boundaries in the Mediterranean, the Alps, the Rhine, the Ocean, and the Pyrenees. But this geographical division has never answered to{58} any divisions of blood and language. ♦Its three divisions, and their inhabitants, Iberian, Celtic, and German.♦ Gaul in Cæsar’s day, that is Gaul beyond the Roman province, formed three divisions—Aquitaine to the south-west, Celtic Gaul in the middle, and Belgic Gaul to the north-east. Aquitaine, stretching to the Garonne—the name was under Augustus extended to the Loire—was Iberian, akin to the people on the other side of the Pyrenees: a trace of its old speech remains in the small Basque district north of the Pyrenees. Celtic Gaul, from the Loire to the Seine and Marne, was the most truly Celtic land, and it was in this part of Gaul that the modern French nation took its rise. In the third division, Belgic Gaul, the tribes to the east, nearer to the Rhine, were some of them purely German, and others had been to a great extent brought under German influences or mixed with German elements. There was, in fact, no unity in Gaul beyond that which the Romans brought with them. ♦Romanization of Gaul.♦ In seven years Cæsar subdued the whole land, and the work of assimilation began. The Roman language gradually displaced all the native languages, except where Basque and Breton survive in two corners; but in a large part of Belgic Gaul the events of later times brought the German tongue back again. ♦Permanence of the ancient geography.♦ There is no Roman province in which, among all changes, the ancient geography has had so much effect upon that of all later times. In southern Gaul most of the cities still keep their old names with very little change. But in northern Gaul the cities have mostly taken the names of the tribes of which they were the heads. Thus Tolosa is still Toulouse; but Lutetia Parisiorum has become Paris.

The lands which we have thus gone through, Cisalpine Gaul with Liguria and Venetia, Spain, and{59} Transalpine Gaul, form a marked division in historical geography. They are those parts of Western Europe which Rome conquered during the time of her Commonwealth, and they are those parts which have mainly kept their Roman speech to this day. But these did not make up the whole of the lands where Rome planted her Latin speech, at least for a while. The conquest of Britain belongs to the days of the Empire; but Rome, during the Commonwealth, made another conquest, which, though not in Europe, may be counted as belonging to the Western or Latin-speaking half of her dominion. This is the conquest of that part of Africa which Rome won as the result of her wars with Carthage. ♦Province of Africa, B.C. 146;♦ The only African possession won by Rome during the days of the Commonwealth was Africa in the strictest sense, the immediate dominion of Carthage. This became a province when the Punic wars were ended by the destruction of Carthage. ♦of New Africa, B.C. 49.♦ The neighbouring state of Numidia, after passing, like Carthage itself, through the intermediate state of a dependency, was made a province by Cæsar, being called New Africa, the former African province becoming the Old. ♦Restoration and greatness of Carthage.♦ Cæsar also restored the city of Carthage as a Roman colony, and it became the chief of the Latin-speaking cities of the Empire, second only to Rome herself. But in Africa, just as in Britain, the land never became thoroughly Romanized like Gaul and Spain. The Roman tongue and laws therefore died out in both lands at the first touch of an invader, the English in one case and the Saracens in the other. The strip of fertile land between the sea on one side and the mountains and the Great Desert on the other received, first Phœnician and then Roman{60} civilization. But neither of them could really take root there in the way that the Roman civilization took root in Gaul and Spain.

§ 4. The Eastern Provinces.

The Hadriatic Sea may be roughly taken as the boundary between the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman dominion. In the West, the Romans carried with them not only their arms, but their tongue, their laws, and their manners. They were not only conquerors but civilizers. The native Iberians and Celts adopted Roman fashions, and the isolated Greek and Phœnician cities, like Massalia and Gades, gradually became Roman also. East of the Hadriatic the state of things was quite different. Here the language and civilization of Greece had, through the conquests of the Macedonian kings, become everywhere predominant. ♦Greek civilization in the East.♦ Greek was everywhere the polite and literary language, and a certain varnish of Greek manners had been everywhere spread. In some parts indeed it was the merest varnish; still it was everywhere strong enough to withstand the influence of Latin. Sicily and Southern Italy are the only lands which have altogether thrown away the Greek tongue, and have taken to Latin or any of the languages formed out of Latin. No part of the eastern half of the Roman dominion ever became Roman in the same way as Gaul and Spain.

The whole of the lands east of the Hadriatic may thus, as opposed to the Latin-speaking lands of the west, be called Greek-speaking lands. ♦Distinctions among the Eastern provinces.♦ But there are some wide distinctions to be drawn among them. First, there was old Greece itself and the Greek{61} colonies, and lands like Epeiros, which had become thoroughly Greek. Secondly, there were the kingdoms, like Macedonia in Europe and Pergamos in Asia, which had adopted the Greek speech and manners, but which did not, like Epeiros, become Greek in any political sense. Thirdly, there were a number of native states, Bithynia and others, whose kings also tried to imitate Greek ways, but naturally could not do so as thoroughly as the kings of Macedonia and Pergamos. ♦Lands beyond Tauros.♦ Fourthly, beyond Mount Tauros lay the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt, which were ruled by Macedonian kings, which contained great Greek or Macedonian cities like Antioch and Alexandria, but where there were native languages, and an old native civilization, which neither Greek nor Roman influences could ever root out. We shall see as we go on that Tauros makes a great historical boundary. The lands on this side of it really came, though very gradually, under the dominion of the Greek speech and the Roman law. Beyond Mount Tauros both the Greek and the Roman element lay merely on the surface, and therefore those lands, like Africa, easily fell away when they were attacked by the Saracens.[6] We must now go through such of the lands east of the Hadriatic as were formed into Roman provinces during the time of the Roman Commonwealth.

But again, between the Latin and the Greek parts of the Roman dominion there was a border land, namely, the lands held by the great Illyrian race.{62} The southern parts of Illyria came within the reach of Greek influences, and it was through the affairs of Illyria that Rome was first led to meddle in the affairs of Greece. ♦The kingdom of Skodra.♦ The use of the name Illyria is at all times very vague; as a more definite meaning as the name of a kingdom whose capital was Skodra, and which, in the second half of the third century, was a dangerous neighbour to the Greek cities and islands on that coast. ♦B.C. 168.♦ This kingdom was involved in the third Macedonian war, and came to an end at the same time. As usual, it is not easy to distinguish how much, if any, of the country actually became a Roman province, and how much was left for a while in the intermediate state of dependent alliance. But, for all practical purposes, the Illyrian kingdom of Skodra formed from this time a part of the Roman dominion. With the fall of Skodra, the parts of Illyria which lay further to the north, beyond the bounds of the Greek world, first came into notice. ♦Dalmatian Wars.♦ The Greek colonies in Dalmatia had played their part in the first Illyrian war; but the land itself, which was to become an outlying fringe of Italy lying east of the Hadriatic, is now first heard of as a distinct country formed by a separation from the kingdom of Skodra. ♦B.C. 156.
B.C. 34.♦ The first Dalmatian war soon followed; but it was not till after several wars that Dalmatia became a province, and even after that time there were several revolts. ♦Roman colonies in Dalmatia.♦ Before long, Dalmatia was settled with several Roman colonies, as Jadera or Zara, and, above all, Salona, which became one of the chief cities of the Roman dominion. The neighbouring lands of Liburnia, Istria, and the land of the Iapodes, were gradually reduced during the same period. ♦Istria incorporated with Italy.♦ Istria, like the neighbouring land of Venetia,{63} was actually incorporated with Italy, and Pola, under the name of Pietas Julia, became a Roman colony.

We have already traced the process by which old Greece and the neighbouring lands of Macedonia and Epeiros gradually sank, first practically, and then formally, into parts of the Roman dominion. It would be hard to say at what particular moment many of the Greek cities and islands sank from the relation of obedient allies into that of acknowledged subjects. ♦Their late formal annexation.♦ We have seen that some of them, as Rhodes and Byzantion, were not formally annexed till the reign of Vespasian. The Greek cities on the Euxine do not seem to have been formally annexed at all till a late period of the Eastern Empire. Other outlying Greek lands and cities became so mixed up with the history of some of the Asiatic kingdoms that they will come in for a mention along with them. ♦Conquest of Crete, B.C. 67,♦ Crete kept its independence to become a nest of pirates, and to be specially conquered. It then formed one province with the then recent conquest of Kyrênê, the one great Greek settlement in Africa, which had become an appanage of the Macedonian kings of Egypt. The same had been the fate of Cyprus, an island which had always been partly Greek, and which had been further Hellenized under its Macedonian kings. ♦of Cyprus, B.C. 58.♦ Cyprus too became a province. Thus, before Rome lost her own freedom, she had become the formal or practical mistress of all the earlier abodes of freedom. Men could not yet foresee that a time would come when Greek and Roman should be words having the same meaning, and when the place and name of Rome herself should be transferred to one of the Greek cities which Vespasian formally reduced from alliance to bondage.

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In Roman history one war and one conquest always led to another, and, as the affairs of Illyria had led to Roman interference in Greece, so the affairs of Greece led to Roman interference in Asia. ♦B.C. 191-188.♦ The first war which Rome waged with Antiochos of Syria led to no immediate increase of the Roman territory, but all the Seleukid possessions on this side Tauros were divided among the allies of Rome. ♦Province of Asia. B.C. 133-129.♦ This, as usual, was the first step towards the conquest of Asia, and it is quite according to the usual course of things that the first Roman province beyond the Ægæan, the province of Asia, was formed of the dominions of Rome’s first and most useful allies, the kings of Pergamos. The mission of Alexander and his successors, as the representatives of Western civilization against the East, now passed into the hands of Rome. Step by step, the other lands west of Tauros came under the formal or practical dominion of Rome. ♦Bithynia. B.C. 74.♦ Bithynia was the first to be annexed, and this acquisition was one of the causes which led to the second war between Rome and the famous Mithridates of Pontos. ♦Overthrow of Mithridates. B.C. 64.♦ His final overthrow brought a number of other lands under Roman dominion or influence. The Greek cities of Sinôpê and Hêrakleia obtained a nominal freedom, and vassal kings went on reigning in part of Pontos itself, and in the distant Greek kingdom of Bosporos. Rome was now mistress of Asia Minor. ♦Lykia.♦ The land was divided among her provinces and her vassal kings, save that the wise federal commonwealth of Lykia still kept the highest amount of independence which was consistent with the practical supremacy of Rome.

The Mithridatic war, which made Rome mistress of Asia in the narrower sense, at once involved her in{65} the affairs of the further East. Tigranes of Armenia had been the chief ally of Mithridates; but, though his power was utterly humbled, no Armenian province was added to the Roman dominion for a long time to come. ♦Province of Syria. B.C. 64.♦ But the remnant of the Seleukid monarchy became the Roman province of Syria. As usual, several cities and principalities were allowed to remain in various relations of alliance and dependence on the ruling commonwealth. ♦Palestine.♦ Among these we find Judæa and the rest of Palestine, sometimes under a Roman procurator, sometimes united under a single vassal king, sometimes parted out among various kings and tetrarchs, as suited the momentary caprice or policy of Rome. ♦Comparison with British India.♦ In all these various relations between the native states and the ruling city we have a lively foreshadowing of the relations between England and the subject and dependent princes of India. ♦Rome the champion of the West.♦ The conquests of Rome in these regions made her more distinctly than ever the sole representative of the West against the East, and these conquests presently brought her into collision with the one power in the known world which could at all meet her on equal terms. She had stepped into the place of Alexander and Seleukos so far as that all those parts of Alexander’s Asiatic conquests which had received even a varnish of Hellenic culture had become parts of her dominion. ♦Her rivalry with Parthia.♦ The further East beyond the Euphrates was again under the command of a great barbarian power, that of Parthia, which had stepped into the place of Persia, as Rome had stepped into the place of Greece and Macedonia. Rome had now again a rival, in a sense from which she had not had a rival since the overthrow of Carthage and Macedonia.

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One only of the Macedonian kingdoms now remained to be gathered in. ♦Conquest of Egypt. B.C. 31.♦ The annexation of Egypt, an annexation made famous by the names of Kleopatra, Antonius, the elder and the younger Cæsar, completed the work. Rome was now fully mistress of her own civilized world. Her dominion took in all the lands round the great inland sea. If, here and there, her formal dominion was broken by a city or principality whose nominal relation was that of alliance, the distinction concerned only the local affairs of that city or principality. ♦Pax Romana.♦ Within the whole historic world of the three ancient continents, the Roman Peace had begun. Rome had still to wage wars, and even to annex provinces; but those wars and annexations were now done rather to round off and to strengthen the territory which had been already gained, than in the strictest sense to extend it.

§ 5. Conquests under the Empire.

At the same moment when the Roman commonwealth was practically changed into a monarchy, the Roman dominion was thus brought, not indeed to its greatest extent, but to an extent of which its further extension was only a natural completion. ♦Conquests under Augustus and Tiberius.♦ There seems a certain inconsistency when we find Augustus laying down a rule against the enlargement of the Empire, while the Empire was, during his reign and that of his successor, extended in every direction. But the conquests of this time were mainly conquests for the purpose of strengthening the frontier; the occasional changes of this and that city or district from the dependent to the provincial relation, or sometimes from the provincial to the{67} dependent, are now hardly worth mentioning. ♦Incorporation of the dependent kingdoms.♦ Between Augustus and Nero, or, at all events, between Augustus and Vespasian, all the dependent states in Asia and Africa, such as Mauritania, Kappadokia, Lykia, and others, were finally incorporated with the Empire to which they had long been practically subject. These annexations can hardly be called conquests. And it was merely finishing a work which had been begun two hundred years before, when the small corner of Spain which still kept its independence was brought under the Roman power. ♦Strengthening of the frontier.♦ The real conquests of this time consisted in the strengthening of the European frontier. No frontier nearer than the Rhine and the Danube could be looked on as safe. This lesson was easily learned; but it had also to be accompanied by another lesson which taught that the Rhine and the Danube, and no more distant points, were to be the real frontiers of Rome.

This brings us both to the lands which were then our own and to the lands which became our own in after times. During the reign of Augustus two conquests which most nearly concern our own history were planned, and one of them was attempted. The annexation of the land which was to become England was talked of; the annexation of the land which then was England, along with the rest of the German lands, was seriously attempted. But the conquest of Britain was put off from the days of Augustus to the days of Claudius. ♦Attempted conquest of Germany. B.C. 11-A.D.  9.♦ The attempt at the conquest of Germany, which was deemed to have been already carried out, was shivered when Arminius overthrew the legions of Varus. ♦A.D. 19.♦ The expeditions of Drusus and Germanicus into Northern Germany must have brought{68} the Roman armies into contact with our own forefathers, for the first time, and, for several ages, for the last time. But from this time the relations between Rome and southern Germany begin, and constantly increase in importance. The two great rivers were fixed as a real frontier. ♦Conquests on the Danube.♦ The lands between the Alps and the Danube, Rætia, Vindelicia, Noricum, Pannonia, with Mœsia on the lower Danube, were all added to the Empire during the reign of Augustus. These were strictly defensive annexations, annexations made in order to remove the dangerous frontier further from Italy. Beyond the Rhine and the Danube the Roman possessions were mere outposts held for the defence of the land between the two great streams.

Meanwhile, while the attempt of the conquest of Germany came to so little, an attempt at conquest at the other end of the world, in the Arabian peninsula, came to even less. ♦Thrace.♦ It marks the policy of Rome and the gradual nature of her advance that, while these more distant conquests were made or attempted, Thrace still retained her dependent princes, the only land of any extent within the European dominions of Rome which did so. But Thrace, surrounded by Roman provinces, was in no way dangerous; it might remain a dependency while more distant lands were incorporated. It was not till uniformity was more sought after, till, under Vespasian, the nominal freedom of so many cities and principalities came to an end, that Thrace became a province. ♦Annexation of Byzantion.♦ It was then that, among her latest formal acquisitions in Europe, Rome annexed the city which was, in the course of ages, to take her own place and name.

Thus, in the days between Augustus and Trajan,{69} the conquests which Rome actually made were mainly of a defensive and strengthening character. To this rule there is one and only one exception of any importance. This is the annexation to the Roman world of the land which was looked on as another world, the conquest of the greater part of the Isle of Britain. But Britain, though it did not come under the same law as the defensive annexations of Rætia and Pannonia, was naturally suggested by the annexation of Gaul and by the visits of the first Cæsar to the island. ♦Claudius. B.C. 43.♦ No actual conquest however took place till the reign of Claudius. ♦Agricola. B.C. 84.♦ Forty years later the Roman conquests in Britain were pushed by Agricola as far as the isthmus between the friths of Forth and Clyde, the boundary marked by the later rampart of Antoninus. But the lasting boundary of the Roman dominion in Britain cannot be looked on as reaching beyond the line of the southern wall of Hadrian, Severus, and Stilicho, between the Solway and the mouth of the Tyne. The northern part of Britain thus remained unconquered, and the conquest of Ireland was not even attempted. For us the conquest of the land which afterwards became our own has an interest above all the other conquests of Rome. But it is a purely geographical interest. The British victories of Cæsar and Agricola were won, not over our own forefathers, but over those Celtic Britons whom our forefathers more thoroughly swept away. The history of our own nation is still for some ages to be looked for by the banks of the Elbe and the Weser, not by those of the Severn and the Thames.

Britain was the last to be won of the Western provinces of Rome, and the first to be lost. Still it was,{70} for more than three hundred years, thoroughly incorporated with the Empire, and its loss did not happen till that general break-up of the Empire of which its loss was the first stage. But between the conquest of Britain and its loss there was a short time in which Rome again extended her dominion in the old fashion, both in Europe and Asia. ♦Conquests of Trajan. A.D. 98-117.♦ This was during the reign of Trajan, when the Roman borders were again widely extended in both Europe and Asia. Under him the Danube ceased to be a boundary stream in one continent and the Euphrates in the other. ♦His Asiatic and European conquests.♦ But a marked distinction must be drawn between his Asiatic and his European warfare. Trajan’s Asiatic conquests were strictly momentary; they were at once given up by his successor; and they will be better dealt with when we speak in another chapter of the long strife between Rome and her Eastern rival, first Parthian and then Persian. ♦Conquest of Arabia Petræa. A.D. 106.♦ The only lasting Asiatic conquest of Trajan’s reign was not made by Trajan himself, namely the small Roman province in Northern Arabia.

The European conquests of Trajan stand on another ground. If not strictly defensive, like those of Augustus, they might easily seem to be so. ♦Dacia.♦ The Dacians, to the north of the lower Danube, were really threatening to the Roman power in those regions, and they had dealt Rome more than one severe blow in the days of Domitian. ♦A.D. 106.♦ Trajan now formed the lands between the Thiess and the Danube, the Dniester and the Carpathian Mountains, into the Roman province of Dacia. ♦A.D. 270.♦ The last province to be won was the first to be given up; for Aurelian withdrew from it, and transferred its name to the Mœsian land immediately south of the Danube. But if Dacia was in this way{71} one of the most short lived of Roman conquests, it was in another way one of the most lasting. ♦Later history of Dacia.♦ Cut off, as it has been for so many ages, from all Roman influences, forming, as it has done, one of the great highways of barbarian migration, a large part of Dacia, namely the modern Rouman principality, still keeps its Roman language no less than Spain and Gaul. In one way the land is to this day more Roman than Spain or Gaul, as its people still call themselves by the Roman name. Dacia, in fact, though geographically belonging to the Eastern half of the Empire, stood in the same position as the Western provinces. Greek influences had not reached so far north, nor was there in Dacia any old-standing native civilization, such as there was in Syria and Egypt. There was therefore nothing that was at all able to hold up against Roman influences. The land was speedily and thoroughly Romanized, and it remains Roman in speech and name sixteen hundred years after the withdrawal of the Roman power.

♦Summary.♦

The Roman Empire was thus gradually formed by bringing, first Italy and then the whole of the Mediterranean lands, under the dominion of the one Roman city. In every part of that dominion the process of conquest was gradual. The lands which became Roman provinces passed through various stages of alliance and dependence before they were fully incorporated. But, in the end, all the civilized world of those times became Roman. Speaking roughly, three great rivers, the Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates, formed the European and Asiatic boundaries of the Empire. In Africa the Roman dominion consisted only of the strip of fertile land between the Mediterranean and the mountains{72} and deserts. Britain and Dacia, the only two great provinces lying beyond this range, were the last conquered and the first given up. In Western Europe and in Africa Rome carried her language and her civilization with her, and in those lands the Roman speech still remains, except where it has been swept away by Teutonic and Saracen conquests. In the lands from the Hadriatic to Mount Tauros, which had been brought more or less under Greek influences, the Greek speech and civilization stood its ground, and in those lands Greek still survives wherever it has not been swept away by Slavonic and Turkish conquests. In the further east, in Syria and Egypt, where there was an old native civilization, neither Greek nor Roman influences took real root. The differences between these three parts of the Roman Empire, the really Roman, the Greek, and the Oriental, will be clearly seen as we go on.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE.

§ 1. The Later Geography of the Empire.

The Roman dominion, as we have seen, grew up by the successive annexation of endless kingdoms, districts, and cities, each of which, after its annexation, still retained, whether as an allied province or a subject state, much of the separate being which it had while it was independent. The allies and subjects of Rome remained in a variety of different relations to the ruling city, and the old names and the old geographical boundaries were largely preserved. ♦Wiping out of old divisions under the Empire.♦ But, as the old ideas of the commonwealth gradually died out, and as the power of the Emperors gradually grew into an avowed monarchy, the political change naturally led to a geographical change. The Roman dominion ceased to be a collection of allied and subject states under a single ruling city; it changed into a single Empire, all whose parts, all whose inhabitants, were equally subject to its Imperial head. The old distinctions of Latins, Italians, and provincials died out when all free inhabitants of the Empire became alike Romans. Italy had no longer any privilege; it was simply part of the Empire, like any other part. The geographical divisions which had been, first independent, then dependent states, sank into purely administrative divisions, which might be mapped out{74} afresh at any time when it was found convenient to do so. Italy itself, in the extended sense which the word Italy had then come to bear, was mapped out afresh into regions as early as the time of Augustus. ♦New division of Italy under Augustus.♦ These divisions, eleven in number, mark an epoch in the process by which the detached elements out of which the Roman Empire had grown were fused together into one whole. As long as Italy was a collection of separate commonwealths, standing in various relations to the ruling city, there could not be any systematic division of the country for administrative purposes. Now that the whole of Italy stood on one level of citizenship or of subjection, the land might be mapped out in whatever way was most convenient. ♦The eleven Regions.♦ But the eleven regions of Augustus did not work any violent change. Old names and old boundaries largely remained. The famous names of Etruria, Latium, Samnium, Umbria, Picenum, and Lucania still lived on, though not always with their ancient boundaries. And, though all the land as far as the Alps was now Italy, two of the divisions of Italy kept their ancient names of Gaul on this side the Po and Gaul beyond the Po. Liguria and Venetia, now Italian lands, make up the remainder of Northern Italy.

Italy had thus been mapped out afresh; what was done with Italy in the time of Augustus was done with the whole Empire in the time of Constantine. What Italy was in the earlier time the whole Empire was in the later; the old distinctions had been wiped out, and the whole of the Roman world stood ready to be parted out into fresh divisions. Under Diocletian, the Empire was divided into four parts, forming the realms{75} of the four Imperial colleagues of his system, the two Augusti and their subordinate Cæsars. ♦Division of the Empire under Diocletian. A.D. 292.♦ Diocletian’s system of government involved a practical degradation of Rome from the headship of the Empire. Augusti and Cæsars now dwelled at points where their presence was more needed to ward off Persian and German attacks from the frontiers; Rome was forsaken for Nikomêdeia and Milan, for Antioch, York, and Trier. ♦Reunion under Constantine. A.D. 323.
Division between the sons of Theodosius. A.D. 395.♦ The division between the four Imperial colleagues lasted under another form after the Empire was re-united under Constantine, and it formed the groundwork of the more lasting division of the Empire into East and West, between the sons of Theodosius. The whole Empire was now mapped out according to a scheme in which ancient geographical names were largely preserved, but in which they were for the most part used in new or, at least, extended meanings. ♦The Four Prætorian Prefectures.♦ The Empire was divided into four great divisions called Prætorian Prefectures. These were divided into Dioceses—a name used in this nomenclature without regard to the ecclesiastical sense which was borrowed from it—and the dioceses again into Provinces. The four great prefectures of the East, Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, answer nearly to the fourfold division under Diocletian; while we may say that, in the final division, Illyricum and the East formed the Eastern Empire, and Italy and Gaul formed the Western. But it is only roughly that either the prefectures or their smaller divisions answer to any of the great national or geographical landmarks of earlier times.

The Prefecture of the East is that one among the four which least answers to anything in earlier geography, natural or historical. Its boundaries do not answer to{76} those of any earlier dominion, nor yet to any great division of race or language. It stretched into all the three continents of the old world, and took in all those parts of the Empire which were never fully brought under either Greek or Roman influences. But it also took in large tracts which we have learned to look on as part of the Hellenic world—not only lands which had been, to a great extent, Hellenized in later times, but even some of the earliest Greek colonies. The four dioceses into which the Prefecture was divided formed far more natural divisions than the Prefecture itself.

Three of these were Asiatic. The first, specially called the East, took in all the possessions of Rome beyond Mount Tauros, together with Isauria, Kilikia, and the island of Cyprus. Its eastern boundaries naturally fluctuated according as Rome or Persia prevailed on the Euphrates and the Tigris, fluctuations of which we shall have again to speak more specially. ♦Egypt,♦ The diocese of Egypt, besides Egypt in the elder sense, took in, under the name of Libya, the old Greek land of the Kyrenaic Pentapolis. ♦Asia.♦ The diocese of Asia, a reminder of the elder province of that name and of the kingdom of Pergamos out of which it grew, took in the Asiatic coasts of the Ægæan, together with Pamphylia, Lykia, and the Ægæan Islands. The diocese of Pontos, preserving the name of the kingdom of Mithridates, took in the lands on the Euxine, with the fluctuating Armenian possessions of Rome.

Besides these Asiatic lands, the Eastern Prefecture contained one European diocese, that of Thrace, which took in the lands stretching from the Propontis to the Lower Danube. The names of two of its provinces are remarkable. Rome now boasts of a province of{77} Scythia. But, among the varied uses of that name, it has now shrunk up to mean the land immediately south of the mouths of the Danube. ♦Province of Europa.♦ The other name is Europa, a name which, as a Roman province, means the district immediately round the New Rome. Constantine had now fixed his capital on the site of the old Byzantion, the site from which the city on the Bosporos might seem to bear rule over two worlds. With whatever motive, the name of Europe was specially given to that corner of the Western continent where it comes nearest to the Eastern. Nor was the name ill-chosen for the district round the city which was so long to be the bulwark of Europe against invading Asia. ♦Great cities of the Eastern Prefecture.♦ And, besides the New Rome, this Prefecture, as containing those parts of the Empire which had belonged to the great Macedonian kingdoms, contained an unusual proportion of the great cities of the world. Besides a crowd of less famous places, it took in the two great Eastern seats of Grecian culture, the most renowned Alexandria and the most renowned Antioch, themselves only the chief among many others cities bearing the same names. All these, it should be remarked, were comparatively recent creations, bearing the names of individual men. That cities thus artificially called into being should have kept the position which still belonged to the great Macedonian capitals is one of the most speaking signs of the effect which the dominion of Alexander and his successors had on the history of the world.

The nomenclature of the second Prefecture marks how utterly Greece, as a country and nation, had died out of all reckoning. The Prefecture of the Eastern Illyricum answered roughly to European Greece and its immediate neighbours. It took in the lands stretching{78} from the Danube to the southern point of Peloponnêsos. Greece, as part of the Roman Empire, was included under the name of the barbarian land through which Rome was first brought into contact with Greek affairs. She was further included under the name of the half-barbarian neighbour who had become Greek through the process of conquering Greece. In the system of Prefectures, Greece formed part of Macedonia, and Macedonia formed part of Illyricum. So low had Greece, as a land, fallen at the very moment when her tongue was making the greatest of all its conquests, when a Greek city was raised to the rank of another Rome. ♦Dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia.♦ The Illyrian Prefecture contained the two dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia. This last name, it will be remembered, had, since the days of Aurelian, withdrawn to the south of the Danube. The Macedonian diocese contained six provinces, among which, besides the familiar and venerable names of Macedonia and Epeiros, we find the names, still more venerable and familiar, of Thessaly and Crete. And one yet greater name lives on with them. Hellas and Græcia have alike vanished from the map; but the most abiding name in Grecian history, the theme of Homer and the theme of Polybios, has not perished. ♦Province of Achaia.♦ Among all changes, Achaia is there still.

In the new system Italy and Rome herself were in no way privileged over the rest of the Empire. The Italian Prefecture took in Italy itself and the lands which might be looked on as necessary for the defence and maintenance of Italy. It took in the defensive conquests of the early Empire on the Upper Danube, and it took in the granary of Italy, Africa. Its three dioceses were Italy, Illyricum, and Africa. Here Illyricum{79} strangely gave its name both to a distinct Prefecture and to one diocese of the Prefecture of Italy. ♦Dioceses of Italy,♦ The Italian diocese contained seventeen provinces. The Gaulish name has now wholly vanished from the lands south of the Alps. The lands between the older and the newer boundaries of Italy are now divided into Liguria and Venetia—the former name being used in a widely extended sense—and the new names of Æmilia and Flaminia, provinces named after the great Roman roads, as the roads themselves were named after Roman magistrates. But the new Italy has spread beyond the Alps, and reaches to the Danube. Two Rætian provinces form part of it. Three other provinces are formed by the three great islands, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. ♦Illyricum,♦ The diocese of the Western Illyricum took in Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Noricum. ♦Africa.♦ The third diocese, that of Africa, took in the old Africa, Numidia, and western Mauritania. ♦Greatness of Carthage.♦ The union of these lands with Italy may seem less strange when we remember that the colony of the first Cæsar, the restored Carthage, was the greatest of Latin-speaking cities after Rome herself.

The fourth Prefecture took in the Roman dominions in Western Europe, the great Latin-speaking provinces beyond the Alps. ♦Diocese of Spain; its African territory.♦ Among the seven provinces of Spain are reckoned, not only the Balearic islands, a natural appendage to the Spanish peninsula, but a small part of the African continent, the province of Tingitana, stretching from the now Italian Africa to the Ocean. This was according to the general law by which, in almost all periods of history, either the masters of Spain have borne rule in Africa or the masters of Africa have borne rule in Spain. ♦Diocese of Gaul;♦ The diocese of Gaul, with its{80} seventeen provinces, keeps, at least in name, the boundaries of the old Transalpine land. It still numbers the two Germanies west of the Rhine among its provinces. ♦of Britain.♦ The five provinces of the diocese of Britain took in, at the moment when the Empire was beginning to fall asunder, a greater territory than Rome had held in the island in the days of her greatest power. ♦Province of Valentia. A.D. 367.♦ The exploits of the elder Theodosius, who drove back the Pict by land and the Saxon by sea, for a moment added to the Empire a province beyond the wall of Antoninus, which, in honour of the reigning Emperors Valentinian and Valens, received the name of Valentia.

§ 2. The Division of the Empire.

The mapping out of the Empire into Prefectures, and its division between two or more Imperial colleagues, led naturally to its more lasting division into what were practically two Empires. The old state of things had altogether passed away. Rome was no longer the city ruling over subject states. From the Ocean to the Euphrates all was alike, if not Rome, at least Romania; all its inhabitants were equally Romans. But to be a Roman now meant, no longer to be a citizen of a commonwealth, but to be the subject of an Emperor. The unity of the Empire was not broken by the division of its administration between several Imperial colleagues; but Rome ceased to be the only Imperial dwelling-place, and, from the latter years of the third century, it ceased to be an Imperial dwelling-place at all. As long as Rome held her old place, no lasting division, nothing more than an administrative partition among colleagues, could be thought of. There{81} could be no division to mark on the map. But, when the new system had fully taken root at the end of the fourth century, we come to a division which was comparatively lasting, one which fills an important place in history, and which is capable of being marked on the map. ♦Division of the Empire between the sons of Theodosius. A.D. 395.♦ On the death of Theodosius the Great, the Empire was divided between his two sons, Arcadius taking the Eastern provinces, answering nearly to the Prefectures of the East and of Illyricum, while Honorius took the Western provinces, the Prefectures of Italy and Gaul. Through the greater part of the fifth century, the successors of Arcadius and of Honorius formed two distinct lines of Emperors, of whom the Eastern reigned at Constantinople, the Western most commonly at Ravenna. But as the dominions of each prince were alike Roman, the Eastern and Western Emperors were still looked on in theory as Imperial colleagues charged with the administration of a common Roman dominion. ♦Practically two Empires.♦ Practically however the dominions of the two Emperors may be looked on as two distinct Empires, the Eastern having its seat at the New Rome or Constantinople, while the Western had its seat more commonly at Ravenna than at the Old Rome.

This division of the Empire is the great political feature of the fifth century; but the fate of the two Empires was widely different. ♦Enemies of Rome.♦ From the very beginning of the Empire, Rome had had to struggle with two chief enemies, in the East and in the West, in Europe and in Asia, the nature of whose warfare was widely different. ♦Rivalry with Parthia and Persia.♦ In the East she had, first the Parthian and then the regenerate Persian, as strictly a rival power on equal terms. This rivalry went on from the moment when Rome stepped into the place of the{82} Seleukids till the time when Rome was cut short, and Persia overthrown, by the Saracenic invasions. But, except during the momentary conquests of Trajan and during the equally momentary alternate conquests of Rome and Persia in the seventh century, the whole strife was a mere border warfare which did not threaten the serious dismemberment of either power. This and that fortress was taken and retaken; this and that province was ceded and ceded back again; but except under Trajan and again under Chosroes and Heraclius, the existence and dominion of neither power was ever seriously threatened. ♦Rivalry with Persia passes on to the Eastern Empire.♦ The Eastern Empire naturally inherited this part of the calling of the undivided Empire, the long strife with Persia.

At the other end of the Empire, the enemy was of quite another kind. ♦Teutonic incursions in the Western Empire.♦ The danger there was through the incursions of the various Teutonic nations. There was no one Teutonic power which could be a rival to Rome in the same sense in which Persia was in the East; but a crowd of independent Teutonic tribes were pressing into the Empire from all quarters, and were striving to make settlements within its borders. The task of resisting these incursions fell of course to the Western Empire. ♦No Teutonic settlements in the Eastern Empire.♦ The Eastern Empire indeed was often traversed by wandering Teutonic nations; but no permanent settlements were made within its borders, no dismemberment of its provinces capable of being marked on the map was made till a much later time. But the Western Empire was altogether dismembered and broken in pieces by the settlement of the Teutonic nations within it. The geographical aspects of the two Empires during the fifth century are thus strikingly unlike one another; but each continues one side of the{83} history of the undivided Empire. It will therefore be well to trace those two characteristic aspects of the two Empires separately. We will first speak of the Teutonic incursions, through which in the end the Western Empire was split up and the states of modern Europe were founded. We will then trace the geographical aspect of the long rivalry between Rome and Persia in the East.

§ 3. The Teutonic Settlements within the Empire.

Our subject is historical geography, and neither ethnology nor political history, except so far as either national migrations or political changes produce a directly geographical effect. ♦The Wandering of the Nations.♦ The great movement called the Wandering of the Nations, and its results in the settlement of various Teutonic nations within the bounds of the Roman Empire, concern us now only so far as they wrought a visible change on the map. The exact relations of the different tribes to one another, the exact course of the migrations which led to the final settlement of each, belong rather to another branch of inquiry. But there are certain marked stages in the relations of the Empire to the nations beyond its borders, certain marked stages in the growth and mutual relations of those nations, which must be borne in mind in order to explain their settlements within the Empire. ♦Changes in the nomenclature of the Teutonic nations.♦ It will be at once seen that the geography and nomenclature of the German nations in the third century is for the most part quite different from their geography and nomenclature as we find it in Cæsar and Tacitus. New names have come to the front, names all of which play a part in history, many of which remain to this day; and, with one or{84} two exceptions, the older names sink into the background. It is therefore hardly needful to go through the ethnology and geography of Tacitus, or to deal with any of the controverted points which are suggested thereby. We have to look at the German nations purely in their relations to Rome.

We have seen that the history of Rome in her western provinces was, from an early stage of the Empire, a struggle with the Teutonic nations on the Rhine and the Danube. We have seen that all attempts at serious conquest beyond those boundaries came to nothing. ♦Roman possessions beyond those rivers.♦ The Roman possessions beyond the two great rivers were mere outposts for the better security of the land within the rivers. The district beyond them, fenced in by a wall and known as the Agri Decumates, was hardly more than such an outlying post on a great scale. The struggle along the border was, almost from the beginning, a defensive struggle on the part of Rome. We hear of Roman conquests from the second century to the fifth; but they are strictly defensive conquests, the mere recovery of lost possessions, or at most the establishment of fresh outposts. ♦Formation of confederacies among the Germans.♦ From the moment of the first appearance of Rome on the two rivers, the Teutonic nations were really threatening to Rome, and the warfare of Rome was really defensive; and from the very beginning too a process seems to have been at work among the German nations themselves which greatly strengthened their power as enemies of Rome. New nations or confederacies, bearing, for the most part, names unknown to earlier times, begin to be far more dangerous than the smaller and more scattered tribes of the earlier times had been. These movements{85} among the German nations themselves, hastened by pressure of other nations to the east of them, caused the Teutonic attacks on the Empire to become more and more formidable, and at last to grow into Teutonic settlements within the Empire. But, in the course of this process, several stages may be noticed. ♦Marcomanni and Quadi.♦ Thus the Marcomanni and the Quadi play a part in this history from the very beginning. The Marcomanni appear in Cæsar, and, from their name of Markmen, we may be sure that they were a confederacy of the same kind as the later confederacies of the Franks and Alemanni. In the first and second centuries the Marcomanni are dangerous neighbours, threatening the Empire and often penetrating beyond its borders, and their name appears in history as late as the fifth century. But they play no part in the Teutonic settlements within the Empire. They do not affect the later map; they had no share in bringing about the changes out of which modern Europe arose. Their importance ceases just at the time when a second stage begins, when, in the course of the third century, we begin to hear of those nations or confederacies whose movements really did affect later history and geography.

In the third and fourth centuries the history of modern Europe begins. ♦The new confederacies.♦ We now begin to hear names which have been heard ever since, Franks, Alemans, Saxons, all of them great confederacies of German tribes. ♦Defensive warfare of Rome.♦ Defence against German inroads now becomes the chief business of the rulers of Rome. The invaders were constantly driven back; but new invaders were as constantly found to renew their incursions. Men of Teutonic race pressed into the Empire in every conceivable character. ♦Germans within the Empire.♦ Besides open enemies, who came{86} with the hope either of plunder or settlement, crowds of Germans served in the Roman armies and obtained lands held by military tenure as the reward of their services. Their chiefs were promoted to every rank and honour, military and civil, short of the Imperial dignity itself. These were changes of the utmost importance in other points of view; still they do not directly affect the map of the Empire. Lands and cities were won and lost over and over again; but such changes were merely momentary; the acknowledged boundaries of the Roman dominion were not yet altered; it is not till the next stage that geography begins to be directly concerned.

This last stage begins with the early years of the fifth century, and thus nearly coincides with the division of the Empire into East and West. Gothic and other Teutonic kings could now march at pleasure at the head of their armies through every corner of the Empire, sometimes bearing the titles of Roman officers, sometimes dictating the choice of Roman Emperors, sometimes sacking the Old Rome or threatening the New. It was when these armies under their kings settled down and formed national kingdoms within the limits of the Empire, that the change comes to have an effect on the map. In the course of the fifth century the Western provinces of Rome were rent away from her. In most cases the loss was cloaked by some Imperial commission, some empty title bestowed on the victorious invader; but the Empire was none the less practically dismembered. Out of these dismemberments the modern states of Europe gradually grew. It will now be our business to give some account of those nations, Teutonic and otherwise, who had an{87} immediate share in this work, passing lightly by all questions, and indeed all nations, which cannot be said to have had such an immediate share in it.

The nations which in the fourth and fifth centuries made settlements in the Western provinces of Rome fall under two chief heads; those who made their settlements by land, and those who made them by sea. This last class is pretty well coextensive with the settlement of our own forefathers in Britain, which must be spoken of separately. ♦Settlements within the Empire.♦ Among the others, the nations who play an important part in the fourth and fifth centuries are the Goths, the Vandals, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Franks. And their settlements again fall into two classes, those which passed away within a century or two, and those which have had a lasting effect on European history. ♦Franks, Burgundians, Suevi,♦ Thus it is plain at the first glance that the Franks and the Burgundians have left their names on the modern map. The Suevi have left their name also: but it is now found only in their older German land; it has vanished for ages from their western settlement. ♦Goths,♦ The name of the Goths has passed away from the kingdoms which they founded, but their presence has affected the history of both the Spanish and the Italian peninsulas. ♦Vandals.♦ The Vandals alone, as a nation and kingdom, have left no traces whatever, though it may be that they have left their name to a part of one of the lands of their sojourn. ♦Their kingdoms.♦ All these nations founded kingdoms within the Western Empire, kingdoms which at first admitted a nominal superiority in the Empire, but which were practically independent from the beginning. ♦Various circumstances of their history.♦ But the history of the several kingdoms is very different. Some of them soon passed away altogether, while{88} others became the beginnings of the great nations of modern Europe. Gaul and Spain fell off very gradually from the Empire. But, in the course of the fifth century, all the nations of which we have been speaking formed more or less lasting settlements within those provinces. Pre-eminent among them are the great settlements of the Goths and the Franks. Out of the settlement of the Franks arose the modern kingdoms of Germany and France, and out of the settlement of the Goths arose the various kingdoms of Spain. Those of the Burgundians, Vandals, and Suevi were either smaller or less lasting. All of them however must be mentioned in their order.

First and greatest come the Goths. It is not needful for our purpose to examine all that history or legend has to tell us as to the origin of the Goths, or all the theories which ingenious men have formed on the subject. ♦Defeat of the Goths by Claudius. A.D. 269.♦ It is enough for our purpose that the Goths began to show themselves as dangerous enemies of the Empire in the second half of the third century; but their continuous history does not begin till the second half of the fourth. ♦Gothic kingdom on the Danube.♦ We then find them forming a great kingdom in the lands north of the Danube. ♦Goths driven onwards by the Huns.♦ Presently a large body of them were driven to seek shelter within the bounds of the Eastern Empire from the pressure of the invading Huns. These last were a Turanian people who had been driven from their own older settlements by movements in the further East which do not concern us, but who become an important element in the history of the fifth century. They affected the Empire, partly by actual invasions, partly by driving other nations before them but they made no lasting settlements within it. Nor{89} did the Goths themselves make any lasting settlement in the Eastern Empire. ♦They cross the Danube. A.D. 377.♦ While one part of the Gothic nation became subject to the Huns, another part crossed the Danube; but they crossed it by Imperial licence, and if they took to arms, it was only to punish the treachery of the Roman officers. Presently we find Gothic chiefs marching at pleasure through the dominions of the Eastern Cæsar; but they simply march and ravage; it is not till they have got within the boundary of the West that they found any lasting kingdoms. In fact, the Goths, and the Teutonic tribes generally, had no real mission in the East; to them the East was a mere highway to the West. ♦Career of Alaric. A.D. 394-410.♦ The movements of Alaric in Greece, Illyricum, and Italy, his sieges and his capture of Rome, are of the highest historical importance, but they do not touch geography. The Goths first win for themselves a local habitation and a place on the map when they left Italy to establish themselves in the further West.

Under Alaric’s successor, Athaulf, the first foundations were laid of that great West-Gothic kingdom which we are apt to look on as specially Spanish, but which in truth had its first beginning in Gaul, and which kept some Gaulish territory as long as it lasted. But the Goths passed into those lands, not in the character of avowed conquerors, not as founders of an avowed Gothic state, but as soldiers of the Empire, sent to win back its lost provinces. ♦Condition of Gaul and Spain.♦ Those provinces were now occupied or torn in pieces by a crowd of invaders, Suevi, Vandals, and Alans. ♦The Alans.♦ These last are a puzzling race, our accounts of whom are somewhat contradictory, but who may perhaps be most safely set down as a non-Aryan, or, at any rate, a non-Teutonic{90} people, who had been largely brought under Gothic influences. But early in the fifth century they possessed a dominion in central Spain which stretched from sea to sea. ♦The Suevi in Spain.♦ Their dominion passed for a few years into the hands of the Suevi, who had already formed a settlement in north-western Spain, and who still kept a dominion in that corner long after the greater part of the peninsula had become Gothic. ♦The Vandals in Africa. A.D. 425.♦ The Vandals occupied Bætica; but they presently passed into Africa, and there founded the one Teutonic kingdom in that continent, with Carthage to its capital, a kingdom which took in also the great islands of the western Mediterranean, including Sicily itself. ♦Independence of the Basques.♦ Through all these changes the unconquerable people of the Basque and Cantabrian mountains seem never to have fully submitted to any conquerors; but the rest of Spain and south-western Gaul was, before half of the fifth century had passed, formed into the great West-Gothic kingdom. ♦Gothic kingdom of Toulouse.♦ That kingdom stretched from the pillars of Hêraklês to the Loire and the Rhone, and its capital was placed, not on Spanish but on Gaulish ground, at the Gaulish Tolosa or Toulouse. The Gothic dominion in Gaul was doomed not to be lasting; the Gothic dominion in Spain lasted down to the Saracen conquest, and all the later Christian kingdoms of Spain may be looked on as fragments or revivals of it. Spain however never changed her name for that of her conquerors. ♦Gothia.♦ The only parts of the Gothic kingdom which ever bore the Gothic name were those small parts both of Spain and Gaul which kept the name of Gothia through later causes. ♦Andalusia.♦ The Vandals, on the other hand, though they passed altogether out of Spain, have left their name to this day in its southern part under the form of Andalusia,{91} a name which, under the Saracen conquerors, spread itself over the whole peninsula.

The other great Teutonic nations or confederacies of which we have to speak have had a far more lasting effect on the nomenclature of Europe. We have now to trace the steps by which the Franks gradually became the ruling people both of Germany and of Gaul. They have stamped their name on both countries. ♦Uses of the word Francia.♦ The dominions of the Franks got the name of Francia, a name whose meaning has constantly varied according to the extent of the Frankish dominion at different times. In modern use it still cleaves to two parts of their dominions, to that part of Germany which is still called Franken or Franconia, and to that part of Gaul which is still called France. ♦The Alemanni.♦ And their history is closely mixed up with that of another nation or confederacy, that of the Alemanni, who again have, in the French tongue, given their name to the whole of Germany. ♦A.D. 275.♦ Franks and Alemanni alike begin to be heard of in the third century, and the Alemanni even attempted an actual invasion of Italy; but the geographical importance of both confederacies does not begin till the fifth. All through the fourth century it is the chief business of the Emperors who ruled in Gaul to defend the frontier of the Rhine against their incursions, against the Alemanni along the upper part of its course, and against the Franks along its lower part. ♦Thuringians.
The Low-Dutch tribes.♦ To the east of the Franks and Alemanni lay the Thuringians; to the north, along the coasts of the German Ocean, the Low-Dutch tribes, Saxons and Frisians. In the course of the fifth century their movements also began to affect the geography of the Empire.

During the whole of that century the Franks were{92} pressing into Gaul. The Imperial city of Trier was more than once taken, and the seat of the provincial government was removed to Arles. ♦Reign of Chlodwig. A.D. 481-511.♦ The union of the two chief divisions of the Frankish confederacy, and the overthrow of the Alemanni, made the Franks, under their first Christian king, Chlodwig or Clovis, the ruling people of northern Gaul and central Germany. Their territory thus took in both lands which had been part of the Empire, and lands which had never been such. ♦Character and divisions of the Frankish kingdom.♦ This is a special characteristic of the Frankish settlement, and one which influences the whole of their later history. There was, from the very beginning, long before any such distinction was consciously drawn, a Teutonic and a Latin Francia. There were Frankish lands to the East which never had been Roman. There were lands in northern Gaul which remained practically Roman under the Frankish dominion. ♦Roman Germany Teutonized afresh.♦ And between them lay, on the left bank of the Rhine, the Teutonic lands which had formed part of the Roman province of Gaul, but which now became Teutonic again. Moguntiacum, Augusta Treverorum, and Colonia Agrippina, cities founded on Teutonic soil, now again became German, ready to be in due time, by the names of Mainz, Trier, and Köln, the metropolitan and electoral cities of Germany. ♦Eastern and Western Francia.♦ These lands, with the original German lands, formed the Eastern or Teutonic Francia, where the Franks, or their German allies and subjects, formed the real population of the country. In the Western Francia, between the Loire and the Channel, though the Franks largely settled and influenced the country in many ways, the mass of the population remained Roman. ♦Armorica or Britanny.♦ Over the western peninsula of Armorica the dominion of the{93} Franks was always precarious and, at most, external. Here the ante-Roman population still kept its Celtic language, and it was further strengthened by colonies from Britain, from which the land took its later name of the Lesser Britain or Britanny. ♦Extent of the Frankish dominion. A.D. 500.♦ Thus, at the end of the fifth century, the Frankish dominion was firmly established over the whole of central Germany and Northern Gaul. Their dominion was fated to be the most lasting of the Teutonic kingdoms formed on the Roman mainland. The reason is obvious; while the Goths in Spain and the Vandals in Africa were isolated Teutonic settlers in a Roman land, the Franks in Gaul were strengthened by the unbroken Teutonic mainland at their back.

The greater part of Gaul was thus, at the end of the fifth century, divided between the Franks in the north and the West-Goths in the south. But, early in the fifth century, a third Teutonic power grew up in south-eastern Gaul. ♦Their kingdom.♦ The Burgundians, a people who, in the course of the Wandering of the Nations, seem to have made their way from the shores of the Baltic, established themselves in the lands between the Rhone and the Alps, where they formed a kingdom which bore their name. Their dominion in Gaul may be said to have been more lasting than that of the Goths, less lasting than that of the Franks. ♦Meaning of the word Burgundy.♦ Burgundy is still a recognized name; but no name in geography has so often shifted its place and meaning, and it has for some centuries settled itself on a very small part of the ancient kingdom of the Burgundians. ♦Provence Burgundian. A.D. 500-510.
510-536.♦ At the end of the fifth century the Rhone was a Burgundian river; Autun, Besançon, Lyons, and Vienne were Burgundian cities; but the sea coast, the original Roman Province, the land which{94} has so steadily kept that name, though it fell for a moment under the Burgundian power, followed at this time, as became the first Roman land beyond the Alps, the fortunes of Italy rather than those of Gaul.

Among these various conquests and shiftings of dominion, all of which affected the map at the time, some of which have affected history and geography ever since, it may be well to mention, if only by way of contrast, an inroad which fills a great place in the history of the fifth century, but which had no direct effect on geography. ♦Battle of Châlons. A.D. 451.♦ This was the invasion of Italy and Gaul by the Huns under Attila, and their defeat at Châlons by the combined forces of Romans, West-Goths, and Franks. This battle is one of the events which is remarkable, not for working change, but for hindering it. Had Attila succeeded, the greatest of all changes would have taken place throughout all Western Europe. As it was, the map of Gaul was not affected by his inroad. ♦Destruction of Aquileia, and origin of Venice.♦ On the map of Italy it did have an indirect effect; he destroyed the city of Aquileia, and its inhabitants, fleeing to the Venetian islands, laid the foundation of one of the later powers of Europe in the form of the commonwealth of Venice.

While Spain and Gaul were thus rent away from the Empire, Italy and Rome itself were practically rent away also, though the form which the event took was different. ♦Reunion of the Empire.
Rule of Odoacer. A.D. 476-493.♦ A vote of the Senate reunited the Western Empire to the Eastern; the Eastern Emperor Zeno became sole Emperor, and the government of the diocese of Italy—that is, it will be remembered, of a large territory besides the Italian peninsula—was entrusted by his commission to Odoacer, a general of barbarian mercenaries, with the rank of Patrician. No doubt Odoacer was practically independent{95} of the Empire; but the union of the Empire was preserved in form, and no separate kingdom of Italy was set up. ♦The East-Goths in Italy.♦ Presently Odoacer was overthrown by Theodoric king of the East-Goths, who, though king of his own people, reigned in Italy by an Imperial commission as Patrician. ♦Rule of Theodoric. A.D. 493-526.♦ Practically, he founded an East-Gothic kingdom, taking in Italy and the other lands which formed the dioceses of Italy and Western Illyricum. ♦Extent of his dominion.♦ His dominion also took in the coast of what we may now call Provence, and his influence was extended in various ways over most of the kingdoms of the West. The seat of the Gothic dominion, like that of the later Western Empire, was at Ravenna. Practically Theodoric and his successors were independent kings, and, as chiefs of their own people, they bore the kingly title. ♦Theory of the Empire.♦ Hence, as Rome formed part of their dominions, it is true to say that under them Rome ceased to be part of the Roman Empire. Still in theory the Imperial supremacy went on, and in this way it became much easier for Italy to be won back to the Empire at a somewhat later time.

§ 4. Settlement of the English in Britain.

Meanwhile, in another part of Europe, a Teutonic settlement of quite another character from those on the mainland was going on. ♦The Romans withdrawn from Britain. A.D. 411.♦ Spain and Gaul fell away from the Empire by slow degrees; but the Roman dominion in Britain came to an end by a definite act at a definite moment. The Roman armies were withdrawn from the province, and its inhabitants were left to themselves. Presently, a new settlement took place in the island which was thus left undefended. ♦Difference between the conquest of Britain and other Teutonic conquests.♦ It is specially important to mark the difference between{96} the Teutonic settlements in Britain and the Teutonic conquests on the mainland. The Teutonic conquests in Gaul and Spain were made by Teutonic neighbours who had already learned to know and respect the Roman civilization, who were either Christians already or became Christians soon after they entered the Empire. They pressed in gradually by land; they left the Roman inhabitants to live after the Roman law, and they themselves gradually adopted the speech and much of the manners of Rome. The only exception to this rule on the continent is to be found in the lands immediately on the Rhine and the Danube, where the Teutonic settlement was complete, and where the Roman tongue and civilization were pretty well wiped out. This same process happened yet more completely in the Teutonic conquest of Britain. ♦Character of the English settlement; long struggle with the Britons.♦ The great island possession of Rome had been virtually abandoned by Rome before the Teutonic settlements in it began. The invaders had therefore to struggle rather with native Britons than with Romans. Moreover, they were invaders who came by sea, and who came from lands where little or nothing was known of the Roman law or religion. They therefore made a settlement of quite another kind from the settlement of the Goths or even from that of the Franks. They met with a degree of strictly national resistance such as no other Teutonic conquerors met with; therefore in the end they swept away all traces of the earlier state of things in a way which took place nowhere else. ♦The English remain Teutonic.♦ As far as such a process is possible, they slew or drove out the older inhabitants; they kept their heathen religion and Teutonic language, and were thus able to grow up as a new Teutonic nation in their new home without any important{97} intermixture with the earlier inhabitants, Roman or British.

The conquerors who wrought this change were our own forefathers, the Low-Dutch inhabitants of the border lands of Germany and Denmark, quite away from the Roman frontier; and among them three tribes, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, had the chief share in the conquest of Britain. ♦Saxons.♦ The Saxons had, as has already been said, attempted a settlement in the fourth century. They were therefore the tribe who were first known to the Roman and Celtic inhabitants of the island; the Celts of Britain and Ireland have therefore called all the Teutonic settlers Saxons to this day. ♦Origin of the name English.♦ But, as the Angles or English occupied in the end much the greater part of the land, it was they who, when the Teutonic tribes in Britain began to form one nation, gave their name to that nation and its land. That nation was the English, and their land was England. While Britain therefore remains the proper geographical name of the whole island, England is the name of that part of Britain which was step by step conquered by the English. Before the end of the fifth century several Teutonic kingdoms had begun in Britain. ♦Jutes in Kent. A.D. 449.♦ The Jutes began the conquest by their settlement in Kent, and presently the Saxons began to settle on the South coast and on a small part of the East coast, in Sussex, Wessex, and Essex. ♦Saxon and Anglian settlements.♦ And along a great part of the eastern coast various Anglian settlements were made, which gradually grew into the kingdoms of East-Anglia, Deira, and Bernicia, which two last formed by their union the great kingdom of Northumberland. But, at the end of the sixth century, the English had not got very far from the southern and{98} eastern coasts. ♦The Welsh and Scots.♦ The Britons, whom the English called Welsh or strangers, held out in the West, and the Picts and Scots in the North. The Scots were properly the people of Ireland; but a colony of them had settled on the western coast of northern Britain, and, in the end, they gave the name of Scotland to the whole North of the island.

§ 5. The Eastern Empire.

We have already seen the differences between the position of the Eastern and Western Empires during this period. While in the West the provinces were gradually lopped away by the Teutonic settlements, the provinces of the East, though often traversed by Teutonic armies, or rather nations, did not become the seats of lasting Teutonic settlements. ♦The Tetraxite Goths.♦ We can hardly count as an exception the settlement of the Tetraxite Goths in the Tauric Chersonêsos, a land which was rather in alliance with the Empire than actually part of it. ♦Rivalry with Persia.♦ The distinctive history of the Eastern Empire consists, as has been already said, in the long struggle between East and West, in which Rome had succeeded to the mission of Alexander and the Seleukids as the representative of Western civilization. To this mission was afterwards added the championship of Christianity, first against the Fire-worshipper and then against the Moslem. In Eastern history no event is more important and more remarkable than the uprising of the regenerate Persian nation against its Parthian masters. ♦Revival of the Persian kingdom. A.D. 226.♦ But, as far as either the history or the geography of Rome is concerned, the Persian simply steps into the place of the Parthian as the representative of the East against the West. From{99} our point of view, the long wars on the Eastern frontier of Rome, and the frequent shiftings of that frontier, form one unbroken story, whether the enemy that was striven against is the successor of Arsakes or the successor of Artaxerxes. ♦Position of Armenia.♦ And besides the natural rivalry of two great powers in such a position, the border kingdom of Armenia, a name which has changed its meaning and its frontiers almost as often as Burgundy or Austria, supplied constant ground for dispute between Rome and her eastern rival, whether Parthian or Persian.

In the geographical aspect of this long struggle three special periods need to be pointed out. ♦Conquests of Trajan. A.D. 114-117.♦ The first is that of the momentary conquests of Trajan. Under him Armenia, hitherto a vassal kingdom of Rome, was incorporated as a Roman province. Albania and Iberia took its place as the frontier vassal states. Beyond the Euphrates, even beyond the Tigris, the Roman dominion took in Mesopotamia, Atropatênê, and Babylonia. The Parthian capital of Ktesiphôn and the outlying Greek free city of Seleukeia were included within the boundaries of an Empire which for a moment touched the Caspian and the Persian Gulf. Rome, as the champion of the West, seemed to have triumphed for ever over her Eastern rival, when the Parthian kingdom was thus shorn of the border lands of the two worlds, and when its king was forced to become a Roman vassal for the dominions that were left to him. But this vast extension of the Roman power was strictly only for a moment. ♦Conquests of Trajan surrendered by Hadrian. A.D. 117.♦ What Trajan had conquered Hadrian at once gave back; the Empire was again bounded by the Euphrates, and Armenia was again left to form matter of dispute between its Eastern and its Western claimant. ♦Conquests of Marcus. A.D. 162-166.♦ The second stage begins when, under Marcus,{100} the Roman frontier again began to advance. ♦Of Severus. A.D. 197-202.♦ Between the Euphrates and the Tigris Osrhoênê became a Roman dependency: under the house of Severus it became a Roman province; and the fortress of Nisibis, so famous in later wars, was planted as the Eastern outpost of Rome against the Parthian. Ten years later the Parthian power was no more; but, as seen with Western eyes, the revived monarchy of Persia had simply stepped into its place. The wars of Alexander Severus, the captivity of Valerian, the wasting march of Sapor through the Roman provinces, left no trace on the map. ♦Conquests under Diocletian. A.D. 297.♦ But under the mighty rule of Diocletian the glories of Trajan were renewed. Mesopotamia again became Roman; five provinces beyond the Tigris were added to the Empire; Armenia, again the vassal of Rome, was enlarged at the expense of Persia, and Iberia was once more a Roman dependency. In the third stage the Roman frontier again went back. The wars of the second Sapor did little but deprive Rome of two Mesopotamian fortresses. ♦Surrender of provinces by Jovian. A.D. 363.♦ But after the fall of Julian the lands beyond the Tigris were given back to Persia; even Nisibis was yielded, and the Persian frontier again reached the Euphrates. ♦Division of Armenia. 387.
The Hundred Years’ Peace. 421.♦ Armenia was now tossed to and fro, conquered and reconquered, till the kingdom was divided between the vassals of the two Empires, a division which was again confirmed by the hundred years’ peace between Rome and Persia. This was the state of the Eastern frontier of Rome at the time when the West-Goths were laying the foundation of their dominion in Spain and Aquitaine, when Goth and Roman joined together to overthrow the mingled host of Attila at Châlons, and when the first English keels were on their way to the shores of Britain.

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This then is the picture of the civilized world at the end of the fifth century. The whole of the Western dominions of Rome, including Italy and Rome herself, have practically, if not everywhere formally, fallen away from the Roman Empire. The whole West is under the rule of Teutonic kings. The Frank has become supreme in northern Gaul, without losing his ancient hold on western and central Germany. The West-Goth reigns in Spain and Aquitaine; the Burgundian reigns in the lands between the Rhone and the Alps. Italy and the lands to the north of the Alps and the Hadriatic have become, in substance though not in name, an East-Gothic kingdom. But the countries of the European mainland, though cut off from Roman political dominion, are far from being cut off from Roman influences. The Teutonic settlers, if conquerors, are also disciples. Their rulers are everywhere Christian; in Northern Gaul they are even Orthodox. Africa, under the Arian Vandal, is far more utterly cut off from the traditions of Rome than the lands ruled either by the Catholic Frank or by the Arian Goth. To the north of the Franks lie the independent tribes of Germany, still untouched by any Roman influence. They are beginning to find themselves new homes in Britain, and, as the natural consequence of a purely barbarian and heathen conquest, to sever from the Empire all that they conquered yet more thoroughly than Africa itself was severed. Such is the state of the West. In the East the Roman power lives on in the New Rome, with a dominion constantly threatened and insulted by various enemies, but with a frontier which has varied but little since the time of Aurelian. No lasting Teutonic settlement{102} has been made within its borders. In its endless wars with Persia, its frontier sometimes advances and sometimes retreats. In our next chapter we shall see how much of life still clung to the majesty of the Roman name, and how large a part of the ancient dominion of Rome could still be won back again.

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CHAPTER V.

THE FINAL DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE.

§ 1. The Reunion of the Empire.

The main point to be always borne in mind in the history, and therefore in the historical geography, of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, is the continued existence of the Roman Empire. It was still the Roman Empire, although the seat of its dominion was no longer at the Old Rome, although for a while the Old Rome was actually separated from the Roman dominion. Gaul, Spain, Africa, Italy itself, had been lopped away. Britain had fallen away by another process. But the Roman rule went on undisturbed in the Eastern part of the Empire, and even in the West the memory of that rule had by no means wholly died out. ♦Position of the Teutonic kings.♦ Teutonic kings ruled in all the countries of the West; but nowhere on the continent had they become national sovereigns. They were still simply the chiefs of their own people reigning in the midst of a Roman population. The Romans meanwhile everywhere looked to the Cæsar of the New Rome as their lawful sovereign, from whose rule they had been unwillingly torn away. Both in Spain and in Italy the Gothic kings had settled in the country as Imperial lieutenants with an Imperial commission. The formal aspect of the event of 476 had been the reunion of the Western Empire with the Eastern. ♦Recovery of territory by the Empire.♦ It was{104} perfectly natural therefore that the sole Roman Emperor reigning in the New Rome should strive, whenever he had a chance, to win back territories which he had never formally surrendered, and that the Roman inhabitants of those territories should welcome him as a deliverer from barbarian masters. The geographical limits within which, at the beginning of the sixth century, the Roman power was practically confined, the phænomena of race and language within those limits, might have suggested another course. But considerations of that kind are seldom felt at the time; they are the reflexions of thoughtful men long after. ♦Extent of the Roman dominion at the accession of Justinian, 527.♦ The Roman dominion, at the accession of Justinian, was shut up within the Greek and Oriental provinces of the Empire; its enemies were already beginning to speak of its subjects as Greeks. Its truest policy would have been to have anticipated several centuries of history, to have taken up the position of a Greek state, defending its borders against the Persian, withstanding or inviting the settlement of the Slave, but leaving the now Teutonic West to develope itself undisturbed. But in such cases the known past is always more powerful than the unknown future, and it seemed the first duty of the Roman Emperor to restore the Roman Empire to its ancient extent.

It was during the reign of Justinian that this work was carried out through a large part of the Western Empire. Lost provinces were won back in two continents. The growth of independent Teutonic powers was for ever stopped in Africa, and it received no small check in Europe. The Emperor was enabled, through the weakness and internal dissensions of the Vandal and Gothic kingdoms, to win back Africa and{105} Italy to the Empire. The work was done by the swords of Belisarius and Narses—the Slave and the Persian being now used to win back the Old Rome to the dominion of the New. ♦Vandal war. 533-535.♦ The short Vandal war restored Africa in the Roman sense, and a large part of Mauritania, to the Empire. ♦Gothic war. 537-554.♦ The long Gothic war won back Illyricum, Italy, and the Old Rome. Italy and Africa were still ruled from Ravenna and from Carthage; but they were now ruled not by Teutonic kings, but by Byzantine exarchs. ♦Conquest of southern Spain. 550.♦ Meanwhile, while the war with the East-Goths was going on in Italy, a large part of southern Spain was won back from the West-Goths. Two Teutonic kingdoms were thus wiped out; a third was weakened, and the acquisition of so great a line of sea-coast, together with the great islands, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands, gave the Empire an undisputed supremacy by sea. In one corner only did the Imperial frontier even nominally go back, or any Teutonic power advance at its expense. ♦Provence ceded to the Franks, 548.♦ The sea-board of Provence, which had long been practically lost to the Empire, was now formally ceded to the Franks. In this one corner the Roman Terminus withdrew.

In a geographical aspect the map of Europe has seldom been so completely changed within a single generation as it was during the reign of Justinian. At his accession his dominion was bounded to the west by the Hadriatic, and he was far from possessing the whole of the Hadriatic coast. Under his reign the power of the Roman arms and the Roman law were again extended to the Ocean. The Roman dominion was indeed no longer spread round the whole shore of the Mediterranean; the Imperial territories were no longer continuous{106} as of old: but, if the Empire was not still, as it had once been, the only power in the Mediterranean lands, it had again become beyond all comparison the greatest power. ♦Effects of Justinian’s conquests.♦ Moreover, by the recovery of so large an extent of Latin-speaking territory, the tendency of the Empire to change into a Greek or Oriental state was checked for several centuries. We are here concerned only with the geographical, not with the political or moral aspect of the conquests of Justinian. Some of those conquests, like those of Trajan, were hardly more than momentary. But the changes which they made for the time were some of the most remarkable on record, and the effect of those changes remained, both in history and geography, long after their immediate results were again undone.

§ 2. Settlement of the Lombards in Italy.

The conquests of Justinian hindered the growth of a national Teutonic kingdom in Italy, such as grew up in Gaul and Spain, and they practically made the cradle of the Empire, Rome herself, an outlying dependency of her great colony by the Bosporos. But the reunion of all Italy with the Empire lasted only for a moment. The conquest was only just over when a new set of Teutonic conquerors appeared in Italy. ♦Pannonian kingdom of the Lombards.♦ These were the Lombards, who, in the great wandering, had made their way into the ancient Pannonia about the time that the East Goths passed into Italy. They were thus settled within the ancient boundaries of the Western Empire. But the Roman power had now quite passed away from those regions, and the Lombard kingdom in Pannonia was practically altogether beyond the Imperial borders; it had not even that Roman tinge which{107} affected the Frankish and Gothic kingdoms. ♦Gepidæ.♦ To the east of the Lombards, in the ancient Dacia, another Teutonic kingdom had arisen; that of the Gepidæ, a people seemingly closely akin to the Goths. ♦Avars.♦ The process of wandering had brought the Turanian Avars into those parts, and their presence seriously affected all later history and geography. ♦Teutonic powers on the Lower Danube.♦ With the Gepidæ in Dacia and the Lombards in Pannonia, there was a chance of two Teutonic states growing up on the borders of East and West. These might possibly have played the same part in the East which the Franks and Goths played in the West, and they might thus have altogether changed the later course of history. But the Lombards allied themselves with the Avars. ♦The Gepidæ overthrown by the Lombards and Avars. 566.
The Lombards pass into Italy. 567.♦ In partnership with their barbarian allies, they overthrew the kingdom of the Gepidæ, and they themselves passed into Italy. Thus the growth of Teutonic powers in those regions was stopped. A new and far more dangerous enemy was brought into the neighbourhood of the Empire, and the way was opened for the Slavonic races to play in some degree the same part in the East which the Teutons played in the West. But while the East lost this chance of renovation, for such it would have been, the Lombard settlement in Italy was the beginning of a new Teutonic power in that country. ♦Character of the Lombard kingdom.♦ But it was not a power which could possibly grow up into a national Teutonic kingdom of all Italy, as the dominion of the East-Goths might well have done. ♦Incomplete conquest of Italy.♦ The Lombard conquest of Italy was at no time a complete conquest; part of the land was won by the Lombards; part was kept by the Emperors; and the Imperial and Lombard possessions intersected one another in a way which hindered the growth of any kind of national unity under either{108} power. ♦Lombard duchies.♦ The new settlers founded the great Lombard kingdom in the North of Italy, which has kept the Lombard name to this day, and the smaller Lombard states of Spoleto and Beneventum. But a large part of Italy still remained to the Empire. ♦Imperial possessions in Italy.♦ Ravenna, the dwelling-place of the Exarchs, Rome itself, Naples, and the island city of Venice were all centres of districts which still acknowledged the Imperial rule. The Emperors also kept the extreme southern points of both the peninsulas of Southern Italy, and, for the present, the three great islands. The Lombard Kings were constantly threatening Rome and Ravenna. ♦Ravenna taken by the Lombards. c. 753.♦ Rome never fell into their hands, but in the middle of the eighth century Ravenna was taken, and with it the district specially known as the Exarchate was annexed to the Lombard dominion. But this greatest extent of the Lombard power caused its overthrow: for it led to a chain of events which, as we shall presently see, ended in transferring not only the Lombard kingdom, but the Imperial crown of the West to the hands of the Franks.

§ 3. Rise of the Saracens.

But, before we give any account of the revolutions which took place among the already existing powers of Western Europe, it will be well to describe the geographical changes which were caused by the appearance of absolutely new actors on two sides of the Empire. ♦Roman province in Spain recovered by the Goths. 534-572.♦ One point however may be noticed here, as standing apart from the general course of events, namely, that the Roman province in Spain was won gradually back by the West-Goths. ♦616-624.♦ The inland cities, as Cordova, were hardly kept forty years, and the whole of the Imperial possessions in Spain were lost during the reign of{109} Heraclius. Thus the great dominion which Justinian had won back in the West, important as were its historical results, was itself of very short duration; a large part of Italy was lost almost as soon as it was won, and the recovered dominion in Spain did not abide more than ninety years.

But meanwhile, in the course of the seventh century, nations which had hitherto been unknown or unimportant began to play a great part in history and greatly to change the face of the map. These new powers fall under two heads; those who appeared on the northern and those who appeared on the eastern frontier of the Empire. The nations who appeared on the North were, like the early Teutonic invaders of the Empire, ready to act, if partly as conquerors, partly also as disciples; those who appeared on the East were the champions of an utterly different system in religion and everything else. In short, the old rivalry of the East and West now takes a distinctly aggressive form on the part of the East. ♦Wars between Rome and Persia.♦ As long as the Sassanid dynasty lasted, Rome and Persia still continued their old rivalry on nearly equal terms. The long wars between the two Empires made little difference in their boundaries. ♦Wars of Chosroes and Heraclius, 603-628.♦ In the last stage of their warfare Chosroes took Jerusalem and Antioch, and encamped at Chalkêdôn. Heraclius pressed his eastern victories beyond the boundaries of the Empire under Trajan. But even these great campaigns made no lasting difference in the map, except so far as, by weakening Rome and Persia alike, they paved the way for the greatest change of all. ♦Extension of the Roman power on the Euxine.♦ More important to geography was a change which took place at somewhat earlier time when, during the reign of Justinian, the{110} Roman power was extended on the Eastern side of the Euxine in Colchis or Lazica. ♦The Arabian vassals of Rome and Persia.♦ The southern borders of each Empire were to some extent protected by the dominion of dependent Arabian kings, the Ghassanides being vassals of Rome, and the Lachmites to the east of them being vassals of Persia. But a change came presently which altogether overthrew the Persian kingdom, which deprived the Roman Empire of its Eastern, Egyptian, and African provinces, and which gave both the Empire and the Teutonic kingdoms of the West an enemy of a kind altogether different from any against whom they hitherto had to strive.

The cause which wrought such abiding changes was the rise of the Saracens under Mahomet and his first followers. A new nation, that of the Arabs, now became dominant in a large part of the lands which had been part of the Roman Empire, as well as in lands far beyond its boundaries. ♦Arabia united under Mahomet, 622-632.♦ The scattered tribes of Arabia were first gathered together into a single power by Mahomet himself, and under his successors they undertook to spread the Mahometan religion wherever their swords could carry it. And, with the Mahometan religion, they carried also the Arabic language, and what we may call Eastern civilization as opposed to Western. A strife, in short, now begins between Aryan and Semitic man. Rome and Persia, with all their differences, were both of them Aryan powers. ♦Conquests of the Saracens.♦ The most amazing thing is the extraordinary speed with which the Saracens pressed their conquests at the expense of both Rome and Persia, forming a marked contrast to the slow advance both of Roman conquest and of Teutonic settlement. In the course of less than eighty years, the Mahometan conquerors formed{111} a dominion greater than that of Rome, and, for a short time, the will of the Caliph of the Prophet was obeyed from the Ocean to lands beyond the Indus. ♦Loss of the Eastern provinces of Rome. 632-639.♦ In a few campaigns the Empire lost all its possessions beyond Mount Tauros; that is, it lost one of the three great divisions of the Empire, that namely in which neither Greek nor Roman civilization had ever thoroughly taken root.

While the Roman Empire was thus dismembered, the rival power of Persia was not merely dismembered, but utterly overwhelmed. ♦Saracen conquest of Persia. 632-651.♦ The Persian nationality was again, as in the days of the Parthians, held down under a foreign power, to revive yet again ages later. But the Saracen power was very far from merely taking the place of its Parthian and Persian predecessors. The mission of the followers of Mahomet was a mission of universal conquest, and that mission they so far carried out as altogether to overthrow the exclusive dominion of Rome in her own Mediterranean. Under Justinian, if the Imperial possession of the Mediterranean coast was not absolutely continuous, the small exceptions in Africa, Spain, and Gaul in no way interfered with the maritime supremacy of the Empire, and Gaul and Spain, even where they were not Roman, were at least Christian. ♦Saracen conquest of Africa. 647-711.♦ But now a gradual advance of sixty-four years annexed the Roman dominions in Africa to the Mahometan dominion. ♦Of Spain. 711-714.♦ Thence the Saracens passed into Spain, and found the West-Gothic kingdom an easier prey than the Roman provinces. Within three years after the final conquest of Africa, the whole peninsula was conquered, save where the Christian still held out in the inaccessible mountain fastnesses. ♦Saracen provinces in Gaul, 713-755.♦ The Saracen power was even carried beyond the Pyrenees{112} into the province of Septimania, the remnant of the Gaulish dominion of the West-Gothic kings. Narbonne, Arles, Nîmes, all became for a while Saracen cities.

In this way, of the three continents round the Mediterranean, Rome lost all her possessions in Africa, while both in Europe and Asia she had now a neighbour and an enemy of quite another kind from any which she had had before. The Teutonic conquerors, if conquerors, had been also disciples; they became part of the Latin world. The Persian, though his rivalry was religious as well as political, was still merely a rival, fighting along a single line of frontier. But every province that was conquered by the Saracens was utterly lopped away; it became the possession of men altogether alien and hostile in race, language, manners, and religion. A large part of the Roman world passed from Aryan and Christian to Semitic and Mahometan dominion. ♦Different fates of the Eastern, Latin, and Greek provinces.♦ But the essential differences among the three main parts of the Empire now showed themselves very clearly. The Eastern provinces, where either Roman or Greek life was always an exotic, fell away at the first touch. ♦647-709.♦ Africa, as being so greatly Romanized, held out for sixty years. The provinces of Asia Minor, now thoroughly Greek, were often ravaged, but never conquered. Spain and Septimania were far more easily conquered than Africa—a sign perhaps that the West-Gothic rule was still felt as foreign by the Roman inhabitants.

With the conquest of Spain the undivided Saracenic Empire, the dominion of the single Caliph, reached its greatest extent in the three continents. Detached conquests in Europe were made long after, but on the whole the Saracen power went back. ♦750.♦ Forty years{113} later they lost Sind, their furthest possession to the East. ♦Separation of Spain. 755.♦ Five years later Spain became the seat of a rival dynasty, which after a while grew into a rival Caliphate. In the same year the Saracen dominion for the first time went back in Europe. ♦Battle of Tours. 732.
Frankish conquest of Septimania. 755.♦ The battle of Tours answers to the repulse of Attila at Châlons; it did not make changes, but hindered them; but before long the one province which the Saracens held beyond the Pyrenees, that of Septimania or Gothia, was won from them by the Franks.

§ 4. Settlements of the Slavonic Nations.

The movements of the sixth century began to bring into notice a branch of the Aryan family of nations which was to play an important part in the affairs both of the East and of the West. ♦Movements of the Slaves.♦ These nations were the Slaves. It is needless for our purpose to attempt to trace their earlier history; but the movements of the Avars in the sixth century seem to have had much the same effect upon the Slaves which the movements of the Huns in the fourth century had upon the Teutons. The inroads of the Avars had, as we have seen, checked the growth of Teutonic powers on the Lower Danube, and had led to the Lombard settlement in Italy. But the Avars only formed the vanguard of a number of Turanian nations, some at least of them Turkish, which were now pressing westward. ♦Kingdom of the Avars.
Magyars, &c.♦ The Avars formed a great kingdom in the lands north of the Danube; to the east of these, along the northern coasts of the Euxine, bordering on the outlying possessions and allies of the Empire in those regions, lay Magyars, Patzinaks, and the greater dominion of the Chazars. All these play a part in Byzantine history; and the Avars were in the seventh{114} century the most dangerous invaders and ravagers of the Roman territory. But south of the Danube they appeared mainly as ravagers; geography knows them only in their settled kingdom to the north of that river. Even that kingdom lasted no very great time; the real importance of all these migrations consists in the effect which they had on the great Aryan race which now begins to take its part in history. ♦North-western and South-western Slaves.♦ The Slaves seem to have been driven by the Turanian incursions in two directions; to the North-west and to the South-west. The North-western division gave rise to more than one European state, and their relations with Germany form an important part of the history of the Western Empire. These North-western Slaves do not become of importance till a little later. But the South-western division plays a great part in the history of the sixth and seventh centuries. ♦Analogy between Teutons and Slaves.♦ Their position with regard to the Eastern Empire is a kind of shadow of the position held by the Teutonic nations with regard to the Western Empire. The Slaves play in the East, though less thoroughly and less brilliantly, the same part, half conquerors, half disciples, which the Teutons played in the West. During the sixth century they appear only as ravagers; in the seventh they appear as settlers. ♦Slavonic settlements under Heraclius. c. 620.♦ There seems no doubt that Heraclius encouraged Slavonic settlements south of the Danube, doubtless with a view to defence against the more dangerous Avars. Much like the Teutonic settlers in the West, the Slaves came in at first as colonists under Imperial authority, and presently became practically independent. A number of Slavonic states thus arose in the lands north and east of the Hadriatic, as Servia, Chrobatia or Croatia, Carinthia, of which the first two are historically connected with the Eastern,{115} and the third with the Western Empire. Istria and Dalmatia now became Slavonic, with the exception of the maritime cities, which, among many vicissitudes, clave to the Empire. And even among them considerable revolutions took place. ♦Destruction of Salona, 639.♦ Thus Salona was destroyed, and out of Diocletian’s palace in its neighbourhood arose the new city of Spalato. ♦Origin of Spalato and Ragusa.♦ The Dalmatian Epidauros was also destroyed, and Ragusa took its place. In many of these inroads Slaves and Avars were mixed up together; but the lasting settlements were all Slavonic. And the state of things which thus began has been lasting; the north-eastern coast of the Hadriatic is still a Slavonic land with an Italian fringe.

In these migrations the Slaves displaced whatever remnants were left of the old Illyrian race in the lands near the Danube. They have themselves to some extent taken the Illyrian name, a change which has sometimes led to confusion. But at the time the movement went much further south than this. ♦Extent of Slavonic settlement.♦ The Slaves pressed on into a large part of Macedonia and Greece, and, during the seventh and eighth centuries, the whole of those countries, except the fortified cities and a fringe along the coast, were practically cut off from the Empire. The name of Slavinia reached from the Danube to Peloponnêsos, leaving to the Empire only islands and detached points of coast from Venice round to Thessalonica. Their settlements in these regions gave a new meaning to an ancient name, and the word Macedonian now began to mean Slavonic. ♦Albanians.♦ And it must have been at this time that the Illyrians, the Skipetar or Albanians, pressed southward and formed those colonies in Greece, some of which still keep the Albanian language, while the Slavonic language has vanished from those lands for ages.{116} ♦Nature of Slavonic settlement in Greece.♦ The Slavonic occupation of Greece is a fact which must neither be forgotten nor exaggerated. It certainly did not amount to an extirpation of the Greek nation; but it certainly did amount to an occupation of a large part of the country, which was Hellenized afresh from those cities and districts which remained Greek or Roman. While these changes were going on in the Hadriatic and Ægæan lands, another immigration later in the seventh century took place in the lands south of the lower Danube, and drove back the Imperial frontier to Haimos. ♦Settlement of the Bulgarians, c. 679.♦ This was the incursion of the Bulgarians, another Turanian people, but one whose history has been different from that of most of the Turanian immigrants. By mixture with Slavonic subjects and neighbours they became practically Slavonic, and they still remain a people speaking a Slavonic language. ♦The Eastern Empire cut short in its own peninsula.♦ Thus the Empire, though it still kept its possessions in Italy with the great Mediterranean islands, though its hold on Western Africa lasted on into the eighth century, though it still kept outlying possessions on the northern and eastern coasts of the Euxine, was cut short in that great peninsula which seems made to be the immediate possession of the New Rome.

But, exactly as happened in the West, the loss of political dominion carried with it the growth of moral dominion. The nations which pressed into these provinces gradually accepted Christianity in its Eastern form, and they have always looked up to the New Rome with a feeling the same in kind, but less strong in degree, as that with which the West has looked up to the Old Rome. ♦Extent of the Eastern Empire.♦ But, at the beginning of the eighth century, though the Imperial power still held posts here and there from the pillars of Hêraklês to the Kimmerian{117} Bosporos, Saracens on the one side and Slaves on the other had cut short the continuous Roman dominion to a comparatively narrow space. The unbroken possessions of Cæsar were now confined to Thrace and that solid peninsula of Asia Minor which the Saracens constantly ravaged, but never conquered. Mountains had taken place of rivers as the great boundaries of the Empire: instead of the Danube and the Euphrates, the Roman Terminus had fallen back to Haimos and Tauros.

§ 5. The Transfer of the Western Empire to the Franks.

Meanwhile we must go back to the West, and trace the growth of the great power which was there growing up, a power which, while the elder Empire was thus cut short in the East, was in the end to supplant it in the West by the creation of a rival Empire. For a while the Franks and the Empire had only occasional dealings with each other. Next to Britain, which had altogether ceased to be part of the Roman world, the part of the Western Empire which was least affected by the re-awakening of the Roman power in the East was the former province of Transalpine Gaul. The power of the Franks was fast spreading, both in their old home in Germany and in their new home in Gaul. ♦Frankish conquest of the Alemanni, 496;♦ The victory of Chlodwig over the Alemanni made the Franks the leading people of Germany. The two German powers which had so long been the chief enemies of the Roman power along the Rhine were now united. Throughout the sixth century the German dominion of the Franks was growing. ♦of the Thuringians, c. 530;
of Bavaria.♦ The Frankish supremacy was extended over Thuringia, and later in the century over Bavaria. The Bavaria of this age, it must be remembered,{118} has a much wider extent than the name has in modern geography, reaching to the northern borders of Italy. The Bavarians seem to have been themselves but recent settlers in the land between the Alps and the Danube; but their immigration and their reduction under Frankish supremacy made the lands immediately south of the Danube thoroughly Teutonic, as the earlier Frankish conquests had done by the lands immediately west of the Rhine. Long before this time, the Franks had greatly extended their dominions in Gaul also. ♦Conquest of Aquitaine [507-511] and Burgundy. 532-534.♦ In the later years of Chlodwig the greater part of Aquitaine was won from the West-Goths. Further conquests at their expense were afterwards made, and about the same time Burgundy came under Frankish supremacy.

The Franks now held, either in possession or dependence, the whole oceanic coast of Gaul; but they were still shut out from the Mediterranean. The West-Goths still kept the land from the Pyrenees to the Rhone, the land of Septimania or Gothia, to which the last name clave as being now the only Gothic part of Gaul. The land which was specially Provincia, the first Roman possession in Transalpine Gaul, the coast from the Rhone to the Alps, formed part of the East-Gothic dominions of Theodoric. An invasion of Italy during the long wars between the Goths and Romans failed to establish a Frankish dominion on the Italian side of the Alps. But as the Franks, by their conquest of Burgundy, were now neighbours of Italy, it led to a further enlargement of their Gaulish dominions, and to their first acquisition of a Mediterranean sea-board. ♦Cession of Provence. 536.♦ It was now that Massalia, Arelate, and the rest of the Province were, by an Imperial grant, one of the last exercises of Imperial{119} power in those regions, added to the kingdom of the Franks. ♦Extent of the Frankish dominions.♦ By the time that the Roman reconquest of Italy was completed, the Frankish dominion, united for a moment under a single head, took in the whole of Gaul, except the small remaining West-Gothic territory, together with central Germany and a supremacy over the Southern German lands. To the north lay the still independent tribes of the Low-Dutch stock, Frisian and Saxon.

As the Frankish dominion plays so great a part in European history and geography, a part in truth second only to that played by the Roman dominion, it will be needful to consider the historical position of the Franks. Their dominion was that of a German people who had made themselves dominant alike in Germany and in Gaul. But it was only in a small part of the Frankish territory that the Frankish people had actually settled. ♦The cession of Gaulish possessions.♦ It was only in northern Gaul and central Germany, in the countries to which they have permanently given their name, that the Franks can be looked on as really occupying the land. In their German territory they of course remained German; in northern Gaul their position answered to that of the other Teutonic nations which had formed settlements within the Empire. They were a dominant Teutonic race in a Roman land. Gradually they adopted the speech of the conquered, while the conquered in the end adopted the name of the conquerors. ♦Slow fusion of Franks and Romans.♦ But the fusion of German and Roman was slower in the Frankish part of Gaul than elsewhere, doubtless because elsewhere the Teutonic settlements were cut off from their older Teutonic homes, while the Franks in Gaul had their older Teutonic home as a background.{120} ♦German and Gaulish dependencies of the Franks.♦ Beyond the bounds of these more strictly Frankish lands, German and Gaulish, the dominion of the Franks was at most a political supremacy, and in no sense a national settlement. In Germany Bavaria was ruled by its vassal princes; in Gaul south of the Loire the Frank was at most an external ruler. Aquitaine had to be practically conquered over and over again, and new dynasties of native princes were constantly rising up. ♦Ethnology of Southern Gaul.♦ The Teutonic element in these lands, an element much slighter than the Teutonic element in Northern Gaul, is not Frankish, but Gothic and Burgundian. The native Romance speech of those lands is wholly different from the Romance speech of Northern Gaul. In short, there was really nothing in common between the two great parts of Gaul, the lands south and the lands north of the Loire, except their union, first under Roman and then under Frankish dominion. And in Armorica the old Celtic population, strengthened by the settlers from Britain, formed another and a yet more distinct element.

Thus there were within the Frankish dominions wide national diversities, containing the germs of future divisions. It needed a strong hand even to keep the Teutonic and the Latin Francia together, much less to keep together all the dependent lands, German and Gaulish. During the ages while the Empire was being cut short by Lombards, Goths, Slaves, and Saracens, the Frankish dominion was never in the like sort cut short by foreign settlements; but its whole history under the Merowingian dynasty is a history of divisions and reunions. The tendencies to division which were inherent in the condition of the country were strengthened by endless partitions among the members of the{121} reigning house. ♦Austria and Neustria.♦ Speaking roughly, it may be said that the more strictly Frankish territory showed a tendency to divide itself into two parts, the Eastern or Teutonic land, Austria or Austrasia, and Neustria, the Western or Romance land. These were severally the germs which grew into the kingdoms of Germany and France. ♦Use of the name Francia.♦ As for the mere name of Francia, like other names of the kind, it shifted its geographical use according to the wanderings of the people from whom it was derived. After many such changes of meaning, it gradually settled down as the name for those parts of Germany and Gaul where it still abides. There are the Teutonic or Austrian Francia, part of which still keeps the name of Franken or Franconia, and the Romance or Neustrian Francia, which by various annexations has grown into modern France.

At last, after endless divisions, reconquests, and reunions of the different parts of the Frankish territory, the whole Frankish dominion was again, in the second half of the eighth century, joined together under the Austrasian, the purely German, house of the Karlings. The Dukes and Kings of that house consolidated and extended the Frankish dominion in every direction. Under Pippin and Charles the Great, the power of the ruling race was more firmly established over the dependent states, such as Bavaria and Aquitaine. ♦Pippin conquers Septimania. 752.
Conquests of Charles the Great. 768-814.♦ Under Pippin the conquest of the Saracen province of Septimania extended the Frankish power over the whole of Gaul; and under Charles the Great, the Frankish dominion was extended by a series of conquests in every direction. Of these, his Italian conquests were rather the winning of a new crown for the Frankish king than the extension of the Frankish kingdom. But the{122} conquest of Saxony at the one end and of the Spanish March at the other, as well as the overthrow of the Pannonian kingdom of the Avars, were in the strictest sense extensions of the Frankish dominions. ♦German character of the Frankish power.♦ The Frankish power which now plays so great a part in the world was a power essentially German. The Franks and their kings, the kings who reigned from the Elbe to the Ebro, were German in blood, speech, and feeling; but they bore rule over other lands, German, Latin, and Celtic, in many various degrees of incorporation and subjection.

Thus the effect of the Saracen conquests was to leave in Europe one purely European power, namely the kingdom of the Franks, one power both European and Asiatic, namely the Roman Empire with its seat at Constantinople, and one power at once Asiatic, African, and European, namely the Saracen Caliphate. Through the eighth century these three are the great powers of the world, to which the other nations of Europe and Asia form, as far as we are concerned, a mere background. ♦Character of the Caliphate.♦ But the Caliphate, as a Semitic and Mahometan power, could be European only in a geographical sense. ♦The Saracen dominion in Spain.♦ Even after the establishment of the independent Saracen dominion in Spain, the new power still remained an exotic. A great country of Western Europe was no longer ruled from Damascus or Bagdad; but the emirate, afterwards Caliphate, of Cordova, and the kingdoms into which it afterwards broke up, still remained only geographically European. They were portions of Asia—in after times rather of Africa—thrusting themselves into Europe, like the Spanish dominion of Carthage in earlier times. The two great Christian powers, the two great really European powers, are the Roman and{123} the Frankish. We now come to the process which for a while caused the Roman and Frankish names to have the same meaning within a large part of Europe, and by which the two seats of Roman dominion were again parted asunder, never to be reunited.

The way by which the Roman and Frankish powers came to affect one another was through the affairs of Italy. ♦The Imperial possessions in Italy.♦ The steps by which the Imperial power was, during the eighth century, weakened step by step in the territories which still remained to the Empire in central Italy are, either from an ecclesiastical or from a strictly historical point of view, of surpassing interest. But, as long as the authority of the Emperor was not openly thrown off, no change was made on the map. ♦Lombard conquest of the Exarchate.
Overthrow of the Lombards by Charles. 774.♦ The events of those times which did make a change on the map were, first the conquest of the Exarchate by the Lombards, and secondly, the overthrow of the Lombard kingdom itself by the Frank king Charles the Great. The Frankish power was thus at last established on the Italian side of the Alps, but it must be remarked that the new conquest was not incorporated with the Frankish dominion. ♦Lombardy a separate kingdom.♦ Charles held his Italian dominion as a separate dominion, and called himself King of the Franks and Lombards. He also bore the title of Patrician of the Romans; but, though the assumption of that title was of great political significance, it did not affect geography. ♦Title of Patrician.♦ The title of Patrician of itself implied a commission from the Emperor, and, though it was bestowed by the Bishop and people of Rome without the Imperial consent, the very choice of the title showed that the Imperial authority was not formally thrown off. Charles, as Patrician, was virtually sovereign of Rome,{124} and his acquisition of the patriciate practically extended his dominion from the Ocean to the frontiers of Beneventum. ♦Nominal authority of the Empire.♦ But, down to his Imperial coronation in the last week of the eighth century, the Emperor who reigned in the New Rome was still the nominal sovereign of the old. The event of the year 800, with all its weighty significance, did not practically either extend the territories of Charles or increase his powers.

Still the Imperial coronation of Charles is one of the great landmarks both of history and of historical geography. The whole political system of Europe was changed when the Old Rome cast off its formal allegiance to the New, and chose the King of the Franks and Lombards to be Emperor of the Romans. Though the powers of Charles were not increased nor his dominions extended, he held everything by a new title. ♦Final division of the Empire.♦ The Roman Empire was divided, never to be joined together again. But its Western half now took in, not only the greatest of its lost provinces, but vast regions which had never formed part of the Empire in the days of Trajan himself. Again, the distinctive character of the older Roman Empire had been the absence of nationality. The whole civilized world had become Rome, and all its free inhabitants had become Romans. ♦Growing nationality of the two Empires, German and Greek.♦ But from this time each of the two divisions of the Empire begins to assume something like a national character. East and West alike remained Roman in name and in political traditions. The Old Rome was the nominal centre of one; the New Rome was both the nominal and the real centre of the other. But there was a sense in which both alike ceased from this time to be Roman. The Western Empire has passed to a German{125} king, and later changes tended to make his Empire more and more German. The Eastern Empire meanwhile, by the successive loss of the Eastern provinces, of Latin Africa, and of Latin Italy, became nearly conterminous with those parts of Europe and Asia where the Greek speech and Greek civilization prevailed. From one point of view, both Empires are still Roman; from another point of view, one is fast becoming German, the other is fast becoming Greek. ♦Rivalry of the two Empires.♦ And the two powers into which the old Roman Empire is thus split are in the strictest sense two Empires. They are no longer mere divisions of an Empire which has been found to be too great for the rule of one man. The Emperors of the East and West are no longer Imperial colleagues dividing the administration of a single Empire between them. They are now rival potentates, each claiming to be exclusively the one true Roman Emperor, the one true representative of the common predecessors of both in the days when the Empire was still undivided.

It is further to be noted that the same kind of change which now happened to the Christian Empire, had happened earlier in the century to the Mahometan Empire. The establishment of a rival dynasty at Cordova, even though the assumption of the actual title of Caliph did not follow at once, was exactly analogous to the establishment of a rival Empire in the Old Rome. The Mediterranean world has now four great powers, the two rival Christian Empires, and the two rival Mahometan Caliphates. Among these, it naturally follows that each is hostile to its neighbour of the opposite religion, and friendly to its neighbour’s rival. The Western Emperor is the{126} enemy of the Western Caliph, the friend of the Eastern. ♦Rivalry of the Empires and Caliphates.♦ The Eastern Emperor is the enemy of the Eastern Caliph, the friend of the Western. Thus the four great powers stood at the beginning of the ninth century. And it was out of the dismemberments of the two great Christian and the great Mahometan powers that the later states, Christian and Mahometan, of the Mediterranean world took their rise.

It is a point of geographical as well as of historical importance that Charles the Great, after he was crowned Emperor, caused all those who had been hitherto bound by allegiance to him as King of the Franks to swear allegiance to him afresh as Roman Emperor. This marks that all his dominions, Frankish, Lombard, and strictly Roman, are to be looked on as forming part of the Western Empire. Thus the Western Empire now took in all those German lands which the old Roman Emperors never could conquer. Germany became part of the Roman Empire, not by Rome conquering Germany, but by Rome choosing the German king as her Emperor. ♦Contrast of its boundaries with those of the elder Empire.♦ The boundaries of the Empire thus became different from what they had ever been before. Of the old provinces of the Western Empire, Britain, Africa, and all Spain save one corner, remained foreign to the new Roman Empire of the Franks. But, on the other hand, the Empire now took in all the lands in Germany and beyond Germany over which the Frankish power now reached, but which had never formed part of the elder Empire. ♦Conquest of Saxony. 772-804.♦ The long wars of Charles with the Saxons led to their final conquest, to the incorporation of Saxony with the Frankish kingdom, and, after the Imperial coronation of the Frankish king, to its incorporation with the Western Empire.

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The conquests of Charles had thus, among their other results, welded Germany into a single whole. For though the Franks had long been the greatest power in Germany, yet Germany could not be said to form a single whole as long as the Saxons, the greatest people of Northern Germany, remained independent. The conquest of Saxony brought the Frankish power for the first time in contact with the Danes and the other people of Scandinavia. ♦Boundary of the Eider.♦ The dominions of Charles took in what was then called Saxony beyond the Elbe, that is the modern Holstein, and the Eider was fixed as the northern boundary of the Empire. More than one Danish king did homage to Charles and to some of the Emperors after him; but Denmark was never incorporated with the Empire or even made permanently dependent. ♦Slavonic allies and neighbours.♦ To the east, the immediate dominions of Charles stretched but a little way beyond the Elbe; but here the Western Empire came in contact, as the Eastern had done at an earlier time and by a different process, with the widely spread nations of the Slavonic race. The same movements which had driven one branch of that race to the south-west had driven another branch to the north-west, and the wars of Charles in those regions gave his Empire a fringe of Slavonic allies and dependents along both sides of the Elbe, forming a barrier between the immediate dominions of the Empire and the independent Slaves to the east. ♦Overthrow of the Avar kingdom. 796.♦ To the south Charles overthrew the kingdom of the Avars; he thus extended his dominions on the side of south-eastern Germany, and here he came in contact with the southern branch of the Slaves, a portion of whom, in Carinthia and the neighbouring lands, became subjects of his Empire. ♦The Spanish March. 778.♦ In Spain he acquired the north-eastern corner{128} as far as the Ebro, forming the Spanish March, afterwards the county of Barcelona.

Thus the new Western Empire took in all Gaul, all that was then Germany, the greater part of Italy, and a small part of Spain.[7] It thus took in both Teutonic and Romance lands, and contained in it the germs of the chief nations of modern Europe. It was a step towards their formation when Charles, following the example both of earlier Roman Emperors and of earlier Frankish kings, planned several divisions of his dominions among his sons. Owing to the deaths of all his sons but one, none of these divisions took effect. And it should be noticed that as yet none of these schemes of division agreed with any great natural or national boundary. They did not as yet foreshadow the division which afterwards took place, and out of which the chief states of Western Europe grew. In two cases only was anything like a national kingdom thought of. ♦Kingdom of Aquitaine.♦ Charles’s son Lewis reigned under him as king in Aquitaine, a kingdom which took in all Southern Gaul and the Spanish March, answering pretty nearly to the lands of the Provençal tongue or tongue of Oc. ♦Death of Charles. 814.♦ And when Charles died, and was succeeded in the Empire by Lewis, Charles’s grandson Bernard still went on reigning under his uncle as King of Italy. ♦Kingdom of Italy.♦ The Kingdom of Italy must be understood as taking in the Italian mainland, except the lands in the south which were held by the dependent princes of Beneventum and by the rival Emperors of the East. ♦Use of the name Francia.♦ During this period Francia commonly means the strictly{129} Frankish kingdoms, Gaulish and German. The words Gallia and Germania are used in a strictly geographical sense.

§ 6. Northern Europe.

Meanwhile other nations were beginning to show themselves in those parts of Europe which lay beyond the Empire. In north-western Europe two branches of the Teutonic race were fast growing into importance; the one in lands which had never formed part of the Empire, the other in a land which had been part of it, but which had been so utterly severed from it as to be all one as if it had never belonged to it. These were the Scandinavian nations in the two great peninsulas of Northern Europe, and the English in the Isle of Britain. The history of these two races is closely connected, and it has an important bearing on the history of Europe in general.

In Britain itself the progress of the English arms had been gradual. Sometimes conquests from the Britons were made with great speed: sometimes the English advance was checked by successes on the British side, by mere inaction, or by wars between the different English kingdoms. The fluctuations of victory, and consequently of boundaries, between the English kingdoms were quite as marked as the warfare between the English and the Britons. ♦The English kingdoms.♦ Among the many Teutonic settlements in Britain, small and great, seven kingdoms stand out as of special importance, and three of these, Wessex, Mercia, and Northumberland, again stand out as candidates for a general supremacy over the whole English name. ♦Britain at the end of the eighth century.♦ At the end of the eighth century a large part of Britain remained, as it still{130} remains, in the hands of the elder Celtic inhabitants; but the parts which they still kept were now cut off from each other. ♦Celtic states.♦ Cornwall or West-Wales, North-Wales (answering nearly to the modern principality), and Strathclyde or Cumberland (a much larger district than the modern county so called) were all the seats of separate, though fluctuating, British states. Beyond the Forth lay the independent kingdoms of the Picts and Scots, which, in the course of the ninth century, became one.

It was the West-Saxon kingdom to which the supremacy over all the kingdoms of Britain, Teutonic and Celtic, came in the end. Ecgberht, its king, had been a friend and guest of Charles the Great, and he had most likely been stirred up by his example to do in his own island what Charles had done on the mainland. In the course of his reign, West-Wales was completely conquered; the other English kingdoms, together with North-Wales, were brought into a greater or less degree of dependence. But both in North-Wales and also in Mercia, Northumberland, and East-Anglia, the local kings went on reigning under the supremacy of the King of the West-Saxons, who now began sometimes to call himself King of the English. In the north both Scotland and Strathclyde remained quite independent.

That part also of the Teutonic race which lay altogether beyond the bounds of the Empire now begins to be of importance. ♦The Danes.♦ The Danes are heard of as early as the days of Justinian; but neither they nor the other Scandinavian nations play any great part in history before the time of Charles the Great. A great number of small states gradually settled down into three great kingdoms, which remain still, though their boundaries have greatly changed. The boundary{131} between Denmark and the Empire was, as we have seen, fixed at the Eider. ♦Extent of Denmark and Norway.♦ Besides the peninsula of Jutland and the islands which still belong to it, Denmark took in Scania and other lands in the south of the great peninsula that now forms Sweden and Norway. Norway, on the other hand, ran much further inland, and came down much further south than it does now. These points are of importance, because they show the causes of the later history of the three Scandinavian states. ♦Sweden.♦ Both Denmark and Norway had a great front to the Ocean, while Swithiod and Gauthiod, the districts which formed the beginning of the kingdom of Sweden, had no opening that way, but were altogether turned towards the Baltic. It thus came about that for some centuries both Denmark and Norway played a much greater part in the general affairs of Europe than Sweden did. ♦Danish and Norwegian settlements.♦ Denmark was an immediate neighbour of the Empire, and from both Denmark and Norway men went out to conquer and settle in various parts of Britain, Ireland and Gaul, besides colonizing the more distant and uninhabited lands of Iceland and Greenland. ♦Pressure of Swedes to the East.♦ Meanwhile, the Swedes pressed eastward on the Finnish and Slavonic people beyond the Baltic. In this last way they had a great effect on the history of the Eastern Empire; but in Western history Sweden counts for very little till a much later time.

During the period which has been dealt with in this chapter, taking in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, we thus see, first of all the reunion of the greater part of the Roman Empire under Justinian—then the lopping away of the Eastern and African provinces by the conquests of the Saracens—then the{132} gradual separation of all Italy except the south, ending in the re-establishment of a separate Western Empire under Charles the Great. We thus get two great Christian powers, the Eastern and Western Empires, balanced by two great Mahometan powers, the Eastern and Western Caliphates. All the older Teutonic kingdoms have either vanished or have grown into something wholly different. The Vandal kingdom of Africa and the East-Gothic kingdom have wholly vanished. The West-Gothic kingdom, cut short by Franks on one side and Saracens on the other, survives only in the form of the small Christian principalities which still held their ground in Northern Spain. The Frankish kingdom, by swallowing up the Gothic and Burgundian dominions in Gaul, the independent nations of Germany, the Lombard kingdom, and the more part of the possessions of the Empire in Italy, has grown into a new Western Empire. The two Empires, both still politically Roman, are fast becoming, one German and the other Greek. Meanwhile, nations beyond the bounds of the Empire are growing into importance. The process has begun by which the many small Teutonic settlements in Britain grew in the end into the one kingdom of England. The three Scandinavian nations, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians or Northmen, now begin to grow into importance. In a religious point of view, if Syria, Egypt, Africa, and the more part of Spain were lost to Christendom, the loss was in some degree made up by the conversion to Christianity of the Angles and Saxons in Britain, of the Old-Saxons in Germany, and of the other German tribes which at the beginning of the sixth century had still been heathen. At no time in{133} the world’s history did the map undergo greater changes. This period is the time of real transition from the older state of things represented by the undivided Roman Empire to the newer state of things in which Europe is made up of a great number of independent states. The modern kingdoms outside the Empire, in Britain and Scandinavia, were already forming. The great continental nations of Western Europe had as yet hardly begun to form. They were to grow out of the break-up of the Carolingian Empire, the Roman Empire of the Franks.[8]

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CHAPTER VI.

THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN EUROPEAN STATES.

§ 1. The Division of the Frankish Empire.

The great dominion of the Franks, the German kingdom which had so strangely grown into a new Western Roman Empire, did not last long. In the course of the ninth century it altogether fell to pieces. ♦The chief states of modern Europe spring out of it.♦ But the process by which it fell to pieces must be carefully traced, because it was out of its dismemberment that the chief states of Western Europe arose. Speaking roughly, the Carolingian Empire took in Germany, so far as Germany had yet spread to the East, all Gaul, a great part of Italy, and a small part of Spain. ♦National kingdoms not yet formed.♦ Of these, it was only Italy, and sometimes Aquitaine, which showed any approach to the character of a separate or national kingdom. ♦Extent of Francia.♦ Northern Gaul and central Germany were still alike Francia; and, though the Romance speech prevailed in one, and the Teutonic speech in the other, no national distinction was drawn between them during the time of Charles the Great. Among the proposed divisions of his Empire, none proposed to separate Neustria and Austria, the Western and the Eastern Francia. ♦Separate being of Italy and Aquitaine.♦ But Italy did form a separate kingdom under the superiority of the Emperor; and so for a while there was an under-kingdom{135} of Aquitaine, answering roughly to Gaul south of the Loire. This is the land of the Provençal tongue, the tongue of Oc, a tongue which, it must be remembered, reached to the Ebro. ♦Division under Lewis the Pious.
First glimpses of Modern France.♦ It is in the various divisions, contemplated and actual, among the sons of Lewis the Pious, the successor of Charles the Great, that we see the first approaches to a national division between Germany and Gaul, and the first glimmerings of a state answering in any way to France in the modern sense.

The earliest among those endless divisions that we need mention is the division of 817, by which two new subordinate kingdoms were founded within the Empire. Lewis and his immediate colleague Lothar kept in their own hands Francia, German and Gaulish, and the more part of Burgundy. South-western Gaul, Aquitaine in the wide sense, with some small parts of Septimania and Burgundy, formed the portion of one under-king; South-eastern Germany, Bavaria and the march-lands beyond it, formed the portion of another. Italy still remained the portion of a third. Here we have nothing in the least answering to modern France. The tendency is rather to leave the immediate Frankish kingdom, both in Gaul and Germany, as an undivided whole, and to part off its dependent lands, German, Gaulish, and Italian. ♦Union of Neustria and Aquitaine the first step to the creation of France. 838.♦ But, in a much later division, Lewis granted Neustria to his son Charles, and in the next year, on the death of Pippin of Aquitaine, he added his kingdom to that of Charles. A state was thus formed which answers roughly to the later kingdom of France, as it stood before the long series of French encroachments on the German and Burgundian lands. ♦Character of the Western Kingdom.♦ The kingdom thus formed had no definite name, and it{136} answered to no national division. It was indeed mainly a kingdom of the Romance speech, but it did not answer to any one of the great divisions of that speech. It was a kingdom formed by accident, because Lewis wished to increase the portion of his youngest son. Still there can be no doubt that we have here the first beginning of the kingdom of France, though it was not till after several other stages that the kingdom thus formed took that name. ♦Division of Verdun. 843.♦ The final division of Verdun went a step further in the direction of the modern map. It left Charles in possession of a kingdom which still more nearly answered to France, as France stood before its Burgundian and German annexations. It also founded a kingdom which roughly answered to the later Germany before its great extension to the East at the expense of the Slavonic nations. And, as the Western kingdom was formed by the addition of Aquitaine to the Western Francia, so the Eastern kingdom was formed by the addition of the Eastern Francia to Bavaria. Lewis of Bavaria became king of a kingdom which we are tempted to call the kingdom of Germany. Still it would as yet be premature to speak of France at all, or even to speak of Germany, except in the geographical sense. ♦Kingdoms of the Eastern and Western Franks.♦ The two kingdoms are severally the kingdoms of the Eastern and of the Western Franks. But between these two states the policy of the ninth century instinctively put a barrier. The Emperor Lothar, besides Italy, kept a long narrow strip of territory between the dominions of his Eastern and Western brothers. After him, Italy remained to his son the Emperor Lewis, while the border lands of Germany and Gaul passed to the younger Lothar. ♦Kingdom of Lotharingia, Lothringen, Lorraine.♦ This{137} land, having thus been the dominion of two Lothars, took the name of Lotharingia, Lothringen, or Lorraine, a name which part of it has kept to this day. This land, sometimes attached to the Eastern kingdom, sometimes to the Western, sometimes divided between the two, sometimes separated from both, always kept its character of a border-land. ♦The Western Kingdom called Karolingia.♦ The kingdom to the west of it, in like manner took the name of Karolingia, which, according to the same analogy, should be Charlaine. It is only by a caprice of language that the name of Lotharingia has survived, while that of Karolingia has died out.

Meanwhile, in South-eastern Gaul, between the Rhone and the Alps, another kingdom arose, namely the kingdom of Burgundy. ♦Union under Charles the Fat. 884.♦ Under Charles the Third, commonly known as the Fat, all the Frankish dominions, except Burgundy, were again united for a moment. ♦Division on his deposition. 887.♦ On his deposition they split asunder again. We now have four distinct kingdoms, those of the Eastern and Western Franks, the forerunners of Germany and France, the kingdom of Italy, and Burgundy, sometimes forming one kingdom and sometimes two. Lotharingia remained a border-land between the Eastern and Western kingdoms, attached sometimes to one, sometimes to another. Out of these elements arose the great kingdoms and nations of Western Europe. The four can hardly be better described than they are by the Old-English Chronicler: ‘Arnulf then dwelled in the land to the East of Rhine; and Rudolf took to the middle kingdom; and Oda to the West deal; and Berengar and Guy to the Lombards’ land, and to the lands on that side of the mountain.’ But the geography of all the four kingdoms which now arose must be described at somewhat greater length.

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It must be borne in mind that all these divisions of the great Frankish dominion were, in theory, like the ancient divisions of the Empire, a mere parcelling out of a common possession among several royal colleagues. ♦No formal titles or names of the Frankish kingdoms.♦ The Kings had no special titles, and their dominions had no special names recognized in formal use. Every king who ruled over any part of the ancient Francia was a King of the Franks, just as much as all among the many rulers of the Roman Empire in the days of Diocletian and Constantine were equally Roman Augusti or Cæsars. As the kings and their kingdoms had no formal titles specially set apart for them, the writers of the time had to describe them as they might.[9] ♦Various names of the Eastern Kingdom or Germany.♦ The Eastern part of the Frankish dominions, the lot of Lewis the German and his successors, is thus called the Eastern Kingdom, the Teutonic Kingdom. Its king is the King of the East-Franks, sometimes simply the King of the Eastern men, sometimes the King of Germany. This last name, convenient in use, was inaccurate as a formal title, for the Regnum Teutonicum lay geographically partly in Germany, partly in Gaul.[10] To the men of the Western kingdom the Eastern king sometimes appeared as the King beyond the Rhine. The title of King of Germany is often found in the ninth century as a description, but it was not a{139} formal title. The Eastern king, like other kings, for the most part simply calls himself Rex, till the time came when his rank as King of Germany or of the East-Franks became simply a step towards the higher title of Emperor of the Romans. ♦Connexion between the Eastern Kingdom and the Empire.♦ But it must be remembered, that the special connexion between the Roman Empire and the German kingdom did not begin at once on the division of 887. ♦Imperial coronation of Arnulf. 896.
Homage of Odo to Arnulf. 888.♦ Arnulf indeed, the first German King after the division, made his way to Rome and was crowned Emperor; and it marks the position of the Eastern kingdom as the chief among the kingdoms of the Franks, that the West-Frankish King Odo did homage to Arnulf before his lord’s Imperial coronation, when he was still simple German king. ♦Final union of Germany with the Empire under Otto the Great. 963.♦ The rule that whoever was chosen King of Germany had a right, without further election, to the kingdom of Italy and to the Roman Empire, began only with the coronation of Otto the Great. Up to that time, the German king is simply one of the kings of the Franks, though it is plain that he held the highest place among them.

This Eastern or German kingdom, as it came out of the division of 887, had, from north to south, nearly the same extent as the Germany of later times. It stretched from the Alps to the Eider. Its southern boundaries were somewhat fluctuating. Verona and Aquileia are sometimes counted as a German march, and the boundary between Germany and Burgundy, crossing the modern Switzerland, often changed. To the North-east the kingdom hardly stretched beyond the Elbe, except in the small Saxon land between the Elbe and the Eider. The great extension of the{140} German power over the Slavonic lands beyond the Elbe had hardly yet begun. ♦The Austrian and Carinthian marks.♦ To the South-east lay the two border-lands or marks; the Eastern Mark, which grew into the later duchy of Oesterreich or the modern Austria, and to the south of it the mark of Kärnthen or Carinthia. ♦The great duchies.♦ But the main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of Saxony, Eastern Francia, Alemannia, and Bavaria. ♦Saxony.♦ Of these the two names of Saxony and Bavaria must be carefully marked as having widely different meanings from those which they bear on the modern map. Ancient Saxony lies, speaking roughly, between the Eider, the Elbe, and the Rhine, though it never actually touches the last-named river. ♦Eastern or Teutonic Francia.♦ To the south of Saxony lies the Eastern Francia, the centre and kernel of the German kingdom. The Main and the Neckar both join the Rhine within its borders. To the south of Francia lie Alemannia and Bavaria. ♦Alemannia and Bavaria.♦ This last, it must be remembered, borders on Italy, with Bötzen for its frontier town. Alemannia is the land in which both the Rhine and the Danube take their source; it stretches on both sides of the Bodensee or Lake of Constanz, with the Rætian Alps as its southern boundary. For several ages to come, there is no distinction, national or even provincial, between the lands north and south of the Bodensee.

These lands make up the undoubted Eastern or German territory. To the west of this lies the border land of Lotharingia, which has a history of its own. For the first century after the division of 887, the possession of Lotharingia fluctuated several times between{141} the Eastern and the Western kingdom. ♦987.♦ After the change of dynasty in the Western kingdom, Lotharingia became definitely and undoubtedly German in allegiance, though it always kept up something of a distinct being, and its language was partly German and partly Romance. Lotharingia took in the two duchies of the Ripuarian Lotharingia and Lotharingia on the Mosel. The former contains a large part of the modern Belgium and the neighbouring lands on the Rhine, including the royal city of Aachen. Lotharingia on the Mosel answers roughly to the later duchy of that name, though its extent to the East is considerably larger.

The part of the Frankish dominions to which the Frankish name has stuck most lastingly has been the Western kingdom or Karolingia, which gradually got the special name of France. This came about through the events of the ninth and tenth centuries. ♦Its extent.♦ The Western kingdom, as it was formed under Charles the Bald and as it remained after the division of 887, nominally took in a great part of modern France, namely all west of the Rhone and Saône. It took in nothing to the east of those rivers, and Lotharingia, as we have seen, was a border land which at last settled down as part of the Eastern kingdom. Thus the extent of the old Karolingia to the east was very much smaller than the extent of modern France. But, on the other hand, the Western kingdom took in lands at three points which are not part of modern France. These are the march or county of Flanders in the north, the greater part of which forms part of the modern kingdom of Belgium; the Spanish March, or county of Barcelona, which is now part of Spain; and{142} the Norman Islands which are now held by the sovereign of England. And it is hardly needful to say that, even within these boundaries, the whole land was not in the hands of the King of the West-Franks. He had only a supremacy, which was apt to become nearly nominal, over the vassal princes who held the great divisions of the kingdom. ♦The great fiefs.♦ South of the Loire the chief of these vassal states were the duchy of Aquitaine, a name which now means the land between the Loire and the Garonne—the duchy of Gascony between the Garonne and the Pyrenees—the county of Toulouse to the east of it—the marches of Septimania and Barcelona. North of the Loire were Britanny, where native Celtic princes still reigned under a very doubtful supremacy on the part of the Frankish kings—the march of Flanders in the north—and the duchy of Burgundy, the duchy which had Dijon for its capital, and which must be carefully distinguished from other duchies and kingdoms of the same name. ♦The Duchy of France.♦ And, greatest of all, there was the duchy of France, that is Western or Latin France, Francia Occidentalis or Latina. Its capital was Paris, and its princes were called Duces Francorum, a title in which the word Francus is just beginning to change from its older meaning of Frank to its later meaning of French. ♦Normandy cut off from France. 912.♦ From this great duchy of France several great fiefs, as Anjou and Champagne, were gradually cut off, and the part of France between the Seine and the Epte was granted to the Scandinavian chief Rolf, which, under him and his successors, grew into the great duchy of Normandy. Its capital was Rouen, and this settlement of the Normans had the effect of cutting off France and its capital Paris from the sea.

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The modern French kingdom gradually came into being during the century after the deposition of Charles the Fat. ♦Fluctuations between the Duchy of the French at Paris and the Karlings at Laon. 888-987.♦ During this time the crown of the Western kingdom passed to and fro more than once between the Dukes of the French at Paris and the princes of the house of Charles the Great, whose only immediate dominion was the city and district of Laon near the Lotharingian border. Thus, for a hundred years, the royal city of the Western kingdom was sometimes Laon and sometimes Paris, and the King of the West-Franks was sometimes the same person as the Duke of the French and sometimes not. ♦Union of the French Duchy with the West-Frankish kingdom. 987.♦ But after the election of Hugh Capet, the kingdom and the duchy were never again separated. The Kings of Karolingia or the Western kingdom, and the Dukes of the Western Francia, were now the same persons. ♦New meaning of the word France.♦ France then—the Western or Latin Francia, as distinguished from the German Francia or Franken—properly meant only the King’s immediate dominions. Though Normandy, Aquitaine, and the Duchy of Burgundy, all owed homage to the French king, no one would have spoken of them as parts of France. ♦Advance of the French kingdom.♦ But, as the French kings, step by step, got possession of the dominions of their vassals and other neighbours, the name of France gradually spread, till it took in, as it now does, by far the greater part of Gaul. On the other hand, Flanders, Barcelona, and the Norman islands, though once under the homage of the French kings, have fallen altogether away, and have therefore never been reckoned as parts of France. Thus the name of France supplanted the name of Karolingia as the name of the Western kingdom. ♦Title of Rex Francorum.♦ And, as it so happened{144} that the Western kings kept on the title of Rex Francorum after it had been dropped in the Eastern kingdom, that title gradually came to mean, not King of the Franks, but King of the French, King of the new Romance-speaking nation which grew up under them. ♦Origin of the French nation.♦ Thus it was that the modern kingdom and nation of France arose through the crown of the Western kingdom passing to the Dukes of the Western Francia. ♦Paris the kernel of France.♦ Paris is not only the capital of the kingdom; it is the kernel round which the kingdom and nation grew.

Of all geographical names, that which has changed its meaning the greatest number of times is the name of Burgundy. ♦Various meanings of the name Burgundy.♦ It is specially needful to explain its different meanings at this stage, when there are always two, and sometimes more, distinct states bearing the Burgundian name. ♦The French Duchy.♦ Of the older Burgundian kingdom, the north-western part, forming the land best known as the Duchy of Burgundy, was, in the divisions of the ninth century, a fief of Karolingia or the Western kingdom. This is the Burgundy which has Dijon for its capital, and which was held by more than one dynasty of dukes as vassals of the Western kings, first at Laon and then at Paris. This Burgundy, which, as the name of France came to bear its modern sense, may be distinguished as the French Duchy, must be carefully distinguished from the Royal Burgundy, the Middle Kingdom of our own chronicler. ♦The Kingdom of Burgundy or Arles.♦ This is a state which arose out of the divisions of the ninth century, and which, sometimes as a single kingdom, sometimes as two, took in all the rest of the old Burgundian kingdom which did not form part of the French duchy.{145} It may be roughly defined as the land between the Rhone and Saône and the Alps, though its somewhat fluctuating boundaries sometimes stretched west of the Rhone, and its eastern frontier towards Germany changed more than once. It thus took in the original Roman province in Gaul, which may be now spoken of as Provence, with its great cities, foremost among them Arelate or Arles, which was the capital of the kingdom, and from which the land was sometimes called the Kingdom of Arles. ♦Cities of the Burgundian kingdom.♦ It also took in Lyons, the primatial city of Gaul, Geneva, Besançon, and other important Roman towns. In short, from its position, it contained a greater number of the former seats of Roman power than any of the new kingdoms except Italy itself. ♦Cis-jurane.♦ When Burgundy formed two kingdoms, the Northern or Trans-jurane Burgundy took in, speaking roughly, the lands north of Lyons, and Cis-jurane Burgundy those between Lyons and the sea. These last are now wholly French. The ancient Transjurane Burgundy is in modern geography divided between France and Switzerland.

The history of this Burgundian kingdom differs in one respect from that of any other of the states which arose out of the break-up of the Frankish Empire. It parted off wholly from the Carolingian dominion before the division of 887. It formed no part of the reunited Empire of Charles the Fat. It may therefore be looked on as having parted off altogether from the immediately Frankish rule, though it often appears as more or less dependent on the kings of the Eastern Francia. But its time of separate being was short. ♦Union of the kingdom with Germany.
Later history of Burgundy: mostly annexed by France.♦ After about a century and a half from its foundation, the Burgundian kingdom was united under the same{146} kings as Germany, and its later history consists of the way in which the greater part of the old Middle Kingdom has been swallowed up bit by bit by the modern kingdom of France. The only part which has escaped is that which now forms the western cantons of Switzerland. ♦Partly represented by Switzerland.♦ In truth the Swiss Confederation may be looked on as having, in some slight degree, inherited the position of the Burgundian kingdom as a middle state. Otherwise, while the Eastern and Western kingdoms of the Franks have grown into two of the greatest powers and nations in modern Europe, the Burgundian kingdom has been altogether wiped out. Not only its independence, but its very name, has passed from it. The name Burgundy has for a long time past been commonly used to express the French duchy only.

Italy, unlike Burgundy, formed part of the reunited dominion of Charles the Fat; but it altogether passed away from Frankish rule at the division of 887. It must be remembered that, though Lombardy was conquered by Charles the Great, yet it was not merged in the Frankish dominions, but was held as a separate kingdom by the King of the Franks and Lombards. ♦Carolingian Kings of Italy.♦ Till the reunion under Charles the Fat, Italy, as a separate kingdom, was ruled by kings of the Carolingian house, some of whom were crowned at Rome as Emperors. After the final division, it had separate kings of its own, being not uncommonly disputed between two rival kings. ♦Italian Emperors.♦ Some of these kings even obtained Imperial rank. ♦Extent of the Italian kingdom.♦ The Italian kingdom, it must be remembered, was far from taking in the whole Italian peninsula. Its southern boundary was much{147} the same as the old boundaries of Latium and Picenum, reaching somewhat further to the south on the Hadriatic coast. ♦Separate principalities of Benevento and Salerno.♦ To the south were the separate principalities of Benevento and Salerno, and the lands which still clave to the Eastern Emperors. The kingdom thus took in Lombardy, Liguria, Friuli in the widest sense, taking in Trent and Istria, though these latter lands are sometimes counted as a German march, while the Venetian islands still kept up their connexion with the Eastern Empire. It took in also Tuscany, Romagna or the former Exarchate of Ravenna, Spoleto, and Rome itself. ♦The Kingdom of Italy represents the Lombard Kingdom.♦ The Italian kingdom thus represented the old Lombard kingdom, together with the provinces which were formally transferred from the Eastern to the Western Empire by the election of Charles the Great. But it may be looked on as essentially a continuation of the Lombard kingdom. ♦Milan its capital.♦ The rank of capital of the Italian kingdom, as distinguished from the Roman Empire, passed away from the old Lombard capital of Pavia to the ecclesiastical metropolis of Milan, and Milan became the crowning-place of the Kings of Italy.

For nearly eighty years after the division of 887, the Roman Empire of the West may be looked on as having fallen into a kind of abeyance. One German and several Italian kings were crowned Emperors; but they never obtained any general acknowledgement throughout the West. There could not be said to be any Western Empire with definite geographical boundaries. ♦Restoration of the Western Empire by Otto.♦ A change in this respect took place in the second half of the tenth century under the German king Otto the Great. ♦952.♦ While he was still only German king, Berengar King of Italy became his man, as Odo{148} of Paris had become the man of Arnulf. ♦962, 963.♦ Afterwards Otto himself obtained the Italian kingdom, and was crowned Emperor at Rome. The rule was now fully established that the German king who was crowned at Aachen had a right to be crowned King of Italy at Milan and Emperor at Rome. A geographical Western Empire was thus again founded, consisting of the two kingdoms of Germany and Italy, to which Burgundy was afterwards added. ♦The three Imperial kingdoms.♦ These three kingdoms now formed the Empire, which thus consisted of the whole dominions of Charles the Great—allowing for a different eastern frontier—except the part which formed the Western kingdom, Karolingia, afterwards France. This union of three of the four kingdoms gave a more distinct and antagonistic character to the fourth which remained separate. Karolingia looked like a part of the great Frankish dominion lopped off from the main body. ♦Relations between the Empire and France.♦ On the other hand, now that the German kings, the Kings of the East-Franks, were also Kings of Italy and Burgundy and Emperors of the Romans, they gradually dropped their Frankish style. But, as that style was kept by the Western kings, and still more as the name of their duchy of France gradually spread over so large a part of Gaul, the kingdom of France had a superficial look of representing the old Frankish kingdom. The newly-constituted Empire had thus a distinctly rival power on its western side. And we shall find that a great part of our story will consist of the way in which, on this side, the Imperial frontier went back, and the French frontier advanced. On the other side, the Eastern frontier of the Empire was capable of any amount of advance at the cost of its Slavonic neighbours.

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§ 2. The Eastern Empire.

The effect of the various changes of the seventh and eighth centuries, the rise of the Saracens, the settlement of the Slaves, the transfer of the Western Empire to the Franks, seem really to have had the effect of strengthening the Eastern Empire which they so terribly cut short. It began for the first time to put on something of a national character. ♦It takes a Greek character.♦ As the Western Empire was fast becoming German, so the Eastern Empire was fast becoming Greek. ♦Rivalry of the Eastern and Western or Greek and Latin Churches.♦ And a religious distinction was soon added to the distinction of language. As the schism between the Churches came on, the Greek-speaking lands attached themselves to the Eastern, and not to the Western, form of Christianity. The Eastern Empire, keeping on all its Roman titles and traditions, had thus become nearly identical with what may be called the artificial Greek nation. It continues the work of hellenization which was begun by the old Greek colonies and which went on under the Macedonian kings. ♦Fluctuations in the extent of the Empire.♦ No power gives more work for the geographer; through the alternate periods of decay and revival which make up nearly the whole of Byzantine history, provinces were always being lost and always being won back again. And it supplies also a geographical study of another kind, in the new divisions into which the Empire was now mapped out, divisions which, for the most part, have very little reference to the divisions of earlier times.

The Themes or provinces of the Eastern Empire, as they stood in the tenth century, have had the privilege of being elaborately described by an Imperial geographer{150} in the person of Constantine Porphyrogennêtos.[11] He speaks of the division as comparatively recent, and of some themes as having been formed almost in his own time. The themes would certainly seem to have been mapped out after the Empire had been cut short both to the north and to the east. The nomenclature of the new divisions is singular and diversified. ♦Asiatic Themes.♦ Some ancient national names are kept, while the titles of others seem fantastic enough. Thus in Asia Paphlagonia and Kappadokia remain names of themes with some approach to their ancient boundaries; but the Armenian theme is thrust far to the west of any of the earlier uses of the name, so that the Halys flows through it. Between it and the still independent Armenia lay the theme of Chaldia, with Trapezous, the future seat of Emperors, for its capital. Along the Saracen frontier lie the themes of Kolôneia, Mesopotamia—a shadowy survival indeed of the Mesopotamia of Trajan, of which it was not even a part—Sebasteia, Lykandos, Kappadokia, and Seleukeia, called from the Isaurian or Kilikian city of that name. Along the south coast the city of Kibyra has given—in mockery, says Constantine—its name to the theme of the Kibyrraiotians, which reaches as far as Milêtos. The isle of Samos gives its name to a theme reaching from Milêtos to Adramyttion, while the theme of the Ægæan Sea, besides most of the islands, stretches on to the mainland of the ancient Aiolis. The rest of the Propontis is bordered by themes bearing the strange names of Opsikion and Optimatôn, names of Latin origin, in the former of{151} which the word obsequium is to be traced. To the east of them the no less strangely named Thema Boukellariôn takes in the Euxine Hêrakleia. Inland and away from the frontier are the themes Thrakêsion and Anatolikon, while another Asiatic theme is formed by the island of Cyprus.

The nomenclature of the European themes is more intelligible. Most of them bear ancient names, and the districts which bear them are at least survivals of the lands which bore them of old. After a good deal of shifting, owing to the loss and recovery of so many districts, the Empire under Constantine Porphyrogennêtos numbered twelve European themes. Thrace had shrunk up into the land just round Constantinople and Hadrianople, the latter now a frontier city against the Bulgarian. Macedonia had been pushed to the east, leaving the more strictly Macedonian coast-districts which the Empire still kept to form the themes of Strymôn and Thessalonikê. ♦Use of the name Hellas.♦ Going further south, the name of Hellas has revived, and that with a singular accuracy of application. Hellas is now the eastern side of continental Greece, taking in the land of Achilleus. The abiding name of Achaia has vanished for a while, and the peninsula which had been won back from the Slave again bears its name of Peloponnêsos. But Lakedaimonia now appears on the list of its chief cities instead of Sparta. This and other instances in which one Greek name has been supplanted by another are witnesses of the Slavonic occupation of Hellas and its recovery by a Greek-speaking power. Off the west coast the realm of Odysseus seems to revive in the theme of Kephallênia, which takes in also the mythic isle of Alkinoos. Such parts of Epeiros and Western{152} Greece as clave to the Empire form the theme of Nikopolis. ♦The Hadriatic lands.♦ To the north, on the Hadriatic shore, was the theme of Dyrrhachion, and beyond that again, the Dalmatian and Venetian cities still counted as outlying portions of the Empire. ♦Possessions of the Empire in Italy.♦ Beyond the Hadriatic, southern Italy forms the theme of Lombardy, interrupted by the principality of Salerno, while Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi were outlying posts like Venice and Ragusa. Sicily was still reckoned as a theme; but it was now wholly lost to the Saracen. ♦Chersôn.♦ And far away in the Tauric peninsula, the last of the Hellenic commonwealths, the furthest outpost of Hellenic civilization, had sunk in the ninth century into the Byzantine theme of Chersôn.

The first impression conveyed by this geographical description is that the Eastern Empire had now become a power rather Asiatic than European. It is only in Asia that any solid mass of territory is kept. ♦Nature of its European possessions.♦ Elsewhere there are only islands and fringes of coast. ♦Maritime supremacy of the Empire.♦ But they were almost continuous fringes of coast, fringes which contained some of the greatest cities of Christendom, and which gave their masters an undisputed supremacy by sea. If the Mediterranean was not a Byzantine lake, it was only the presence of the Saracen, the occasional visits of the Northman, which hindered it from being so. Then again, the whole history of the Empire, if a history of losses, is also a history of recoveries, and before long the Roman arms again became terrible by land. The picture of Constantine Porphyrogennêtos shows us the Empire at a moment when neither process was actually going on; but the times before and after his reign were times, first of loss and then of recovery. ♦Loss and recovery of Crete. 823-960.♦ Early in the ninth century Crete was suddenly seized by Saracen adventurers from{153} Spain; about the same time began the long and slow Saracen conquest of Sicily. ♦Loss of Sicily. 827-878.
Advance in Italy, Dalmatia, and Greece. c. 802.♦ But, almost at the moment when Sicily was lost, the Imperial province in Italy was largely increased, and the Imperial influence in Dalmatia was largely restored. About the same time Peloponnêsos was won back from the Slaves. ♦Recovery of provinces in the East. 964-976.♦ In the latter half of the tenth century Crete was won back; so were Kilikia and part of Syria, with the famous cities of Tarsos, Edessa, and Antioch on the Orontes. ♦Conquest of Bulgaria. 981-1018.♦ Presently Basil the Second overthrew the Bulgarian kingdom in Europe and the Armenian kingdom in Asia; the lands at the foot of Caucasus admitted the Imperial supremacy, and the Byzantine rule was carried round the greater part of the Euxine. ♦Loss of Cherson. 988.♦ Cherson indeed was lost; the old Megarian city passed into the hands of the Russian. At the other end of the Empire, the recovery of Sicily was actually begun, and, if the Saracen was not driven out, his power was weakened in the interest of the next set of invaders. ♦The Eastern Empire under Basil the Second.♦ Early in the eleventh century the Eastern Rome was again the head of a dominion which was undoubtedly the greatest among Christian powers, a dominion greater than it had been at any time since the Saracenic and Slavonic inroads began.

§ 3. Origin of the Spanish Kingdoms.

The historical geography of two of the three great Southern peninsulas is thus bound up with that of the Empires of which they were severally the centres. ♦Position of Spain.♦ The case is quite different with the third great peninsula, that of Spain. There the Roman dominion, even the province which had been recovered by Justinian, had quite passed away, and it was only a small part of{154} the land which was ever reincorporated, even in the most shadowy way, with either Empire. ♦The Saracen conquest. 710-713.♦ Spain was now conquered by the Saracens, as it had before been conquered by the Romans, with this difference, that it had been among the longest and hardest of the Roman conquests, while no part of the Saracen dominion was won in a shorter time. But, if the Roman conquest was slow, it was in the end complete. The swifter Saracen conquest was never quite complete; it left a remnant by which the land was in the end to be won back. But the part of the land which withstood the Saracen was, as could hardly fail to be the case, the same part as that which held out for the longest time against the Roman. The mountainous regions of the North were never wholly conquered. ♦Asturia 732,
united with Cantabria, 751.♦ Cantabria and Asturia, which had never fully submitted to the Goths, now became the seat of resistance under princes who claimed to represent the Gothic kings, and part of whose dominions bore the name of Gothia. Twenty years after the conquest, Asturia was again a Christian principality, which was presently united with Cantabria. ♦Kingdom of Leon, 916.♦ This grew into the kingdom of Leon. ♦County of Castile, 904.
Kingdom, 1033.♦ The great fiefs of this kingdom on its eastern and western borders, the counties of Gallicia and Castile—the last originally a line of castles against the Saracen enemy—both showed from an early time strong tendencies to separation. ♦Kingdom of Navarre. 905.♦ Meanwhile the kingdom of Navarre grew up to the east, stretching, it must be remembered, on both sides of the Pyrenees, though by far the larger portion of it lay on their southern side. ♦County of Aragon c. 760.♦ To the east of Navarre the small counties of Aragon and Riparanensia were the beginning of the kingdom of Aragon. ♦The Spanish March. 778.♦ To the east again of this was{155} the land which, after the final expulsion of the Saracens from Gaul, became part of the Carolingian Empire by the name of the Spanish March. The shiftings of territory, the unions and separations of these various kingdoms and principalities, belong to the special history of Spain. But early in the eleventh century the whole north-western part of Spain, and a considerable fringe of territory in the north-east, had been formed into Christian states. ♦Beginnings of Castile and Aragon.♦ Among these had been laid the foundations of two kingdoms, those of Castile and Aragon, which were to play a great part in the affairs of Europe.

It will be at once seen that those among the Spanish powers which were destined to play the greatest part in later history were not among the first to take the form of separate kingdoms. ♦Slow growth of the greater kingdoms.♦ At this stage even Castile has hardly taken the form of a distinct state. Aragon is only beginning; Portugal has not even begun. ♦History of Castile and Aragon.♦ Of these three, Castile was fated to play the same part that was played by Wessex in England and by France in Gaul, to become the leading power of the peninsula. Aragon, when her growth had brought her to the Mediterranean, was to fill for a long time a greater place in general European politics than any other Spanish power. The union of Castile and Aragon was to form that great Spanish monarchy which became the terror of Europe. ♦Portugal.♦ Meanwhile Portugal, lying on the Ocean, had first of all to extend her borders at the cost of the common enemy, and afterwards to become a beginner of European enterprise in distant lands, a path in which Castile and other powers did but follow in her steps.

Meanwhile the advance of the Christians was{156} helped by the division of the Saracenic power. The Caliphates of the East and of the West fell to pieces, exactly as the Christian Empires did. The undivided Mahometan dominion in Spain was at the height of its power in the tenth century. Yet even then, amid many fluctuations, the Christian frontier was on the whole advancing in the north-west. In the north-east Christian progress was slower. ♦1028.♦ But, early in the eleventh century, the Caliphate of Cordova broke in pieces, and out of its fragments arose a crowd of small Mahometan kingdoms at Cordova, Seville, Lisbon, Zaragoza, Toledo, Valencia, and elsewhere. It was now only by renewed invasions from Africa that the Mahometan power in Spain was kept up. But, as the Christian states are now fully formed, such mention of these African dynasties as concerns geography will come more fittingly at a later stage.

§ 4. Origin of the Slavonic States.

We left the borders of both the Eastern and the Western Empire beset by neighbours of Slavonic race, who, in the case of the Eastern Empire, were largely mingled with other neighbours of Turanian race. Of these last, Avars, Patzinaks, Khazars, have passed away; they have left no trace on the modern map of Europe. With two of the Turanian settlements the case is different. ♦Bulgarians.♦ The settlement of the Bulgarians, the foundation of a kingdom of Slavonized Turanians south of the Danube, has been already mentioned. They still keep their place and nation, though in bondage. Another Turanian settlement to the north of the Bulgarians has been of yet greater importance in European history. ♦Settlement of the Magyars or Hungarians, 895.♦ In the last years of the ninth{157} century the Finnish Magyars or Hungarians, the Turks of the Byzantine writers, began to count as a power in Europe. From their seats between the mouths of the Dnieper and the Danube, they pressed eastward into the lands which had been Dacia and Pannonia. ♦Great Moravia.♦ The Bulgarian power was thus confined to the lands south of the Danube, and Great Moravia, a name which then took in the western part of modern Hungary, fell wholly under Magyar dominion.

This settlement is one which stands altogether by itself. ♦Peculiar character of the Magyar settlement.♦ The Magyars and the Ottoman Turks are the only Turanian settlers in Europe who have grown into permanent Turanian powers on European ground. The Bulgarians have been lost in the mass of their Slavonic neighbours and subjects, whose language they have adopted. Magyars and Ottomans still remain speaking a Turanian tongue on Aryan soil. But of these it is only the Magyars that have grown into a really European state. ♦The Kingdom of Hungary.♦ After appearing as momentary ravagers in Germany, Italy, and even Gaul, the Magyars settled down into a Christian kingdom, which, among many fluctuations of supremacy and dependence, has remained a distinct kingdom to this day. ♦Effect of its religious connexion with Rome.♦ The Christianity of Hungary however came from the Western Church and not from the Eastern. And this fact has had a good deal of bearing upon the history of those regions. But for this almost incidental connexion with the Old Rome, Hungary, though settled by a Turanian people, would most naturally have taken its place among the Slavonic states which fringed the dominion of the New Rome. As it has turned out, difference of religion has stepped in to heighten difference of blood, and Hungary has formed a kingdom quite apart,{158} closely connected in its history with Servia and Bulgaria, but running a course which has been in many things unlike theirs.

The geographical results of the Magyar settlement were to place a barrier between the Northern and the Southern Slaves. This it did both directly and indirectly. The Patzinaks pressed into what had been the former Magyar territory; they appear in the pages of the Imperial geographer as a nation with whom the Empire always strove to maintain peace, as they formed a barrier against both Hungarians and Russians. ♦The Russians.♦ This last name begins to be of importance in the ninth century. A part of the Eastern branch of the Slavonic race, they were cut off from the other members of that branch south of the Danube by these new Turanian settlements. The Magyars again parted the South-eastern Slaves from the North-western, while the Russians were still neighbours of the North-western Slaves. ♦Effects of the geographical position of the Slaves.♦ The geographical position of these three divisions of the Slavonic race has had an important effect on European history. ♦History of the South-eastern Slaves.♦ The South-eastern Slaves in Servia, Croatia, Dalmatia, and the neighbouring lands, formed a debateable ground between the two Empires, the Magyar kingdom, and the Venetian republic, as soon as Venice grew into a distinct and conquering state. These lands have, down to our own time, played an important, but commonly a secondary, part in history. And in later times their history has chiefly consisted in successive changes of masters. The states which they formed will have to be spoken of in connexion with the greater and more lasting powers to which they have commonly been adjuncts. ♦The North-western Slaves.♦ The North-western Slaves appear for the most part in different{159} degrees of vassalage or incorporation with the Western Empire. ♦Bohemia, Poland.♦ But, besides several considerable duchies, there grew up among them the kingdoms of Bohemia and Poland, of which the latter established its complete independence of the Empire, and became for a while one of the chief powers of Europe. ♦Russia.♦ Russia meanwhile, forming a third division, appears, in the ninth and tenth centuries, first as a formidable enemy, then as a spiritual conquest, of the Empire and Church of Constantinople. Russia had then already assumed the character which it has again put on in later times, that of the one great European power at once Slavonic in race and Eastern in faith. Russia is now fully established as an European power. The variations of its territorial extent must be traced in a distinct chapter.

§ 5. Northern Europe.

The European importance of the Scandinavian nations at this time chiefly arises from their settlements in various parts of Europe, and specially in Britain and Ireland. The three great Scandinavian kingdoms were already formed. Sweden was doing its work towards the east; the Norwegians, specially known as Northmen, colonized the extreme north of Britain, the Scandinavian earldoms of Caithness and Sutherland, together with the islands to the north and west of Britain, Orkney, Shetland, Faroe, the so-called Hebrides, and Man. They also colonized the eastern coast of Ireland, where they were known as Ostmen. And it was from Norway also that the settlers came by which the coast of France in the strictest sense, the French duchy, was cut off from the dominion of Paris{160} to form the Duchy of Normandy. ♦England and Denmark. 789-1017.♦ But the chief field for the energy of Denmark properly so called lay within the limits of that part of Britain which we may now begin to call England. It was during this period that the united English kingdom grew up, that the many English settlements in Britain coalesced into one English nation. And this work was in a singular way promoted by the very cause, namely, the Danish invasions, which seemed best suited to hinder it.

Up to this time the great island had been in truth, as it was often called, another world, influencing but little, and but little influenced by, any of the lands which formed part of either of the continental Empires. ♦Formation of the Kingdom of England.♦ The English history of these times, a history which is specially connected with geography, consists of two great facts. The first is the union of all the English states in Britain into one English kingdom under the West-Saxon kings. The other is the establishment of a vague supremacy on the part of those kings over the whole island. ♦West-Saxon supremacy under Ecgberht. 825-830.♦ The dominion established by Ecgberht was in no sense a kingdom of England. It consisted simply in a supremacy on the part of the West-Saxon king over all the princes of Britain, Teutonic and Celtic, save only the Picts, Scots, and Welsh of Strathclyde or Cumberland. The smaller kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, and Essex formed appanages for West-Saxon æthelings; but the superiority over East-Anglia, Mercia, Northumberland, and the Welsh princes was purely external. The change of this power into an united English kingdom holding a supremacy over the whole island was largely helped by the Danish incursions and settlements. ♦The Danish invasions. 789.♦ These incursions began in the last years of the eighth century; they became more frequent{161} and more dangerous in the middle of the ninth; and in the latter part of that century they grew from mere incursions into actual settlements. This was the result of the great struggle in the days of the first Æthelred and his more famous brother Ælfred. ♦Division between Ælfred and Guthrum. 878.♦ By Ælfred’s treaty with the Danish Guthrum, the West-Saxon king kept his own West-Saxon kingdom and all the other lands south of the Thames, together with western Mercia. The rest of Mercia, with East-Anglia and Deira or southern Northumberland, passed under Danish rule. ♦Bernicia not Danish.♦ Bernicia, or northern Northumberland from the Tees to the Forth, still kept its Anglian princes, seemingly under Danish supremacy. Over the lands which thus became Danish the West-Saxon king kept a mere nominal and precarious supremacy. ♦Scandinavian settlements in Cumberland.♦ In Scotland and Strathclyde the succession of the Celtic princes was not disturbed; but in part at least of Strathclyde, in the more modern Cumberland, a large Scandinavian population, though probably Norwegian rather than Danish, must have settled.

By these changes the power of the West-Saxon king as an over-lord was greatly cut short, while his immediate kingdom was enlarged. The dynasty which had come so near to the supremacy of the whole island seemed to be again shut up in its own kingdom and the lands immediately bordering on it. ♦Second West-Saxon advance. 910-954.♦ But, by overthrowing the other English kingdoms, the Danes had prepared the way for the second West-Saxon advance in the tenth century. Saxon king was now the only English king, and he further became the English and Christian champion against intruders who largely remained heathen. ♦Wessex grows into England.♦ The work of the first half of the tenth century was to enlarge the Kingdom of{162} Wessex into the Kingdom of England. Eadward the Elder, King, not merely of the West-Saxons but of the English, extended his immediate frontier, the frontier of the one English kingdom, to the Humber. ♦First submission of Scotland and Strathclyde. 923.♦ Wales, Northumberland, English and Danish, and now, for the first time, Scotland and Strathclyde, all acknowledged the English supremacy. ♦926.♦ Under Æthelstan Northumberland was for the first time incorporated with the kingdom, and after several revolts and reconquests, it finally became an integral part of England, forming sometimes one, sometimes two, English earldoms. ♦Cumberland granted as a fief to Scotland. 945.♦ Meanwhile Cumberland was subdued by Eadmund, and was given as a fief to the Kings of Scots, who commonly granted it as an appanage to their sons. ♦Lothian granted to Scotland.♦ Meanwhile, partly, it would seem, by conquest, partly by cession, the Scottish kings became possessed of the northern part of Northumberland, under the name of the earldom of Lothian. Thus, in the second half of the tenth century, a single kingdom of England had been formed, of which the Welsh principalities, as well as Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian, were vassal states.

Thus the English kingdom was formed, and with it the English Empire. ♦Use of the Imperial titles.♦ For the English kings in the tenth and eleventh centuries, acknowledging no superiority in the Cæsar either of East or West and holding within their own island a position analogous to that of the Emperors on the mainland, did not scruple to assume the Imperial title, and to speak of themselves as Emperors of the other world of Britain. The kingdom and Empire thus formed were transferred by the wars of Swegen and Cnut from a West-Saxon to a Danish king. ♦Northern Empire of Cnut. 1016-1035.♦ Under Cnut England was for a moment the chief seat, and Winchester the Imperial{163} city, of a Northern Empire which might fairly claim a place alongside of the Old and the New Rome. England, Denmark, Norway, had a single king, whose supremacy extended further over the rest of Britain, over Sweden and a large part of the Baltic coast. That Empire split in pieces on his death. The Scandinavian kingdoms were again separated; England itself was divided for a moment. ♦The Norman Conquest. 1066-70.♦ The kingdom, again reunited, first passed back to the West-Saxon house, and then, by a second conquest, to the Norman. After this last revolution a division of the kingdom was never more heard of. ♦England finally united by William.♦ William the Conqueror put the finishing stroke to the work of Ecgberht, and made England for ever one. And, by uniting England under the same ruler as Normandy, and by thus leading her into the general current of continental affairs, he gave her an European position such as she had never held under her native kings.

By the end of the eleventh century then the chief nations of Europe had been formed. The Western Empire, after many shiftings, had taken a definite shape. ♦The Western Empire and the Imperial Kingdoms.♦ The Imperial dignity and the two royal crowns of Italy and Burgundy were now attached to the German kingdom. The Empire, in short, though keeping its Roman titles and associations, and with them its influence over the minds of men, had practically become a German power. Its history from this time mainly consists in the steps by which the German Emperors of Rome lost their hold on their Italian and Burgundian kingdoms, and of the steps by which the German dominion was extended over the Slaves to the East. ♦France.♦ To the West the Western Kingdom has altogether{164} detached itself from the Empire; the union of its crown with the Duchy of France has created the French kingdom and nation, with its centre at Paris, and with a supremacy, as yet little more than nominal, over a large part of Gaul. ♦The Eastern Empire.♦ As the Western Empire has become German, the Eastern Empire has become Greek; in the early years of the eleventh century it again forms a powerful and compact state, ruling from Naples to Antioch. ♦The Slavonic states.♦ Of the states to the north of it, Bulgaria has been reincorporated with the Empire; Servia, Hungary, Russia, have taken their definite position among the Christian powers of Europe. So have Poland and Bohemia on the borders of the Western Empire. Prussia, Lithuania, and the Finnish lands to the immediate north of them remain heathen. ♦Spain.♦ In Spain, the Christians have won back a large part of the peninsula. Castile and Navarre are already kingdoms; Aragon, though not yet a kingdom, has begun her history. ♦The Scandinavian kingdoms.♦ In Northern Europe, the three Scandinavian nations are clearly distinguished and firmly established. ♦England and Normandy.♦ Within the isle of Britain the kingdoms of England and Scotland have been formed, and the union of England and Normandy under a single prince has opened the way to altogether new relations between the continent and the great island. In short, the only European powers which play a part in strictly mediæval history which are not yet formed are Portugal and the Sicilian kingdoms.

From this point then, when most of the European powers have come into being, and when the two Roman Empires are fast becoming a German and a Greek power alongside of other powers, it will be well to change the form of our present inquiry. Thus far we have treated the historical geography of Europe as a{165} whole, gathering round two centres at the Old and the New Rome. It will henceforth be more convenient to take the history of the great divisions of Europe separately, and to trace out in distinct chapters the changes which the boundaries of each have gone through from the eleventh century to our own time. ♦Ecclesiastical geography.♦ But before we enter on these several national divisions, it will be well to take a view of the ecclesiastical divisions of Western Christendom, which are of great importance and which are constantly referred to in the times with which we are now concerned.

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CHAPTER VII.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL GEOGRAPHY OF WESTERN EUROPE.

The ecclesiastical geography of Western Europe was by this time formed. The great ecclesiastical divisions were now almost everywhere mapped out, and from hence they are more permanent than the political divisions. ♦Permanence of the ecclesiastical divisions.♦ The ecclesiastical geography in truth constantly preserves an earlier political geography. ♦They represent older civil divisions.♦ The ecclesiastical divisions were always mapped out according to the political divisions of the time when they were established, and they often remained unaltered while the political divisions went through many revolutions. ♦Illustrations from England and France.♦ Thus in France the dioceses represented the jurisdictions of the Roman cities; in England they represented the ancient English kingdoms and principalities. In both cases they outlived by many ages the political divisions which they represented. While the political map was altered over and over again, the ecclesiastical map remained down to quite modern times, with hardly any change beyond the occasional division of a large diocese or the occasional union of two smaller dioceses. Thus the greater permanence of the ecclesiastical map often makes it useful as a standard for reference in describing political changes. ♦Lyons and Rheims.♦ To take an instance, the city of Lyons has been at different times under Burgundian and under Frankish{167} kings; it has been a free city of the Empire and a city of the modern kingdom of France. But, among all these changes, the Archbishop of Lyons has always remained Primate of all the Gauls, while the Archbishop of Rheims has held a wholly different position alongside of him as first prelate and first peer of the modern kingdom of France. Paris meanwhile, the political capital of the modern kingdom, remained till the seventeenth century the seat of a simple bishoprick.

In this way the ecclesiastical division will be found almost everywhere to keep up the remembrance of an earlier political state of things. ♦Patriarchates, Provinces, Dioceses.♦ As the Empire became Christian, it was mapped out into Patriarchates as well as into Prefectures. Under these were the metropolitan and episcopal districts, which in after-times borrowed, though in a reverse order of dignity, the civil titles of provinces and dioceses. ♦Divisions within and without the Empire.♦ As the Church carried her spiritual conquests beyond the bounds of the Empire, new ecclesiastical districts were of course formed in the newly converted countries. As a rule, every kingdom had at least one archbishopric; the smaller principalities, provinces, or other divisions became the dioceses of bishops. But the different social conditions of southern and northern Europe caused a marked difference in the ecclesiastical arrangements of the two regions. In the South the bishop was bishop of a city; in the North he was bishop of a tribe or a district. Within the Empire each city had its bishop. Thus in Italy and Southern Gaul, where the cities were thickest on the ground, the bishops were most numerous and their dioceses were smallest. ♦Bishops of cities and of tribes.♦ In Northern Gaul the cities are fewer and the dioceses larger, while outside the Empire, the dioceses which represented a tribe or principality{168} were larger again. Also again, within the Empire the bishop, as bishop of a city, always took his title from the city; outside the Empire, especially in the British islands both Celtic and Teutonic, the bishop of a tribe or principality bore a tribal or territorial title.

§ 1. The Great Patriarchates.

The highest ecclesiastical divisions, the Patriarchates, though they did not exactly answer to the Prefectures, were clearly suggested by them. And whenever the boundaries of the Patriarchates departed from the boundaries of the Prefectures, they came nearer to the great divisions of race and language. For our purpose, it is enough to take the Patriarchates, as they grew up, after the establishment of Christianity, in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries. The four older ones were seated at the Old and the New Rome, and at the two great Eastern cities of Antioch and Alexandria. Out of the patriarchate of Antioch the small patriarchate of Jerusalem was afterwards taken. This last seems a piece of sentimental geography; the other divisions were eminently practical. ♦Rome.♦ Whether we look on the original jurisdiction of the Bishop of the Old Rome as taking in the whole prefecture of Italy or only the diocese of Italy, it is certain that it was gradually extended over the two prefectures of Italy and Gaul. ♦Extended beyond the Empire.♦ That is, it took in the Latin part of the Empire, and it spread thence over the Teutonic converts in the West, as well as over Hungary and the Western Slaves. ♦Constantinople.♦ The Patriarchate of Constantinople or New Rome took in the Prefecture of Illyricum, and three dioceses in the Prefecture of the East, those of Thrace, Asia, and{169} Pontus. This territory pretty well answers to the extent of the Greek language and influence. The two Illyrian dioceses, possibly through some confusion arising out of the two meanings of the word Illyricum, were claimed by the Popes of Old Rome; but, when the Empires and Churches parted asunder, Macedonia and Greece were not likely to cleave to the Western division. ♦Its relation to the Eastern Empire and to the Slaves.♦ In course of time the Byzantine patriarchate became nearly coextensive with the Byzantine Empire, and it became the centre of conversion to the Slaves of the East, just as the patriarchate of Old Rome was to the Teutons of the West. ♦Antioch.
Jerusalem.♦ The patriarchate of Antioch, before its dismemberment in favour of the tiny patriarchate of Jerusalem, took in the whole diocese of the East, and the churches beyond the limits of the Empire in that direction. ♦Alexandria.♦ The patriarchate of Alexandria answered to the diocese of Egypt, with the churches beyond the Empire on that side, specially the Abyssinian church, which has kept its nationality to our own time. That these Eastern patriarchates have been for ages disputed by claimants belonging to different sects of Christianity is a fact which concerns both theology and history, but does not concern geography. Whether the see was in Orthodox or heretical—that is commonly in national—hands, the see and its diocese, the geographical extent on the map, remained the same.

These then are the five great patriarchates which formed the most ancient geographical divisions of the Church. In later times the name patriarchate has been more loosely applied. As the Roman bishop grew into something more than the Patriarch of the West, the title of Patriarch was given to several metropolitans, sometimes, as far as one can see, without any{170} particular reason. ♦Lisbon, Venice, Aquileia.♦ The title has been borne by the Bishops of Lisbon and Venice, and specially by the Metropolitans of Aquileia. These last assumed the title during a time of separation from the Roman see. But nominal patriarchates of this kind must be carefully distinguished from the five great churches to which the name was anciently attached. ♦Patriarchate of Moscow. 1587.♦ In the East the name was never extended beyond its four original holders, till a new patriarchate of Moscow arose in Russia, to mark the greatest spiritual conquest of the Orthodox Church. Of the four original Eastern patriarchates it is only that of Constantinople which plays much part in later history. The seats of the other three fell into the hands of the Saracens in the very beginning of their conquests.

§ 2. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Italy.

In no part of Christendom do the bishoprics lie so thick upon the ground as in Italy, and especially in the southern part. But from that very fact it follows that the ecclesiastical divisions of Italy are of less historical importance than those of most other Western countries. ♦Small size of the provinces.♦ In southern Italy above all, the bishoprics were so numerous, and the dioceses therefore so small, that the archiepiscopal provinces were hardly so large as the episcopal dioceses in more northern lands. So it is in the islands; Sicily contained four provinces and Sardinia three. ♦Effect of the commonwealths on the position of the prelates.♦ The peculiar characteristics of Italian history also hindered ecclesiastical geography from being of the same importance as elsewhere. Where every city became an independent commonwealth, the Bishop, and even the Metropolitan, sank to a lower rank than they held in the lands where each prelate was a great feudal lord.

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It follows then that there are only a few of the archbishoprics and bishoprics of Italy which at all stand out in general history. ♦Relation to the Roman See.♦ The growth of the Roman see also more distinctly overshadowed the Italian bishops than it did those of other lands. ♦Rivals of Rome.♦ The bishoprics which have most historical importance are those which at one time or another stood out in rivalry or opposition to Rome. ♦Milan.
Aquileia.♦ Such was the great see of Milan, whose province took in a crowd of Lombard bishoprics; such was the patriarchal see of Aquileia, whose metropolitan jurisdiction took in Como at one end and the Istrian Pola at the other. The patriarchs of Aquileia, standing as they did on the march of the Italian, Teutonic, and Slavonic lands, grew, unlike most of the Italian prelates, into powerful temporal princes. ♦Ravenna.♦ Ravenna was the head of a smaller province than either Milan or Aquileia; but Ravenna too stands out as one of the churches which kept up for a while an independent position in the face of the growing power of Rome. Milan and Ravenna, in short, never lost the memory of their Imperial days; and Aquileia took advantage, first of a theological difference, and secondly of its temporal position as the great border see.

In the rest of Italy the case is different. Rome herself was the immediate head of a large province stretching from sea to sea. Within this the suburbicarian sees, those close around Rome, stood in a special and closer relation to the patriarchal see itself. ♦Metropolitan sees of central Italy.♦ The famous cities of Genoa, Bologna, Pisa, Florence, and Sienna, were also metropolitan sees, though their ecclesiastical dignity is quite overshadowed by their civic greatness. Lucca has been added to the same list in modern times. ♦Pisa and Genoa.♦ The provinces of Pisa and Genoa are{172} notable as having been extended into the island of Corsica after its recovery from the Saracens. The history and extent of the Italian dioceses is, with these few exceptions, a matter almost wholly of local ecclesiastical concern. ♦The southern province.♦ In the south and in Sicily the endless archiepiscopal sees preserve the names of some famous cities, as Capua—the later Capua on the site of Casilinum—Tarentum, Bari, and others. But some even of the metropolitan churches are fixed in places of quite secondary importance, and the simple bishoprics are endless.

§ 3. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Gaul and Germany.

By taking a single view of the ecclesiastical arrangements of the whole of the Western Empire on this side of the Alps and the Pyrenees, some instructive lessons may be learned. Such a way of looking at the map will bring out more strongly the differences between bishoprics of earlier and later foundation. ♦Gaulish and German dioceses.♦ And, if we take the name of Gaul in the old geographical sense, taking in the German lands west of the Rhine which formed part of the older Empire, we shall find that several ecclesiastical provinces may be called either Gaulish or German. With the boundaries of the French kingdom we have no concern, except so far as the boundary between the Eastern and Western kingdoms of the Franks did to some extent follow ecclesiastical lines. Modern annexations of course have had no regard to them.

On first crossing the Alps from Italy, we find the ecclesiastical phænomena of Italy continued in the lands nearest to it. The two provinces of Tarantaise (answering to the civil division of Alpes Penninæ) and Embrun{173} (Alpes Maritimæ) which take in the mountain region between Italy and Gaul, are of small size, though of course in the actual mountain lands the bishoprics are less thick on the ground. ♦Tarantaise.♦ The Tarantasian province contained only three suffragan sees, Sitten, Aosta, and St. John of Maurienne, three bishoprics which now belong to three distinct political powers. ♦Embrun.♦ But in the southern part of the province of Embrun, which reaches to the sea, the bishops’ sees are thick on the ground, just as they are in Italy. ♦Aix and Arles.♦ So they are in the small provinces of Aix (Narbonensis Secunda) and Arles. But, as soon as we get out of Provence into the parts of Gaul which were less thoroughly Romanized, and where cities, and consequently bishoprics, lay less close together, the phænomena of the ecclesiastical map begin to change. ♦Vienne.
Narbonne.♦ The Provençal provinces of Aix and Aries are bounded to the north and west by those of Vienne (which with Arles answers nearly to the civil Viennensis) and Narbonne (answering nearly to Narbonensis Secunda). These provinces are of much greater size, and the suffragan sees are much further apart. ♦Auch.♦ To the west lies Auch, answering to the oldest Aquitaine or Novempopulana, and to the north of these, in the remainder of Gaul, the original provinces are of still greater size. Most of them answer very nearly to the older civil divisions. ♦Bourges, Bourdeaux, Lyons, Rouen, Tours, and Sens.♦ Aquitania Prima is the province of Bourges, Aquitania Secunda that of Bourdeaux. Lugdunensis Prima, Secunda, Tertia, and Quarta, answer to Lyons, Rouen, Tours, and Sens. Of these Lyons, as having been the temporal capital, became the seat of the Primate of all the Gauls. The province of Rouen too answers very nearly to the duchy of which that metropolis became the capital; its Archbishop still bears the title of Primate of Normandy.

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These are the oldest ecclesiastical arrangements, closely following the civil divisions of the Empire. These divisions lived through the Teutonic conquests; and, though here and there a see was translated from one city to another, they were not seriously interfered with till the fourteenth century. ♦Foundation of the provinces of Toulouse and Alby, 1322.♦ Pope John the Twenty-second raised the see of Toulouse in the province of Narbonne and that of Alby in the province of Bourges to metropolitan rank, thus forming two new provinces. He also founded new bishoprics in several towns in these two new provinces and in that of Narbonne. ♦Avignon, 1475.♦ In the next century Sixtus the Fourth made the church of Avignon metropolitan. These changes help to give this whole district more of the character of Italy and Provence than originally belonged to it. ♦Paris, 1622.♦ Lastly, in the seventeenth century the province of Sens was also divided, and the church of Paris became metropolitan. Some of these changes show how closely the ecclesiastical divisions followed the oldest civil divisions, and how slowly they were affected by changes in the civil divisions. When Gaul was first mapped out, Tolosa was of less account than Narbo; the Parisii and their city were of less account than the great nation of the Senones. Tolosa became the royal city of the Goth; but it did not rise to the highest ecclesiastical rank till ages after the Gothic kingdom had passed away. Paris, after having been several times a momentary seat of dominion, became the birthplace of the modern French kingdom. But it had been the continuous seat of kings for more than six hundred years before it became the seat of an archbishop.

As we draw nearer to German ground, the ecclesiastical{175} boundaries are found to have been somewhat more strongly affected by political changes. ♦Besançon.♦ The ecclesiastical province of Besançon answers to Maxima Sequanorum; but it is not quite of the same extent; the boundary of the German and Burgundian kingdoms passed through the Roman province: its eastern part is therefore found in a German diocese. ♦Rheims.♦ The province of Rheims answers nearly, but not quite, to Belgica Secunda: for the ecclesiastical province took in some territory to the east of the Scheld. Here again the boundary of the Eastern and Western kingdoms passed through the province. The metropolitan city lay within the region which became the kingdom of France, and it became the ecclesiastical head of the kingdom. Yet one of its suffragan sees, that of Cambray, was a city of the Empire. ♦Trier, 785.♦ The province of Trier took in no part of the Western kingdom; but, besides the old province of Belgica Prima, it stretched away over the German lands even beyond the Rhine. ♦Köln, 785.♦ When the old Gaulish bishoprick of Colonia Agrippina became metropolitan under Charles the Great, its province took in nearly all the old Gaulish province of Germania Secunda; but it too came to stretch beyond the Rhine and beyond the Weser. These two metropolitan sees, Trier and Köln, were old Gaulish bishopricks of the frontier land. ♦Mainz, 747.♦ The see of Mainz has no certain historical being before Boniface in the eighth century. It too was founded on what was geographically Gaulish soil; but the greater part of its vast extent was strictly German. Three only of its suffragans, Worms, Speyer, and Argentoratum or Strassburg, were even geographically Gaulish. No province has had more fluctuating boundaries: the elevation of Köln to metropolitan{176} rank cut it short to the west, while it grew indefinitely to the north, south, and east, as its boundaries were enlarged by conversion and conquest. ♦Prag, 1344.♦ To the east it was cut short in the fourteenth century when the kingdom of Bohemia and its dependencies were formed into the ecclesiastical province of Prag. ♦Bamberg, 1007.♦ The famous bishoprick of Bamberg, locally in the province of Mainz, was from the beginning immediately dependent on the see of Rome.

These three great archbishopricks of the frontier land, all of whose sees were on the Gaulish side of the Rhine, remained distinguished by their temporal rank during the whole life of the German kingdom. All the German prelates became princes; but only these three were Electors. The prelates of these three were the Arch-chancellors of the three Imperial kingdoms, Mainz of Germany, Köln of Italy, Trier of Gaul. But, as the Frankish or German kingdom spread to the north-east, new ecclesiastical provinces were formed. ♦Salzburg, 798.♦ The bishoprick of Salzburg became metropolitan under Charles the Great, with a province stretching away to the East towards his conquests from the Avars. ♦Bremen or Hamburg, 788.♦ The bishoprick of Bremen, another foundation of Charles the Great, was transferred under his son to Hamburg, as a metropolitan see which was designed to be a missionary centre for the Scandinavian nations. ♦1223.♦ After some fluctuations, the see was finally settled at Bremen, as the metropolis of a province, which had now become in no way Scandinavian, but partly Old-Saxon, partly Wendish. ♦Magdeburg, 968.♦ Lastly, Otto the Great founded the metropolitan see of Magdeburg on the Slavonic march. Thus the German kingdom formed six ecclesiastical provinces, all of vast extent as compared with those of Southern{177} Europe, and with their suffragan sees few and far apart. The difference is here clearly marked between the earlier sees which arose from the very beginning in the Roman cities, and the sees of later foundation which were gradually founded as new lands were brought under the dominion of the Empire and the Church. Still the old tradition went on so far that each Bishop had his see in a city, and took his name from that city. Though the German dioceses were of large extent, yet none of the German bishoprics were in strictness territorial.

In no part of Christendom have the ecclesiastical divisions been more completely upset in modern times than they have been in Germany. In France the number of dioceses was greatly lessened by the Concordat under the first Buonaparte; but the main ecclesiastical landmarks were to a great extent respected. In Germany, on the other hand, no trace of them is left. The country has been mapped out afresh to suit the boundaries of patched-up modern kingdoms. Mainz and Trier are no longer metropolitan sees, while the modern map shows such novelties as an Archbishop of München and an Archbishop of Freiburg. ♦Changes of Philip the Second in the Netherlands.♦ Long before, under Philip the Second of Spain, those parts of the German kingdom which had become practically detached under the Dukes of Burgundy underwent a complete change in their ecclesiastical divisions. ♦Cambray, Mechlin, Utrecht.♦ Cambray and Mechlin in the province of Rheims, and Utrecht in the province of Köln, became metropolitan sees. Modern political changes have made these three cities members of three distinct political powers.

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§ 4. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Spain.

The ecclesiastical history of the Spanish peninsula presents phænomena of a different kind from those of Italy, Gaul, or Germany. In Italy and Gaul the ecclesiastical divisions go on uninterruptedly from the earliest days of Christianity. Western Germany must count for these purposes as part of Gaul. In eastern Germany the ecclesiastical divisions were formed in later times, as Christianity was spread over the country. In Spain the country must have been mapped out for ecclesiastical purposes at least as early as Gaul. ♦Old divisions lost, and mapped out afresh after the recovery from the Saracens.♦ But the Mahometan conquest of the greater part of the country, followed by the Christian reconquest, caused the old ecclesiastical lines to be wiped out, and new divisions had to be traced out afresh as the land was gradually won back. ♦Ecclesiastical divisions under the West-Goths.♦ The ecclesiastical divisions of Spain in the time of the Gothic kingdom simply reproduce the civil divisions of the period, as those civil divisions are only a slight modification of the Roman provinces. Lusitania and Bætica survived, with a slight change of frontier, both as civil and as ecclesiastical divisions. Tarraconensis was for both purposes divided into three, Tarraconensis, Carthagenensis, and Gallæcia. As the land was won back, and as new ecclesiastical provinces were formed, the number was greatly increased, and some of them found their way to new sites. ♦Tarragona, Zaragoza, Valencia.♦ Thus the Tarraconensian province was again divided into three, those of Tarragona, Zaragoza, and Valencia, answering nearly to the kingdom of Aragon. ♦Toledo.♦ New Carthage lost its metropolitan rank in favour of the great metropolis of Toledo, which numbered Cordova and Valladolid among its suffragans. ♦Compostella, Burgos, Seville, and Granada.
Braga, Evora, Lisbon.♦ Leaving out some anomalous districts,{179} the rest of the peninsula formed the provinces of St. James of Compostella, Burgos, Seville, Granada, with Braga, Evora, and the patriarchal see of Lisbon, the last three answering to the kingdom of Portugal. And it must be remembered that the Pyrenees did not form an eternal boundary in ecclesiastical, any more than in civil geography. ♦Dioceses of Pampeluna and Bayonne.♦ As the kingdom of Navarre stretched on both sides of the mountains, so did the diocese of Pampeluna; and to the west of it the Gaulish diocese of Bayonne stretched on what is now Spanish ground. All these are survivals of a time when, to use the phrase of a later day, there were no Pyrenees, or when at least the same rulers, first Gothic and then Saracen, reigned on both sides of them.

§ 5. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of the British Islands.

The historical phænomena of the British islands have points in common with more than one of the continental countries. In a very rough and general view of things, Britain has some analogies with Spain. It is not altogether without reason that in some legendary stories the names of Saxons and Saracens get confounded. In both cases a land which had been Christian was overrun by conquerors of another creed; in both a Christian people held their ground in a part of the country; and in both the whole land was won back to Christianity, though by different and even opposite processes in the two cases. ♦The Celtic episcopate.♦ But there is no reason to believe that the Celtic churches in Britain and Ireland had anything like the same complete ecclesiastical organization as the Spanish churches under the Goths. ♦Tribal episcopacy.♦ The Celtic episcopate was of an irregular and anomalous kind, and, in its most intelligible shape, it was, as was natural under the{180} circumstances of the country, not a city episcopate, hardly a territorial episcopate, but one strictly tribal. This is nearly the only fact in the history of the early Celtic churches which is of any importance for our purpose. It might be too much to say that traces of this peculiarity were handed on from the Celtic to the English Church. The little likeness that there is between them is rather due to the fact that in Northern Europe generally, whether Celtic or Teutonic, a strictly city episcopate like that of Italy and Gaul was something which in the nature of things could not be.

In truth the antiquities of the Celtic churches may fairly be left to be matter of local or of special ecclesiastical inquiry. Their effect on history is slight; their effect on historical geography is still slighter. For our purpose the ecclesiastical geography of Britain may be looked on as beginning with the mission of Augustine. The English Church was formed, and the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish Churches were reconstructed, partly under its authority, altogether after its model. ♦Schemes of Gregory the Great.♦ In the original scheme of Gregory the Great, Britain was clearly meant to be divided into two ecclesiastical provinces nearly equal in extent. ♦Two equal provinces in Britain.♦ The Celtic churches were to be brought under the same ecclesiastical obedience as the heathen English. As Wales was to form part of the lot of the southern metropolitan, so Scotland was to form part of the lot of the northern. This scheme was never fully carried out. Wales was indeed brought into full submission to Canterbury; but Scotland was never brought into the same full submission to York. ♦Relation of the Scottish Bishops to York.♦ The allegiance of the Scottish sees to their Northumbrian metropolis was at all times very precarious, and{181} it was in the end formally thrown off altogether. ♦Suffragan sees of Canterbury and York.♦ Of this came the singular disproportion in the territorial extent of the two English ecclesiastical provinces. Canterbury, since the English Church was thoroughly organized, has had a number of suffragans which would be unusual anywhere on the continent, while York has always had comparatively few, and for a considerable time had practically one only.

The systematic mapping out of Britain for ecclesiastical purposes, as designed by Gregory, was therefore never fully carried out. The actual provinces and dioceses were gradually formed, as the various English existing kingdoms embraced Christianity. As a rule, each kingdom or independent principality became a diocese. ♦Territorial bishoprics♦ And, except in the case of a few sees fixed in cities which kept on something of old Roman memories, the bishops were more commonly called from the people who formed their flock, than from the cities which in some cases contained their chairs. For in many cases the bishop-settle, as our forefathers called it, was not placed in a city at all, but in some rural or even solitary spot. It was not till the time of the Norman Conquest that a movement began for systematically placing the ecclesiastical sees in the chief towns; from that time the civic title altogether displaces the territorial.

As Kent was the first part of Teutonic Britain to accept Christianity, the metropolitan see of the south was fixed at Canterbury, the capital of that kingdom. It was thus fixed in a city which has at no time held that temporal preeminence which has in different ages belonged to York, Winchester, and London. ♦Rochester.
London.♦ After Canterbury the earliest formed sees were Rochester for{182} the West-Kentish kingdom, and London for the East-Saxons. ♦Dorchester or Winchester. Sherborne, Wells, Ramsbury.♦ The conversion of the West-Saxons led to the foundation of the great diocese whose see was first at Dorchester on the Thames and then at Winchester, and from which the sees of Sherborne, Wells, and Ramsbury were gradually parted off. ♦Elmham.
Dorchester or Lincoln.♦ The East-Angles formed a diocese with its see at Elmham; the Middle-Angles settled down, after some shiftings, into the vast diocese stretching from the Thames to the Humber, whose see, first at Dorchester, was afterwards translated to Lincoln. ♦Worcester, Hereford, Lichfield.♦ The West-Mercian lands formed the dioceses of the Hwiccas at Worcester, of the Magesætas at Hereford, and the great diocese of Lichfield, stretching northward to the Ribble. The South-Saxons, whose see kept its tribal name down to the Norman Conquest, had their see first at Selsey, and then at Chichester. ♦Exeter.♦ Devonshire and Cornwall, after forming two dioceses, were, just before the Norman Conquest, united under the single see of Exeter. ♦The Welsh Sees.♦ The Conquest too brought about the more complete submission of the four Welsh sees, Saint David’s, Llandaff, Bangor, and Saint Asaph. ♦Salisbury, 1078.
Ely, 1109.♦ To the times just before and just after the Conquest belong the union of Sherborne and Ramsbury to form the diocese of Salisbury, and the dismemberment of the huge diocese of Lincoln by the foundation of an episcopal see at Ely. Thus the province of Canterbury with its suffragan sees was gradually organized in the form which it kept from the reign of Henry the First to that of Henry the Eighth.

Meanwhile in the northern province things never reached the same regular organization. ♦York.
Lindisfarn
or Durham,
Carlisle, 1133.♦ York, after some changes, took the position of a metropolitan see, with one suffragan, first at Lindisfarn and afterwards at{183} Durham, and another at Carlisle. ♦Saint Andrews, 1471.
Glasgow. 1492.♦ As the Scottish dioceses broke off from York, they first acknowledged a kind of precedence in the Bishop of St. Andrews; but it was not till a far later time that Scotland was divided into two regular ecclesiastical provinces with their sees at St. Andrews and Glasgow. ♦Edinburgh. 1634.♦ Several of the Scottish dioceses always kept their territorial titles; their sees were mostly fixed in small places; and of the chief seats of Scottish royalty, Dunfermline and Stirling never attained episcopal rank at all, and Edinburgh only attained it in quite modern times. ♦The four Irish provinces.♦ The endless and fluctuating bishoprics of Ireland were in the twelfth century gathered into the four provinces of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, answering to the temporal divisions of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. It is to be noticed that, in marked contradiction to continental practice, the chief see in all the three British kingdoms has been placed in a city which has never held the first temporal rank. Canterbury, St. Andrews, Armagh, were never the temporal heads of England, Scotland, and Ireland. York, Dublin, Glasgow, though metropolitan sees, were of secondary rank, and London and Winchester were ordinary bishoprics.

§ 6. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Northern and Eastern Europe.

In the other parts of Europe which formed part of the communion of the Latin Church, the ecclesiastical divisions mark the steps by which Christianity was spread either by conversion or conquest. They continued the process of which the ecclesiastical organization of Eastern Germany was the beginning. As a rule, they strictly follow the political divisions of the{184} age in which they were founded. ♦The Scandinavian provinces.♦ As the Church in the Scandinavian kingdoms became more settled, its bishoprics parted off from their allegiance to Hamburg or Bremen, and each of the three kingdoms formed an ecclesiastical province, whose boundaries exactly answered to the earlier boundaries of the kingdoms. ♦Lund, 1151.♦ Denmark had its metropolitan see at Lund, in that part of the Danish kingdom which geographically forms part of the greater Scandinavian peninsula, and which is now Swedish territory. Its boundary to the south was the Eider, the old frontier of Denmark and the Empire. The suffragan sees of this province, among which the specially royal bishopric of Roeskild is the most famous, naturally lie thicker on the ground than they do in the wilder regions of the two more northern kingdoms. But the Baltic conquests of Denmark also placed part of the isle of Rügen in the province of Lund and the diocese of Roeskild, and also gave the Danish metropolitan a far more distant suffragan in the Bishop of Revel on the Finnish gulf. ♦Upsala.♦ The metropolitan see of Sweden was placed at Upsala, and the province was carried by Swedish conquest to the east of the Gulf of Bothnia, where the single bishopric of Abo took in the whole of the Swedish territory in that region. ♦Trondhjem.♦ In the like sort, the Norwegian province of Nidaros or Trondhjem stretched far over the Ocean to the distant Colonies and dependencies of Norway in Iceland, Greenland, and Man.

The conversion of Poland and the conquest of Prussia and Livonia brought other lands within the pale of the Latin Church and her ecclesiastical organization. ♦Gnezna.♦ The original kingdom of Poland formed the province of Gnezna, a province whose boundaries were for some{185} centuries very fluctuating, according as Poland or the Empire was stronger in the Slavonic lands on the Baltic. Each change of temporal dominion caused the ecclesiastical frontiers of Gnezna and Magdeburg to advance or fall back. The Silesian bishopric of Breslau always kept its old relation to the Polish metropolis, except so far as it was held to be placed under the immediate superiority of Rome. The later union of Lithuania to the Polish kingdom added a Lithuanian and a Samogitian bishopric to the original Polish province. ♦Riga.
Leopol.♦ The earlier Polish conquests from Russia formed a new province, the Latin province of Leopol or Lemberg, a province whose southern boundaries advanced and fell back along with the boundary of the kingdom of which it formed a part. The conquests of the Teutonic knights in Prussia and Livonia formed the ecclesiastical province of Riga, which was divided into two parts by the province of Gnezna in its greater extent.

It will be seen that some of the ecclesiastical divisions last mentioned belong to a later stage of European history than the point which we have reached in our general narrative. But it seemed better to continue the survey over the whole of the Latin Church in Europe, as the later foundations are a mere carrying out of the same process which began in the earlier. The ecclesiastical divisions represent the political divisions of the time, whether those political divisions are Roman provinces or independent Teutonic or Slavonic kingdoms. But the ecclesiastical divisions, when once fixed, were more lasting than the temporal divisions, and many disputes have arisen out of political{186} changes which transferred one part of a province or diocese from one political allegiance to another. Since the splitting-up of the Western Church, the old ecclesiastical organization has altogether vanished from some countries, and has been greatly modified in others, in Germany most of all.

It seems hardly needful for the understanding of European history to carry our ecclesiastical survey beyond the limits of the Latin Church. One of the Polish provinces, that of Leopol, has carried us to the borderland of the Eastern and Western Churches, and, if we pass southwards into the Magyar and South-Slavonic lands, we find ourselves still more distinctly on an ecclesiastical march. ♦Hungary.
Strigonium.
Kolocza.♦ The Kingdom of Hungary formed two Latin provinces, those of Strigonium or Gran, and of Kolocza; the latter has a very fluctuating boundary to the south. ♦Dalmatia.♦ The Dalmatian coast, the borderland of all powers and of all religions, formed three Latin provinces. ♦Zara.♦ Jadera or Zara, on her peninsula, was the head of a small province chiefly made up of islands. ♦Spalato.♦ Another metropolitan had his throne in the very mausoleum of Diocletian, and the province of Spalato stretched some way inland over the lands which have so often changed masters. ♦Ragusa.♦ To the south, the see of Ragusa, the furthest outpost of Latin Christendom properly so called, had, besides its own coasts and islands, an indefinite frontier inland. This marks the furthest extent to which it is needful to trace our ecclesiastical map. It is the furthest point at which Latin Christianity can be said to be in any sense at home. The ecclesiastical organization of the crusading and Venetian conquests further to the south and east have but little bearing on historical geography. But, within{187} the bounds of Latin Christendom, the ecclesiastical divisions both of the provinces and dioceses within the older Empire and what we may call the missionary provinces beyond it, are of the highest importance, and they should always be kept in mind alongside of the political geography.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE IMPERIAL KINGDOMS.

The division of 887 parted off from the general mass of the Frankish dominions a distinct Kingdom of the East-Franks, the acknowledged head of the Frankish kingdoms, which, as being distinguished from its fellows as the Regnum Teutonicum, may be best spoken of as a Kingdom of Germany. ♦Merging of the Kingdom in the Empire.♦ But the lasting acquisition of the Italian and Imperial crowns by the German kings, and their later acquisition of the kingdom of Burgundy, gradually tended to obscure the notion of a distinct German kingdom. The idea of the Kingdom was merged in the idea of the Empire of which it formed a part. Later events too tended in the same direction. ♦The Emperors lose Italy and Burgundy, but keep Germany.♦ The Italian kingdom gradually fell off from any practical allegiance to its nominal king the Emperor. So did the greater part of the Burgundian kingdom. Meanwhile, though the powers of the Emperors as German kings were constantly lessening, their authority was never wholly thrown off till the present century. The Emperors in short lost their kingdoms of Italy and Burgundy, and kept their kingdom of Germany. In the fifteenth century the coronation of the Emperor at Rome had become a mere ceremony, carrying with it no real authority in Italy. In the sixteenth century the ceremony itself went out of use. ♦Charles the Fourth crowned at Arles, 1365.♦ The Burgundian{189} coronation at Arles became irregular at a very early time, and it is last heard of in the fourteenth century. ♦1792.♦ But the election of the German kings at Frankfurt, their coronation, in earlier times at Aachen, afterwards at Frankfurt, went on regularly till the last years of the eighteenth century. ♦Endurance of the German Diet.♦ So, while the national assemblies of Italy and Burgundy can hardly be said to have been regularly held at all, while they went altogether out of use at an early time, the national assembly of Germany, in one shape or another, never ceased as long as there was any one calling himself Emperor or German King. The tendency in all three kingdoms was to split up into separate principalities and commonwealths. ♦Comparison of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy.♦ But in Germany the principalities and commonwealths always kept up some show of connexion with one another, some show of allegiance to their Imperial head. In Italy and Burgundy they parted off altogether. Some became absolutely independent; were incorporated with other kingdoms or became their distant dependencies; some were even held by the Emperors themselves in some other character, and not by virtue either of their Empire or of their local kingship. ♦The Empire identified with Germany.♦ Thus, as the Empire became more and more nearly coextensive with the German Kingdom, the distinction between the two was gradually forgotten. The small parts of the other kingdoms which kept any trace of their Imperial allegiance came to be looked on as parts of Germany. ♦The Empire becomes a Confederation.♦ In short, the Western Empire became a German kingdom; or rather it became a German Confederation with a royal head, a confederation which still kept up the forms and titles of the Empire. ♦1530.♦ As no German king received an Imperial coronation after Charles the Fifth, it might in strictness be said{190} that the Empire came to an end at his abdication. ♦1556.♦ And in truth from that date the Empire practically became a purely German power. But, as the Imperial forms and titles still went on, the Western Empire must be looked on as surviving, in the form of a German kingdom or confederation, down to its final fall.

The Kingdom of Germany then may be looked on as representing the Western Empire, as being what was left of the Western Empire after the other parts of it had fallen away. But the German kingdom itself underwent, though in a smaller degree, the same fate as the other two Imperial kingdoms. ♦Separation of parts of the Kingdom.♦ While all Italy and all Burgundy, with some very trifling exceptions, fell away from the Empire, the mass of Germany remained Imperial. Still large parts of Germany were lost to the Empire no less than Italy and Burgundy. A considerable territory on the western and south-western frontier of Germany gradually fell away. Part of this territory has grown into independent states; part has been incorporated with the French kingdom. The Swiss Confederation has grown up on lands partly German, partly Burgundian, partly Italian, but of which the oldest and greatest part belonged to the German kingdom. The Confederation of the United Provinces, represented by the modern kingdom of the Netherlands, lay wholly[12] within the old German kingdom: so did by far the greater part of the modern kingdom of Belgium. ♦Modern Austria.♦ In our own day the same tendency has been shewn in south-eastern as well as south-western Germany; several members of the{191} ancient kingdom have fallen away to form part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. ♦Extension of Germany to the north-east.♦ But on the northern and north-eastern frontier the tendency to extension, with some fluctuations, has gone on from the beginning of the kingdom to our own day. ♦Geographical contrast of the earlier and later Empire.♦ This tendency to lose territory to the west and south, and to gain territory to the east and north, had the effect of gradually cutting off the Western Empire, as represented by the German kingdom, from any close geographical connexion with the earlier Empire of which it was the historical continuation. The Holy Roman Empire, at the time of its final fall, contained but little territory which had formed part of the Empire of Trajan. It contained nothing which had formed part of the Empire of Justinian, save some small scraps of territory in the north-eastern corner of the old Italian kingdom.

§ 1. The Kingdom of Germany.

In tracing out, for our present purpose, the geographical revolutions of Germany, it will be enough to look at them, as far as may be, mainly in their European aspect. Owing to the gradual way in which the various members of the Empire grew into practical sovereignty—owing to the constant division of principalities among many members of the same family—no country has undergone so many internal geographical changes as Germany has. In few countries also has the nomenclature shifted in a more singular way. ♦Ancient and modern Saxony and Bavaria.♦ To take two obvious examples, the modern kingdom of Saxony has nothing but its name in common with the Saxony which was brought under the Frankish dominion by Charles the Great. The modern kingdom of Bavaria has a considerable territory in common{192} with the ancient Bavaria; but it has gained so much at one end and lost so much at the other that the two cannot be said to be in any practical sense the same country. ♦Uses of the name Austria.♦ The name of Austria has shifted from the eastern part of the old Francia to the German mark against the Magyar, and it has lately wandered altogether beyond the modern German frontier. ♦Burgundy.♦ The name of Burgundy has borne endless meanings, both within the Empire and beyond it. ♦Prussia.♦ Lastly, the ruling state of modern Germany, a state stretching across the whole land from east to west, strangely bears the name of the conquered and extinct Prussian race. Many of these changes affect the history of Europe as well as the history of Germany; but many of the endless changes among the smaller members of the Empire are matters of purely local interest, which belong to the historical geography of Germany only, and which claim no place in the historical geography of Europe. I shall endeavour therefore in the present section, first to trace carefully the shiftings of the German frontier as regards other powers, and then to bring out such, and such only, of the internal changes as have a bearing on the general history of Europe.

The extent of the German kingdom as it stood after the division of 887 has been roughly traced already. ♦Boundaries under the Ottos, 936-1002.♦ It will now be well to go over its frontiers somewhat more minutely, as they stood at the time of final separation between the Empire and the West-Frankish kingdom, the time of final union between the Empire and the East-Frankish kingdom. This marks the great age of the Saxon Ottos. ♦Boundary towards the West.♦ The frontier towards the{193} Western kingdom was now fairly ascertained, and it was subject to dispute only at a few points. ♦Lotharingia.♦ It is hardly needful to insist again on the fact that all Lotharingia, in the sense of those days, taking in all the southern Netherlands except the French fief of Flanders, was now Imperial. ♦Encroachments of France.♦ It is along this line that the German border has in later times most largely fallen back. The advance of France has touched Burgundy more than Germany; but it has, first swallowed up, and afterwards partly restored, a considerable part of the German kingdom. ♦The Netherlands.♦ The Netherlands had been practically so cut off from Germany before the annexations of France in that quarter began, that they will be better spoken of in another section. ♦Lorraine and Elsass.♦ The other points at which the frontier has fluctuated on a great scale have been the border land of Lorraine—as distinguished from the Lower Lotharingia which has more to do with the history of the Netherlands—and the Swabian land of Elsass. ♦Fluctuations of Bar.♦ The Duchy of Bar, the borderland of the borderland, fluctuated more than once. ♦1473.♦ After its union with the Duchy of Lorraine, it followed the fortunes of that state. ♦The Three Bishoprics, 1552.♦ In the next century came the annexation of the three Lotharingian bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which gave France three outlying possessions within the geographical borders of the Lotharingian duchy. ♦Loss of Austrian Elsass, 1648.♦ In the next century, as the result of the Thirty Years’ War, France obtained by the Peace of Westfalia the formal cession of these conquests, and also the great advance of her frontier by the dismemberment of Elsass. The cession now made did not take in the whole of Elsass, but only the possessions and rights of the House of Austria in{194} that country. This cession still left both Strassburg and various smaller towns and districts to the Empire; but it naturally opened the way to further French advances in a land where the frontier was so complicated and where difficulties were so easily raised as to treaty-rights. ♦Gradual annexation of Elsass, 1679-1789.♦ A series of annexations, réunions as they were called, gradually united nearly all Elsass to France. ♦Seizure of Strassburg, 1681.♦ Strassburg, as all the world knows, was seized by Lewis the Fourteenth in time of peace. ♦Seizure of Lorraine, 1678-1697.♦ During the wars with the same prince, the duchy of Lorraine was seized and restored. ♦Its final annexation. 1766.♦ In the next century it was separated from the Empire to become the life-possession of the Polish king Stanislaus, and on his death it was finally added to France just before a far greater series of French annexations began. ♦Loss of the left bank of the Rhine, 1801.♦ The wars of the French Revolution, confirmed by the Peace of Luneville, tore away from Germany and the Empire all that lay on the left bank of the Rhine. In other words, the Western Francia, the duchy of the lords of Paris, advanced itself to the utmost limits of the Gaul of Cæsar. This was the last annexation of France at the expense of the old German kingdom. ♦Dissolution of the Kingdom and Empire, 1806.♦ It was indeed the main cause of the formal dissolution of the kingdom which happened a few years later. The utter transformation of Germany within and without which now followed must be spoken of at a later stage.

The frontier of Germany and Burgundy, while they still remained distinct kingdoms, fluctuated a good deal, especially in the lands which now form Switzerland. ♦Union of Burgundy with the Empire, 1033.♦ But this frontier ceased to be of any practical importance when the Burgundian kingdom was united with the Empire. The later history of Burgundy, consisting of the gradual incorporation by France of the{195} greater part of the kingdom, and the growth of the remnant into the western cantons of the Swiss Confederation, will be told elsewhere.

Towards Italy again the frontier was sometimes doubtful. Chiavenna, for instance, sometimes appears in the tenth and eleventh centuries as German; so do the greater districts of Trent, Aquileia, Istria, and even Verona. ♦The Marchland.♦ All these formed a marchland, part of which in the end became definitely attached to Germany and part to Italy. ♦Union of the Crowns, 961-1530.
961-1250.♦ But here again, as long as the German and Italian crowns were united, and as long as their common king kept any real authority in either kingdom, the frontier was of no great practical importance. So in later times, both before and after the dissolution of the German Kingdom, the question has practically been a question between Italy and the House of Austria rather than between Italy and Germany as such. These changes also will better come in another section.

The case is quite different with regard to the eastern and northern frontiers, on which the really greatest changes took place, and where Germany, as Germany, made its greatest advances. ♦Advance of the Empire.♦ Along this line the Roman Empire and the German Kingdom meant the same thing. On this side the frontier had to be marked, so far as it could be marked, against nations which had had nothing to do with the elder Empire. Here then for many ages the Roman Terminus advanced and fell back according to the accidents of a long warfare.

The whole frontier of the kingdom towards its northern and eastern neighbours was defended by a series of marks or border territories whose rulers were clothed with special powers for the defence and extension{196} of the frontier.[13] They had to guard the realm against the Dane in the north, and against the Slave during the whole remaining length of the eastern frontier, except where, in the last years of the ninth century, the Magyar thrust himself in between the northern and southern Slaves. ♦Hungarian frontier.
Mark of Austria.♦ Here the frontier, as against Hungary and Croatia, was defended by the marks of Krain or Carniola, Kärnthen or Carinthia, Austrian mark to the north of them. ♦Little change on this frontier.♦ This frontier has changed least of all. It may, without any great breach of accuracy, be said to have remained the same from the days of the Saxon Emperors till now. The part where it was at all fluctuating was along the Austrian mark, rather than along the two marks to the south of it. ♦Occasional homage of Hungary to the Emperors.♦ The Emperors claimed, and sometimes enforced, a feudal superiority over the Hungarian kings. But this kind of precarious submission does not affect geography. Hungary always remained a separate kingdom; the Imperial supremacy was something purely external, and it was always thrown off on the first opportunity.

The same may be said of Denmark. For a short time a German mark was formed north of the Eider. ♦The Danish Mark, 934-1027.
Boundary of the Eider, 1027-1806.♦ But, when the Danish kingdom had grown into the Northern Empire of Cnut, the German frontier fell back here also, and the Eider remained the boundary of the Empire till its fall. ♦Occasional homage of the Danish Kings.♦ As with Hungary, so with Denmark; more than one Danish king became the man of Cæsar; but here again the precarious acknowledgement of Imperial supremacy had no effect on geography.

It is in the intermediate lands, along the vast{197} frontier where the Empire marched on the northern Slavonic lands, that the real historical geography of Germany lies for some ages. ♦Fluctuation of territory.♦ Here the boundary was ever fluctuating. ♦Extent of the Slaves.♦ At the time of the division of 887, the Slaves held all east of the Elbe and a good deal to the west. How far they had during the Wandering of the Nations stepped into the place of earlier Teutonic inhabitants is a question which belongs to another field of inquiry. We must here start from the geographical fact that, at the time when the modern states of Europe began to form themselves, the Slaves were actually in possession of the great North-Eastern region of modern Germany. Their special mention will come in their special place; we must here mark that modern Germany has largely formed itself by the gradual conquest and colonization of lands which at the end of the ninth century were Slavonic. The German kingdom spread itself far to the North-East, and German settlements and German influences spread themselves far beyond the formal bounds of the German kingdom. Three special instruments worked together in bringing about this end. The Saxon Dukes came first. In after times came the great league of German cities, the famous Hansa which, like some other bodies originally commercial, became a political power, and which spread German influences over the whole of the shores of the Baltic. Along with them, from the thirteenth century onwards, worked the great military order of the Teutonic knights. Out of their conquests came the first beginnings of the Prussian state, and the extension of German rule and the German speech over much which in modern geography has become Russian. In a history of the German nation all these causes would have to be dealt{198} with together as joint instruments towards the same end. In a purely geographical view the case is different. Some of these influences concern the formation of the actual German kingdom; others have geographically more to do with the group of powers more to the north-east, the Slavonic states of Poland and Russia, and their Lithuanian and Finnish neighbours. The growth and fall of the military orders will therefore most naturally come in another section. We have here to trace out those changes only which helped to give the German kingdom the definite geographical extent which it held for some centuries before its final fall.

Beginning at the north, in the lands where German, Slave, and Dane came into close contact, in Saxony beyond the Elbe, the modern Holstein, the Slaves held the western coast, and the narrow Saxon mark fenced off the German land. ♦Mark of the Billungs, 960-1106.♦ The Saxon dukes of the house of Billung formed a German mark, which took in the lands reaching from the Elbe to the strait which divides the isle of Rügen from the mainland. But this possession was altogether precarious. ♦Its fluctuations.♦ It again became a Slavonic kingdom; then it was a possession of Denmark; it cannot be looked on as definitely becoming part of the German realm till the thirteenth century. ♦Slavonic princes continue in Mecklenburg.♦ The chief state in these lands which has lasted till later times is the duchy of Mecklenburg, the rulers of which, in its two modern divisions, are the only modern princes who directly represent an old Slavonic royal house. Meanwhile a way was opened for a vast extension of German influence through the whole North, by the growth of the city of Lübeck. ♦Foundation of Lübeck, 1140-1158.♦ Twice founded, the second time by Henry the Lion Duke of Saxony, it gradually became the leading member of the great{199} merchant League. ♦The Hanse Towns.♦ To the south of these lands come those Slavonic lands which have grown into the modern kingdom of Saxony and the central parts of the modern kingdom of Prussia. ♦Marchlands.♦ These were specially marchlands, a name which some of them have kept down to our own day. ♦Brandenburg.
Lausitz.
Meissen.♦ The mark of Brandenburg in its various divisions, the mark of Lausitz or Lusatia, where a Slavonic remnant still lingers, and the mark of Meissen, long preserved the memory of the times when these lands, which afterwards came to play so great a part in the internal history of Germany, were still outlying and precarious possessions of the German realm.

To the south-east lay the Bohemian lands, whose history has been somewhat different. ♦Bohemia a fief, 928.♦ The duchy, afterwards kingdom, of Bohemia, became, early in the tenth century, a fief of the German kingdom. ♦Becomes a kingdom, 1198.
1003.♦ From that time ever afterwards, save during one moment of passing Polish annexation, it remained one of its principal members, ruled, as long as the Empire lasted, by princes holding electoral rank. The boundaries of the kingdom itself have hardly varied at all. ♦Moravia.
1019.♦ The dependent marchland of Moravia to the east, the remnant of the great Moravian kingdom whose history will come more fittingly in another chapter, fluctuated for a long while between Hungarian, Polish, and Bohemian supremacy. But from the early part of the eleventh century it remained under Bohemian rule, and therefore under Imperial superiority. ♦More distant Slavonic states.♦ To the east of this nearer zone of Slavonic dependencies, lay another range of Slavonic states, some of which were gradually incorporated with the German kingdom, while others remained distinct down to modern times. ♦Pomerania.♦ Pomerania on the{200} Baltic coast is a name which has often changed both its geographical extent and its political allegiance. The eastern part of the land now so called lay open, as will be hereafter seen, to the occupation of the Pole, and its western part to that of the Dane. ♦Native princes go on.♦ But in the end it took its place on the map in the form of two duchies, ruled, like Mecklenburg, by native princes under Imperial supremacy. ♦Polish frontier.♦ South of Pomerania, the German march bordered on the growing power of Poland, and between Poland and Hungary lay the northern Croatia or Chrobatia. The German supremacy seems sometimes to have been extended as far as the Wartha, and, in the Chrobatian land, even beyond the Vistula. ♦Occasional homage of the Polish kings.♦ But this occupation was quite momentary; Poland grew up, like Hungary, as a kingdom, some of whose dukes and kings admitted the Imperial supremacy, but which gradually became wholly independent. ♦Silesia Polish, 999.♦ The border province of Silesia, after some fluctuations between Bohemia and Poland, became definitely Polish at the end of the tenth century. ♦Bohemian, 1289-1327.♦ Afterwards it was divided into several principalities, whose dukes passed under Bohemian vassalage, and so became members of the Empire. Thus in the course of some ages, a boundary was drawn between Germany and Poland which lasted down to modern times.

The result of this survey is to show how great, and at the same time how gradual, was the extension of the German power eastward. A Roman Empire with a long Baltic coast was something that had never been dreamed of in earlier days. If the extension of the German name was but the recovery of long lost{201} Teutonic lands, the extension to them of the Imperial name which had become identified with Germany was at least wholly new. ♦The Slavonic lands Germanized.♦ In all the lands now annexed, save in a few exceptional districts, German annexation meant German colonization, and the assimilation of the surviving inhabitants to the speech and manners of Germany. Colonists were brought, specially from the Frisian lands, by whose means the Low-Dutch tongue was spread along the whole southern coast of the Baltic. German cities were founded. The marchlands grew into powerful German states. At last one of these marchlands, united with a German conquest still further cut off from the heart of the old German realm, has grown into a state which in our own days has become the Imperial power of Germany.

The internal geography of the German kingdom is the greatest difficulty of such a work as the present. To trace the boundaries of the kingdom as against other kingdoms is comparatively easy; but to trace out the endless shiftings, the unions and the divisions, of the countless small principalities and commonwealths which arose within the kingdom, would be a hopeless attempt. ♦Growth of the principalities.♦ Still the growth of the dukes, counts, and other princes of Germany into independent sovereigns is the great feature of German history, as the consequent wiping out of old divisions, and shifting to and fro of old names, is the special feature of German historical geography. ♦Changes in nomenclature.♦ The dying out of the old names has a historical interest, and the growth of the new powers which have supplanted them has both an historical and a political interest. ♦Origin of Prussia and Austria.♦ It is specially important to mark{202} how the two powers which have stood at the head of Germany in modern times in no way represent any of the old divisions of the German name. They have grown out of the outlying marks planted against the Slave and the Magyar. The mark of Brandenburg, the mark against the Slave, has grown into the kingdom of Prussia, the Imperial state of Germany in its latest form. The Eastern mark, the mark against the Magyar, has grown into the archduchy which gave Germany so many kings, into the so-called Austrian ‘empire,’ into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of our own day. ♦Analogies between Brandenburg and other marchlands.♦ The growth of Brandenburg or Prussia again affords an instructive comparison with the growth of Wessex in England, of France in Gaul, and of Castile in Spain. In all these cases alike, it has been a marchland which has come to the front and has become the head of the united nation.

Starting from the division of 887, we shall find several important landmarks in the history of the German kingdom which may help us in this most difficult part of our work. Under the Saxon and Frankish kings we see the great duchies still forming the main divisions, while the kingdom is enlarged by Slavonic conquests to the east and by the definite adhesion of Lotharingia to the west. ♦Decline of the Duchies under the Swabian Kings, 1137-1254.♦ Under the Swabian kings we see the break-up of the great duchies. In the partition of Saxony the process which was everywhere silently and gradually at work was formally carried out in the greatest case of all by Imperial, and national authority. ♦End of the Gauverfassung.
Growth of territorial Principalities.♦ The Gauverfassung, the immemorial system of Teutonic communities, now finally changes into a system of territorial principalities, broken only by the many free cities and the few free districts{203} which owned no lord but the King. ♦Growth of the march powers. 1254-1512.♦ During this period too we see the beginnings of some of the powers which became chief at a later day, the powers of the eastern marchland, Brandenburg, Austria, Saxony in the later sense. The time from the so-called Interregnum to the legislation under Maximilian is marked by the further growth of these powers. ♦Growth of the House of Austria.♦ It is further marked by the beginning of that connexion of the Austrian duchy, and of the Imperial crown itself, with lands beyond the bounds of the Kingdom and the Empire which led in the end to the special and anomalous position of the House of Austria as an European power. ♦Separation of Switzerland, 1495-1648.
Of the Netherlands, 1430-1648.♦ During the same period comes the practical separation of Switzerland and the Netherlands from the German kingdom. In short it was during this age that Germany in its later aspect was formed. ♦Legislation under Maximilian, 1495-1512.♦ The legislation of Maximilian’s reign, the attempts then made to bring the kingdom to a greater degree of unity, have left their mark on geography in the division of Germany into circles. ♦Division into circles, 1500-1512.♦ This division, though it was not perfectly complete, though it did not extend to every corner of the kingdom, was strictly an administrative division of the kingdom itself as such; but the mapping out of the circles, the difference of which in point of size is remarkable, was itself affected by the geographical extent of the dominions of the princes who held lands within them. ♦Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648.♦ The seventeenth century is marked by the results of the Thirty Years’ War and of other changes. ♦Powers holding lands within and without Germany.♦ Its most important geographical result was to carry on the process which had begun with the Austrian House, the formation of powers holding lands both within and without the Empire. ♦Austria.
Sweden.
Union of Brandenburg and Prussia.♦ Thus, beside the union of the Hungarian kingdom with the Austrian archduchy, the King of Sweden now held lands as a{204} prince of the Empire, and the same result was brought about in another way by the union of the Electorate of Brandenburg with the Duchy of Prussia. ♦Rivalry of Prussia and Austria.♦ This, and other accessions of territory, now made Brandenburg as distinctly the first power of northern Germany as Austria was of southern Germany, and in the eighteenth century the rivalry of these two powers becomes the chief centre, not only of German but of European politics. ♦Hannover and Great Britain, 1715.♦ The union of the Electorate of Hannover under the same sovereign with the kingdom of Great Britain further increased the number of princes ruling both within Germany and without it. ♦Dissolution of the Kingdom, 1806.♦ Lastly, the wars of the latter years of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century led to the dissolution alike of the German kingdom and of the Roman Empire. ♦The German Confederation, 1815-1866.♦ Then, after a time of confusion and foreign occupation, comes the formation of a Confederation with boundaries nearly the same as the later boundaries of the kingdom. But the Confederation now appears as something quite subordinate to its two leading members. ♦Austria and Prussia greater than the Confederation.♦ Germany, as such, no longer counts as a great European power, but Prussia and Austria, the two chief holders at once of German and of non-German lands, stand forth among the chief bearers of European rank. ♦The new Confederation and Empire, 1866-1870.♦ Lastly, the changes of our own day have given us an Imperial Germany with geographical boundaries altogether new, a Germany from which the south-eastern German lands are cut off, while the Polish and other non-German possessions of Prussia to the north-east have become an integral part of the new Empire. The task of the geographer is thereby greatly simplified. Down to the last changes, one of his greatest difficulties is to make his map show with any clearness what was the extent{205} of the German Kingdom or Confederation, and at the same time what was the extent of the dominions of those princes who held lands both in Germany and out of it. By the last arrangements this difficulty at least is altogether taken away.

If we look at the map of Germany under the Saxon and Frankish Kings, we see that the old names, marking the great divisions of the German people, still keep their predominance. ♦The great Duchies.♦ The kingdom is still made up of the four great duchies, the Eastern Francia, Saxony, Alemannia, and Bavaria, together with the great border-land of Lotharingia. These are still the great duchies, to which all smaller divisions are subordinate. ♦Eastern Francia cut off from extension.♦ Among these, the kernel of the kingdom, the Eastern Francia, is the only one whose boundaries had little or no chance of being extended or lessened at the cost of foreign powers. It had the smallest possible frontier towards the Slave. ♦Frontier position of Saxony, Bavaria, and Alemannia.♦ On the other hand, Saxony has an ever fluctuating boundary against the Slave and the Dane; Bavaria marches upon the Slave, the Magyar, and the Kingdom of Italy, while Alemannia has a shifting frontier towards both Burgundy and Italy. ♦Exposed position of Lotharingia and Burgundy.♦ Lotharingia, and Burgundy after its annexation, are the lands which lie exposed to aggression from the West. ♦Vanishing of Francia.♦ It is perhaps for this very reason that, of the four duchies which preserve the names of the four great divisions of the German nation, the Eastern Francia is the one which has most utterly vanished from the modern map and from modern memory. Another cause may have strengthened its tendency to vanish. The policy of the kings forbade that the Frankish duchy should become the abiding heritage of any princely{206} family. ♦Its ecclesiastical Dukes.♦ The ducal title of the Eastern Francia was at two periods of its history borne by ecclesiastical princes in the persons of the Bishops of Würzburg; but it never gave its name, like Saxony and Bavaria, to any ruling house. ♦Analogy with Wessex.♦ The English student will notice the analogy by which, among all the ancient English kingdoms, Wessex, the cradle of the English monarchy, is the one whose name has most utterly vanished from modern memory.

The only way to grasp the endless shiftings and divisions of the German principalities, so as to give anything like a clear general view, will be to take the great duchies, and to point out in a general way the steps by which they split asunder, and the chief states of any historical importance which rose out of their divisions. ♦Growth of new powers in the twelfth century.♦ Most of these new powers begin to be of importance in the twelfth century, a time which is specially marked as the æra when those two states which have had most to do with the making or unmaking of modern Germany begin to find their place in history. ♦Brandenburg and Austria.♦ It is then that the two great marchlands of Brandenburg and Austria begin to take their place among the leading powers of the German kingdom. ♦The Circles.♦ And, in making this survey, it will be well to bear in mind the much later division into circles. The circles, an attempt to create administrative divisions of the kingdom as such, were, in a faint way, a return to the ancient duchies, the names of which were to some extent retained. Thus we have the two Saxon circles, Upper and Lower, and the three of Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria. All of these keep up the names of ancient duchies, and most of them keep up a stronger or fainter geographical connexion with the ancient{207} lands whose names they bore. The other circles, the two Rhenish circles, Upper and Lower, and those of Westfalia, Austria, and Burgundy—the last name being used in a sense altogether new—arose out of changes which took place between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, some of which we shall have to notice.

First then, the great duchy of Saxony consisted of three main divisions, Westfalia, Engern or Angria, and Eastfalia. Thuringia to the south-east, and the Frisian lands to the north-west, may be looked on as in some sort appendages to the Saxon duchy. ♦Growth of Saxony at the expense of the Slaves.♦ The duchy was also capable of any amount of extension towards the east, and the lands gradually won from the Wends on this side were all looked on as additions made to the Saxon territory. ♦Break-up of the Duchy, 1182-1191.♦ But the great Saxon duchy was broken up at the fall of Henry the Lion. ♦Duchy of Westfalia.♦ The archiepiscopal Electors of Köln received the title of Dukes of Westfalia and Engern. But in the greater part of those districts the grant remained merely nominal, though the ducal title, with a small actual Westfalian duchy, remained to the electorate till the end. From these lands the Saxon name may be looked on as having altogether passed away. ♦New use of the name Saxony.♦ The name of Saxony, as a geographical expression, clave to the Eastfalian remnant of the old duchy, and to Thuringia and the Slavonic conquests to the east. ♦The Saxon Circles.♦ In the later division of Germany these lands formed the two circles of Upper and Lower Saxony; and it was within their limits that the various states arose which have kept on the Saxon name to our own time.

From the descendants of Henry the Lion himself, and from the allodial lands which they kept, the Saxon{208} name passed away, except so far as they became part of the Lower-Saxon circle. ♦Duchy of Brunswick.♦ They held their place as princes of the Empire, no longer as Dukes of Saxony, but as Dukes of Brunswick, a house which gave Rome one Emperor and England a dynasty of kings. ♦Its division, 1203.
Lüneburg and Wolfenbüttel.♦ After some of the usual divisions, two Brunswick principalities finally took their place on the map, those of Lüneburg and Wolfenbüttel, the latter having the town of Brunswick for its capital. The Lüneburg duchy grew. ♦Lüneburg acquires the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, 1715-1719.♦ Late in the seventeenth century it was raised to the electoral rank, and early in the next century it was finally enlarged by the acquisition of the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden. ♦Electorate of Hannover or Brunswick Lüneburg, 1692.♦ Thus was formed the Electorate, and afterwards Kingdom, of Hannover, while the simple ducal title remained with the Brunswick princes of the other line.

The Saxon name itself withdrew in the end from the old Saxony to the lands conquered from the Slave. ♦Bernhard duke of Saxony, 1180-1212.♦ On the fall of Henry the Lion, the duchy of Saxony, cut short by the grant to the archbishops of Köln, was granted to Bernhard of Ballensted, the founder of the Ascanian House. ♦Sachsen-Lauenburg.♦ Of the older Saxon land his house kept only for a while the small district north of the Elbe which kept the name of Sachsen-Lauenburg, and which in the end became part of the Hannover electorate. ♦1423.♦ But it was in Thuringia and the conquered Slavonic lands to the east of Thuringia that a new Saxony arose, which kept on somewhat of the European position of the Saxon name down to modern times. This new Saxony, with Wittenberg for its capital, grew, through the addition of Thuringia and Meissen, into the Saxon Electorate which played so great a part during the three last centuries of the existence{209} of the German kingdom. ♦Divisions and unions.♦ But in Saxony too the usual divisions took place. Lauenburg parted off; so did the smaller duchies which still keep the Saxon name. ♦1547.♦ The ducal and electoral dignities were divided, till the two, united under the famous Maurice, formed the Saxon electorate as it stood at the dissolution of the kingdom. It was in short a new state, one which had succeeded to the name, but which could in no other way be thought to represent, the Saxony whose conquest cost so many campaigns to Charles the Great.

Another power which arose in the marchland of Saxon and Slave, to the north of Saxony in the later sense, was the land known specially as the Mark, the groundwork of the power which has in our own day risen to the head of Germany. The North Mark of Saxony became the Mark of Brandenburg. ♦Reign of Albert the Bear, 1134-1170.♦ In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, under Albert the Bear and his house, the Mark greatly extended itself at the expense of the Slaves. ♦Union with Bohemia, 1373-1415.
House of Hohenzollern, 1415.♦ United for a time with the kingdom of Bohemia, it passed into the house of the Burgraves of Nürnberg, that House of Hohenzollern which has grown step by step till it has reached Imperial rank in our own day. The power thus formed presently acquired a special character by the acquisition of what may be called a German land out of Germany, a land which gave them in the end a higher title, and which by its geographical position led irresistibly to a further increase of territory. ♦Union of Brandenburg and Prussia, 1611-1618.♦ Early in the seventeenth century the Electors of Brandenburg acquired by inheritance the Duchy of Prussia, that is merely Eastern Prussia, a fief, not of the Empire but of the crown of Poland, and which lay geographically{210} apart from their strictly German dominions. ♦Prussia independent of Poland, 1656; becomes kingdom, 1701.♦ The common sovereign of Brandenburg and Prussia was thus the man of two lords; but the Great Elector Frederick William became a wholly independent sovereign in his duchy, and his son Frederick took on himself the kingly title for the land which was thus freed from all homage. Both before and after the union with Prussia, the Electors of Brandenburg continued largely to increase their German dominions. ♦1523-1623.♦ A temporary possession of the principality of Jägerndorf in Silesia, unimportant in itself, led to great events in later times. ♦Westfalian possessions of Brandenburg, 1614-1666.
1702-1744.♦ The acquisition, at various times in the seventeenth century, of Cleve and other outlying Westfalian lands, which were further increased in the next century, led in the same way to the modern dominion of Prussia in western Germany. ♦Acquisitions in Pomerania, 1638-1648.
1713-1719.♦ But the most solid acquisition of Brandenburg in this age was that of Eastern Pomerania, to which the town of Stettin, with a further increase of territory, was added after the wars of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also increased the dominions both of Brandenburg and Saxony at the expense of the neighbouring ecclesiastical princes. ♦Later acquisitions of Prussia.♦ The later acquisitions of the House of Hohenzollern, after the Electors of Brandenburg had taken the kingly title from their Prussian duchy, concern Prussia as an European power at least as much as they concern Brandenburg as a German power. ♦German character of the Prussian Monarchy.♦ Yet their proper place comes in the history of Germany. Unlike the other princes who held lands within and without the German kingdom, the Kings of Prussia and Electors of Brandenburg have remained essentially German princes. Their acquisitions of territory out of Germany have all been in fact enlargements, if not of the soil of Germany, at least of the sphere of German{211} influence. And, at last, in marked contrast to the fate of the rival House of Austria, the whole Prussian dominions have been incorporated with the new German Empire, and form the immediate dominion of its Imperial head. ♦Spread of the name of Prussia.♦ The outward sign of this change, the outward sign of the special position of Brandenburg, as compared with Holstein or Austria, is the strange spread of the name of Prussia over the German dominions of the King of Prussia. No such spread has taken place with the name of Denmark or of Hungary.

Within Germany the greatest enlargement of the dominion of Prussia—as we may now begin to call it instead of Brandenburg—was the acquisition of by far the greater part of Schlesien or Silesia, hitherto part of the Bohemian lands, and then held by the House of Austria. This, it should be noted, was an acquisition which could hardly fail to lead to further acquisitions. ♦Geographical character of the Prussian dominions.♦ The geographical characteristic of the Prussian dominions was the way in which they lay in detached pieces, and the enormous extent of frontier as compared with the area of the country. The kingdom itself lay detached, hemmed in and intersected by the territory of Poland. The electorate, with the Pomeranian territory, formed a somewhat more compact mass; but even this had a very large frontier compared with its area. The Westfalian possessions, the district of Cottbus, and other outlying dominions, lay quite apart. The addition of Silesia increased this characteristic yet further. ♦Position of Silesia.♦ The newly won duchy, barely joining the electorate, ran out as a kind of peninsula between Saxony, Bohemia, and Poland. Silesia, first as a Polish and then as a Bohemian fief, had formed part of a fairly compact geographical mass; as part of{212} the same dominion with Prussia and Brandenburg, it was an all but isolated land with an enormous frontier. ♦Acquisitions from Poland, 1772-1795.♦ The details of the Polish acquisitions of Prussia will be best given in our survey of Poland. ♦Their geographical character.♦ But it should be noted that each of the portions of territory which were added to Prussia by the several partitions has a geographical character of its own. ♦1772.♦ The addition of West-Prussia—that is the geographical union of the kingdom and the electorate—was something which could not fail in the nature of things to come sooner or later. ♦1793.♦ The second addition of South-Prussia might seem geographically needed in order to leave Silesia no longer peninsular. ♦1795.♦ The last, and most short-lived addition of New-East-Prussia had no such geographical necessity as the other two. Still it helped to give greater compactness to the kingdom, and to lessen its frontier in comparison with its area.

Another acquisition of the House of Hohenzollern during the eighteenth century, though temporary, deserves a passing notice. ♦East-Friesland, 1744.♦ Among its Westfalian annexations was East-Friesland. The King of Prussia thus became, during the last half of the eighteenth century, an oceanic potentate, a character which he presently lost, and which, save for a moment in the days of confusion, he obtained again only in our own day.

A large part of Saxony, both in the older and in the later sense, thus came to form part of a dominion containing both German and non-German lands, but in which the German character was in every way predominant. Other parts of Saxony in the same extended sense also came to form part of the dominions of princes who ruled both in and out of Germany, but{213} in whom the non-German character was yet more predominant. ♦Holstein:♦ The old Saxony beyond the Elbe, the modern Holstein, passed into the hands of the Danish Kings. ♦its relation to Sleswick.♦ Its shifting relations towards Denmark and Germany and towards the neighbouring land of Sleswick, as having become matter of international dispute between Denmark and Germany, will be best spoken of when we come to deal with Denmark. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also made the Swedish kings for a while considerable potentates in northern Germany. ♦German territories of Sweden, 1648-1815.♦ The Peace of Westfalia confirmed to them Western Pomerania and the town of Wismar on the Baltic, and the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden which gave them an oceanic coast. ♦1720.♦ But these last lands were, as we have seen afterwards, ceded to Hannover, and the Pomeranian possessions of Sweden were also cut short by cession to Brandenburg. But the possession of Wismar and a part of Pomerania still gave the Swedish kings a position as German princes down to the dissolution of the Empire.

These are the chief powers which rose to historical importance within the bounds of Saxony, in the widest sense of that word. To trace every division and union which created or extinguished any of the smaller principalities, or even to mark every minute change of frontier among the greater powers, would be impossible. ♦Free cities of Saxony.
The Hanse Towns.♦ But it must be further remembered that the Saxon circles were the seats of some of the greatest of the free cities of Germany, the leading members of the Hanseatic League. In the growth of German commerce the Rhenish lands took the lead, and, in the earliest days of the Hansa, Köln held the first place among its cities. ♦Lübeck, Bremen, Hamburg.♦ The pre-eminence afterwards passed to havens nearer{214} to the Ocean and the Baltic, where, among a crowd of others, the Imperial cities of Lübeck and Bremen stand out foremost, and with them Hamburg, a rival which has in later times outstripped them. And at this point it may be noticed that Lübeck and Bremen specially illustrate a law which extended to many other of the episcopal cities of Germany. ♦The cities and the bishoprics.♦ The Bishop became a prince, and held a greater or smaller extent of territory in temporal sovereignty. But the city which contained his see remained independent of him in temporal things, and knew him only as its spiritual shepherd. Such were the archbishopric of Bremen and the bishopric of Lübeck, principalities which, after the change of religion, passed into secular hands. Thus we have seen the archbishopric of Bremen pass, first to Sweden, and then to Hannover. But the two cities always remained independent commonwealths, owning no superior but the Emperor.

The next among the great duchies, that of Eastern Francia, Franken, or Franconia, is of much less importance in European history than that of Saxony. ♦Bishops of Würzburg Dukes.♦ It gave the ducal title to the Bishops of Würzburg; but it cannot be said to be in any sense continued in any modern state. ♦Extent of the Circle.♦ Its name gradually retreated, and the circle of Franken or Franconia took in only the most eastern part of the ancient duchy. ♦The Rhenish Circles.♦ The western and northern part of the duchy, together with a good deal of territory which was strictly Lotharingian, became part of the two Rhenish circles. Thus Fulda, the greatest of German abbeys, passed away from the Frankish name. In north-eastern Francia, the Hessian principalities grew up to the north-west. Within the{215} Franconian circle lay Würzburg, the see of the bishops who bore the ducal title, the other great bishopric of Bamberg, together with the free city of Nürnberg, and various smaller principalities. ♦Ecclesiastical States on the Rhine.♦ In the Rhenish lands, both within and without the old Francia, one chief characteristic is the predominance of the ecclesiastical principalities, Mainz, Köln, Worms, Speyer, and Strassburg. The chief temporal power which arose in this region was the Palatinate of the Rhine, a power which, like others, went through many unions and divisions, and spread into four circles, those of Upper and Lower Rhine, Westfalia, and Bavaria. ♦Bavaria.♦ This last district, though united with the Palatine Electorate, was, from the early part of the fourteenth century, distinguished from the Palatinate of the Rhine as the Oberpfalz or Upper Palatinate. To the south of it lay the Bavarian principalities. These, united into a single duchy, formed the power which grew into the modern kingdom. But neither this duchy nor the whole Bavarian circle at all reached to the extent of the ancient Bavaria which bordered on Italy. ♦Shiftings between Bavaria and the Palatinate, 1623.
Electorate of Bavaria, 1648.♦ The early stages of the Thirty Years’ War gave the Rhenish Palatinate, with its electoral rights, to Bavaria; the Peace of Westfalia restored the Palatinate, leaving Bavaria as a new electorate. ♦Union of the two, 1777.♦ Late in the eighteenth century, Bavaria itself passed to the Elector Palatine, thus forming what may be called modern Bavaria with its outlying Rhenish lands. ♦Cession to Austria, 1778.♦ This acquisition was at the same time partly balanced by the cession to Austria of the lands east of the Inn, known as the Innviertel. ♦Archbishopric of Salzburg.♦ The other chief state within the Bavarian circle was the great ecclesiastical principality of the archbishops of Salzburg in the extreme south-east.

The old Lotharingian divisions, as we see them in{216} the time of the great duchies, utterly died out. ♦Lower Lotharingia.♦ The states which arose in the Lower Lotharingia are among those which silently fell off from the German Kingdom to take a special position under the name of the Netherlands. ♦Duchy of Lothringen or Lorraine.♦ The special duchy of Lothringen or Lorraine was held to belong to the circle of Upper Rhine. ♦Elsass.♦ Elsass also formed part of the same circle, the circle which was specially cut short by the encroachments of France. ♦Circle of Swabia.♦ The Swabian circle answered more nearly than most of the new divisions to the old Swabian duchy, as that duchy stood without counting the marchland of Elsass. No part of Germany was more cut up into small states than the old land of the Hohenstaufen. A crowd of principalities, secular and ecclesiastical, among them the lesser principalities of the Hohenzollern House, of free cities, and of outlying possessions of the houses of Austria made up the main part of the circle. ♦Ecclesiastical towns of Swabia.♦ Strassburg, Augsburg, Constanz, St. Gallen, Chur, Zürich, are among the great bishoprics and other ecclesiastical foundations of the old Swabia. ♦Part of Swabia becomes Switzerland.♦ But, as I shall show more fully in another section, large districts in the south-east, those which formed the Old League of High Germany, had practically fallen away from the kingdom before the new division was made, and were therefore never reckoned in any circle. ♦Baden.
Württemberg.♦ Two Swabian principalities, the mark of Baden, and Württemberg, first county and then duchy, came gradually to the first place in this region. As such they still remain, preserving in some sort a divided representation of the old Swabia.

Two important parts of the old kingdom, two circles of the division of Maximilian, still remain. These are the lands which form the circles of Burgundy and{217} Austria. These are lands which have, in earlier or later times, wholly fallen off from the German Kingdom. ♦Circle of Austria.♦ The Austrian circle was formed of the lands in southern Germany which gradually gathered in the hands of the second Austrian dynasty, the House of Habsburg. ♦Growth of the House of Austria.♦ Starting from the original mark on the Hungarian frontier, those lands grew, first into a great German, and then into a great European, power, and the latest changes have made even their German lands politically non-German. The growth of the Austrian House will therefore be properly dealt with in a separate section. ♦Extent of its German lands.♦ It is enough to say here that the Austrian dominion in Germany gradually took in, besides the original duchy, the south-eastern duchies of Steiermark or Styria, Kärnthen or Carinthia, and Krain or Carniola, with the Italian borderlands of Görz, Aquileia, and part of Istria. ♦Tyrol.♦ Joined to these by a kind of geographical isthmus, like that which joins Silesia and Brandenburg, lay the western possessions of the house, the Bavarian county of Tyrol and various outlying strips and points of lands in Swabia and Elsass. ♦Loss of Swabian lands.♦ The growth of the Confederates cut short the Swabian possessions of Austria, as the later cession to France cut short its Alsatian possessions. Still a Swabian remnant remained down to the dissolution of the Kingdom. ♦Bohemia and its dependencies.♦ The kingdom of Bohemia, with the dependent lands of Moravia and Silesia, though held by the Archdukes of Austria and giving them electoral rank, was not included in any German circle. ♦Trent and Brixen.♦ The Austrian circle moreover was not wholly made up of the dominions of the Austrian house; besides some smaller territories it also took in the bishoprics of Trent and Brixen on the debateable frontier of Italy and old Bavaria.

{218}

The Burgundian circle was the last and the strangest use of the Burgundian name. ♦Dominion of the Valois Dukes within the Empire.♦ It consisted of those parts of the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois which remained to their descendants of the House of Austria at the time of the division into circles. These did not all lie strictly within the boundaries of the German kingdom. ♦The Imperial Netherlands.♦ Within that kingdom indeed lay the Northern Netherlands, the Frisian lands of Holland, Zealand, and West-Friesland, as also Brabant and other Lotharingian lands. ♦County of Burgundy.♦ But the circle also took in the County of Burgundy or Franche Comté, part of the old kingdom of Burgundy, and lastly Flanders and Artois, lands beyond the bounds of the Empire. ♦Flanders and Artois released from homage to France, 1526.♦ These were fiefs of France which were released from their homage to that crown by the treaty between Charles the Fifth and Francis the First of France. The Burgundian circle thus took in all the Imperial fiefs of the Valois dukes, together with a small part of their French fiefs. As all, or nearly all, of these lands altogether fell away from the German kingdom, and as those parts of them which now form the two kingdoms of the Low Countries have a certain historical being of their own, it will be well to keep their more detailed mention also for a special section.

§ 2. The Confederation and Empire of Germany.

Our survey in the last section has carried us down to the beginning of the changes which led to the break-up of the old German Kingdom. Germany is the only land in history which has changed from a kingdom to a confederation. ♦Sketch of the process, 1806-1815.♦ The tie which bound the vassal princes to the king became so lax that it was at last thrown off altogether. In this process{219} foreign invasion largely helped. Between the two processes of foreign war and domestic disintegration, a chaotic time followed, in which boundaries were ever shifting and new states were ever rising and falling. ♦The German Bund, 1815.♦ In the end, nearly all the lands which had formed the old kingdom came together again, with new names and boundaries, as members of a lax Confederation. ♦The new Confederation and Empire, 1866-1871.♦ The latest events of all have driven the former chief of the Confederation beyond its boundaries; they have joined its other members together by a much closer tie; they have raised the second member of the former Confederation to the post of perpetual chief of the new Confederation, and they have further clothed him with the Imperial title. ♦The new Empire still federal.♦ But it must be remembered that the modern Empire of Germany is still a Federal state. Its chief bears the title of Emperor; still the relation is federal and not feudal. The lesser members of the Empire are not vassals of the Emperor, as they were in the days of the old kingdom. They are states bound to him and to one another by a tie which is purely federal. That the state whose prince holds Imperial rank far surpasses any of its other members in extent and power is an important political fact; but it does not touch the federal position of all the states of the Empire, great and small. Reuss-Schleiz is not a vassal of Prussia; it is a member of a league in which the voice of Prussia naturally goes for more than the voice of Reuss-Schleiz. ♦Wars of the French Revolution, 1793-1814.♦ The dissolution of the German kingdom, and with it the wiping out of the last tradition of the Roman Empire, cannot be separated from the history of wars of the French Revolution which went before it, and which indeed led to it. For our purely geographical purpose, we must distinguish the changes which directly affected{220} the German kingdom from those which affected the Austrian states, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, lands which have now a separate historic being from Germany. ♦War between France and the Empire, 1793-1801.♦ The last war which the Empire as such waged with France was the eight years’ war which was ended by the Peace of Luneville. ♦The left bank of the Rhine ceded by the Peace of Luneville, 1801.♦ By that peace, all Germany on the left bank on the Rhine was ceded to France. What a sacrifice this was we at once see, when we bear in mind that it took in the three metropolitan cities of Köln, Mainz, and Trier, the royal city of Aachen, and the famous bishoprics of Worms and Speyer. ♦The Reichs­deputations­haupt­schluss, 1803.♦ A number of princes thus lost all or part of their dominions, and it was presently agreed that they should compensate themselves within the lands which remained to the kingdom at the expense of the free cities and the ecclesiastical princes. ♦End of the Ecclesiastical principalities.♦ The great German hierarchy of princely bishops and abbots now came to an end, with a solitary exception. ♦The Prince-Primate of Regensburg.♦ As the ancient metropolis of Mainz had passed to France, the see of its archbishop was removed to Regensburg, where, under the title of Prince-Primate, he remained an Elector and Arch-Chancellor of the Empire. ♦Salzburg a secular electorate.♦ Salzburg became a secular electorate. ♦The Free Cities.♦ The other ecclesiastical states were annexed by the neighbouring princes, and of the free cities six only were left. These were the Hanseatic towns of Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the inland towns of Frankfurt, Nürnberg, and Augsburg. ♦New Electorates.♦ Besides Salzburg, three new Electorates arose, Württemberg, Baden, and Hessen-Cassel. None of these new Electors ever chose any King or Emperor. ♦Peace of Pressburg, 1805.
Kingdom of Württemberg and Bavaria.♦ The next war led to the Peace of Pressburg, in which the Electors of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden appear as allies of France, and by which those of Bavaria and Württemberg{221} are acknowledged as Kings. ♦They divide the western lands of Austria.♦ Austria was now wholly cut off from south-western Germany. Württemberg and Baden divided her Swabian possessions, while Tyrol, Trent, Brixen, together with the free city of Augsburg, fell to the lot of Bavaria. ♦Grand Duchy of Würzburg.♦ Austria received Salzburg; its prince removed himself and his electorate to Würzburg, and a Grand Duchy of Würzburg was formed to compensate its Elector.

These were the last changes which took place while any shadow of the old Kingdom and Empire lasted. ♦Title of ‘Emperor of Austria.’♦ The reigning King of Germany and Emperor-elect, Francis King of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria, had already begun to call himself ‘Hereditary Emperor of Austria.’ In the treaty of Pressburg he is described by the strange title, unheard of before or after, of ‘Emperor of Germany and Austria,’ and the Empire itself is spoken of as a ‘Germanic Confederation.’ These formulæ were prophetic. ♦The Confederation of the Rhine, July 12, 1806.♦ The next year a crowd of princes renounced their allegiance, and formed themselves into the Confederation of the Rhine under the protectorate of France. ♦Dissolution of the Empire, August 6, 1806.♦ The formal dissolution of the Empire followed at once. The succession which had gone on from Augustus ended; the work of Charles the Great was undone. Instead of the Frank ruling over Gaul, the Frenchman ruled over Germany. ♦Repeated changes, 1806-1811.♦ A time of confusion followed, in which boundaries were constantly shifting, states were constantly rising and falling, and new portions of German ground were being constantly added to France. ♦Germany in 1811-1813.♦ At the time of the greatest extent of French dominion, the political state of Germany was on this wise. ♦Territories of Denmark and Sweden.♦ The dissolution of the Empire had released all its members from their allegiance, and the German possessions of the Kings of Denmark and{222} Sweden had been incorporated with their several kingdoms. ♦Losses of Prussia and Austria.♦ Hannover was wholly lost to its island sovereign; seized and lost again more than once by Prussia and by France, it passed at last wholly into the hands of the foreign power. Prussia had lost, not only its momentary possession of Hannover, but also everything west of the Elbe. Austria had yielded Salzburg to Bavaria, and part of her own south-western territory in Krain and Kärnthen had passed to France under the name of the Illyrian Provinces. ♦Annexations to France.♦ France too, beside all the lands west of the Rhine, had incorporated East Friesland, Oldenburg, part of Hannover, and the three Hanseatic cities. ♦Confederation of the Rhine.♦ The remaining states of Germany formed the Confederation of the Rhine. The chief among these were the four Kingdoms of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, and Westfalia. ♦Kingdoms of Saxony and Westfalia.♦ Saxony had become a kingdom under its own Elector presently after the dissolution of the Empire: the new-made kingdom of Westfalia had a French king in Jerome Buonaparte. ♦Grand Duchy of Frankfurt.♦ Besides Mecklenburg, Baden—now a Grand Duchy—Berg, Nassau, Hessen, and other smaller states, there were now among its members the Grand Duchy of Würzburg, and also a Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, the possession of the Prince Primate, once of Mainz, afterwards of Regensburg. ♦Germany wiped out.♦ We may say with truth that during this time Germany had ceased to exist; its very name had vanished from the map of Europe.

Prussia was a power so thoroughly German that the fate even of its non-German possessions cannot well be separated from German geography. ♦The Kingdom of Prussia cut short, 1807.♦ The same blow which cut short the old electorate of Brandenburg no less cut short the kingdom of Prussia in{223} its Polish acquisitions. ♦Commonwealth of Danzig.♦ West-Prussia only was left, and even here Danzig was cut off to form a separate republic. ♦Duchy of Warsaw, 1806-1814.♦ The other Polish territories of Prussia formed the Duchy of Warsaw, which was held by the new King of Saxony. ♦Position of Silesia.♦ Silesia thus fell back again on its half-isolated position, all the more so as it lay between the German and the Polish possessions of the Saxon king. The territory left to Prussia was now wholly continuous, without any outlying possessions; but the length of its frontier and the strange irregularity of its shape on the map were now more striking than ever.

The liberation of Germany and the fall of Buonaparte brought with it a complete reconstruction of the German territory. ♦The German Confederation, 1815.♦ Germany again arose, no longer as an Empire or Kingdom, but as a lax Confederation. Austria, the duchy whose princes had been so often chosen Emperors, became its presiding state. The boundaries of the new Confederation differed but slightly from those of the old Kingdom; but the internal divisions had greatly changed. ♦Princes holding lands both within the Confederation and out of it.♦ Once more a number of princes held lands both in Germany and out of it. The so-called ‘Emperor’ of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark, and the Netherlands, became members of the Confederation for those parts of their dominions which had formerly been states of the Empire. In the like sort, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, having recovered his continental dominions, entered the Confederation by the title of King of Hannover. ♦Kingdom of Hannover, 1815-1866.♦ This new kingdom was made up of the former electorate with some additions, including East-Friesland. ♦Increase of the Prussian territory.
Dismemberment of Saxony.♦ In other parts the Prussian territories were largely{224} increased. Magdeburg and Halberstadt were recovered. Swedish Pomerania was added to the rest of the ancient duchy; and, more important than this, a large part of the kingdom of Saxony, including the greater part of Lausitz and the formerly outlying-land of Cottbus, was incorporated with Prussia. This change, which made the Saxon kingdom far smaller than the old electorate, altogether put an end to the peninsular position of Silesia, even as regarded the strictly German possessions of Prussia. ♦Posen.♦ The kingdom was at the same time rendered more compact by the recovery of part of its Polish possessions under the name of the Grand Duchy of Posen. In western Germany again Prussia now made great acquisitions. ♦Rhenish and Westfalian territory.♦ Its old outlying Rhenish and Westfalian possessions grew into a large and tolerably compact territory, though lying isolated from the great body of the monarchy. The greater part of the territory west of the Rhine which had been ceded to France now became Prussian, including the cities of Köln, no longer a metropolitan see, Trier, Münster, and Paderborn. The main part of the Prussian possessions thus consisted of two detached masses, of very unequal size, but which seemed to crave for a closer geographical union. ♦Neufchâtel.♦ The Principality of Neufchâtel, which made the Prussian king a member of the Swiss Confederation, will be mentioned elsewhere.

Of the other powers which entered the Confederation for the German parts of their dominions, but which also had territories beyond the Confederation, Austria recovered Salzburg, Tyrol, Trent, and Brixen, together with the south-eastern lands which had passed to France. Thus the territory of the Confederation,{225} like that of the old Kingdom, again reached to the Hadriatic. ♦Possession of Denmark.
Holstein and Lauenburg.♦ Denmark entered the Confederation for Holstein, and for a new possession, that of Lauenburg, the duchy which in a manner represented ancient Saxony. ♦Luxemburg.♦ The King of the Netherlands entered the Confederation for the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, part of which however was cut off to be added to the Rhenish possessions of Prussia. ♦Sweden gives up Pomerania.♦ Sweden, by the cession of its last remnant of Pomerania, ceased altogether to be a German power.

There were thus five powers whose dominions lay partly within the Confederation, partly out of it. ♦Prussia the greatest German Power.♦ In the case of one of these, that of Prussia, the division of German and non-German territory was purely formal. Prussia was practically a purely German power, and the greatest of purely German powers. ♦Austria.♦ Her rival Austria stood higher in formal rank in the Confederation, and ruled over a much greater continuous territory; but here the distinction between German and non-German lands was really practical, as later events have shown. ♦Comparison of the position of Austria and Prussia.♦ It has been found possible to shut out Austria from Germany. To shut out Prussia would have been to abolish Germany altogether. ♦Hannover.♦ Hannover, though under a common sovereign with Great Britain, was so completely cut off from Great Britain, and had so little influence on British politics, that it was practically as much a purely German state before its separation from Great Britain as it was afterwards. ♦Holstein and Luxemburg.♦ In the cases of Denmark and the Netherlands, princes the greater part of whose territories lay out of Germany held adjoining territories in Germany. Here then were materials for political questions and difficulties; and{226} in the case of Denmark, these questions and difficulties became of the highest importance.

Among those members of the Confederation, whose territory lay wholly within Germany, the Kingdom of Bavaria stood first. Its newly acquired lands to the south were given back to Austria; but it made large acquisitions to the north-east. Modern Bavaria consists of a large mass of territory, Bavarian, Swabian, and Frankish, counting within its boundaries the famous cities of Augsburg and Nürnberg and the great bishoprics of Bamberg and Würzburg. ♦Her Rhenish territory.♦ Besides this, Bavaria recovered a considerable part of the ancient Palatinate west of the Rhine, which adds Speyer to the list of Bavarian cities. ♦Württemberg.
Saxony.♦ The other states which bore the kingly title, Württemberg and the remnant of Saxony, were of much smaller extent. Saxony however kept a position in many ways out of all proportion to the narrowed extent of its geographical limits. Württemberg, increased by various additions from the Swabian lands of Austria and from other smaller principalities, had, though the smallest of kingdoms, won for itself a much higher position than had been held by its former Counts and Dukes. ♦Baden.♦ Along with them might be ranked the Grand Duchy of Baden, with its strange irregular frontier, taking in Heidelberg and Constanz. ♦Hessen.♦ Among a crowd of smaller states stand out the two Hessian principalities, the Grand Duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt, and Hessen-Cassel, whose prince still kept the title of Elector, and the Grand Duchy of Nassau. ♦Oldenburg.♦ The Grand Duchy of Oldenburg nearly divided the Kingdom of Hannover into two parts. ♦Anhalt.♦ The principalities of Anhalt stretched into the Prussian territory between Halberstadt and the newly-won{227} Saxon lands. ♦Brunswick.♦ The Duchy of Brunswick helped to divide the two great masses of Prussian territory. ♦Mecklenburg.♦ In the north Mecklenburg remained, as before, unequally divided between the Grand Dukes of Schwerin and Strelitz. Germany was thus thoroughly mapped out afresh. Some of the old names had vanished; some had got new meanings. The greater states, with the exception of Saxony, became greater. A crowd of insignificant principalities passed away. Another crowd of them remained, especially the smaller Saxon duchies in the land which had once been Thuringian. But, if we look to two of the most characteristic features of the old Empire, we shall find that one has passed away for ever, while the other was sadly weakened. ♦No ecclesiastical principality.♦ No ecclesiastical principality revived in the new state of things. ♦Lüttich added to Belgium.♦ The territory of one of the old bishoprics, that of Lüttich, formerly absorbed by France, now passed wholly away from Germany, and became part of the new kingdom of Belgium. ♦The four Free Cities.♦ Of the free cities four did revive, but four only. The three Hanse Towns, no longer included in French departments, and Frankfurt, no longer a Grand Duchy, entered the Confederation as independent commonwealths. ♦Revival of German national life.♦ Germany, for a while utterly crushed, had come to life again; she had again reached a certain measure of national unity, which could hardly fail to become closer.[14]

The Confederation thus formed lasted, with hardly{228} any change that concerns geography, till the war of 1866. ♦Division of Luxemburg, 1831.♦ The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, which had, by the arrangements of 1815, been held by the King of the Netherlands as a member of the German Confederation, was, on the separation of Belgium and the Netherlands, cut into two parts. Part was added to Belgium; another part, though quite detached from the kingdom of the Netherlands, was held by its king as a member of the Confederation. In 1839 he also entered it for the Duchy of Limburg. ♦War in Sleswick and Holstein, 1848-1851.♦ The internal movements which began in 1848, and the war in Sleswick and Holstein which began in the same time, led to no lasting geographical changes. In 1849 the Swabian principalities of Hohenzollern were joined to the Prussian crown. ♦Cession of the Duchies to Austria and Prussia, 1864.♦ The last Danish war ended by the cession of Sleswick and Holstein, together with Lauenburg, to Prussia and Austria jointly, an arrangement in its own nature provisional. Austria ceded her right in Lauenburg to Prussia in the next year, and in the next year again came the Seven Weeks’ War, and the great geographical changes which followed it. ♦Abolition of the Confederation.
Exclusion of Austria.
North-German Confederation.
Cession of Sleswick and Holstein to Prussia, 1866.♦ The German Confederation was abolished; Austria was shut out from all share in German affairs, and she ceded her joint right in Sleswick and Holstein to Prussia. ♦Prussian annexations.♦ The Northern states of Germany became a distinct Confederation under the presidency of Prussia, whose immediate dominion was increased by the annexation of the kingdom of Hannover, the duchy of Nassau, the electorate of Hessen, and the city of Frankfurt. The States south of the Main, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, and the southern part of Hessen-Darmstadt, remained for a while outside of the new League. ♦All the Prussian lands admitted to the Confederation.♦ The non-German dominions of Prussia, Prussia strictly so called with the Polish duchy of Posen and the newly acquired land of{229} Sleswick, were now incorporated with the Confederation; on the other hand, all that Austria had held within the Confederation was now shut out of it. ♦Settlement of Luxemburg, 1867.♦ Luxemburg also was not included in the new League, and, after some disputes, it was in the next year recognized as a neutral territory under its own duke the King of the Netherlands. ♦Liechtenstein.♦ The little principality of Liechtenstein was perhaps forgotten altogether; but, as not being included in the Confederation, nor yet incorporated with anything else, it must be looked on as becoming an absolutely independent state. ♦Great geographical changes, 1866.♦ Thus the geographical frontiers of Germany underwent, at a single blow, changes as great as they had undergone in the wars of the French Revolution. The geography of the presiding power of the new League was no less changed.

That extraordinary extent of frontier which had hitherto been characteristic of Prussia was not wholly taken away by the new annexations, but it was greatly lessened. The kingdom, as a kingdom, is made far more compact, and the two great detached masses in which it formerly lay are now joined together. Moreover, the geographical character of Prussia becomes of much less political importance, now that her frontier marches to so great an extent on the smaller members of the League of which she is herself President. ♦War with France, 1870-1871.
The German Empire.
Incorporation of the Southern states.♦ Next came the war with France, the first effect of which was the incorporation of the southern states of Germany with the new League, which presently took the name of an Empire, with the Prussian King as hereditary Emperor. ♦Recovery of Elsass-Lothringen, 1871.♦ Then by the peace with France, nearly the whole of Elsass and part of Lotharingia, including the cities of Strassburg and Metz, were restored to Germany. They have, under the name of Elsass-Lothringen,{230} become an Imperial territory, forming part of the Empire and owning the sovereignty of the Emperor, but not becoming part of the kingdom of Prussia or of any other German state. ♦The Imperial title.♦ The assumption of the Imperial title could hardly be avoided in a confederation whose constitution was monarchic, and which numbered kings among its members. No title but Emperor could have been found to express the relation between the presiding chief and the lesser sovereigns.

Still it must be borne in mind that the new German Empire is in no sense a continuation or restoration of the Holy Roman Empire which fell sixty-four years before its creation. But it may be fairly looked on as a restoration of the old German Kingdom, the Kingdom of the East-Franks. Still, as far as geography is concerned, no change can be stranger than the change in the boundaries of Germany between the ninth century and the nineteenth. The new Empire, cut short to the north-west, south-west, and south-east, has grown somewhat to the north, and it has grown prodigiously to the north-east. ♦Name of Prussia.♦ Its ruling state, a state which contains such illustrious cities as Köln, Trier, and Frankfurt, is content to call itself after an extinct heathen people whose name had most likely never reached the ears of Charles the Great. ♦Position of Berlin.♦ The capital of the new Empire, placed far away from any of the antient seats of German kingship, stands in what in his day, and long after, was a Slavonic land. ♦Formation of the new Empire.♦ Germany, with its chief state bearing the name of Prussia, with the place of its national assemblies transferred from Frankfurt to Berlin, presents one of the strangest changes that historical geography can show us. But, strange as is the{231} geographical change, it has come about gradually, by the natural working of historical causes. The Slavonic and Prussian lands have been Germanized, while the western parts of the old kingdom which have fallen away have mostly lost their German character. Those German lands which have formed the kernel of the Swiss Confederation have risen to a higher political state than that of any kingdom or Empire. But the German lands which still remain so strangely united to the lands of the Magyar and the southern Slave await, at however distant a time, their natural and inevitable reunion. So does a Danish population in the extreme north await, with less hope, its no less natural separation from the German body. Posen, still mainly Slavonic, remains unnaturally united to a Teutonic body, but it is not likely to gain by a transfer to any other ruler. The reconstruction of the German realm in its present shape, a shape so novel to the eye, but preserving so much of ancient life and ancient history, has been the greatest historical and geographical change of our times.

§ 3. The Kingdom of Italy.

We parted from the Italian kingdom at the moment of its separation from the Eastern and Western kingdoms of the Franks. Its history, as a kingdom, consists in little more than its reunion with the East-Frankish crown, and in the way in which the royal power gradually died out within its limits. There is but little to say as to any changes of frontier of the kingdom as such. As long as Germany, Italy, and Burgundy acknowledged a single king, any shiftings of the frontiers of his three kingdoms were of secondary importance.{232} When the power of the Emperors in Italy had died out, the land became a system of independent commonwealths and principalities, which had hardly that degree of unity which could enable us to say that a certain territory was added to Italy or taken from it. Even if a certain territory passed from an Italian to a German or Burgundian lord, the change was rather a change in the frontier of this or that Italian state than in the frontier of Italy itself. ♦Changes on the Alpine frontier.♦ The shiftings of frontier along the whole Alpine border have been considerable; but it is only in our own day that we can say that Italy as such has become capable of extending or lessening her borders. ♦Case of Verona.♦ When, in 1866, Venice and Verona were added to the Italian kingdom, that was a distinct change in the frontier of Italy. We can hardly give that name to endless earlier changes on the same marchland. ♦Case of Trieste, 1380.♦ In the fourteenth century, for instance, the town of Trieste, disputed between the patriarchs of Aquileia and the commonwealth of Venice, was acknowledged as an independent state, and it presently gave up its independence by commendation to the Duke of Austria. It is not likely that the question entered into any man’s mind whether the frontiers of the German and Italian kingdoms were affected by such a change. Whether as a free city or as an Austrian lordship, Trieste remained under the superiority, formally undoubted but practically nominal, of the common sovereign of Germany and Italy, the Roman Emperor or King. Whether the nominal allegiance of the city was due to him in his German or in his Italian character most likely no one stopped to think. ♦No eastern or western frontiers.♦ East and west, the Italian kingdom had no frontiers; the only question which could arise was as to the relation of the islands of Corsica and Sardinia to{233} the kingdom itself or to any of the states which arose within it. To the south lay the independent Lombard duchies, and the possessions which still remained to the Eastern Empire. ♦The Norman kingdom of Sicily not an Imperial fief.♦ These changed in time into the Norman duchy of Apulia and kingdom of Sicily; but that kingdom, held as it was as a fief of the see of Rome, was never incorporated with the Italian kingdom of the Emperors, nor did its kings ever become the men of the Emperor. Particular Emperors in the thirteenth century, in the sixteenth, and in the eighteenth, were also kings of one or both the Sicilian kingdoms; but at no time before our own day were Sicily and southern Italy ever incorporated with a Kingdom of Italy. When we remember that it was to the southern part of the peninsula that the name of Italy was first given, we see here a curiosity of nomenclature as remarkable as the shiftings of meaning in the names of Saxony and Burgundy.

Naples and Sicily then, the Two Sicilies of later political nomenclature, lie outside our present subject. ♦Venice no part of Italy.♦ So does the commonwealth of Venice, except so far as Venice afterwards won a large subject territory on the Italian mainland. ♦Her Italian dominions.♦ Both these states have to do with Italy as a geographical expression, but neither the Venetian commonwealth nor the Sicilian kingdom is Italian within the meaning of the present section. They formed no part of the Carolingian dominion. ♦Venice and the Sicilies part of the Eastern Empire.♦ They were parts of the Eastern Empire, not of the Western. They remained attached to the New Rome after an Imperial throne had again been set up in the Old. They gradually fell away from their allegiance to the Eastern Empire, but they were never incorporated with the Empire of the West. I shall deal{234} with them here only in their relations to the Imperial Kingdom of Italy, and treat of their special history elsewhere among the states which arose out of the break-up of the Eastern Empire. Again, on the north-western march of Italy a power gradually arose, partly Italian, but for a long time mainly Burgundian, which has in the end, by a strange fate, grown into a new Italian Kingdom. ♦The House of Savoy.♦ This is the House of Savoy. The growth of the dominions of that house, the process by which it gradually lost territory in Burgundy and gained it in Italy, form another distinct subject. ♦Its special history.♦ It will be dealt with here only in its relations to the kingdom of Italy.

The Italian Kingdom of the Karlings, the kingdom which was reunited to Germany under Otto the Great, was, as has been already said, a continuation of the old Lombard kingdom. It consisted of that kingdom, enlarged by the Italian lands which fell off from the Eastern Empire in the eighth century; that is by the Exarchate and the adjoining Pentapolis, and the immediate territory of Rome itself. ♦Austria and Neustria.♦ The Lombard kingdom, in the strictest sense, took in the two provinces north of the Po, in which we again find, as in other lands, an Austria to the east and a Neustria to the west. ♦Æmilia.
Tuscany.♦ It took in Æmilia south of the Po—the district of Piacenza, Parma, Reggio, and Modena—also Tuscany, a name, which, as it no longer reaches to the Tiber, answers pretty nearly to its modern use. ♦Romagna.♦ The Tuscan name has lived on; the Exarchate and Pentapolis, as having been the chief seat of the later Imperial power in Italy, got the name of Romania, Romandiola, or Romagna. This name also lives on; but the Lombard Neustria and Austria soon vanish from the map. Their{235} disappearance was perhaps lucky, as one knows not what arguments might otherwise have been built on the presence of an Austria south of the Alps. ♦Lombardy proper.
Venetia.♦ The Lombard Neustria together with Æmilia got the special name of Lombardy, while the Lombard Austria, after various shiftings of names taken from the principalities which rose and fell within it, came back in the end to its oldest name, that of Venetia. ♦Mark of Ivrea.
Duchy of Friuli.♦ In the north-west corner Iporedia or Ivrea appears as a distinct march; but the Venetian march at the other corner, known at this stage as the duchy of Friuli, is of more importance. It takes in the county of Trent, the special march of Friuli, and the march of Istria. ♦Fluctuation of boundary at the north-west corner.♦ This is the corner in which the German and Italian frontier has so often fluctuated. We have seen that, after the union of the Italian and German crowns, even Verona itself was sometimes counted as German ground.

Under the German kings Italy came under the same influences as the other two Imperial kingdoms. Principalities grew up; free cities grew up; but, while in Germany the principalities were the rule and the cities the exception, in Italy it was the other way. ♦Growth of a system of commonwealths in Italy.♦ The land gradually became a system of practically independent commonwealths. Feudal princes, ecclesiastical or temporal, flourished only in the north-western and north-eastern corners of the kingdom. But, if the range of the German cities was less wide, and their career less brilliant, than those of Italy, their freedom was more lasting. ♦Tyrants grow into princes.♦ The Italian cities gradually fell under tyrants, and the tyrants gradually grew into acknowledged princes. ♦Growth of the dominion of the Popes.♦ The Bishops of Rome too, by a series of claims dexterously pressed at various times, contrived to form the greatest of ecclesiastical principalities,{236} one which stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea. ♦Four stages of Italian history.♦ The geographical history of Italy consists of four stages. In the first the kingdom fell asunder into principalities. In the second the principalities vanished before the growth of the free cities. In the third the cities were again massed into principalities, till in the fourth the principalities were at last merged in a kingdom of united Italy.

Under the Saxon and Frankish Emperors the old Lombard names of Neustria and Æmilia pass away. Several small marches lie along the Burgundian frontier, as Savona on the coast, Ivrea among the mountains to the north-west, between them Montferrat, Vasto, and Susa, whose princes, as special guardians of the passage between the two kingdoms, bore the title of Marquess in Italy. It was in this region that the feudal princes were strongest, and that the system of free cities had the smallest developement. ♦The Marquesses of Montferrat, 938-1533.♦ The Savoyard power was already beginning to grow up in the extreme north-west corner; but at this time a greater part in strictly Italian history is played by the Marquesses of Montferrat, who for many centuries kept their position as important feudal princes quite apart from the lords of the cities. In the north-east corner of the kingdom the place of the old Austria is taken by the border principalities where the Italian, the German, and the Slave all come in contact, and which fluctuated more than once between the Italian and the German crowns. We have here the great march of Verona, beyond it that of Friuli, Trent, the marchland of the marchland, between Verona and Bavaria, and the Istrian peninsula on the Slavonic side of the Hadriatic. Between the border districts on{237} either side lay the central land, Lombardy, in the narrower sense, the chosen home of the free cities. ♦Growth of the Lombard cities.♦ Here, by the middle of the twelfth century, every city had practically become a separate commonwealth, owning only the most nominal superiority in the Emperor. Guelfic cities withstood the Emperor; Ghibelin cities welcomed him; but both were practically independent commonwealths. ♦Wars of the Swabian Emperors.♦ Hence came those long wars between the Swabian Emperors and the Italian cities which form the chief feature of Italian history in the second half of the twelfth century and the first half of the thirteenth. ♦Milan and Pavia.
The other Lombard cities.
Alessandria, 1168.♦ Round the younger and the elder capital, round Guelfic Milan and Ghibelin Pavia, gathered a crowd of famous names, Como, Bergamo, and Brescia, Lodi, Crema, and Cremona, Tortona, Piacenza, and Parma, and Alessandria, the trophy of republican and papal victory over Imperial power. ♦Verona and Padua.♦ The Veronese march was less rich in cities of the same historical importance; but both Verona itself and Padua played a great part, as the seats first of commonwealths, then of tyrants. Further north and east, the civic element was weaker again. ♦Trent.
Aquileia.♦ Trent gradually parted off from Italy to become an ecclesiastical principality of the German kingdom; and the Patriarchs of Aquileia grew into powerful princes at the north-eastern corner of the Hadriatic. ♦The lords of Romano and Este.♦ Within the Veronese or Trevisan march itself, the lords of Romano and the more important marquesses of Este also demand notice. Romano gave the Trevisan march its famous tyrant Eccelino in the days of Frederick the Second, and the Marquesses of Este, kinsmen of the great Saxon dukes, came in time to rank among the chief Italian princes. ♦The north-eastern march falls off from Italy.♦ The extreme north-eastern march so completely fell off from Italy{238} that it will be better treated in tracing the growth of the powers of Venice and Austria.

In the more central lands of the kingdom, in the old exarchate, now known as Romagna, in the march variously called by the names of Camerino, Fermo, or Ancona, and above all in the march of Tuscany on the southern sea, the same developement of city life also took place, but somewhat later. North of the Apennines, along the Hadriatic coast, arose a crowd of small commonwealths which gradually passed into small tyrannies. ♦The Tuscan commonwealths.♦ Tuscany, on the other hand, was parted off into a few commonwealths of illustrious name. For a while one of these ran a course which stood rather apart from the common run of Italian history. ♦Pisa;
her wars with the Saracens 1005-1115.♦ Pisa, then one of the great maritime and commercial states of Europe, became, early in the eleventh century, a power which forestalled the crusades and won back lands from the Saracen. Though she was in every sense a city of the Italian kingdom, Pisa at this time held a position not unlike that which was afterwards held by Venice. Like her, she was a power which colonized and conquered beyond the seas, but which came only gradually to take a share in the main course of Italian affairs. ♦Genoa.♦ Beyond the borders of Tuscany, the same position was held by Genoa on the Ligurian gulf. ♦Occupation of the island of Sardinia by Pisa, and of Corsica by Genoa.♦ Pisa won Sardinia from the Saracen; Genoa, after long disputes with Pisa, obtained a more lasting possession of Corsica. Returning to Tuscany, three great commonwealths here grew up, which gradually divided the land between them. ♦Lucca, Siena, Florence.♦ These were Lucca and Siena, and Florence, the last of Italian cities to rise to greatness, but the one which became in many ways the greatest among her fellows. ♦Perugia.♦ In the{239} centre of Italy, within the bounds of old Etruria but not within those of modern Tuscany, Perugia, both as commonwealth and as tyranny, held a high place among Italian cities. ♦Rome.♦ Of Rome herself it is almost impossible to speak. She has much history, but she has little geography. Emperors were crowned there; Popes sometimes lived there; sometimes Rome appears once more as a single Latin city, waging war against Tusculum or some other of her earliest fellows. ♦Claims of the Popes.♦ The claims of her Bishops to independent temporal power, founded on a succession of real or pretended Imperial and royal grants, lay still in the background; but they were ready to grow into reality as occasion served.

The next stage of Italian political geography may be dated from the death of Frederick the Second, when all practical power of an Imperial kingdom in Italy may be said to have passed away. ♦Growth of tyrannies.♦ Presently begins the gradual change of the commonwealths into tyrannies, and the grouping together of many of them into larger states. We also see the beginning of more definite claims of temporal dominion on behalf of the Popes. ♦Dominion of Spain, 1555-1701.♦ In the course of the three hundred years between Frederick the Second and Charles the Fifth, these processes gradually changed the face of the Italian kingdom. It became in the end a collection of principalities, broken only by the survival of a few oligarchic commonwealths and by the anomalous dominion of Venice on the mainland. Between Frederick the Second and Charles the Fifth, we may look on the Empire as practically in abeyance in Italy. The coming of an Emperor always caused a great stir for the time, but it was only for the time. ♦Grant of Rudolf, 1278.♦ After the grant{240} of Rudolf of Habsburg to the Popes, a distinction was drawn between Imperial and papal territory in Italy. ♦Imperial and papal fiefs.♦ While certain princes and commonwealths still acknowledged at least the nominal superiority of the Emperor, others were now held to stand in the same relation of vassalage to the Pope.

We must now trace out the growth of the chief states which were formed by these several processes. Beginning again in the north, it must be remembered that all this while the power of Savoy was advancing in those north-western lands in which the influences which mainly ruled this period had less force than elsewhere. Montferrat too kept its old character of a feudal principality, a state whose rulers had in various ways a singular connexion with the East. ♦Palaiologoi at Montferrat, 1306.♦ As Marquesses of Montferrat had claimed the crown of Jerusalem and had worn the crown of Thessalonica, so, as if to keep even the balance between East and West, in return a branch of the Imperial house of Palaiologos came to reign at Montferrat. To the east of these more ancient principalities, two great powers of quite different kinds grew up in the old Neustria and Austria. ♦Duchy of Milan. Venice.♦ These were the Duchy of Milan and the land power of Venice. Milan, like most other Italian cities, came under the influence of party leaders, who grew first into tyrants and then into acknowledged sovereigns. ♦The Visconti at Milan, 1310-1447.♦ These at Milan, after the shorter domination of the Della Torre, were the more abiding house of the Visconti. Their dominion, after various fluctuations and revolutions, was finally established when the coming of the Emperor Henry the Seventh generally strengthened the rule of the Lords of the cities throughout Italy.

At the end of the fourteenth century their informal lordship passed by a royal{241} grant into an acknowledged duchy of the Empire. The dominion which they had gradually gained, and which was thus in a manner legalized, took in all the great cities of Lombardy, those especially which had formed the Lombard League against the Swabian Emperors. ♦County of Pavia.♦ Pavia indeed, the ancient rival of Milan, kept a kind of separate being, and was formed into a distinct county. ♦Extent of the duchy.♦ But the duchy granted by Wenceslaus to Gian-Galeazzo stretched far on both sides of the lake of Garda. Belluno at one end and Vercelli at the other formed part of it. It took in the mountain lands which afterwards passed to the two Alpine Confederations; it took in Parma, Piacenza, and Reggio south of the Po, and Verona and Vicenza in the old Austrian or Venetian land. Besides all this, Padua, Bologna, even Genoa and Pisa, passed at various times under the lordship of the Visconti. But this great power was not lasting. The Duchy of Milan, under various lords, native and foreign, lasted till the wars of the French Revolution; but, long before that time, it had been cut short on every side. ♦Decrease on the death of Gian Galeazzo, 1402.♦ The death of the first Duke was followed by a separation of the duchy of Milan and the county of Pavia between his sons, and the restored duchy never rose again to its former power. ♦The eastern cities won by Venice, 1406-1447.♦ The eastern parts, Padua, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, were gradually added to the dominion of Venice. By the middle of the fifteenth century, that republic had become the greatest power in northern Italy. ♦House of Sforza, 1450-1535.
Claims of the Kings of France, 1499-1525.♦ In the duchy of Milan the house of Sforza succeeded that of Visconti; but the opposing claims of the Kings of France were one chief cause of the long wars which laid Italy waste in the latter years of the fifteenth century and the early years of the{242} sixteenth. The duchy was tossed to and fro between the Emperor, the French King, and its own dukes. Meanwhile the dominion which was thus struggled for was cut short at the two ends. ♦Cession to the Alpine Leagues, 1512-1513.♦ It was dismembered to the north in favour of the two Alpine Leagues, as will be hereafter shown more in detail. ♦The Popes obtain Parma and Piacenza, 1515.
Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, 1545.♦ South of the Po, the Popes obtained Parma and Piacenza, which were afterwards granted as papal fiefs to form a duchy for the house of Farnese. Thus the Duchy of Milan which became in the end a possession of Charles the Fifth, and afterwards of his Spanish and Austrian successors, was but a remnant of the great dominion of the first Duke. The duchy underwent still further dismemberments in later times.

With Venice we have here to deal in her somewhat unnatural position as an Italian land power. ♦War of the League of Cambray, 1508-1517.♦ This position she took on herself in the fifteenth century; in the sixteenth it led to the momentary overthrow and wonderful recovery of her dominion in the war of the League of Cambray. This land power of Venice stands quite distinct from the Venetian possessions east of the Hadriatic. ♦Istria.♦ With this last her possession of the coast of the Istrian peninsula must be reckoned, rather than with her Italian dominions. Between these lay Aquileia, Trieste, and the other lands in this quarter which gradually came under the power of Austria. ♦Extent of Venetian dominion.
Ravenna, 1441-1530.♦ The continuous Italian dominion of Venice took in Udine at one end and Bergamo at the other, besides Crema, and for a while Ravenna, as outlying possessions. Thus the Byzantine city which lay anchored off the shore of the Western Empire could for a season call the ancient seat of the Exarchate its own. ♦Two parts of the Venetian territory.♦ But even the continuous land territory of Venice lay in two portions.{243} Brescia and Bergamo were almost cut off from Verona and the other possessions to the east by the Lake of Garda, the bishopric of Trent to the north, and the principality of Mantua to the south.

The mention of this last state leads us back again to the commonwealths which, like Milan, changed, first into tyrannies, and then into acknowledged principalities. It is impossible to mention all of them, and some of those which played for a while the most brilliant part in Italian history had no lasting effect on Italian geography. ♦Rule of the Scala at Verona, 1260-1387; of the Carrara at Padua, 1318-1405;♦ The rule of the house of Scala at Verona, the rule of the house of Carrara at Padua, left no lasting trace on the map. It was otherwise with the two states which bordered on the Venetian possessions to the south. ♦of the Gonzaga at Mantua, 1328-1708. Marquesses, 1433; Dukes, 1530.♦ The house of Gonzaga held sovereign power at Mantua, first as captains, then as marquesses, then as dukes, for nearly four hundred years. ♦House of Este.♦ Of greater fame was the power that grew up in the house of Este, the Italian branch of the house of Welf. Their position is one specially instructive, as illustrating the various tenures by which dominion was held. ♦The lords of Ferrara and Modena, 1264-1288.♦ The marquesses of Este, feudal lords of that small principality, became, after some of the usual fluctuations, permanent lords of the cities of Ferrara and Modena. About the same time they lost their original holding of Este, which passed to Padua, and with Padua to Venice. Thus the nominal marquess of Este and real lord of Ferrara was not uncommonly spoken of as Marquess of Ferrara. In the fifteenth century these princes rose to ducal rank; but by that time the new doctrine of the temporal dominion of the Popes had made great advances. Modena, no man doubted, was a city of the Empire; but Ferrara was now held to be under the{244} supremacy of the Pope. The Marquess Borso had thus to seek his elevation to ducal rank from two separate lords. ♦Duchy of Modena, 1453.
Duchy of Ferrara, 1471.♦ He was created Duke of Modena and Reggio by the Emperor, and afterwards Duke of Ferrara by the Pope. This difference of holding, as we shall presently see, led to the destruction of the power of the house of Este. In the times in which we are now concerned, their dominions lay in two masses. To the west lay the duchy of Modena and Reggio; apart from it to the east lay the duchy of Ferrara. ♦Loss of Rovigo, 1484.♦ Not long after its creation, this last duchy was cut short by the surrender of the border-district of Rovigo to Venice.

Between the two great duchies of the house of Este lay Bologna, gradually changed from Romania in one sense into Romagna in another. Like most other Italian cities, the commonwealths of the Exarchate and the Pentapolis changed into tyrannies, and their petty princes were one by one overthrown by the advancing power of the Popes. ♦Bologna, Perugia, Rimini.♦ Every city had its dynasty; but it was only a few, like the houses of Bentevoglio at Bologna, of Baglioni at Perugia, and Malatesta at Rimini, that rose to any historical importance. One only combined historical importance with acknowledged princely rank. ♦The Duchy of Urbino, 1478-1631.♦ The house of Montefeltro, lords of Urbino, became acknowledged dukes by papal grants. From them the duchy passed to the house of La Rovere, and it flourished under five princes of the two dynasties. ♦Expansion of the papal dominions.♦ Gradually, by successive annexations, the papal dominions, before the middle of the sixteenth century, stretched from the Po to Tarracina. Ferrara and Urbino still remained distinct states, but states which were confessedly held as fiefs of the Holy See.

To the west, in Tuscany, the phænomena are somewhat{245} different. The characteristic of this part of Italy was the grouping together of the smaller cities under the power of the larger. Nearly all the land came in the end under princely rule; but both acknowledged princely rule and the tyrannies out of which it sprang came into importance in Tuscany later than anywhere else. ♦Lucca under Castruccio Castracani, 1320-1338.♦ Lucca had in the fourteenth century a short time of greatness under her illustrious tyrant Castruccio; but, before and after his day, she plays, as a commonwealth, only a secondary part in Italy. Still she remained a commonwealth, though latterly an oligarchic one, through all changes down to the general crash of the French Revolution. ♦Pisa.♦ Pisa kept for a while her maritime greatness, and her rivalry with the Ligurian commonwealth of Genoa. ♦Genoa.♦ Genoa, less famous in the earliest times, proved a far more lasting power. ♦Her rule in Corsica.♦ She established her dominion over the coast on both sides of her, and kept her island of Corsica down to modern times. ♦Sardinia ceded to Aragon, 1428.
Pisa subject to Florence, 1416.♦ Physical causes caused the fall of the maritime power of Pisa; Sardinia passed from her to become a kingdom of the House of Aragon, and she herself passed under the dominion of Florence. ♦Greatness of Florence.♦ This last illustrious city, the greatest of Tuscan and even of Italian commonwealths, begins to stand forth as the foremost of republican states about the time when her forerunner Milan came under the rule of tyrants. She extended her dominion over Volterra, Arezzo, and many smaller places, till she became mistress of all northern Tuscany. ♦Siena.♦ To the south the commonwealth of Siena also formed a large dominion. ♦Rule of the Medici. 1434-1494. 1512-1527.♦ In Florence the rule of the Medici grew step by step into a hereditary tyranny; but it was an intermittent tyranny, one which was supported only by foreign force, and which was overturned{246} whenever Florence had strength to act for herself. ♦Alexander, Duke of Florence, 1530.♦ It was only after her last overthrow by the combined powers of Pope and Cæsar that she became, under Alexander, the first duke of the house of Medici, an acknowledged principality. ♦Cosmo annexes Siena, 1557.
Elba, &c.♦ Cosmo the First, the second duke, annexed Siena, and all the territory of that commonwealth, except the lands known as Stati degli Presidi, that is the isle of Elba and some points on the coast. These became parts of the kingdom of Naples; that is, at that time, parts of the dominion of Spain. The state thus formed by Cosmo was one of the most considerable in Italy, taking in the whole of Tuscany except the territory of Lucca and the lands which became Spanish. ♦Cosmo Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1567.♦ Its ruler presently exchanged by papal authority the title of Duke of Florence for that of Grand Duke of Tuscany.

§ 4. The Later Geography of Italy.

Under Charles the Fifth it might have seemed that both the Roman Empire and the kingdom of Italy had come to life again. A prince who wore both crowns was practically master of Italy. But though the power of the Emperor was restored, the power of the Empire was not. In truth we may look on all notion of a kingdom of Italy in the elder sense as having passed away with the coronation of Charles himself. The thing had passed away long before; after the pageant at Bologna the name was not heard for more than two centuries and a half. ♦Italy a geographical expression.♦ Italy became truly a ‘geographical expression;’ the land consisted of a number of principalities and a few commonwealths, all nominally independent, some more or less practically so, but the more part of which were under foreign influence, and{247} some of them were actually ruled by foreign princes. ♦Changes among the Italian states.♦ The states of Italy were united, divided, handed over from one ruler to another, according to the fluctuations of war and diplomacy, without any regard either to the will of the inhabitants or to the authority of any central power. A practically dominant power there was during the greater part of this period; but it was not the power of even a nominal King of Italy. For a long time that dominant power was held by the House of Austria in its two branches. The supremacy of Charles in Italy passed, not to his Imperial brother, but to his Spanish son. ♦Dominion of Spain, 1555-1701;♦ Then followed the long dominion of the Spanish branch of the Austrian house; then came the less thorough dominion of the German branch. ♦of Austria, 1713-1793.♦ This last was a dominion strictly of the House of Austria as such, not of the Empire or of either of the Imperial kingdoms. And now that the name of Italy means merely a certain surface on the map, we must take some notice, so far as they regard Italian history, at once of Savoy at one end and of the Sicilian kingdoms at the other. From this time both of them have a more direct bearing on Italian history.

By the time of the coronation of Charles the Fifth, or at least within the generation which could remember his coronation, the greater part of Italy had been massed into a few states, which, as compared with the earlier state of things, were of considerable size. ♦Monaco♦ A few smaller principalities and lordships still kept their place, of which one of the smallest, that of Monaco in the extreme south-west, has lived on to our own time. ♦San Marino♦ So has the small commonwealth of San Marino, surrounded, first by the dominions of the Popes and now by the modern kingdom. But such states as these were mere{248} survivals. ♦Dominion of Venice on the mainland, 1406-1797.♦ In the north-east, Venice kept her power on the mainland untouched, from the recovery of her dominions after the league of Cambray down to her final fall. ♦She loses her outlying Italian possessions, 1530.♦ By the treaty of Bologna she lost Ravenna; she lost too the towns of Brindisi and Monopoli which she had gained during the wars of Naples; but her continuous dominion, both properly Venetian and Lombard, remained. ♦Duchy of Milan:
Spanish, 1540-1706;
Austrian, 1706-1796.♦ The duchy of Milan to the west of her was held in succession by the two branches of the House of Austria, first the Spanish and then the German. ♦Advance of Savoy towards Milan.♦ But the duchy, as an Austrian possession, was being constantly cut short towards the west by the growing power of Savoy. For a while the Milanese and Savoyard states were conterminous only during a small part of their frontier. ♦Montferrat.♦ The marquisate of Montferrat, as long as it remained a separate principality, lay between the southern parts of the two states. On the failure of the old line of marquesses, Montferrat was disputed between the Dukes of Savoy and Mantua. ♦United to Mantua 1536, but claimed by Savoy, 1613-1631.♦ Adjudged to Mantua, and raised into a duchy by Imperial authority, it was still claimed, and partly conquered by, Savoy. ♦Mantua forfeited to the Empire, and Montferrat joined to Savoy, 1708-1713.♦ At last, by one of the last exercises of Imperial authority in Italy, the duchy of Mantua itself was held to be forfeited to the Empire; that is, it became an Austrian possession. At the same time the Imperial authority confirmed Montferrat to Savoy. The Austrian dominions in Italy were thus extended to the south-east by the accession of the Mantuan territory; but the whole western frontier of the Milanese now lay open to Savoyard advance. ♦First dismemberment of Milan in favour of Savoy, 1713.♦ The same treaties which confirmed Montferrat to Savoy and Milan to Austria also dismembered Milan in favour of Savoy. A corner of the duchy to the south-west,{249} Alessandria and the neighbouring districts, were now given to Savoy; the Peace of Vienna further cut off Novara to the north and Tortona to the south. ♦Further cessions, 1738.♦ The next peace, that of Aix-la-Chapelle, gave up all west of the Ticino, which river became a permanent frontier.

Among the other states, the duchy of Parma and Piacenza was, on the extinction of the house of Farnese, handed over to princes of the Spanish branch of the Bourbons. ♦Ferrara confiscated to the Popes, 1598.♦ Modena and Ferrara remained united, till Ferrara was annexed as an escheated fief to the dominions of its spiritual overlord. ♦1718.♦ But the house of Este still reigned over Modena with Reggio and Mirandola, while its dominions were extended to the sea by the addition of Massa and other small possessions between Lucca and Genoa. ♦1771-1803.♦ The duchy in the end passed by female succession to the House of Austria. ♦Corsica ceded to France, 1768.♦ Genoa and Lucca remained aristocratic commonwealths; but Genoa lost its island possession of Corsica, which passed to France. ♦Extinction of the Medici, 1737.
Francis of Lorraine Grand Duke of Tuscany.♦ The Grand Duchy of Tuscany remained in the house of Medici, till it was assigned to Duke Francis of Lorraine, afterwards the Emperor Francis the First, and after that it remained in the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. ♦Urbino annexed by the Popes, 1631.♦ The States of the Church, after the annexation of Ferrara, were in the next century further enlarged by the annexation of the duchy of Urbino.

Thus, except on the frontier of Piedmont and Milan, the whole time from Charles the Fifth to the French Revolution was, within the old kingdom of Italy, much less remarkable for changes in the geographical frontiers of the several states than for the way in which they are passed to and fro from one master to another. ♦Kingdom of the Two Sicilies♦ This is yet more remarkable, if we look to the{250} southern part of the peninsula, and to the two great islands which in modern geography we have learned to look on as attached to Italy. ♦The Norman kingdom of Sicily.♦ The Norman kingdom which, by steps which will be told elsewhere, grew up to the south of the Imperial Kingdom of Italy, has hardly ever changed its boundaries, except by the various separations and unions of the insular and the continental kingdom. ♦Benevento.♦ Even the outlying papal possession of Benevento after each war went back to its ecclesiastical master. But the shiftings, divisions, and reunions of the Two Sicilies and of the island of Sardinia have been endless. ♦Charles of Anjou, 1265.♦ The Sicilian kingdom of the Norman and Swabian kings, containing both the island and the provinces on the mainland, passed unchanged to Charles of Anjou. ♦Revolt of the island of Sicily, 1282.
The two kingdoms.♦ The revolt of the island split the kingdom into two, one insular, one continental, each of which called itself the Kingdom of Sicily, though the continental realm was more commonly known as the Kingdom of Naples. The wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries caused endless changes of dynasty in the continental kingdom, but no changes of frontier. ♦Union of Aragon, Sardinia, and continental Sicily under Alfonso, 1442.♦ Under the famous Alfonso in the fifteenth century, Aragon, Sardinia, and the continental Sicily were three kingdoms under one sovereign, while the insular Sicily was ruled by another branch of the same house. ♦Aragonese kings of the island, 1296-1442. 1458-1701.♦ Then continental Sicily passed to an illegitimate branch of the House of Aragon, while Sardinia and insular Sicily were held by the legitimate branch. ♦Wars beginning with Charles the Eighth, 1494-1528.
Spanish, 1556-1701.♦ The French invasion under Charles the Eighth and the long wars that followed, the conquests, the restorations, the schemes of division, all ended in the union of both the Sicilian kingdoms, now known as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, along with Sardinia, as part of the great{251} Spanish monarchy. ♦1554-1555.♦ A momentary separation of the insular kingdom, in order to give the husband of Mary of England royal rank while his father yet reigned, is important only as the first formal use of the title of King of Naples. ♦Sardinia and Naples Austrian.
Duke of Savoy king of Sicily, 1713.♦ In the division of the Spanish monarchy, Sardinia and Naples fell to the lot of the Austrian House, while Sicily was given to the Duke of Savoy, who thus gained substantial kingly rank. ♦Exchange of Sicily and Sardinia, 1718.♦ Presently the kings of the two island kingdoms made an exchange; Sardinia passed to Savoy, and the Emperor Charles the Sixth ruled, like Frederick the Second and Charles the Fifth, over both Sicilies. ♦The Spanish Bourbons, 1735-1806. 1817-1860.♦ Lastly, the kingdom was handed over from an Austrian to a new Spanish master, the first of the line of Neapolitan Bourbons. Thus, at the end of the last century, the Two Sicilies formed a distinct and united kingdom, while Sardinia formed the outlying realm of the Duke of Savoy and Prince of Piedmont. His kingdom was of far less value than his principality or his duchy. ♦Use of the name Sardinia.♦ But, as Sardinia gave their common sovereign his highest title, the Sardinian name often came in common speech to be extended to the continental dominions of its king.

This period, a period of change, but of comparatively slight geographical change, was followed by a time when, in Italy as in Germany, boundaries were changed, new names were invented or forgotten names revived, when old land-marks were rooted up, and thrones were set up and cast down, with a speed which baffles the chronicler. The first strictly geographical change which was wrought in Italy by the revolutionary wars was a characteristic one. ♦Cispadane Republic, 1796.♦ A Cispadane Republic, the{252} first of a number of momentary commonwealths bearing names dug up from the recesses of bygone times, took in the duchy of Modena and the Papal Legations of Romagna. Without exactly following the same boundaries, it answered roughly to the old Exarchate. ♦Transpadane Republic, 1797.♦ Then the French victories over Austria caused the Austrian duchies of Milan and Mantua to become a Transpadane Republic. ♦Treaty of Campo Formio, 1797. Cisalpine Republic.♦ Then Venice was wiped out at Campo Formio, and her Lombard possessions were joined together with the two newly made commonwealths, to form a Cisalpine Republic. But the same treaty wrought another change which was more distinctly geographical. ♦Venice surrendered to Austria.♦ Venice and the eastern part of her possessions on the mainland, the old Venetia, the Lombard Austria, was now handed over to the modern state which bore the latter name. This change may be looked on as distinctly cutting short the boundaries of Italy. The duchy of Milan in Austrian hands had been an outlying part of the Austrian dominions; but Venetia marches on the older territory of the Austrian house, and was thus more completely severed from Italy. The whole north of the Hadriatic coast thus became Austrian in the modern sense. One Italian commonwealth—for Venice had long counted as Italian—was thus wiped out, and handed over to a foreign king. But elsewhere, at this stage of revolutionary progress, the fashion ran in favour of the creation of local commonwealths. ♦Ligurian Republic, 1797.
Parthenopæan Republic.
Tiberine Republic, 1798-1801.♦ The dominions of Genoa became a Ligurian Republic; Naples became a Parthenopæan Republic; Rome herself exchanged for a moment the memories of kings, consuls, emperors, and pontiffs to become the head of a Tiberine Republic. ♦Piedmont joined to France, 1798-1800.♦ Piedmont was overwhelmed; the greater part was incorporated with France. Some{253} small parts were added to the neighbouring republics, and the king of Sardinia withdrew to his island kingdom. Amid this crowd of new-fangled states and new-fangled names, ancient San Marino still lived on.

Thus far revolutionary Italy followed the example of revolutionary France, and the new states were all at least nominal commonwealths. In the next stage, when France came under the rule of a single man, above all when that single ruler took on him the Imperial title, the tide turned in favour of monarchy. In Rome and Naples it had already turned so in another way. ♦Restoration of the Pope and the King of the Two Sicilies, 1801.♦ By help of the Czar and the Sultan, the new republics vanished, and the old rulers, Pope and King, came back again. And now France herself began to create kingdoms instead of commonwealths. ♦Kingdom of Etruria, 1801-1808.♦ Parma was annexed to France, and its Duke was sent to rule in Tuscany by the title of King of Etruria. Presently Italy herself gave her name to a kingdom. ♦Kingdom of Italy, 1805-1814.♦ The Cisalpine republic, further enlarged by Venice and the other territory ceded to Austria at Campo Formio, enlarged also by the Valtellina and the former bishopric of Trent at one end and by the march of Ancona at the other, became the Kingdom of Italy. ♦Buonaparte king of Italy.♦ Its King, the first since Charles the Fifth who had worn the Italian crown, was no other than the new ruler of France, the self-styled ‘Emperor.’ But, in Buonaparte’s later distributions of Italian territory, it was not his Italian kingdom, but his French ‘empire’ whose frontiers were extended. ♦Annexation of Liguria, 1805;
of Etruria, 1808.
Grand duchy of Lucca.♦ The Ligurian Republic was annexed; so before long was the new kingdom of Etruria; Lucca meanwhile was made into a grand duchy for the conqueror’s sister. ♦Incorporation of Rome and France, 1809.♦ Lastly, Rome itself, with what was left of the papal dominions, was also incorporated with the French{254} dominion. The work alike of Cæsar and of Charles was wiped out from the Eternal City. The Empire of the Gauls, which Civilis had dreamed of more than seventeen centuries before, had come at last.

The fate of the remainder of the peninsula had been already sealed before Rome became French. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell asunder. The Bourbon king kept his island, as the Savoyard king kept his. ♦Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, 1806. 1809. Stati degli Presidi.♦ The continental kingdom passed, as a Kingdom of Naples, first to Joseph Buonaparte, and then to Joachim Murat. ♦Benevento.♦ But the outlying Tuscan possessions of the Sicilian crown had already passed to France, and Benevento, the outlying papal possession in the heart of the kingdom, became a separate principality.

Thus all Italy—unless we count the island kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily as parts of Italy—was brought under French dominion in one form or another. But of that dominion there were three varieties. ♦Part incorporated with France.♦ The whole western part of the land, from Aosta to Tarracina—unless it is worth while to except the new Lucchese duchy—was formally incorporated with France. ♦Extent of the kingdom of Italy.♦ The north-eastern side, from Bözen to Ascoli, formed a Kingdom of Italy, distinct from France, but held by the same sovereign. And this Kingdom of Italy was further increased to the north by part of those Italian lands which had become Swiss and German. ♦Kingdom of Naples.♦ Southern Italy, the Kingdom of Naples, remained in form an independent kingdom; but it was held by princes who could not be looked on as anything but the humble vassals of their mighty kinsman. Never had Italy been brought more completely under foreign dominion. ♦Revival of the Italian name.♦ Still, in a part at least of the land, the name of Italy, and the shadow of a Kingdom of Italy, had been revived.{255} ♦Its effects.♦ And, as names and shadows are not without influence in human affairs, the mere existence of an Italian state, called by the Italian name, did something. The creation of a sham Italy was no unimportant step towards the creation of a real one.

The settlement of Italy after the fall of Buonaparte was far more strictly a return to the old state of things than the contemporary settlement of Germany. Italy remained a geographical expression. Its states were, as before, independent of one another. ♦No tie between the Italian states.♦ They were practically dependent on a foreign power: but they were in no way bound together, even by the laxest federal tie. ♦The princes restored, but not the commonwealths.♦ The main principle of settlement was that the princes who had lost their dominions should be restored, but that the commonwealths which had been overthrown should not be restored. Only harmless San Marino was allowed to live on. Venice, Lucca, and Genoa remained possessions of princes. ♦Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice.♦ The sovereign of Hungary and Austria, now calling himself ‘Emperor’ of his archduchy, carved out for himself an Italian kingdom which bore the name of the Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice. On the strength of this, the Austrian, like his French predecessor, took upon him to wear the Italian crown. ♦Its extent.♦ The new kingdom consisted of the former Italian possessions of Austria, the duchies of Milan and Mantua, enlarged by the former possessions of Venice, which had become Austrian at Campoformio. The old boundary between Germany and Italy was restored. Trent, Aquileia, Trieste, were again severed from Italy. They remained possessions of the same prince as Milan and Venice, but they formed no part of his Lombardo-Venetian kingdom.{256} On another frontier, where restoration would have had to be made to a commonwealth, the arrangements were less conservative, and the Valtellina remained part of the new kingdom. The Ticino formed, as before, the boundary towards Piedmont. ♦Genoa annexed to Piedmont.♦ The King of Sardinia came again into possession of this last country, enlarged by the former dominions of Genoa. ♦Monaco.♦ This gave him the whole Ligurian seaboard, except where the little principality of Monaco still went on. ♦Tuscany, Parma, Modena, Lucca.♦ Parma, Modena, and Tuscany again became separate duchies. Lucca remained a duchy alongside of them. ♦Lucca annexed to Tuscany.♦ The family arrangements by which these states were handed about to this and that widow do not concern geography; all that need be marked is that, by virtue of one of these compacts, Lucca was in the end added to Tuscany. That grand-duchy was further increased by the addition of the former outlying possessions of the Sicilian crown, including Elba, the island which for a moment was an Empire. ♦The Papal states.♦ The Pope came back to all his old Italian possessions, outlying Benevento included. ♦The Two Sicilies.♦ The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was formed again by the restoration of the Kingdom of Naples to the Bourbon king. Thus was formed the Italy of 1815, an Italy which, save in the sweeping away of its commonwealths, and the consequent extension of Sardinian and Austrian territory, differed geographically but little from the Italy of 1748. But in 1815 there were hopes which had had no being in 1748. Italy was divided on the map; but she had made up her mind to be one.

The union of Italy was at last to come from one of those corners which in earlier history we have looked on as being hardly Italian at all. It was not Milan or{257} Florence or Rome which was to grow into the new Italy. That function was reserved for a princely house whose beginnings had been Burgundian rather than Italian, whose chief territories had long lain on the Burgundian side of the Alps, but which had gradually put on an Italian character, and which had now become the one national Italian dynasty. The Italian possessions of the Savoyard house, Piedmont, Genoa, and the island of Sardinia, now formed one of the chief Italian states, and the only one whose rule, if still despotic, was not foreign. Savoy, by ceasing to be Savoy, was to become Italy. ♦Movements of 1848.♦ The movements of 1848 in Italy, like those in Germany, led to no lasting changes on the map: but they do so far affect geography that new states were actually founded, if only for a moment. ♦Momentary commonwealths.♦ Rome, Venice, Milan, were actually for a while republics, and the Two Sicilies were for a while separated. In the next year all came back as before. The next lasting change on the map was that which at last restored a real Kingdom of Italy. ♦Campaign of 1859.♦ The joint campaign of France and Sardinia won Lombardy for the Sardinian kingdom. Lombardy was now defined as that part of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom which lay west of the Mincio, except that Mantua was left out. She was left to Austria. A French scheme for an Italian confederation came to nothing. ♦Union of the smaller states, 1860.♦ Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna voted their own annexation to Piedmont. The Two Sicilies were won by Garibaldi, and the kingly title of Sardinia was merged in that of the restored Kingdom of Italy. ♦Addition of the Sicilies.♦ This new Italian kingdom was, by the addition of the Sicilies, extended over lands which had never been part of the elder Italian kingdom. But Venetia was still cut off; the Pope kept the lands on each side of{258} Rome, the so-called Patrimony and the Campagna. ♦Cession of Savoy and Nizza to France.♦ But France annexed the lands, strictly Burgundian rather than Italian, of Savoy and Nizza. The Italian kingdom was thus again called into being; but it had not yet come to perfection. Italy had ceased to be a geographical expression; but the Italian frontier still presented some geographical anomalies.

The war between Prussia and Austria gave Venetia to Italy; the war between Germany and France allowed Italy to recover Rome. ♦Part of the old kingdom not yet recovered.♦ The two great gaps in her frontier were thus made good; but, to say nothing of the annexations made by France, a large Italian-speaking population, lying within the bounds of the old Italian kingdom, still remains outside its modern revival. Trent, Aquileia, Trieste, Istria, are still parts, not of an Italian kingdom, not of a German kingdom, confederation, or empire, but of an Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Otherwise the Italian kingdom has formed itself, and it has taken its place among the great powers of Europe. Yet the whole peninsula does not form part of the Italian kingdom. ♦San Marino remains free.♦ Surrounded on every side by that kingdom, the commonwealth of San Marino, like Rhodes or Byzantium under the early Cæsars, still keeps its ancient freedom.

§ 5. The Kingdom of Burgundy.

The Burgundian Kingdom, which was united with those of Germany and Italy after the death of its last separate king Rudolf the Third, has had a fate unlike that of any other part of Europe. ♦Dying out of the kingdom.♦ Its memory, as a separate state, has gradually died out. ♦Chiefly annexed by France;♦ The greater part of its territory has been swallowed up bit by bit by a neighbouring power, and the small part which has escaped that fate has long lost all trace of its original{259} name or its original political relations. By a long series of annexations, spreading over more than five hundred years, the greater part of the kingdom has gradually been incorporated with France. ♦part Italian;
part Swiss.♦ Of what remains, a small corner forms part of the modern kingdom of Italy, while the rest still keeps its independence in the form of the commonwealths which make up the western cantons of Switzerland. ♦Burgundy represented by Switzerland.♦ These cantons, in fact, are the truest modern representatives of the Burgundian kingdom. ♦Neutrality of Switzerland and Belgium.♦ And it is on the Confederation of which they form a part, interposed as it is between France, Italy, the new German Empire, and the modern Austrian monarchy, as a central state with a guaranteed neutrality, that some trace of the old function of Burgundy, as the middle kingdom, is thrown. This function it shares with the Lotharingian lands at the other end of the Empire, which now form part of the equally neutral kingdom of Belgium, lands which, oddly enough, themselves became Burgundian in another sense.

The Burgundian Kingdom, lying between the Alps, the Saône and the Rhone, and the Mediterranean, might be thought to have a fair natural boundary. ♦Boundaries of the kingdom.♦ And, while it kept any shadow of separate being, its boundaries did not greatly change. ♦Fluctuation of its frontier.♦ They were however somewhat fluctuating on the side of the Western kingdom, being sometimes bounded by the Rhone and sometimes reaching to the line of hills to the west of it. They were also, as we have seen, somewhat fluctuating on the side of Germany. ♦Chiefly Romance speaking.♦ At this end the kingdom took in some German-speaking districts; otherwise the language was Romance, including several dialects of the tongue of Oc.

The northern part of the kingdom, answering to the{260} former Transjurane kingdom—the Regnum Jurense—formed two chief states, the County Palatine of Burgundy—the modern Franche Comté—and the Lesser Burgundy, roughly taking in western Switzerland and northern Savoy. ♦Provence.♦ On the Mediterranean lay the great county of Provence, with a number of smaller counties lying between it and the two northern principalities. ♦The Free Cities.♦ But the great characteristic of the land was that, next to Italy, no part of Europe contained so many considerable cities lying near together. Many of these at different times strove more or less successfully after a republican independence, and a few have kept it to our own day.

But, though the Burgundian kingdom might be thought to have, on three sides at least, a good natural frontier, it had but little real unity. The northern part naturally clave to its connexion with the Empire much longer than the southern. ♦The Burgundian Palatinate.♦ The County Palatine of Burgundy often passed from one dynasty to another, and it is remarkable for the number of times that it was held as a separate state by several of the great princes of Europe. ♦Held by the Emperor Frederick, 1156-1189;
by Philip of France, 1315-1330.♦ It was held by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in right of his wife; the marriage of one of his female descendants carried it to Philip the Fifth of France. ♦United with the French Duchy.♦ Then it became united with the French duchy of Burgundy under the dukes of the House of Valois. ♦1477.
Held by the House of Austria, Charles the Fifth Count of Burgundy.♦ Saving a momentary French occupation after the death of Charles the Bold, it remained with them and their Austrian and Spanish representatives. Among these it had a second Imperial Count in the person of Charles the Fifth. ♦Annexed to France, 1674.♦ But, through all these changes of dynasty, it remained an acknowledged fief of the Empire, till its annexation to{261} France under Lewis the Fourteenth. ♦Dole the capital of the county.♦ The capital of this county, it must be remembered, was Dole. ♦Besançon a Free Imperial city. 1189-1651.♦ The ecclesiastical metropolis of Besançon, though surrounded by the county, remained a free city of the Empire from the days of Frederick Barbarossa to those of Ferdinand the Third. ♦United to France.♦ It was then merged in the county, and along with the county it passed to France. ♦Montbeilliard.♦ And it should be noticed that a small Burgundian land in this quarter, the county of Montbeilliard or Mümpelgard, first as a separate state, then in union with the duchy of Württemberg, kept its allegiance to the Empire till the wars of the French Revolution, when it was annexed to France and was never restored.

While the Burgundian Palatinate thus kept its history as an unit in European geography, the Lesser Burgundy to the south-west of it had a different history. The geography here gets somewhat confused through the fact that this Lesser Burgundy, which in the twelfth century passed under the power of the Dukes of Zähringen in Swabia as Rectors, took in some districts which were not parts of the Burgundian kingdom. ♦The eastern part German.♦ The eastern part of the kingdom itself was of German speech, and its frontier towards the German duchy of Alemannia or Swabia was somewhat fluctuating. The Aar may be taken as the boundary of the kingdom, while the Lesser Burgundy, as an administrative division, stretched somewhat further to the East. ♦Cities of the Lesser Burgundy.♦ Thus Basel, as well the foundations of the House of Zähringen at Bern and Freiburg, stood on strictly Burgundian ground, while the city of Luzern and the land of Unterwalden come under the head of the Lesser Burgundy, without forming part of the Burgundian kingdom. These lands long kept up their connexion with the Empire, though{262} the Lesser Burgundy did not long remain as a separate unit. ♦Dukes of Zähringen.
End of their house, 1218.♦ When the House of Zähringen came to an end, the country began to split up into small principalities and free cities which gradually grew into independent commonwealths. ♦Break-up of the duchy.
Savoyard territory.♦ The counts of Savoy, of whom more presently, acquired a large territory on both sides of the Lake of Geneva. ♦Bishops, Counts, and Free Cities.♦ Other considerable princes were the bishops of Basel, Lausanne, Geneva, and Sitten, the counts of Geneva, Kyburg, Gruyères, and Neufchâtel. ♦The Free Lands.♦ Basel, Solothurn, and Bern were Imperial cities. The complicated relations between the Bishops and the city of Geneva hindered that city from having a strict right to that title. In Unterwalden and in Wallis, notwithstanding the possessions and claims of various spiritual and temporal lords, the most marked feature was the retention of the old rural independence. ♦The Old League of High Germany.♦ Of the cities in this region, Luzern, Bern, Freiburg, Solothurn, and Basel, all gradually became members of the Old League of High Germany, the ground-work of the modern Swiss Confederation. ♦Conquests of Bern and Freiburg from Savoy, 1536.♦ The Savoyard lands north of the lake were conquered by Bern and Freiburg in the sixteenth century, a conquest which also secured the independence of Geneva. ♦The Burgundian cantons of Switzerland.♦ All these lands, after going through the intermediate stage of allies or subjects of some or other of the confederate cantons, have in modern times become independent cantons themselves. This process of annexation and liberation will be traced more fully when we come to the history of the Swiss Confederation.

To the south of this group of states, and partly intermingled with them, lay another group, lying partly within the Cisjurane and partly within the Transjurane kingdom, which gradually grew into a great power.{263} ♦Growth of Savoy.♦ These were the states which were united step by step under the Counts of Maurienne, afterwards Counts of Savoy. ♦Burgundian possession of its county.♦ When their dominions were at their greatest extent, they held south of the Lake of Geneva, besides Maurienne and Savoy strictly so called, the districts of Aosta, Tarantaise, the Genevois, Chablais, and Faucigny, together with Vaud and Gex north of the lake. Thus grew up the power of Savoy, which has already been noticed in its purely Italian aspect, but which must receive fuller separate treatment in a section of its own.

The remainder of the Burgundian Kingdom consisted of a number of small states stretching from the southern boundary of the Burgundian county to the Mediterranean. ♦Bresse and Bugey become Savoyard. Bugey, 1137-1344; Bresse, 1272-1402.♦ North of the Rhone lay the districts of Bresse and Bugey, which passed at various times to the House of Savoy. ♦Lyons, Vienne, Orange, &c.
Provence.♦ Southwards on the Rhone lay a number of small states, among which the most important in history are the archbishopric, the county, and the free city of Lyons, the county or Dauphiny of Vienne and the city of Vienne, the county or principality of Orange, the city of Avignon, the county of Venaissin, the free city of Arles, the capital of the kingdom, the free city of Massalia or Marseilles, the county of Nizza or Nice, and the great county or marquisate of Provence. In this last power lay the first element of danger, especially to the republican independence of the free cities. ♦Changes of dynasty.
The Angevins, 1246.♦ After being held by separate princes of its own, as well as by the Aragonese kings, it passed by marriage into the hands of a French prince, Charles of Anjou, the conqueror of Sicily, and also the destroyer of the second freedom of Massalia. ♦Growing French connexion.♦ The possession of the greatest member of the kingdom by a French ruler, though it{264} made no immediate change in the formal state of things, gave fresh strength to every tendency which tended to withdraw the Burgundian lands from their allegiance to the Empire and to bring them, first into connexion with France, and then into actual incorporation with the French kingdom.

Step by step, though by a process which was spread over many centuries, all the principalities and commonwealths of the Burgundian kingdom, save the lands which have been Swiss and the single valley which is now Italian, have come into the hands of France. The tendency shows itself early. ♦Avignon first seized, 1226.
Annexation of Lyons, 1310.♦ Avignon was seized for a moment during the Albigensian wars; but the permanent process of French annexation began when Philip the Fair took advantage of the disputes between the archbishops and the citizens of Lyons, to join that Imperial city to his dominions. The head of all the Gauls, the seat of the Primate of all the Gauls, thus passed into the hands of the new monarchy of Paris, the first-fruits of French aggrandizement at the cost of the Middle Kingdom. ♦Purchase of the Dauphiny of Vienne, 1343.♦ Later in the same century, the Dauphiny of Vienne was acquired by a bargain with its last independent prince. This land also passed, through the intermediate stage of an Imperial fief held by the heir-apparent of the French crown, into a mere province of France. ♦The city of Vienne annexed, 1448.♦ But the acquisition of the Dauphiny did not carry with it that of the city of Vienne, which escaped for more than a century. ♦Valence, 1446.♦ Between the acquisition of the Dauphiny and the acquisition of the city, the county of Valence was annexed to the Dauphiny. ♦Provence, 1481.♦ Later in the same century followed the great annexation of Provence itself. The rule of French princes in that county for two centuries had doubtless paved the way{265} for this annexation. And the acquisition of Provence carried with it the acquisition of the cities of Arles and Marseilles, which the counts of Provence had deprived of their freedom. By this time the whole of the land between the Rhone and the sea had been swallowed up, save one state at the extreme south-east corner of the kingdom, and a group of small states which were now quite hemmed in by French territory. ♦Nizza passes to Savoy, 1388.♦ The first was the county of Nizza or Nice, which had passed away from Provence to Savoy before the French annexation of Provence. But by this time Savoy had become an Italian power, and Nizza was from henceforth looked on as Italian rather than Burgundian. Between Provence and the Dauphiny lay the city of Avignon, the county of Venaissin, and the principality of Orange. ♦Avignon and Venaissin become Papal, 1348.
Annexed to France, 1791.♦ Avignon and Venaissin became papal possessions by purchase from the sovereign of Provence; and, though they were at last quite surrounded by French territory, they remained papal possessions till they were annexed in the course of the great Revolution. These outlying possessions of the Popes perhaps did somewhat towards preserving the independence of a more interesting fragment of the ancient kingdom. ♦Orange.♦ This was the Principality of Orange, which the neighbourhood of the Pope hindered from being altogether surrounded by French territory. This little state, whose name has become so much more famous than itself, passed through several dynasties, and for a long time it was regularly seized by France in the course of every war. ♦Its annexation to France, 1714-1771.♦ But it was as regularly restored to independence at every peace, and its final annexation did not happen till the eighteenth century. The acquisition of Orange, Avignon, and Venaissin, completed the process of{266} French aggrandizement in the lands between the Rhone and the Var. The stages of the same process as applied to the Savoyard lands will be best told in another section.

We have thus traced the geographical history of the three Imperial kingdoms themselves. It now follows to trace in the like sort the origin and growth of certain of the modern powers of Europe which have grown out of one or more of those kingdoms. Certain parts of the German, Italian, and Burgundian kingdoms have split off from these kingdoms, so as to form new political units, distinct from any of them. Five states of no small importance in later European history have thus been formed. ♦Their character as middle states.♦ Most of them partake more or less of the character of middle states, interposed between France and one or more of the Imperial kingdoms. ♦Switzerland.♦ First, there is the Confederation of Switzerland, which arose by certain German districts and cities forming so close an union among themselves that their common allegiance to the Empire gradually died out. The Confederation grew into its present form by the addition to these German districts of certain Italian and Burgundian districts. ♦Savoy.♦ Secondly, there are, or rather were, the dominions of the Dukes of Savoy, formed by the union of various Italian and Burgundian districts. This however, as a middle power, has ceased to exist; nearly all its Burgundian possessions have been joined to France, while its Italian possessions have grown into a new Italy. ♦The Dukes of Burgundy.♦ Thirdly, there were the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy, forming a middle power between France and Germany, and made up by the union of French and Imperial fiefs. ♦Represented by the kingdoms of the Low Countries.♦ These are{267} represented on the modern maps by the kingdoms of the Netherlands and Belgium, the greater part of both of which belonged to the Burgundian dukes. Of these kingdoms much the greater part had split off from the old kingdom of Germany. Certain parts were once French fiefs, but had ceased to be so. ♦Recognized neutrality of Belgium, Switzerland, and once of part of Savoy.♦ The position of three out of these four states as middle powers, and their importance in that character, has been acknowledged even by modern diplomacy in the neutrality which is still guaranteed to Belgium and Switzerland, and which was formerly extended to certain districts of Savoy.

Of these four states, Switzerland, Savoy, and the duchy of Burgundy as represented by the two kingdoms of the Low Countries, some have been merged in other powers, and those which still remain count only among the secondary states of Europe. But a fifth power has also broken off from Germany which still ranks among the greatest in Europe. ♦The Austrian dominions.♦ This is the power which, starting from a small German mark on the Danube, has, by the gradual union of various lands, German and non-German, grown into something distinct from Germany, first under the name of the Austrian ‘Empire’ and more latterly under that of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. This power differs from the other states of which we have been just speaking, not only in its vastly greater extent, but also in its position. ♦Position of the Austrian dominion as a marchland.♦ It is a marchland, a middle kingdom, but in a different sense from Burgundy, Switzerland, Savoy, or Belgium. ♦Comparison with the western marchlands.♦ All these were marchlands between Christian states, between states all of which had formed part of the Carolingian Empire. All lie on the western side of the German and Italian kingdoms. Austria, on the other hand, as its name implies, arose on the{268} eastern side of the German kingdom, as a mark against Turanian and heathen invaders. ♦Austria as the march against the Magyar.♦ The first mission of Austria was to guard Germany against the Magyar. When the Magyar was admitted into the fellowship of Europe and Christendom—when, after a while, his realm was united under a single sovereign with Austria—the same duty was continued in another form. ♦Austria and Hungary the mark of Christendom against the Turk.♦ The power formed by the union of Hungary and Austria was one of the chief among those which had to guard Christendom against the Turk. Its history therefore forms one of the connecting links between Eastern and Western Europe. In this chapter it will be dealt with chiefly on its Western side, with regard to its relations towards Germany and Italy. The Eastern aspect of the Austro-Hungarian power has more to do with the states which arose out of the break up of the Eastern Empire.

These states then, Switzerland, Savoy, the Duchy of Burgundy, the Netherlands, and Austria, form a proper addition to the sections given to the three Imperial kingdoms. I will now go on to deal with them in order.

§ 6. The Swiss Confederation.

I have just spoken of the Swiss Confederation as being in its origin purely German. This statement is practically correct, as all the original cantons were German in speech and feeling, and the formal style of their union was the Old League of High Germany. But in strict geographical accuracy there was, as we have seen in the last section, a small Burgundian element in the Confederation, if not from the beginning, at least from its aggrandizement in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. ♦though part of it geographically Burgundian.♦ That is to say, part of the territory of the states which{269} formed the old Confederation lay geographically within the kingdom of Burgundy, and a further part lay within the Lesser Burgundy of the Dukes of Zähringen. But, by the time when the history of the Confederation begins, the kingdom of Burgundy was pretty well forgotten, and the small German-speaking territory which it took in at its extreme north-east corner may be looked on as practically German ground. ♦All the old Cantons German in speech.♦ A more practical division than the old boundaries of the kingdoms is the boundary of the Teutonic and Romance speech; in this sense all the cantons of the old Confederation, except part of Freiburg, are German. ♦The later Romance Cantons.♦ The Romance cantons are those which were formed in modern times out of the allied and subject states. ♦Many popular errors.♦ It is specially needful to bear in mind, first, that, till the last years of the thirteenth century, not even the germ of modern Switzerland had appeared on the map of Europe; secondly, that the Confederation did not formally become an independent power till the seventeenth century; lastly, that, though the Swiss name had been in common use for ages, it did not become the formal style of the Confederation till the nineteenth century. Nothing in the whole study of historical geography is more necessary than to root out the notion that there has always been a country of Switzerland, as there has always been a country of Germany, Gaul, or Italy. ♦The Swiss do not represent the Helvetii.♦ And it is no less needful to root out the notion that the Swiss of the original cantons in any way represent the Helvetii of Cæsar. ♦Summary of Swiss history.
A German League having become more united and independent than others, annexes Romance allies and subjects.♦ The points to be borne in mind are that the Swiss Confederation is simply one of many German Leagues, which was more lasting and became more closely united than other German Leagues—that it gradually split off from the German Kingdom—that{270} in the course of this process, the League and its members obtained a large body of Italian and Burgundian allies and subjects—lastly, that these allies and subjects have in modern times been joined into one Federal body with the original German Confederates.

The three Swabian lands which formed the kernel of the Old League lay at the point of union of the three Imperial kingdoms, parts of all of which were to become members of the Confederation in its later form. ♦First known document of union, 1291.♦ The first known document of confederation between the three lands dates from the last years of the thirteenth century. But that document is likely to have been rather the confirmation than the actual beginning of their union. They had for their neighbours several ecclesiastical and temporal lords, some other Imperial lands and towns, and far greater than all, the Counts of the house of Kyburg and Habsburg, who had lately grown into the more dangerous character of Dukes of Austria. ♦Growth of the League.♦ The Confederation grew for a while by the admission of neighbouring lands and cities as members of a free German Confederation, owning no superior but the Emperor. ♦Luzern, 1332.♦ First of all, the city of Luzern joined the League. ♦Zürich, 1351.♦ Then came the Imperial city of Zürich, which had already begun to form a little dominion in the adjoining lands. ♦Glarus and Zug, 1352.♦ Then came the land of Glarus and the town of Zug with its small territory. ♦Bern, 1353.♦ And lastly came the great city of Bern, which had already won a dominion over a considerable body of detached and outlying allies and subjects. ♦The Eight Ancient Cantons.♦ These confederate lands and towns formed the Eight Ancient Cantons. Their close alliance with each other helped the growth of each canton separately, as well as that of the League as a whole. ♦Their growth.♦ Those cantons whose{271} geographical position allowed them to do so, were thus able to extend their power, in the form of various shades of dominion and alliance, over the smaller lands and towns in their neighbourhood. These lesser changes and annexations cannot all be recorded here; but it must be carefully borne in mind that the process was constantly going on. ♦Dominion of Zürich and Bern.♦ Zürich, and yet more Bern, each formed, after the manner of an ancient Greek city, what in ancient Greece would have passed for an empire. ♦Conquests from Austria, 1415-1460.♦ In the fifteenth century, large conquests were made at the expense of the House of Austria, of which the earlier ones were made by direct Imperial sanction. The Confederation, or some or other of its members, had now extended its territory to the Rhine and the Lake of Constanz. ♦Aargau, Thurgau, &c.♦ The lands thus won, Aargau, Thurgau, and some other districts, were held as subject territories in the hands of some or other of the Confederate states.

It is a fact to be specially noticed in the history of the Confederation, that, for nearly a hundred and thirty years, though the territory and the power of the Confederation were constantly increasing, no new states were admitted to the rank of confederate cantons. Before the next group of cantons was admitted, the general state of the Confederation and its European position had greatly changed. It had ceased to be a purely German power. ♦Beginning of Italian dominions.♦ The first extension beyond the original German lands and those Burgundian lands which were practically German began in the direction of Italy. ♦Uri obtains Val Levantina, 1441.♦ Uri had, by the annexation of Urseren, become the neighbour of the Duchy of Milan, and in the middle of the fifteenth century, this canton acquired some rights in the Val Levantina on the Italian side of the Alps. This{272} was the beginning of the extension of the Confederation on Italian ground. But far more important than this was the advance of the Confederates over the Burgundian lands to the west.♦First Savoyard conquest of Bern.
1475.♦ The war with Charles of Burgundy enabled Bern to win several detached possessions in the Savoyard lands north and east of the lake, and even on the lower course of the Rhone. ♦Savoyard conquests of Freiburg and Wallis.♦ And, while Bern advanced, some points in the same direction were gained by her allies who are not yet members of the Confederation, by the city of Freiburg and the League of Wallis. ♦Growth of Wallis.♦ This last confederation had grown up on the upper course of the Rhone, where the small free lands had gradually displaced the territorial lords. ♦Freiburg and Solothurn become Cantons, 1481.♦ Soon after this came the next admission of new cantons, those of the cities of Freiburg and Solothurn, each of them bringing with it its small following of allied and subject territory. ♦Basel and Schaffhausen, 1501.♦ Twenty years later, Basel and Schaffhausen, the latter being the only canton north of the Rhine, were admitted with their following of the like kind. ♦Appenzell, 1513.♦ Twelve years later, Appenzell, a little land which had set itself free from the rule of the abbots of Saint Gallen, after having long been in alliance with the Confederates, was admitted to the rank of a canton. ♦The Thirteen Cantons, 1513-1798.♦ Thus was made up the full number of Thirteen Cantons, which remained unchanged down to the wars of the French Revolution.

But the time when the Confederation was finally settled as regards the number of cantons was also a time of great extension of territory on the part both of the Confederation and of several of its members. ♦Graubünden.♦ At the south-east corner of the Confederate territory, on the borders of the duchy of Milan and the county of Tyrol, the League of Graubünden or the Grey Leagues had gradually arisen. A number of communities,{273} as in Wallis, had got rid of the neighbouring lords, and had formed themselves into three leagues, the Grey League proper, the Gotteshausbund, and the League of Ten Jurisdictions, which three were again united by a further federal tie. ♦Their alliance with the Confederates.♦ At the end of the fifteenth century, the Leagues so formed entered into an alliance with the Confederates. ♦1495-1567.♦ Then began a great accession of territory towards the south on the part both of the Confederates and of their new allies. ♦Italian dominion of the Confederation, 1512;♦ The Confederates received a considerable territory within the duchy of Milan, including Bellinzona, Locarno, and Lugano, as the reward of services done to the House of Sforza. ♦of the Grey Leagues, 1513.♦ The next year their new allies of the Grey Leagues also won some Italian territory, the Valtellina and the districts of Chiavenna and Bormio. ♦Early Savoyard conquests of Bern, Freiburg, and Wallis, 1536.♦ Next came the conquest of a large part of the Savoyard lands, of all north of the Lake and a good deal to the south, by the arms of Bern, Freiburg, and Wallis. ♦Vaud.♦ Bern and Freiburg divided Vaud in very unequal proportions. ♦Lausanne.♦ Bern and Wallis divided Chablais on the south side of the lake, and Bern annexed the bishopric of Lausanne on the north. ♦Geneva in alliance with Bern and Freiburg.♦ Geneva, the ally of Bern and Freiburg, with her little territory of detached scraps, was now surrounded by the dominion of her most powerful allies at Bern. ♦Territory restored to Savoy, 1567.♦ But by a later treaty Bern and Wallis gave back to Savoy all that they had won south of the Lake, with the territory of Gex to the west of it. Geneva thus again had Savoy for a neighbour, a neighbour at whose expense she even made some conquests—Gex among them—conquests which the French ally of the free city would not allow her to keep. Later changes gave her a neighbour yet more dangerous than Savoy in the shape of France itself. ♦Gruyères divided between Bern and Freiburg, 1554.♦ Before these{274} changes, Bern and Freiburg divided the county of Gruyères between them, the last important instance of that kind of process.

The Confederation was thus fully formed, with its Thirteen Cantons and their allied states. ♦Saint Gallen.
Bienne.♦ Of these the Abbot of Saint Gallen, the town of Saint Gallen, and the town of Biel or Bienne, were so closely allied with the Confederates as to have a place in their Diets. Besides relations of less close alliance which the Confederates had with various Alsatian cities, several other states had a connexion so close and lasting with the Confederation or with some of its members, as to form part of the same political system. ♦Bischofbasel.
Mühlhausen and Rottweil.
Neufchâtel passes to Prussia, 1707.♦ Such were the Leagues of Wallis and Graubünden, the Bishop of Basel, the outlying town of Mühlhausen in Elsass, and for a while that of Rottweil. Bern too, and sometimes other cantons, had relations both with the town and with the princes of Neufchâtel, which, after passing through several dynasties, was at last inherited by the Kings of Prussia. ♦Constanz.♦ Constanz, at the other end of the Confederate land, was refused admission as a canton, but for a while it was in alliance with some of the cantons. ♦Passes to Austria, 1548.♦ But this connexion was severed when Constanz, instead of a free Imperial city, became a possession of Austria. ♦The Confederation released from the allegiance to the Empire, 1658.♦ The power thus formed, a power in which a body of German Confederates was surrounded by a body of allies and subjects, German, Italian, and Burgundian, all of them originally members of the Empire, was by the Peace of Westfalia formally released from all allegiance to the Empire and its chief. ♦Date of the practical separation, 1495.♦ Their practical separation may be dated much earlier, from the time when the Confederates refused to accept the legislation of Maximilian.

{275}

The growth of the League into an independent power was doubtless greatly promoted by its geographical position, as occupying the natural citadel of Europe. ♦Its anomalous frontier.♦ But the piecemeal way in which it grew up was marked by the anomalous nature of its frontier on several points. On the north the Rhine would seem to be a natural boundary, but Schaffhausen beyond the Rhine formed part of the Confederation, while Constanz and other points within it did not. To the south the possession of territory on the Italian side of the Alps seems an anomaly, an anomaly which is brought out more strongly by a singularly irregular and arbitrary frontier. ♦The Confederation as a middle state.♦ But looking on the Confederation as the middle state, arising at the point of junction of the three Imperial kingdoms, it was in a manner fitting that it should spread itself into all three.

The form which the Confederation thus took in the sixteenth century remained untouched till the wars of the French Revolution. ♦Dismemberment of the Grey Leagues, 1797.♦ The beginning of change was when the Italian districts subject to the Grey Leagues were transferred to the newly formed Cisalpine Republic. In the next year the whole existing system was destroyed. ♦Abolition of the Federal system, 1798.
The Helvetic Republic.♦ The Federal system was abolished; instead of the Old League of High Germany, there arose, after the new fashion of nomenclature, a Helvetic Republic, in which the word canton meant no more than department. Yet even by such a revolution as this some good was done. ♦Freedom of the subject districts.♦ The subject districts were freed from the yoke of their masters, whether those masters were the whole Confederation or one or more of its several cantons. ♦Freedom of Vaud.♦ Thus, above all, the Romance land of Vaud was freed from subjection to its German{276} masters at Bern. ♦Annexation of Bischofbasel and Geneva to France.♦ Some of the allied districts, as the bishopric of Basel and the city of Geneva, were annexed to France. But the Leagues of Wallis and Graubünden were incorporated with the Helvetic Republic. ♦Act of Mediation, 1803.♦ In 1803 the Federal system was restored by Buonaparte’s Act of Mediation, which formed a Federal republic of nineteen cantons. ♦The nineteen cantons.♦ These were the original thirteen, with the addition of Aargau, Graubünden, St. Gallen, Ticino, Thurgau, and Vaud, which were formed out of the formerly allied and subject lands. ♦Wallis incorporated with France.♦ Wallis was separated from the Confederation, and became, first a nominally distinct republic, and afterwards a French department. ♦Neufchâtel.
1806.♦ Neufchâtel was, in the course of Buonaparte’s wars with Prussia, detached from that power, to form a principality under his General Berthier. ♦The Swiss Confederation of twenty-two cantons. 1815.♦ At last, in 1815, the present Swiss Confederation was established, consisting of twenty-two cantons, the number being made up by the addition of Neufchâtel, Wallis, and Geneva. ♦Bischofbasel added to Bern.♦ The bishopric of Basel was also again detached from France, and added to the canton of Bern, a canton differing in language and religion, and cut off by a mountain range. ♦Neufchâtel separated from Prussia, 1848.♦ The great constitutional changes which have been made since that time have not affected geography, unless we count the division of the city and district of Basel, Baselstadt and Baselland, into distinct half-cantons, and the surrender of all rights over Neufchâtel by the King of Prussia. But this last was not strictly a geographical change; it was rather a change from a quasi monarchic to a purely republican government in that particular canton.

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§ 7. The State of Savoy.

The growth of the power of Savoy, the border state of Burgundy and Italy, has necessarily been spoken of more than once in earlier sections; but it seems needful to give a short connected account of its progress, and to mark the way in which a power originally Burgundian gradually lost on the side of Burgundy and grew on the side of Italy, till it has in the end itself grown into a new Italy. ♦Geographical position of the Savoyard lands.♦ The lands which have at different times passed under the rule of the House of Savoy lie continuously, though with an irregular frontier, and though divided by the great barrier of the Alps. ♦Their three divisions.♦ They fall however into three main geographical divisions, which at one time became also political divisions, being held by different branches of the Savoyard House. ♦Italian.♦ There are the Italian possessions of that House, which have grown into the modern Italian kingdom. ♦Burgundian south of the lake.♦ There are the more strictly Savoyard lands south of the Lake of Geneva, and the other lands south of the Rhone after it issues from that lake, all of which have passed away under the power of France. ♦Burgundian north of the lake.♦ And there are the lands north of the Lake and of the Rhone, part of which have also become French, while others have become part of the Swiss Confederation. Both these last lay within the kingdom of Burgundy, and stretched into both its divisions, Transjurane and Cisjurane. In no part of our story is it more necessary to avoid language which forestalls the arrangements of later times. ♦Popular confusions.♦ A wholly false impression is given by the use of language such as commonly is used. We often hear of the princes of Savoy holding lands ‘in France’ and ‘in Switzerland. They held lands which by virtue{278} of later changes have severally become French and Swiss; but those lands became French and Swiss only by ceasing to be Savoyard. On the other hand, to speak of them from the beginning as holding lands in Italy is perfectly accurate. The Savoyard states were a large and fluctuating assemblage of lands on both sides of the Alps, lying partly within the Italian and partly within the Burgundian kingdom. These last have shared the fate of the other fiefs of that crown.

The cradle of the Savoyard power lay in the Burgundian lands immediately bordering upon Italy and stretching on both sides of the Alps. It was to their geographical position, as holding several great mountain passes, that the Savoyard princes owed their first importance, succeeding therein in some measure to the Burgundian kings themselves.[15] The early stages of the growth of the house are very obscure; and its power does not seem to have formed itself till after the union of Burgundy with the Empire. ♦Possessions of the Counts of Maurienne.♦ But it seems plain that, at the end of the eleventh century, the Counts of Maurienne, which was their earliest title, held rights of sovereignty in the Burgundian districts of Maurienne, Savoy strictly so called, Tarantaise, and Aosta. ♦Aosta; its special position.♦ This last valley and city, though on the Italian side of the Alps, had hitherto been rather Burgundian than Italian.[16] Its allegiance had{279} fluctuated several times between the two kingdoms; but, from the time that Savoy held lands in both, the question became of no practical importance. And, without entering into minute questions of tenure, it may be said that the early Savoyard possessions reached to the Lake of Geneva, and spread on both sides of the inland mouth of the Rhone. The power of the Savoyard princes in this region was largely due to their ecclesiastical position as advocates of the abbey of Saint Maurice. ♦Geographical character of the Burgundian territories.♦ Thus their possessions had a most irregular outline, nearly surrounding the lands of Genevois and Faucigny. A state of this shape, like Prussia in a later age and on a greater scale, was, as it were, predestined to make further advances. But for some centuries those advances were made much more largely in Burgundy than in Italy. ♦Their early Italian possessions.♦ The original Italian possessions of the House bordered on their Burgundian counties of Maurienne and Aosta, taking in Susa and Turin. ♦Marquesses in Italy.♦ This small marchland gave its princes the sounding title of Marquesses in Italy. The endless shiftings of territory in this quarter could be dealt with only at extreme length, and they are matters of purely local concern. ♦Fluctuations of dominion.♦ In truth, they are not always fluctuations of territory in any strict sense at all, but rather fluctuations of rights between the feudal princes, the cities, and their bishops. ♦Their position in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.♦ In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the princes of Savoy were still hemmed in in their own corner of Italy by{280} princes of equal or greater power, at Montferrat, at Saluzzo, at Iverea, and at Biandrate. And it must be remembered that their position as princes at once Burgundian and Italian was not peculiar to them. ♦Other princes at once Italian and Burgundian.♦ The Dauphins of the Viennois and the Counts of Provence both held at different times territories on the Italian side of the Alps. The Italian dominions of the family remained for a long while quite secondary to its Burgundian possessions, and the latter may therefore be traced out first.

The main object of Savoyard policy in this region was necessarily the acquisition of the lands of Faucigny and the Genevois. ♦First advance north of the lake.♦ But the final incorporation of those lands did not take place till they were still more completely hemmed in by the Savoyard dominions through the extension of the Savoyard power to the north of the Lake. ♦Grant of Moudon. 1207.♦ This began early in the thirteenth century by a royal grant of Moudon to Count Thomas of Savoy. ♦Romont the northern capital.♦ Romont was next won, and became the centre of the Savoyard power north of the Lake. ♦Peter, Count of Savoy. 1263-1268.♦ Soon after, through the conquests of Peter of Savoy, who was known as the Little Charlemagne and who plays a part in English as well as in Burgundian history, these possessions grew into a large dominion, stretching along a great part of the shores of the Lake of Neufchâtel and reaching as far north as Murten or Morat. ♦1239-1268.♦ But it was a straggling, and in some parts fragmentary, dominion, the continuity of which was broken by the scattered possessions of the Bishops of Lausanne and other ecclesiastical and temporal lords. This extension of dominion brought Peter into close connexion with the lands and cities which were afterwards to form the Old League of High Germany. ♦His relations with Bern.♦ Bern especially, the power to which his conquests{281} were afterwards to be transferred, looked on him as a protector. ♦Barons of Vaud. Union of Vaud with the elder branch. 1349.♦ This new dominion north of the Lake was, after Peter’s reign, held for a short time by a separate branch of the Savoyard princes as Barons of Vaud; but in the middle of the fourteenth century, their barony came into the direct possession of the elder branch of the house. The lands of Faucigny and the Genevois were thus altogether surrounded by the Savoyard territory. ♦Faucigny held by the Dauphins of the Viennois.♦ Faucigny had passed to the Dauphins of the Viennois, who were the constant rivals of the Savoyard counts, down to the time of the practical transfer of their dauphiny to France. ♦Savoy acquires Faucigny and Gex. 1355.♦ Soon after that annexation, Savoy obtained Faucigny, with Gex and some other districts beyond the Rhone, in exchange for some small Savoyard possessions within the Dauphiny. ♦The Genevois. 1401.♦ The long struggle for the Genevois, the county of Geneva, was ended by its purchase in the beginning of the fifteenth century. This left the city of Geneva altogether surrounded by Savoyard territory, a position which before long altogether changed the relations between the Savoyard counts and the city. ♦Changed relations to city of Geneva.♦ Hitherto, in the endless struggles between the Genevese counts, bishops, and citizens, the Savoyard counts, the enemies of the immediate enemy, had often been looked on by the citizens as friends and protectors. Now that they had become immediate neighbours of the city, they began before long to be its most dangerous enemies. ♦Amadeus the Eighth, Count 1391;
Duke 1417;
Antipope 1440;
died 1451.♦ The acquisition of the Genevois took place in the reign of the famous Amadeus the Eighth, the first Duke of Savoy, who received that rank by grant of King Siegmund, and who was afterwards the Antipope Felix. ♦Greatest extent of the dominions of Savoy in Burgundy.♦ In his reign the dominions of Savoy, as a power ruling on both sides of the Alps, reached their greatest extent.{282} But the Savoyard power was still pre-eminently Burgundian, and Chambery was its capital. The continuous Burgundian dominion of the house now reached from the Alps to the Saône, surrounding the lake of Geneva and spreading on both sides of the lake of Neufchâtel. ♦Annexation of Nizza. 1388.♦ Besides this continuous Burgundian dominion, the House of Savoy had already become possessed of Nizza, by which their dominions reached to the sea. This last territory had however, though technically Burgundian, geographically more to do with the Italian possessions of the house. ♦Savoy brought into the neighbourhood of France.♦ But this great extension of territory brought Savoy on its western side into closer connexion with the most dangerous of neighbours. Her frontier for a certain distance joined the actual kingdom of France. The rest joined the Dauphiny, which was now practically French, and the county of Provence, which was ruled by French princes and which before the end of the century became an actual French possession. ♦New relations towards Bern and the Confederates.♦ To the North again the change in the relations between the House of Savoy and the city of Geneva led in course of time to equally changed relations towards Bern and her Confederates. ♦Loss of the Burgundian dominion of Savoy.♦ Through the working of these two causes, all that the House of Savoy now keeps of this great Burgundian territory is the single city and valley of Aosta. After the fifteenth century, the Burgundian history of that house consists of the steps spread over more than three hundred years by which this great dominion was lost.

The real importance of the house of Savoy in Italy dates from much the same time as the great extension of its power in Burgundy. ♦The largest dominions cut short in the twelfth century.♦ During the eleventh and{283} twelfth centuries, partly through the growth of the cities, partly through the enmity of the Emperor Henry the Sixth, the dominions of the Savoyard princes as marquesses of Susa had been cut short, so as hardly to reach beyond their immediate Alpine valleys. ♦Grants to Count Thomas. 1207.♦ In the beginning of the thirteenth century, when Count Thomas obtained his first royal grant north of the lake, he also obtained grants of Chieri and other places in the neighbourhood of Turin. These grants were merely nominal; but they were none the less the beginning of the Italian advance of the house. ♦First homage of Saluzzo. 1216.♦ In the same reign Saluzzo for the first time paid a precarious homage to Savoy. ♦Italian dominion of Charles of Anjou. 1259.♦ Later in the thirteenth century, Charles of Anjou, now Count of Provence and King of Sicily, made his way into Northern Italy also, and thus brought the house of Savoy into a dangerous neighbourhood with French princes on its Italian as well as on its Burgundian side. Through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Savoyard border went on extending itself. But the Italian possessions of the house, like its possessions north of the lake, were separated from the main body of Savoyard territory to form a fief for one of the younger branches. ♦Counts of Achaia in Piedmont. 1301-1418.♦ This branch bore by marriage the empty title of Counts of Achaia and Morea—memories of Frank dominion within the Eastern Empire—while, as if to keep matters straight, a branch of the house of Palaiologos reigned at Montferrat. ♦Advance in the fourteenth century.♦ During the fourteenth century, among many struggles with the marquesses of Montferrat and Saluzzo, the Angevin counts of Provence, and the lords of Milan, the Savoyard power in Italy generally increased. ♦Reunion of Piedmont. 1418.♦ Under Amadeus the Eighth, the lands held by the princes of Achaia{284} were united to the possessions of the head of the house. ♦Acquisition of Biella, &c. 1435.♦ Before the end of the reign of Amadeus, the dominions of Savoy stretched as far as the Sesia, taking in Biella, Santhia and Vercelli. Counting Nizza and Aosta as Italian, which they now practically were, the Italian dominions of the House reached from the Alps of Wallis to the sea. ♦Relations with Montferrat.♦ But they were nearly cut in two by the dominions of the Marquesses of Montferrat, from whom however the Dukes of Savoy now claimed homage. ♦Claims on Saluzzo; its doubtful homage.♦ Saluzzo, lying between the old inheritance of Susa and the new possession of Nizza, also passed under Savoyard supremacy. But it lay open to a very dangerous French claim on the ground of a former homage done to the Viennese Dauphins. Amadeus, the first Duke of Savoy, took the title of Count of Piedmont, and afterwards that of Prince. ♦Establishment of Savoy as a middle state.♦ His possessions were now fairly established as a middle state, Italian and Burgundian, in nearly equal proportions.

In the course of the next century and a half the Savoyard state altogether changed its character in many ways. The changes which affected all Europe, especially the great Italian wars, could not fail greatly to affect the border state of Italy and Gaul. And there is no part of our story which gives us more instructive lessons with regard to the proper limits of our subject. During this time the Savoyard power was brought under a number of influences, all of which deeply affected its history, but which did not all alike affect its geography. ♦French influence and occupation.♦ We have a period of French influence, a period of French occupation, and more than one actual fresh settlement of the frontier. Mere influence does not concern us at all. Occupation concerns us only when it takes the form of permanent conquest. An occupation{285} of nearly forty years comes very near to permanent conquest; still when, as in this case, it comes to an end without having effected any formal annexation, it is hardly to be looked on as actually working a change on the map. ♦Occupation by France.♦ France occupied Piedmont for nearly as long a time as Bern occupied the lands south of the lake. Yet we look on the one occupation as simply part of the military history, while in the other we see a real, though only temporary, geographical change. ♦Increased Italian character of Savoy.♦ But the result alike of influence, of occupation, and of actual change of boundaries, all tended the same way. They all tended to strengthen the Italian character of the House of Savoy, to cut short its Burgundian possessions, and, if not greatly to increase its Italian possessions, at least to put it in the way of greatly increasing them.

During the second half of the fifteenth century, the power of the House of Savoy greatly declined, partly through the growing influence of France, partly through the division, in the form of appanages, of the lands which had been so lately formed together into a compact state. ♦The Italian wars.♦ Then came the Italian wars, in which the Savoyard dominions became the highway for the kings of France in their invasions of Italy. The strictly territorial changes of this period chiefly concern the marquisate of Saluzzo on the Italian side and the northern frontier on the Burgundian side. In the end these two points of controversy were merged in a single settlement. ♦First loss of lands north of the lake. 1475.♦ The first loss of territory on the northern frontier, the first sign that the Savoyard power in Burgundy was gradually to fall back, was the loss of part of the lands north of the lake in the war between Charles of Burgundy and the Confederates. Granson{286} on the lake of Neufchâtel, Murten or Morat on its own lake, Aigle at the south-east end of the great lake, Échallens lying detached in the heart of Vaud, all passed away from Savoy and became for ever Confederate ground. Sixty years later, the affairs of Geneva led to the great intervention of Bern, Freiburg and Wallis, by which Savoy was for ever shorn of her possessions north of the lake. ♦Loss of the lands on both sides of the lake. 1536.♦ For a while indeed she was cut off from the lake altogether; Chablais passed away as well as Vaud. Geneva, with her detached scraps of territory, was now wholly surrounded by her own allies. ♦Reunion of the lands south of the lake. 1567.♦ Thirty years later, Bern restored all her conquests south of the lake, together with Gex to the west, leaving Geneva again surrounded by the dominions of Savoy. Wallis too gave up part of her share, keeping only the narrow strip on the left bank of the Rhone. ♦Charles the Good. 1504-1553.
Emanuel Filibert. 1553-1580.♦ The loss and the recovery mark the difference between the reigns of Duke Charles the Third, called the Good, and Duke Emmanuel Filibert with the Iron Head. The difference of the two reigns is equally marked with regard to France. ♦Beginning of French occupation 1536.
Its end. 1574.♦ Almost at the same moment as the conquests made by Bern, began that occupation, whole or partial, of Savoyard territory by the French arms which did not come wholly to an end for thirty-eight years. Savoy then appeared again as a power whose main strength lay in Italy, whose capital, instead of Burgundian Chambery, was Italian Turin. And all later changes of frontier and the changes of frontier in her more southern dominions also tended the same way to increase the Italian character of the Savoyard power, and to lessen its extent in the lands which we may distinguish as Transalpine, for the Burgundian name has now altogether passed away from them.

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The first formal exchange of Burgundian for Italian ground happened under Emmanuel Filibert, shortly after the emancipation of his dominions. ♦Acquisition of Tenda.♦ The small county of Tenda was acquired in exchange for the marquisate of Villars in Bresse. This extended the Italian frontier, without formally narrowing the Burgundian frontier; still it was a step in the direction of more important changes. ♦Disputes about the homage of Saluzzo.♦ The first of these was caused by the endless disputes which arose out of the disputed homage of Saluzzo. ♦Annexation of Saluzzo by France. 1548.♦ The Marquesses of Saluzzo preferred the French claimant of their homage to the Savoyard, a preference which led in the end to definite annexation by France. This was the first acquisition of Italian soil by France as such, as distinguished from the claims of French princes over Milan, Naples, and Asti. France thus threw a continuous piece of French territory into the heart of the states of Savoy. When the French occupation ceased, Saluzzo still remained to France. ♦Conquest of Saluzzo. 1588.♦ Presently it was conquered by Duke Charles Emmanuel. ♦Reign of Charles Emanuel. 1580-1630.♦ The reign of this prince marks the final change in the destiny of the house of Savoy. He himself had dreamed of wider conquests on the Gaulish side of the Alps than had ever presented himself to any prince of his house. He was to be Count of Provence, King of Burgundy, perhaps King of France. The real results of his reign told in exactly the opposite way. ♦Bresse, &c. exchanged for Saluzzo. 1601.♦ By the treaty which ended his war with France, Saluzzo was ceded to Savoy in exchange for Bresse, Bugey, Valromey, and Gex. ♦Loss of position beyond the Alps.♦ A powerful neighbour was thus shut out from a possession which cut the Savoyard states in twain; but the price at which this advantage was gained amounted to a final surrender of the old position of the Savoyard House beyond the Alps. The Rhone and not the Saône became the{288} boundary, while the surrender of Gex brought France to the shores of the Lake. Geneva, her city and her scattered scraps of territory, had now, besides Bern, two other neighbours in France and Savoy. ♦Attempts on Geneva. 1602-1609.♦ The two attempts of Charles Emmanuel to seize upon the city were fruitless. Savoy now became distinctly an Italian power, keeping indeed the lands between the Alps and the Lake, the proper Duchy of Savoy, but having her main possessions and her main interests in Italy. ♦Later history of Savoy.♦ We may here therefore finish the history of the Transalpine possessions of the Savoyard House. ♦Annexed to France. 1792-1796.♦ The Duchy of Savoy remained in the hands of its own Dukes till their continental dominion was swept away in the storm of the French Revolution. ♦Restored. 1814-1815.♦ It was restored after the first fall of Buonaparte, but with a narrowed frontier, which left its capital Chambery to France. This was set right by the treaties of the next year. ♦Savoy and Nizza annexed to France. 1860.♦ Lastly, as all the world knows, Savoy itself, including the guaranteed neutral lands on the Lake, passed, along with Nizza, to France. Savoy itself was so far favoured as to be allowed to keep its ancient name, and to form the departments of High and Low Savoy, instead of being condemned, as in the former temporary annexation, to bear the names of Leman and Mont Blanc. The Burgundian Counts who have grown into Italian Kings have thus lost the land under whose name their House grew famous. ♦Aosta spared.♦ Aosta alone remains as the last relic of the times when the Savoyard Dukes, the greatest lords of the Middle Kingdom, still kept their place as the truest representatives of the Middle Kingdom itself.

The purely Italian history of the house now begins, a history which has been already sketched in dealing{289} with the geography of Italy. ♦Its character.♦ Savoy now takes part in every European struggle, and, though its position led to constant foreign occupation, some addition of territory was commonly gained at every peace. ♦French occupation. 1629.♦ Thus, before the reign of Charles Emmanuel was over, Piedmont was again overrun by French troops. ♦Annexation of part of Montferrat. 1631.
French occupation of Pinerolo. 1630-1696.♦ Though the Savoyard possessions in Italy were presently increased by a part of the Duchy of Montferrat, this was a poor compensation for the French occupation of Pinerolo and other points in the heart of Piedmont, which lasted till nearly the end of the century. ♦Later Italian advance.♦ The gradual acquisition of territory at the expense of the Milanese duchy, the acquisition and exchange of the two island kingdoms, the last annexation by France, the acquisition of the Genoese seaboard, the growth of the Kingdom of Sardinia into the Kingdom of Italy, have been already told. Our present business has been with Savoy as a middle power, a character which practically passed from it with the loss of Vaud and Bresse, and all traces of which are now sunk in the higher but less interesting character of one of the great powers of Europe. From Savoy in its character of a middle power, as one of the representatives of ancient Burgundy, we naturally pass to another middle power which prolonged the existence of the Burgundian name, and on part of which, though not on a part lying within its Burgundian possessions, some trace of the ancient functions of the middle kingdom is still laid by the needs of modern European policy.

§ 8. The Duchy of Burgundy and the Low Countries.

Among all the powers which we have marked as having for their special characteristic that of being{290} middle states, the one which came most nearly to an actual revival of the middle states of earlier days was the Duchy of Burgundy under the Valois Dukes. A great power was formed whose princes held no part of their dominions in wholly independent sovereignty. ♦Their twofold vassalage.♦ In practical power they were the peers of their Imperial and royal neighbours; but their formal character throughout every rood of their possessions was that of vassals of one or other of those neighbours. ♦Its effects.♦ Such a twofold vassalage naturally suggested, even more strongly than vassalage to a single lord could have done, the thought of emancipation from all vassalage, and of the gathering together of endless separate fiefs into a single kingdom. ♦Schemes for a Burgundian kingdom.♦ The gradual acquisitions of earlier princes, especially those of Philip the Good, naturally led up to the design, avowed by his son Charles the Bold, of exchanging the title of Duke for that of King. The memories of the older Burgundian and Lotharingian kingdoms had no doubt a share in shaping the schemes of a prince who possessed so large a share of the provinces which had formed those kingdoms. The schemes of Charles, one can hardly doubt, reached to the formation of a realm like that of the first Lothar, a realm stretching from the Ocean to the Mediterranean. His actual possessions, at their greatest extent, formed a power to which Burgundy gave its name, but which was historically at least as much Lotharingian as Burgundian. ♦Historical importance of the Burgundian power.♦ And though this actual dominion was only momentary, no power ever arose which fills a wider and more œcumenical place in history than the line of the Valois Dukes. Their power connects the earliest settlement of the European states with the latest. ♦1870.♦ It spans a thousand years, and connects the division of Verdun with the{291} last treaty that guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium. The growth of their power was directly influenced by memories of the early Carolingian partitions; and, even in its fall, it has itself influenced the geography and politics of Europe ever since. As a Burgundian power, it was as ephemeral as all other Burgundian powers have ever been. As a Lotharingian power, it abides still in its effects. ♦History of the Low Countries.♦ The union of the greater part of the Low Countries under a single prince, and that a prince who was on the whole foreign to the Empire, strengthened that tendency to split off from the Empire which was already at work in some of those lands. Later events caused them to split off in two bodies instead of one. This last tendency became so strong that a modern attempt to unite them broke down, and their place in the modern polity of Europe is that of two distinct kingdoms. ♦Final result of the Burgundian dominion.♦ The existence of those two kingdoms is the final result of the growth of the Burgundian power in the fifteenth century. ♦Its effect on language.♦ And by leading to the separation of the northern Netherlands from the Empire, it has led to one result which could never have been reckoned on, the preservation of one branch of the Low-Dutch tongue as the acknowledged and literary speech of an independent nation. ♦The Netherlands and Belgium.♦ Its political results were the creation, in the shape of the northern Netherlands, of a power which once held a great place in the affairs of Europe and of the world, and the slower growth, in the shape of the southern Netherlands, of a state in which modern European policy still acknowledges the character of a middle kingdom. As the neutral confederation of Switzerland represents the middle kingdom of Burgundy, so the neutral kingdom of Belgium represents the middle kingdom of Lotharingia.

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The Duchy of Burgundy which gave its name to the Burgundian power of the fifteenth century was that one among the many lands bearing the Burgundian name which lay wholly outside the Burgundian kingdom of the Emperors. This Burgundy, the only one which has kept the name to our own time, the duchy of which Dijon is the capital, never was a fief of the Eastern Kingdom or of the Empire, after the final separation. It always acknowledged the supremacy of the kings of Laon and Paris. ♦Two lines of Dukes. 1032.♦ By these last the duchy was twice granted in fief to princes of their own house, once in the eleventh century and once in the fourteenth. ♦The Valois. 1363.♦ This last grant was the beginning of the Dukes of the House of Valois, with the growth of whose power we have now to deal. ♦Union of Flanders and Burgundy. 1369.
The county of Burgundy.♦ Philip the Hardy, the first Duke of this line, obtained, by his marriage with Margaret of Flanders, the counties of Flanders, Artois, Rhetel, and Nevers, all fiefs of the crown of France, together with the County Palatine of Burgundy as a fief of the Empire. The peculiar position of the Dukes of Burgundy of this line was at once established by this marriage. ♦Two masses of territory.♦ Duke Philip held of two lords, and his dominions lay in two distinct masses. The two Burgundies, duchy and county, and the county of Nevers, lay geographically together; Flanders and Artois lay together at a great distance; the small possession of Rhetel lay again detached between the two. Any princes who held such a territory as this could hardly fail to devote their main policy to the work of bringing about the geographical union of their scattered possessions. Nor was this all. The possession of the two Burgundies made their common sovereign a vassal at once of France and of the Empire. ♦Position of the Netherlands.♦ The possession of Flanders, Artois, and{293} Rhetel further brought him into connexion with those border lands of the Empire and of the French kingdom where the authority of either over-lord was weakest, and which had long been tending to form themselves into a separate political system distinct from both. The results of this complicated position, as worked out, whether by the prudence of Philip the Good or by the daring of Charles the Bold, form the history of the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois.

The lands which we are accustomed to group together under the name of the Netherlands or Low Countries lay chiefly within the bounds of the Empire; but the county of Flanders had always been a fief of France. ♦Fief of the Counts of Flanders within the Empire.♦ Part however of the dominions of its counts, the north-eastern corner of their dominions, the lands of Alost and Waas, were held of the Empire. ♦Zealand.♦ These lands, together with the neighbouring islands of Zealand, formed a ground of endless disputes between the Counts of Flanders and their northern neighbours the Counts of Holland. ♦County of Holland.♦ This last county gradually disentangles itself from the general mass of the Frisian lands which lie along the whole coast from the mouth of the Scheld to the mouth of the Weser. ♦Inroads of the sea. 1219, 1282.♦ And those great inroads of the sea in the thirteenth century which gave the Zuyder-Zee its present extent helped to give the country a natural boundary, and to part it off from the Frisian lands to the north-east. ♦Disputes with the free Frisians.♦ Towards the end of the thirteenth century Friesland west of the Zuyder-Zee had become part of the dominions of the Counts. ♦Independence of West Friesland. 1417-1447.
County of East Friesland. 1454.♦ The land immediately east of the gulf established its freedom, while East Friesland passed to a line of counts, under whom its fortunes parted off from those of the Netherlands. Part of its later history has been already given{294} in the character of a more purely German state. ♦The Bishops of Utrecht.♦ Both the counts and the free Frisians had also dangerous neighbours in the Bishops of Utrecht, the great ecclesiastical princes of this region, who held a large temporal sovereignty lying apart from their city on the eastern side of the gulf. These disputes went on, as also disputes with the Dukes of Geldern, without any final settlement, almost to the time when all these lands began to be united under the Burgundian power. But before this time, the Counts of Holland had become closely connected with lands much further to the south. ♦Duchy of Brabant.♦ Among a number of states in this region, the most powerful was the Duchy of Brabant, which represented the Duchy of the Lower Lotharingia, and whose princes held the mark of Antwerp and the cities of Brussels, Löwen or Louvain, and Mechlin. ♦County of Hennegau or Hainault united with Holland. 1299.♦ To the South of them lay the county of Hennegau or Hainault. At the end of the thirteenth century, this county was joined by marriage with that of Holland. Holland and Hainault were thus detached possessions of a common prince, with Brabant lying between them. ♦Mark of Namur.♦ South of Brabant lay the small mark or county of Namur, which, without being united to Flanders, was held by a branch of the princes of that house.

All these states, though their princes held of two separate over-lords, had much in common, and were well fitted to be worked together into a single political system. They had much in common in the physical character of the country, and in the unusual number of great and flourishing cities which these countries contained. ♦Importance of the cities.♦ None of these cities indeed actually reached the position of free cities of the Empire; but their wealth, and the degree of practical independence which{295} they possessed, forms a main feature in the history of the Low Countries. In point of language, the northern part of these states spoke various dialects of Low-Dutch, from Flemish to Frisian; in the southern lands of Hainault, Artois, and Namur, the language, though not French, was not Teutonic, but an independent Romance speech, the Walloon. ♦South-western group of states.♦ To the west of these states lay another group of small principalities connected with the former greater group in many ways, but not so closely as those which we have just gone through. ♦Bishopric of Lüttich.
Duchies of Luxemburg and Limburg.♦ The great ecclesiastical principality of Lüttich or Liège, lying in two detached parts, divided the lands of which we have been speaking from the counties, afterwards duchies, of Lüzelburg or Luxemburg and of Limburg. Of these the more distant Limburg passed in the fourteenth century to the Dukes of Brabant. ♦Luxemburg a Duchy. 1353.♦ Luxemburg is famous as having given a series of princes to the kingdom of Bohemia and to the Empire, and in their hands it rose to the rank of a duchy. ♦Geldern.♦ Lastly, to the north of Lüttich, forming a connecting link between this group of states and the more purely Frisian powers, lay the duchy of Geldern, of whose quarters the most northern portion stretched to the Zuyder Zee. These eastern states, though not so closely connected with one another as those to the west, were easily led into the same political system. ♦Middle position of all these states.♦ Without drawing any hard and fast line, we may say that all the states of this region formed, if not yet a middle state, yet a middle system, apart alike from France and the Empire, though in various ways connected with both. Mainly Imperial, mainly Teutonic, they were not wholly so. ♦French influence.♦ Besides the homage lawfully due to France from Flanders and Artois, French influence in various ways, in politics, in manners, and in{296} language, had made great inroads in the southern Netherlands. Brabant and Hainault had practically quite as much to do with France as with the Empire. ♦Walloon language.♦ And this French influence was of course helped by the fact that a considerable region in the south was, though not of French, yet not of Teutonic speech. Altogether, with much to unite them to the great powers on either side, with much to keep them apart from either of them, with much more to unite them to one another, the states of the Netherlands might almost seem to be designed by nature to be united under a single political head. ♦Union of the Netherlands under the Dukes of Burgundy.♦ Such a head was supplied by the Dukes of Burgundy and Counts of Flanders, by whom, in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, nearly the whole of the Netherlands was united into a single power which was to be presently broken into two by the results of religious divisions.

Leaving then for the present the growth and fall of the Burgundian power in the lands more to the south, we will go on to trace the steps by which the provinces of the Low Countries were united under the Valois Dukes and their Austrian descendants. ♦Reign of Philip the Good. 1419-1467.♦ The great increase of territory in this region was made during the long reign of Philip the Good. ♦Namur. 1421-1429.♦ His first acquisition was the county of Namur, a small and outlying district, but one which, as small and outlying, would still more strongly suggest the rounding off of the scattered territory. ♦1429-1433.♦ A series of marriages and disputes next enabled Philip to make a much more important extension of his dominions. ♦1405.♦ Brabant and Limburg had passed to a younger branch of the Burgundian House. ♦1418.♦ John, Duke of Brabant, the cousin of Philip by a{297} marriage with Jacqueline, Countess of Holland and Hainault, united those states for a moment. The disputes and confusions which followed on her marriages and divorces led to the annexation of her territories by the Duke of Burgundy, a process which was finally concluded by the formal cession of her dominions by Jacqueline. ♦Brabant and Limburg. 1430.
Holland and Hainault. 1433.♦ Meanwhile Philip had succeeded to Brabant and Limburg, and the union of Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Zealand, and Holland, together made a dominion which took in all the greatest Netherland states, and formed a compact mass of territory. On this presently followed a great acquisition of territory which was more strictly French than the fiefs which Philip already held of the French crown in Flanders and Artois. The Treaty of Arras, by which Philip, hitherto the ally of England against France, made peace with his western overlord, gave him, under the form of mortgage, the lands on the Somme. ♦The towns on the Somme. 1435-1483.♦ The acquisition of these lands, Ponthieu, Vermandois, Amiens, and Boulogne, advanced the Burgundian frontier to a dangerous neighbourhood to Paris on this side as well as on the other. It had the further effect of keeping the small continental possessions which England still kept at Calais and Guisnes apart from the French territory. During the reigns of Philip and Charles the Bold, the continental neighbour of England was not France but Burgundy. But this great southern dominion was not lasting. The towns on the Somme, redeemed and again recovered, passed on the fall of Charles the Bold once more into French hands. ♦Recovered by France.♦ So did Artois itself, and, though Artois was won back, Amiens and the rest were not. Yet, if the towns on the Somme had stayed under the rule of the successive masters of{298} the Low Countries, it might by this time have seemed as natural for Amiens to be Belgian as it now seems natural for Cambray and Valenciennes to be French. The Treaty of Madrid drew a definite boundary. ♦France resigns the homage of Flanders and Artois. 1526.♦ France gave up all claim to homage from Flanders and Artois, and Charles the Fifth, in his Burgundian, or rather in his Flemish, character, finally gave up all claim to the lands on the Somme.

The south-western frontier was thus fixed; but meanwhile the new state had advanced in other directions. ♦Luxemburg. 1443.♦ Philip’s last great acquisition was the duchy of Luxemburg. He now possessed the greater part of the Netherlands; but his dominions were still intersected by the bishoprics of Utrecht and Lüttich and the duchy of Geldern. ♦Geldern and Zutphen. 1472.♦ The duchy of Geldern and county of Zutphen were added by Charles the Bold. ♦Final annexation. 1543.♦ But they formed a precarious possession, lost and won more than once, down to their final annexation under Charles the Fifth. ♦Bishopric of Lüttich never annexed.♦ Of the two great ecclesiastical principalities by which the Burgundian possessions in the Netherlands were cut asunder, the bishopric of Lüttich, though its history is much mixed up with that of the Burgundian Dukes, and though it came largely under their influence, was never formally annexed. ♦Annexation of the bishopric of Utrecht, 1531; and Friesland, 1515.♦ But the temporal principality of the Bishop of Utrecht was secularized under Charles the Fifth. Friesland, the Friesland immediately east of the Zuyder Zee, was already reincorporated with the dominions of the prince who represented the ancient counts of Holland. ♦Dominions of Charles the Fifth.♦ The whole Netherlands were thus consolidated under the rule of Charles the Fifth. They were united with the far distant county of Burgundy, and with it they formed the Burgundian circle in the new division of the Empire. The bishopric of{299} Lüttich, which intersected the whole southern part of the country, remained in the circle of Westfalia. ♦The seventeen provinces.♦ Seventeen provinces, each keeping much of separate being, were united under a single prince, and, since the treaty of Madrid, they were free from any pretensions on the part of foreign powers. The Netherlands formed one of the most compact and important parts of the scattered dominions of the Emperor who was also lord of Burgundy and Castile. ♦Their separation from the Empire.♦ But the final union of these lands under the direct dominion of an Emperor at once led to their practical separation from the Empire. ♦The possessions of Philip of Spain. 1555.♦ They passed, with all the remaining possessions and claims of the Burgundian House, to Philip of Spain, and they were reckoned among the crowd of distant dependencies which had come under the rule of the crowns of Castile and Aragon. In Spanish hands they acted less as a middle state than as a power which helped to hem in France on both sides. Had the great revolt of the Netherlands ended in the final liberation of the whole seventeen provinces, the middle state would have been formed in its full strength. ♦The War of Independence. 1568-1609.♦ As it was, the work of the War of Independence was imperfect. The northern provinces won their freedom in the form of a federal commonwealth. The southern provinces remained dependencies of Spain, to become the chosen fighting ground of European armies, the chosen plaything of European diplomacy.

The end of the long war of independence waged by the northern provinces was the establishment of the famous federal commonwealth of the Seven United Provinces, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gelderland, Over-Yssel, Friesland, and Groningen. These answered nearly to the dominions of the Counts of Holland and{300} Bishops of Utrecht in earlier times. ♦Gelderland.♦ But besides these, part of the duchy of Geldern formed one of the United Provinces, while its southern part shared the fate of the southern provinces. But, besides the United Seven, the Confederation also kept parts of Brabant, Geldern, and Flanders as common possessions. ♦Formal independence of the Empire. 1648.♦ The power thus formed, one which so long held an European importance quite disproportioned to its geographical extent, had under Burgundian rule become practically independent of the Empire, but it was only by the Peace of Westfalia that its independence was formally acknowledged. The maritime strength of the Confederation made it more than an European power. It became a colonizing power in three parts of the world. ♦Colonies of the Netherlands.♦ In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Seven Provinces extended their dominion over many points on the continent of India and over the neighbouring island of Ceylon, over the great equatorial islands of Java, Sumatra, and the Moluccas, over many points in Guinea and southern Africa, and over part of Guiana in South America. ♦New Netherland passes to England. 1664.♦ But the great North American settlement of New Netherland passed to England, and New Amsterdam became New York. ♦No real name for the county.♦ Singularly enough, this great power never had any strict geographical name. Netherlands was too large, as it took in the whole of the Low Countries and not the emancipated provinces only. Holland was too small, as being the name of one province only, though the greatest. ♦Use of the name Dutch.♦ And, by one of the oddest cases of caprice of language, in common English usage the name of the whole Teutonic race settled down on this one small part of it, and the men of the Seven Provinces came to be exclusively spoken of as Dutch.

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Meanwhile the southern provinces, the greater part of Brabant and Flanders, with Artois, Hennegau or Hainault, Namur, Limburg, Luxemburg, and the southern part of Geldern,—taking in Antwerp at one end and Cambray at the other—remained under the sovereignty of the representatives of the Burgundian Dukes. That is, they remained an outlying dependency of the Spanish monarchy. But their southern frontier was open to constant aggressions on the part of France. ♦Dunkirk held by England. 1658-1662.♦ Dunkirk indeed was for a moment held by England, as Calais and Boulogne had been in earlier times. ♦Cession of parts of Artois and of Gravelines, 1659;♦ By the Peace of the Pyrenees France obtained Arras and the greater part of Artois, leaving Saint Omer to Spain. ♦Dunkirk, 1662;♦ France also began to work her way up along the coast of Flanders, taking Gravelines by virtue of the treaty, and presently adding Dunkirk by purchase from England. ♦Philippeville, Marienburg, Thionville.♦ The treaty also added to France several points along the frontiers of Hainault, Liège, and Luxemburg, including the detached fortresses of Philippeville and Marienburg, and Thionville famous in far earlier days. During the endless wars of Lewis’ reign, the boundary fluctuated with each treaty. ♦1668.
1677.♦ Acquisitions were made by France at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, some of which were surrendered, and others gained, by the Peace of Nimwegen. ♦Boundary fixed by the Peace of Utrecht. 1713.♦ At last the boundary was finally fixed by the Peace of Utrecht in the last days of Lewis. Parts of Flanders and Hainault were finally confirmed to France, which thus kept Lille, Cambray, and Valenciennes. ♦The Spanish Netherlands pass to Austria.♦ The provinces which had hitherto been Spanish now passed to the only surviving branch of the House of Austria, that which reigned in the archduchy and supplied the hereditary candidates for the Empire. ♦Annexed by France. 1792.♦ The first wars of the{302} French Revolution added the Austrian Netherlands to France, and with them the bishopric of Lüttich which still so oddly divided them. ♦Kingdom of Holland. 1806-1810.♦ A later stage of the days of confusion changed the Seven United Provinces, enlarged by the addition of East Friesland, into a Kingdom of Holland, one of the states which the new conqueror carved out for the benefit of his kinsfolk. ♦Holland annexed by France. 1810-1813.♦ Presently the new kingdom was incorporated with the new ‘Empire,’ along with the German lands to the north-east of it. The Corsican had at last carried out the schemes of the Valois kings, and the whole Burgundian heritage formed for a moment part of France.

At the general settlement of Europe, after the long wars with France, the restoration of the Low Countries as a middle state was a main object. ♦Kingdom of the Netherlands. 1814.♦ This was brought about by the union of the whole Netherlands into a single kingdom bearing that name. The southern boundary did not differ very greatly from that fixed by the Peace of Utrecht. ♦The boundaries.♦ As in the case of the Savoyard frontier, France kept a little more by the arrangements of 1814 than she finally kept by those of 1815. To the east, East-Friesland passed to Hannover, leaving the boundary of the new kingdom not very different from that of the two earlier powers which it represented, gaining only a small territory on the banks of the Maes. ♦Incorporation of Lüttich.♦ But the bishopric of Lüttich was incorporated with the lands which it had once parted asunder, and so ceased altogether to be German ground. ♦Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.♦ The new king, as we have already seen, entered the German confederation in his character of Grand Duke of Luxemburg, the duchy being somewhat shortened to the east in favour of Prussia. Lastly, after fifteen years of union, the new kingdom again{303} split asunder. ♦Kingdom of Belgium. 1830-1831.♦ It was now divided into the kingdom of the Netherlands, answering to the old United Provinces, and the kingdom of Belgium, answering to the old Spanish or Austrian Netherlands. ♦Luxemburg divided.♦ But part of Limburg remained to the northern kingdom, and its sovereign also kept part of Luxemburg, as a district state, forming part of the German confederation. The western part of the duchy formed part of the kingdom of Belgium. ♦1867.♦ Later events, as has been already recorded, have severed the last tie between Germany and the Netherlands; they have wiped out the last survival of the days when the Counts of Holland and of Luxemburg were alike princes of the German kingdom.

The above may pass as a sketch of the fluctuations along the borderland in their European aspect. It is needless to go through every small shifting of frontier, or to recount in detail the history of small border principalities like Saint Pol and Bouillon. The main historical aspect of these countries is their tendency, in all ages, to form somewhat of a middle system between two greater powers on either side of them. The guaranteed neutrality of Belgium and the guaranteed neutrality of Switzerland are alike survivals or revivals—it is hard to say which they should be called—of the instinctive feeling which, in the ninth century, called the Lotharingian kingdom into being. The modern form of this thousand-year old idea was made possible through the growth of the power of the Burgundian Dukes of the House of Valois.

The real historical work of those dukes was thus done in those parts of their dominions from which they did not take their name, but which took their{304} name from them. The history of their other dominions may be told in a few words; indeed a great part of it has been told already. ♦Schemes of Charles the Bold.♦ The schemes of Charles the Bold for uniting his scattered dominions by the conquest of the duchy of Lorraine, for extending the power thus formed to the sea-board of the royal Burgundy, for forming in short a middle kingdom stretching from the Ocean to the Mediterranean, acting as a barrier alike between France and Germany and between France and Italy, remained mere schemes. They are important only as showing how deeply the idea or the memory of a middle state was still fixed in men’s minds. The conquests of Charles in Lorraine, his purchases in Elsass, were momentary possessions which hardly touch geography. But the fall of Charles, by causing the break-up of the southern dominion of his house, helped to give greater importance to its northern dominion. While the Netherlands grew together, the Burgundies split asunder. After the fall of Charles the fate of the two Burgundies was much the same as the fate of Flanders and Artois. Both were for a while seized by France; but the county, like Artois, was afterwards recovered for a season. The duchy of Burgundy was lost for ever; the county, along with the outlying county of Charolois, remained to those who by female succession represented the Burgundian Dukes, that is to Charles the Fifth and his Spanish son. The annexation of the Burgundian county, and with it of the city of Besançon, by Lewis the Fourteenth has been recorded in an earlier section.

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§ 9. The Dominions of Austria.

We now come to one among these German states which have parted off from the kingdom of Germany whose course has been widely different from the rest, and whose modern European importance stands on a widely different level. As the Lotharingian and Frisian lands parted off on the north-west of the kingdom, as a large part of the Swabian lands parted off to the south-west of the kingdom, so the Eastern Mark, the mark of Austria, parted off no less, but with widely different consequences. ♦Origin of the name Oesterreich, Austria.♦ The name of Austria, Oesterreich—Ostrich as our forefathers wrote it—is, naturally enough, a common name for the eastern part of any kingdom. ♦Other lands so called.♦ The Frankish kingdom of the Merwings had its Austria; the Italian kingdom of the Lombards had its Austria also. We are half inclined to wonder that the name was never given in our own island either to Essex or to East-Anglia. But, while the other Austrias have passed away, the Oesterreich, the Austria, the Eastern mark, of the German kingdom, its defence against the Magyar invader, has lived on to our own times. It has not only lived on, but it has become one of the chief European powers. And it has become so by a process to which it would be hard to find a parallel. ♦Special position of the Austrian power.♦ The Austrian duchy supplied Germany with so many Kings, and Rome with so many Emperors, that something of Imperial character came to cleave to the duchy itself. Its Dukes, in resigning, first, the crown of Germany, and then all connexion with Germany, have carried with them into their new position the titles and bearings of the German Cæsars. ♦Union with Hungary.♦ The power which began as a mark against{306} the Magyar came to have a common sovereign with the Magyar kingdom; and the Austrian duchy and Magyar kingdom, each drawing with it a crowd of smaller states of endless nationalities, have figured together in the face of modern Europe as the Austrian Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. ♦The so-called ‘Empire’ of Austria.♦ It is not easy, in drawing a map, to find a place for the ‘Empire’ of Austria. The Archduchy is there, and its sovereign has not dropped his archiducal title. A crowd of kingdoms, duchies, counties, and lordships, all acknowledging the sovereignty of the same prince, are there also. But it is not easy to find the geographical place of an ‘Empire’ of Austria, as distinct from the Archduchy. Nor is it easy to understand on what principle an ‘Empire’ of Austria can be understood as taking in all the states which happen to own the Hungarian King and Austrian Archduke as their sovereign. The matter is made more difficult when we remember that the title of ‘Hereditary Emperor of Austria’ was first taken while its bearer was still King of Germany and Roman Emperor-elect. ♦Union of separate states under the Austrian House.♦ But, putting questions like these aside, the gradual union of a great number of states, German and non-German, under the common rule of the archiducal house of Austria, by whatever name we call the power so formed, is a great fact both of history and of geography. A number of states, originally independent of one another, differing in origin and language and everything that makes states differ from one another, some of them members of the former Empire, some not, have, as a matter of fact, come together to form a power which fills a large space in modern history and on the modern map. ♦Lack of national unity.♦ But it is a power which is altogether lacking in national unity. It is a power which is not coextensive{307} with any nation, but which takes in parts of many nations. It cannot even be said that there is a dominant nation surrounded by subject nations. ♦German, Magyar, and other races.♦ The Magyar nation in its unity, and a fragment of the German nation, stand side by side on equal terms, while Italians, Roumans, and Slaves of almost every branch of the Slavonic race, are grouped around those two. ♦No strictly federal tie.♦ There is no federal tie; it is a stretch of language to apply the federal name to the present relation between the two chief powers of Hungary and Austria. Nor can any strictly federal tie be said to unite Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Galicia. And yet these other members of the general body are not mere subject provinces, like the dominions of Old Rome. The same prince is sovereign of a crowd of separate states, two of which stand out prominently as centres among the rest. There is neither national unity, nor federation, nor mere subjection of one land or nation to another. All this has come by the gradual union by various means of many crowns upon the same brow. ♦Anomalous nature of the Austrian power.♦ The result is an anomalous power which has nothing else exactly like it, past or present. But the very anomaly makes the growth of such a power a more curious study.

The beginnings of the Austrian state are to be found in the small Mark on the Danube, lying between Bohemia, Moravia, and the Duchy of Kärnthen or Carinthia. It appears in its first form as an appendage to Bavaria.[17] This mark Frederick Barbarossa raised into a duchy, under its first duke Henry the Second, and it was enlarged to the westward at the expense of Bavaria by the addition of the lands above the Enns.{308} ♦Duchy of Austria, 1156.♦ Thus was formed the original Duchy of Austria, the duchy of the Dukes of the House of Babenberg. It had not long risen to ducal rank before it began to extend itself at the expense of states which had hitherto been of greater moment than itself. Itself primarily a mark against the Magyar, Austria had to the south of it the lands where the German Kingdom marched at once upon the Magyar, the Slave, and the Kingdom of Italy. ♦Duchy of Carinthia.♦ Here lay the great Duchy of Carinthia, a land where the population was mainly Slave, though on this frontier the Slavonic population had been brought into much earlier and more thorough subjection to the German Kings than the Slaves on the north-eastern frontier. ♦Duchy of Styria, 1180;♦ At the time of the foundation of the duchy of Austria, the Carinthian duchy had begun to split in pieces, and its northern part, hitherto the Upper Carinthian Mark, grew into the Duchy of Steyermark or Styria. ♦united to Austria, 1192.♦ Twelve years later, Leopold the Fifth of Austria inherited the duchy of Styria, a duchy greater than his own, by the will of its duke Ottokar. Carinthia itself went on as a separate duchy; but it now took in only a narrow territory in the south-western part of the old duchy, and that broken up by outlying possessions of the archbishops of Salzburg and other ecclesiastical lords. ♦The county of Görz.♦ To the south grew up a considerable power in the hands of the counts of Görz or Gorizia on the Italian border. ♦Ecclesiastical position of its Counts.♦ The possessions of these counts stretched, though not continuously, from Tyrol to Istria, and their influence was further enlarged by their position as advocates of the bishoprics of Trent and Brixen and of the more famous patriarchate of Aquileia. These are the lands, the marchlands of Germany towards its eastern and south-eastern neighbours,{309} which came by gradual annexations to form the German possessions of the Austrian power. But the further growth of that power did not begin till the duchy itself had passed away to the hands of a wholly new line of princes.

The first change was one which brought about for a moment from one side an union which was afterwards to be brought about in a more lasting shape from the other side. This was the annexation of Austria by the kingdom of Bohemia. ♦Bohemia a kingdom, 1158.♦ That duchy had been raised to the rank of a kingdom, though of course without ceasing to be a fief of the Empire, a few years after the mark of Austria had become a duchy. The death of the last duke of Austria of the Babenberg line led to a disputed succession and a series of wars, in which the princes of Bavaria, Bohemia, and Hungary all had their share. ♦Ottokar of Bohemia annexes Austria and Styria, 1252-1262. Carinthia, 1269.♦ In the end, between marriage, conquest, and royal grant, Ottokar king of Bohemia obtained the duchies of Austria and Styria, and a few years later he further added Carinthia by the bequest of its Duke. Thus a new power was formed, by which several German states came into the power of a Slavonic king. ♦Great power of Ottokar.♦ The power of that king for a moment reached the Baltic as well as the Hadriatic; for Ottokar carried his arms into Prussia, and became the founder of Königsberg. But this great power was but momentary. Bohemia and Austria were again separated, and Austria, with its indefinite mission of extension over so many lands, including Bohemia itself, passed to a house sprung from a distant part of Germany.

We have now come to the European beginnings of the second House of Austria, the house whose name{310} seems to have become inseparably connected with the name of Austria, though the spot from which that house drew its name has long ceased to be an Austrian possession. This is the house of the Counts of Habsburg. They took this name from their castle on the lower course of the Aar, in the north-west corner of the Aargau, in that southern Swabian land where the Old League of High Germany was presently to arise, and so greatly to extend itself at the cost of the power of Habsburg. ♦Union of Habsburg, Kyburg, and Lenzburg.♦ By an union of the lands of Habsburg with those of the Counts of Kyburg and Lenzburg, a considerable, though straggling, dominion was formed. It stretched in and out among the mountains and lakes, taking in Luzern, and forming a dangerous neighbour to the free city of Zürich. ♦Their possession in Elsass.♦ Besides these lands, the same house also held Upper Elsass with the title of Landgrave, a dominion separated from the other Swabian lands of the House by the territory of the free city of Basel. ♦Rudolf king, 1273.
His victories over Ottokar, 1276-1278.
Albert of Habsburg Duke of Austria and Styria, 1282.♦ The lord of this great Swabian dominion, the famous Rudolf, being chosen to the German crown, and having broken the power of Ottokar, bestowed the duchies of Austria and Styria on his son Albert, afterwards King. ♦Meinhard Duke of Carinthia and Count of Tyrol, 1286.♦ Carinthia at first formed part of the same grant; but it was presently granted to Meinhard Count of Görz and Tyrol. Görz passed to another branch of the house of its own Counts. Three powers were thus formed in these regions, the duchies of Austria and Styria, the duchy of Carinthia with the county of Tyrol, and the county of Görz.

Thus under Albert the possessions of the House of Habsburg were large, but widely scattered. The two newly acquired eastern duchies not only gave its princes their highest titles, but they formed a compact territory,{311} well suited for extension northward and southward. ♦Falling off of the Swabian lands.♦ But among the outlying Swabian territories, though some parts remained to the Austrian House down to the end of the German Kingdom, the tendency was to diminish and gradually to part off altogether from Germany. In the lands south of the Rhine this happened through union with the Confederates; in the Alsatian lands it happened at a later stage through French annexation.

It is to be hoped that it is no longer needful to explain that the hereditary lands of the House of Habsburg or Austria had no inherent connexion with the German Kingdom and Roman Empire of which they were fiefs, beyond the fact that they were among its fiefs. They were further connected with it only by the accident that, from Rudolf onwards, many princes of that house were chosen Kings, and that, from the middle of the fifteenth century, onwards, all the Kings were chosen from that house and from the house into which it merged by female succession. It is to be hoped that there is no longer any need to explain that every Emperor was not Duke of Austria, and that every Duke of Austria was not Emperor. But it may be needful to explain that every Duke of Austria was not master of the whole dominions of the House of Austria. ♦Divisions of the Austrian dominions.♦ The divisions, the reunions, the joint reigns, which are common to the House of Austria with other German princely houses, become at once more important and more puzzling in the case of a house which gradually came to stand above all the others in European rank. The caution is specially needful in the case of the Swabian lands, as the history of the Confederates is liable to be greatly misunderstood, if every Duke of Austria who{312} appears there is taken for the sole sovereign of the Austrian dominions. It is needless to go here through all these shiftings between princes of the same house. Through all changes the unity of the house and its possessions was maintained, even while they were parted out or held in common by different members of the house. But it is important to bear in mind that some of the Dukes of Austria who figure in the history of Switzerland were rather Landgraves of Elsass or Counts of Tyrol than Dukes of Austria in any practical sense.

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may be defined as a time during which the Austrian House on the whole steadily advanced in the Eastern part of its dominions and steadily fell back in the Western. But in the course of the fourteenth century an acquisition was made which, without making them absolutely continuous, brought them into something more like geographical connexion with one another. ♦Acquisition of Carinthia and Tyrol, 1335.♦ This was the acquisition of the Duchy of Carinthia and County of Tyrol, the latter of which lands lay conveniently between the Eastern and Western dominions of the house. ♦Extent of the Austrian territory.♦ These now stretched continuously from the Bohemian frontier to Istria, and they threw out, in the form of Tyrol and the Swabian lands, a scattered, but nearly continuous, territory stretching to the borders of Lorraine and the county of Burgundy. The Austrian possessions now touched the eastern gulf of the Hadriatic and came into the neighbourhood of the Dalmatian Archipelago. ♦Commendation of Trieste, 1382.♦ Somewhat later they reached the main Hadriatic itself, when the city of Trieste, hitherto disputed between the commonwealth of Venice and the patriarchs of Aquileia, commended itself to the Austrian Duke Leopold as its lord. This is the{313} same Leopold who four years later fell at Sempach. By this time the Swabian possessions had been increased north of the Rhine, while south of the Rhine the Austrian dominion was steadily giving way. ♦Loss of Thurgau, 1460.♦ The Confederates and their several cantons advanced in every way, by purchase and conquest, till, after the loss of Thurgau, the House of Austria kept nothing south of the Rhine except the towns known as the Waldstädte.

By this time the division of the estates of the house had taken a more lasting shape. One branch reigned in Austria, another in Carinthia and Styria, a third in Tyrol and the other western lands. At this time begins the unbroken series of Austrian elections to the German and Imperial crowns. ♦Albert the Second, king, 1437-1440.♦ The first was Albert the Second, Duke of Austria. ♦Frederick the Third, king, 1440; Emperor, 1452.
Archduke of Austria, 1453.♦ Then Frederick the Third, the first Emperor of the House, united the Austrian and Carinthian duchies, and raised Austria to the unique rank of an Archduchy. ♦Siegmund, Count of Tyrol, &c., 1429-1496.♦ Meanwhile, Siegmund Count of Tyrol held the western lands, and appears as Duke of Austria in Confederate and Burgundian history. He there figures as the prince who lost Thurgau to the Confederates and who mortgaged his Alsatian lands to Charles the Bold. ♦Maximilian, King of the Romans, 1486; Archduke, 1493; Count of Tyrol, 1496; Emperor-elect, 1508.♦ In Maximilian the whole possessions of the house of Austria were united. ♦Beginning of union with lands beyond the Empire.♦ But by this time the affairs of the purely German lands which had hitherto formed the possessions of the Austrian house had begun to be mixed up with the succession to lands and kingdoms beyond the Empire, and with lands which, though technically within the Empire, had a distinct being of their own. In the course of the fifteenth century the house of Austria, hitherto simply one of the chief German princely houses, put on two special characters.{314} ♦Succession of Austrian Kings and Emperors.♦ It became, as we have already seen, the house which exclusively supplied kings and Emperors to Germany and the Empire. And it became, by virtue of its hereditary possessions rather than of its Imperial position, one of the chief European powers. For a while the greatest of European powers, it has remained a great European power down to our own time.

The special feature in the history of the house of Austria from the fifteenth century onwards is its connexion—a connexion more or less broken, but still constantly recurring till in the end it becomes fully permanent—with the kingdom of Bohemia within the Empire and with the kingdom of Hungary beyond its bounds. These possessions have given the Austrian power its special character, that of a power formed by the union under one prince of several wholly distinct nations or parts of nations which have no tie beyond that union. The Austrian princes, originally purely German, equally in their Swabian and in their Austrian possessions, had already, by the extension of their power to the south, obtained some Slavonic and some Italian-speaking subjects. Still, as a power, they were purely German. ♦Various acquisitions of Austria.♦ But in the period which begins in the fifteenth and goes on into the nineteenth century, we shall see them gradually gathering together, sometimes gaining, sometimes losing—gaining and losing by every process, warlike and peaceful, by which territory can be gained or lost—a crowd of kingdoms, duchies, and counties, scattered over all parts of Europe from Flanders to Transsilvania. But it is the acquisition of the two crowns of Bohemia and Hungary which, above all others, gave the House of Austria its special position as a middle power, a power belonging at once to the{315} system of Western and to the system of Eastern Europe. Among the endless shiftings of the states which have been massed together under the rule of the House of Habsburg, that house has more than once been at the same moment the neighbour of the Gaul and the neighbour of the Turk; and it has sometimes found Gaul and Turk arrayed together against it. Add to all this that, though the connexion between the house of Austria and the Empire was a purely personal one, renewed in each generation by a special election, still the fact that so many kings of Hungary and archdukes of Austria were chosen Emperors one after another, caused the house itself, after the Empire was abolished, to look in the eyes of many like a continuation of the power which had come to an end. The peculiar position of the Austrian house could hardly have been obtained by a mere union of Hungary, Austria, and the other states under princes none of whom were raised to Imperial rank. Nor could it have been obtained by a series of mere dukes of Austria, even though they had been chosen Emperors from generation to generation. It was through the accidental union under one sovereign of a crowd of states which had no natural connexion with each other, and through the further accident that the Empire itself seemed to become a possession of the House, that the House of Habsburg, and its representative the House of Lorraine, have won their unique position among European powers.

The first hints, so to speak, of a coming union between the Hungarian and Bohemian kingdoms and the Austrian duchy began, as we have seen, in the days of Ottokar. A Bohemian king had then held the Austrian duchy, while a Hungarian king had for a moment occupied{316} part of Styria. ♦Relations with Hungary and Bohemia.♦ But the later form which the union was to take was not that of the Bohemian or the Hungarian reigning over Austria, but that of the Austrian reigning over Hungary and Bohemia. The duchy was not to be added to either of the kingdoms; but both kingdoms were in course of time to be added to the duchy. The growth of both Hungary and Bohemia as kingdoms will be spoken of elsewhere. We have now to deal only with their relations to the Austrian House. ♦Rudolf, son of Albert, King of Bohemia, 1306.♦ For a moment, early in the fourteenth century, an Austrian prince, son of the first Austrian King of Germany, was actually acknowledged as King of Bohemia. But this connexion was only momentary. The first beginnings of anything like a more permanent connexion begin a hundred and thirty years later. ♦Albert the Second, King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1438.♦ The second Austrian King of Germany wore both the Hungarian and the Bohemian crowns by virtue of his marriage with the daughter of the Emperor and King Siegmund. The steps towards the union of the various crowns are now beginning. ♦Siegmund, King of Hungary, 1386; King of the Romans, 1414; King of Bohemia, 1419; Emperor, 1433.♦ Siegmund was the third King of Bohemia who had worn the crown of Germany, the second who had worn the crown of the Empire. Under his son-in-law, Hungary, Bohemia, and Austria were for a moment united with the German crown; in the next reign, as we have seen, begins the lasting connexion between Austria and the Empire. But the Hungarian and Bohemian kingdoms parted again. ♦Wladislaus Postumus, Duke of Austria, 1440-1457; King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1453-1457.♦ One Austrian King, the son of Albert, reigned at least nominally over both kingdoms, as well as over the special Austrian duchy. But the final union did not come for another eighty years. The Turk was now threatening and conquering. At Mohacz Lewis, king of the two kingdoms, fell before the invaders. ♦Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, 1519; King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1527; King of the Romans, 1531; Emperor-elect, 1556.
Permanent union of Bohemia.♦ His Bohemian kingdom passed to Ferdinand of Austria, and from that{317} day to this, unless we except the momentary choice of the Winter King, the Palatine Frederick, the Bohemian crown has always stayed in the House of Austria. And for many generations it has been worn by the actual sovereign of the Austrian archduchy.

The acquisition of the crown of Hungary was of greater importance. It at once put the Austrian House into a wholly new position; it gave it its new later character of a middle state between Eastern and Western Europe. The duchy had begun as a mark against the Turanian and heathen invaders of earlier times. Those Turanian and heathen invaders had long before settled down into a Christian kingdom; they had latterly become the foremost champions of Christendom against the Turanian and Mahometan invaders who had seized the throne of the Eastern Cæsars. ♦Mission against the Turk.♦ With the crown of Hungary, the main duty of the Hungarian crown, the defence of Christendom against the Ottoman, passed to the Archdukes and Emperors of the Austrian House. ♦The Austrian kings in Hungary.♦ But for a long time Hungary was a most imperfect and precarious possession of its Austrian Kings. ♦1526-1699.♦ For more than a century and a half after the election of Ferdinand, his rule and that of his successors was disputed and partial. They had from the very beginning to strive against rival kings, while the greater part of the kingdom and of the lands attached to the crown was either held by the Turk himself or by princes who acknowledged the Turk as their superior lord. These strictly Hungarian affairs, as well as the changes on the frontier towards the Turk, will be spoken of elsewhere. ♦Peace of Passarowitz, 1718.♦ It was not till the eighteenth century that the Austrian Kings were in full possession of the whole Hungarian kingdom and all its dependencies.

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Meanwhile the Austrian power had been making advances in other quarters. At the end of the fifteenth century the Austrian possessions at the north-east of the Hadriatic were greatly enlarged by the addition of the county of Görz, which carried with it the fallen city of Aquileia. ♦New position towards Italy.♦ A more direct path towards Italian dominion was thus opened. The wars of the League of Cambray made no permanent addition to Austrian dominion in this quarter; but the master of Trieste and Aquileia, whose territory cut off Venice from her Istrian possessions, might already almost pass for an Italian sovereign. ♦Dominions of Charles the Fifth.♦ Under Charles the Fifth the House of Austria became, as we have seen, possessed of a vast Italian dominion. But after him it passed away alike from the Empire and the German branch of the house, to become part of the heritage of the Austrian Kings of Spain. ♦Austrian rule in Italy.♦ It was not, as we have already seen, till the beginning of the eighteenth century that either an Emperor or a reigning archduke again obtained any territory within the acknowledged bounds of Italy. The fluctuations of Austrian rule in Italy, from the acquisition of the Duchy of Milan down to our own day, have been already told in the Italian section. Lombardy and Venetia are now again Italian; but Austria still keeps the north-east corner of the great gulf. She still keeps Görz and Aquileia, Trieste and all Istria, to say nothing of the dangerous way which her frontier still stretches on Italian ground in the land of Trent and Roveredo.

These last named possessions still abide as traces of the Austrian advance in these regions, and its fluctuations there have been among the most important facts of modern history. Another series of Austrian acquisitions in the West of Europe have altogether passed{319} away. The great Burgundian inheritance passed to the House of Austria. ♦Maximilian and Philip.♦ But it was only for a short time, in the persons of Maximilian and Philip, that it was in any way united to the actual Austrian Archduchy. ♦The Austrian Netherlands.♦ After Charles the Fifth the Burgundian possessions passed, like those in Italy, to the Spanish branch of the House, and, just as in Italy, it was not till the eighteenth century that actual Emperors or archdukes again reigned over a part of the Netherlands. ♦Loss of Elsass.♦ Before this time the Alsatian dominion of Austria had passed away to France, and the remnant of her Swabian possessions passed away, as we have seen, in the days of general confusion. The changes of her territory in Germany during that period have been already spoken of. Her acquisitions in Eastern Europe will come more fully elsewhere; but a word must be given to them here. ♦Loss of Silesia, 1740.
Final partition of Poland, 1772.♦ Looking at the House of Austria simply as a power, without reference to the German or non-German character of its dominions, the loss of Silesia may be looked on as counterbalanced by the territory gained from Poland at the first and third partitions. ♦Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ The first partition gave the Austrian House a territory of which the greater part was originally Russian rather than Polish, and in which the old Russian names of Halicz and Vladimir were strangely softened into a Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. ♦Third partition, 1795.
New-Galicia.♦ The third partition added Cracow and a considerable amount of strictly Polish territory. These last passed away, first to the Duchy of Warsaw, and then to the restored Kingdom of Poland. ♦Annexation of Cracow, 1846.♦ But Galicia has been kept, and it has been increased in our day by the seizure of the republic of Cracow. These lands lie to the north of the Hungarian kingdom. Parted from them by the whole extent of that kingdom, and adjoining that kingdom at{320} its south-west corner lie the coast lands of Austria on the Hadriatic. ♦Dalmatia, 1797.♦ By the Peace of Campoformio, Austria took Dalmatia strictly so called, and the other Venetian possessions as far south as Budua. ♦Recovered, 1814.
Ragusa, 1814.♦ These lands, lost in the wars with France, were won again at the Peace, with the addition of Ragusa and its territory.

This account of the gains and losses of a power which has gained and lost in so many quarters is necessary somewhat piecemeal. It may be well then to end this section with a picture of the Austrian power as it stood at several points of the history of the last century and a half, leaving the fluctuating frontier towards the Turk to be dealt with in our survey of the more strictly Eastern lands.

We will begin at a date when we come across a sovereign whose position is often strangely misunderstood, the Empress-Queen Maria Theresa—Queen in her own right of Hungary and Bohemia, Empress by the election of her husband to the Imperial Crown. ♦Her hereditary dominions.♦ The Pragmatic Sanction of her father Charles the Sixth made her heiress of all his hereditary dominions. That is, it made her heiress, within the Empire, of the kingdom of Bohemia with its dependencies of Moravia and Silesia—of the Archduchy of Austria with the duchies, counties, and lordships of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Tyrol, Görz, and Trieste—of Constanz and a few other outlying Swabian points—as also of Milan, Mantua, and the Austrian Netherlands, lands which it needs some stretch, whether of memory or of legal fiction, to look on as being then in any sense lands of the Empire. Altogether beyond the Empire, it gave her the Kingdom of Hungary with its dependent lands of Croatia,{321} Slavonia, and Transsilvania or Siebenbürgen. These hereditary dominions, lessened by the loss of Silesia, increased by the addition of Galicia, she handed on to their later Kings and Archdukes. Her marriage transferred those hereditary dominions, it indirectly transferring the Empire itself, to a new family, the House of Lorraine. The husband of Maria Theresa, Francis, who had exchanged his duchy of Lorraine for that of Tuscany, was in truth the first Lotharingian Emperor. After him came three Emperors of his house, under the third of whom the succession of Augustus and Charles came to an end.

We may take another view of the Austrian territory at the moment when the French power in Germany was at its height. The Roman Empire and the German kingdom had now come to an end; but their last sovereign still, with whatever meaning, called himself Emperor of his archduchy, though without dropping his proper title of Archduke. ♦New use of the name Austria.♦ From this time the word Austria was used, commonly but inaccurately, to take in all the possessions of the House of Austria. And, as all the possessions of the House of Austria were now geographically continuous, it became more natural to speak of them by a single name than it had been when the dominions of that house in Italy and the Netherlands lay apart from the great mass of Austrian territory. And at this moment, when the Empire had come to an end and when the German Confederation had not yet been formed, there was no distinction between German and non-German lands. The ‘Empire’ of Francis the Second or First, as it stood at the time of Buonaparte’s greatest power, had, as compared with the hereditary dominions of Maria Theresa, gone through these changes. Tyrol{322} and the Swabian lands had passed to other German princes; Salzburg had been won and lost again. In Italy the Venetian possessions had been won and lost, and they, together with the older Italian possessions of Austria, had passed to the French kingdom of Italy. France in her own name had encroached on the Austrian dominions at two ends. She had absorbed the Austrian Netherlands at one corner, the newly won territory of Dalmatia at another. This last territory, with parts of Carinthia and Carniola, and with the Hungarian kingdom of Croatia, received, on passing to France, the name of the Illyrian Provinces. Illyrian they were in the widest and most purely geographical sense of that name. But this use of the Illyrian name was confusing and misleading, as tending to put out of sight that the true representatives of the old Illyrian race dwell to the south, not only of Carinthia and Carniola, but of Dalmatia itself. The loss of the Austrian possessions in this quarter brought back the new Austrian ‘Empire’ to the condition of the original Austrian duchy. It became a wholly inland dominion, without an inch of sea-coast anywhere.

We have already seen how Austria won back her lost Italian and Dalmatian territory, and so much of her lost German territory as was geographically continuous. ♦Ragusa and Cattaro.♦ Released from her inland prison, provided again with a great sea-board on both sides of the Hadriatic, she now refused to Ragusa the restoration of her freedom, and filched from Montenegro her hard-won haven of Cattaro. The recovered lands formed, in the new nomenclature of the Austrian possessions, the kingdoms of Lombardy and Venice, of Illyria, and of Dalmatia. The last was an ancient title of the{323} Hungarian crown. The Kingdom of Illyria was a continuation of the affected nomenclature which had been bestowed on the lands which formed it under their French occupation. We have already traced the driving out of the Austrian power from Lombardy and Venetia, its momentary joint possession in Sleswick, Holstein, and Lauenburg. ♦Cracow, 1846.♦ The only other actual change of frontier has been the annexation of the inland commonwealth of Cracow, to match the annexation of the sea-faring commonwealth of Ragusa. ♦Separation of Hungary, 1848.♦ The movement of 1848 separated Hungary for a moment from the Austrian power. ♦Recovery of Hungary, 1849.♦ Won back, partly by Russian help, partly by the arms of her own Slavonic subjects, the Magyar kingdom remained crushed till Austria was shut out alike from Germany and from Italy. ♦Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 1867.♦ Then arose the present system, the so called dualism, the theory of which is that the ‘Austro-Hungarian Monarchy’ consists of two states under a common sovereign. By an odd turning about of meanings, Austria, once really the Oesterreich, the Eastern land, of Germany, has become in truth the Western land, the Neustria, of the new arrangement. With the Hungarian kingdom are grouped the principality of Transsilvania and the kingdoms of Slavonia and Croatia. The Austrian state is made up of Austria itself—the archduchy with the addition of Salzburg—the duchy of Styria, the county of Tyrol, the kingdoms of Bohemia, Galicia and Lodomeria, Illyria, and Dalmatia with Ragusa and Cattaro. These last lands are not continuous. Thus two states are formed. ♦Modern Austria.♦ In one the dominant German duchy has Slavonic lands on each side of it, and an Italian fringe on its coast. ♦Modern Hungary.♦ In the other state, the ruling Magyar holds also among the subjects of his crown the Slave,{324} the Rouman, and the outlying Saxon of Siebenbürgen. ♦Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Spizza, 1878.♦ Add to this that the latest arrangements of all have added to the Austrian dominions, under the diplomatic phrase of ‘administration,’ the Slavonic lands of Herzegovina and Bosnia, while the kingdom of Dalmatia is increased by the harbour of Spizza. A power like this, which rests on no national basis, but which has been simply patched together during a space of six hundred years by this and that grant, this and that marriage, this and that treaty, is surely an anachronism on the face of modern Europe. Germany and Italy are nations as well as powers. Austria, changed from the Austria of Germany into the Neustria of Hungary, is simply a name without a meaning.

We have thus gone through the geographical changes of the three Imperial kingdoms, and of the states and powers which were formed by parts of those kingdoms falling away, and in some cases uniting themselves with lands beyond the Empire. They have all to some extent kept a common history down to our own time. We have now to turn to another land which parted off from the Empire in like manner, but which parted off so early as to become a wholly separate and rival land, with an altogether independent history of its own.

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