http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023300878
GESTA CHRISTI:
OR
A HISTORY OF HUMANE PROGRESS UNDER CHRISTIANITY.
BY
C. LORING BRACE
PREFACE.
The writer of this work has been engaged for some thirty
years in a practical application of the principles of Christianity, with the
view of curing certain great social evils in the City of New York. He has been
able to test its power on a large scale, in diminishing poverty, crime and
misery. He has also had a humble share in, and been a witness of, the great
effort of the United States to remove its tremendous evil—Slavery ; and he
knows how far Christian ideas were at the foundation of this great reform, and
how much they stimulated and supported the long struggle.
For many
years studies in the laws and history of the Roman Period and the Middle Ages
have shown him the traces (often almost obliterated) of the silent, profound
working of the great reforming Power of the world. He has also been engaged in
examining and presenting in public writings, the influence of the Christian
Faith in the more modern period, on International Law, Arbitration, and the
relations of nations.
It has
seemed to him that to write a condensed history of the progress of the humane
ideas, practices, and rules of action taught or encouraged by this Religion,
would be a useful thing—especially as making them a more distinct possession
and code of the civilized world, and as forming an indirect argument (not less
powerful for being indirect) for the truth of this Faith. Yet in considering
this subject, one must not confound Christianity and the Church. Whoever believes
he can construct a kind of “Divine epic” from the history of the organized
Church, either voluntarily deceives himself, or follows the will o’ wisp light
of a false sentiment.
There are
certain practices, principles and ideals—now the richest inheritance of the
race—that have been either implanted or stimulated or supported by
Christianity.
They are
such as these : regard for the personality of the weakest and poorest; respect
for woman ; the absolute duty of each member of the fortunate classes to raise
up the unfortunate; humanity to the child, the prisoner, the stranger, the
needy, and even the brute; unceasing opposition to all forms of cruelty,
oppression and slavery; the duty of personal purity and the sacredness of marriage;
the necessity of temperance; the obligation of a more equitable division of the
profits of labour, and of greater co-operation between employers and employed ;
the right of every human being to have the utmost opportunity of developing
his faculties, and of all persons to enjoy equal political and social
privileges; the principle that the injury of one nation is the injury of all,
and the expediency and duty of unrestricted trade and intercourse between all
countries; and, finally and principally, a profound opposition to war, a
determination to limit its evils when existing, and to prevent its arising by
means of international Arbitration.
Ideals,
principles and practices such as these are among the best achievements of
Christianity.
It has
seemed to the writer not impossible, that great numbers of the vast
English-speaking race in Great Britain^ America, and Australia, and from the
cultured peoples of the Continent, might more and more unite in a kind of moral
Confederation throughout the world to support and advance and spread these
great and humane ideas. To have given even the faintest impulse towards this
consummation and this progress, would be alone not to have lived in vain.
C. LORING
BRACE.
64, Seymour Street, W.
London,
September
6th, 1882.
CONTENTS.
Chapter I.—Introduction
I.
ROMAN
PERIOD.
Chapter II—Paternal Power
Instances
of Paternal Tyranny in Roman History.—Reforms in Constantine’s and Justinian’s
Legislation under Christian Influences.—Succession of Property.—Changes through
Stoical Influences.—Reforms in Justinian’s Code.—The Beginnings of Modern
Reforms.
Chapter III.—The Position of Woman under Roman Law
Tutelage
of Woman.—Free Marriage.—Reforms under Justinian’s Code.—Divorce.—Instances in
the Roman Period.—Reforms brought about by Christianity in Constantine’s and
Justinian’s Legislation.—Concubinage.—Improvements under Christianity.
Chapter IV.—Personal Purity and Marriage
Christ’s
Influence on Masculine Purity, on Marriage.—His Teachings as to
Separation.—-Celibacy.—Effect of Christianity on Position of Woman.—Unnatural
Vices.—Plato’s Principles as to their Abolition.—Opposition of Early Christians
to them.—Victory of Christian Principles.
Chapter
V.—Slavery
The
Silence of Christ.—Explanation.—The Slave in the Church.—Stoics and
Slavery.—Number of Roman Slaves.—Reforms under the Stoics.—Christian Influence
on Legislation. — Emancipation as a Religious Duty. Humanity Towards
Slaves.—Justinian’s Reform.—Humanity under Christian Influence.—Reforms under
other Emperors.—Gradual Emancipation.
Chapter VI.—Slaves in Cruel and Licentious Sports 61 Bloody
Sports.—Reforms by Constantine.—Human Sacrifices.—Licentious Shows.—Feelings
of the Early Christians.—Reform in Roman Laws.—Licentiousness Restrained.—RansomingCaptives.—Rehabilitation
of Labour.—Serfdom.—Reforms under Religious Teaching.
Chapter VII.—Exposure
of Children. Allusions to it in
Latin Literature.—Mode of Exposure.— Stoical Protests.—The Early Fathers’
Denunciations.— Constantine’s and Valentinian’s Legislation.—The Councils.—Justinian’s
Code.—Treatment of Foundlings by the Church.—Orphan Asylums.—Charities for
Children.
Chapter VIII.—Humanity in
Roman Law Humane Legislation of Constantine.—Sunday Laws.— Prison
Reform.—Disfiguring the Face Forbidden.— Kindly Feeling in Roman Law.—
Opposition to War by Early Christians.—Instances.—Burial Inscriptions.—Preparation
for Arbitration.
Chapter IX.—Distribution of Property Christ’s Teachings
Tending to more Equitable Distribution.—Charity. — Roman Pauperism. — Roman
Charities.— Bequests.—Collegia. — Christian Charity.—Refuges for
Orphans.—Strangers’ Rests.—Hospitals.—The Code.— Christ’s Teachings Opposed to
Pauperism.—Excessive Almsgiving and Monasticism not an Effect of Christianity.—The
Problem not Solved by the Christian Religion, but its Truths lead towards Equal
Distribution.
Chapter X.—Resum6 of Reforms in Roman Period . Christianity
Influenced Patria Potestas and Succession of Property ; Diminished Unnatural
Vices ; Taught Purity ; Put an end to Exposure of Children ; Founded Charities and
Taught more Equitable Distribution of Wealth; Checked Licentious and Cruel
Sports, and caused Humane Legislation; Mitigated and Undermined Slavery and
Serfdom; Elevated Woman and Marriage.—Need of Fresh Races for the True Work of
Religion.—Afforded by the Keltic and German Tribes.
II.
MIDDLE
AGES.
Chapter XI.—Position of
Woman under the German Tribes
German
Chastity.—Tutelage of Woman.—Purchase of Wife.—Instances. — Scandinavian
Customs. — Subjection of Woman.—Wife under Power of Husband in German
Law.—Position of Woman having Stamp of Barbarism ; descended into English
Common Law.—Free Marriage.— Christianity strove to Elevate Woman and Strengthen
Marriage ; Changed Purchase-money into Dower; Lessened Tutelage.—The
Dower.—Change of Tutelage.— Religion opposed German Prejudice that Bodily
Strength was a Condition of Civil Capacity.—Inferiority of Woman continued in
Common Law.—Sir Thomas Smith’s Statements.—Gains of Christianity.
Chapter XII.—Personal Feuds
and Private Wars . Feuds Universal in Barbaric Society.—Money-Fines in
Place of Revenge stimulated by Religion.—Feuds checked in Holy Days and Places.—Instance
from old Russian Code—Law and Penalty substituted for Private Revenge, under
Influence of Christian Faith.
Chapter XIII.—Private War
and Peace of God.—Arbitration
Forms of
Declaring Private War.—Instances.—The Desolation of Germany and France.—The
Peace of God.— Crusade of Peace in France.—Efforts of Religious Men.—Pledge of
Peace.—Peace Associations.—Councils.— Efforts of Popes.—A Messenger of
Peace.—Truce of God.—Peace in Germany.—Leagues of the Rhine.—Application of Arbitration.—Forms.—Stimulated by
Religious Sentiment.—Instances.—End of Diffidation.—Abolition of Private War in
Spain, Italy, and Iceland.
Chapter
XIV.—Wager of Battle and Ordeal .
.160 Judicial Duel Among the Northern Tribes.—English Practice.—Forms
Used.—Opposition of the Spirit of Christianity.—The Councils and Popes.—First
Forbidden in Iceland after its Conversion.—Its Abolition, Slow.— Existed in
England till the Nineteenth Century.—Ordeal first Opposed by Church, then
Accepted and Used.—Spirit of Religion Opposed it.
Chapter XV—Torture
Implanted
by Roman Law.—Early Church Opposed, then Used it,—Description of Tortures.—The
. Strappado.— Torture in England.—Opposition of Church.—Subsequent
Acceptance.—Spirit of Religion Struggled against it.—Not Abolished in Parts of
Europe till Nineteenth Century.—Recent Abolition in Japan.
Chapter XVI.—The Strangers’
Rights . . . .190 Teutonic Hostility to Strangers.—Instances.—Droit
d’au- baine in France.—Abolished in 1790.—Other Inequalities later.—The
Teutonic Legislation shows the Influence of Christianity.
Chapter XVII.—The Wreckers’
Right, and Piracy . 197 All Teutonic Codes urge Humanity to the
Shipwrecked on Religious Grounds.—Instances.—Judgments of the
Sea.—Councils.—Humane Legislation.—Treaties.—Piracy.—A Form of Private War.
Chapter XVIII.—Charlemagne’s
Capitularies . . 202 Teaching of Morals on Religious Grounds.—Commands
against Feud, Oppression, and Perjury.—In favour of Marriage, and against
Divorce and Unnatural Vice.— Injunctions against Oppression of the Stranger and
the Poor.—Laws soon swept away, but showing Influence of this Faith.
Chapter XIX.—Anglo-Saxon Law
Its Spirit
Manifestly Affected by Christianity.—Contrast to other Codes.—Laws of Old
English Kings.—King Wibtraed.—Alfred’s Dooms.—Moral Teachings.—Sunday
Laws.—Humanity to Shipwrecked.—False Swearing.— King Ethelred’s Dooms. —
Religious Laws. — KingCanute. — Saxon Piety. — Feuds. — Ancient Laws.— Alfred’s
Injunctions.—All show the Beginning of History of Religious Forces in England.
Chapter XX.—Education in the Middle Ages
Christianity
Favourable to Intellectual Advance.—Early Efforts of the Church Encouraging
Learning.—Early Christian Schools.—Councils.—Letter of Charlemagne.—Instruction
of Theodolfus.—Copying Manuscripts.— Thomas k Kempis.—The Pope’s Efforts. —
Christian Truth Opens Mind of Man to Truth.
Chapter XXL—Serfdom and Slavery in the Middle Ages
The
Process by which Serfdom Arose.—Christian Influence on Slavery.—Slavery in the
Middle Ages.—Acts of Councils Favourable to Slaves.—Sunday Laws.—Religious
Element in Emancipation.—Forms of Manumission.— Muratori and
Marculfus.—Peasants’ Revolts Under the Liberal Teaching of Christianity.—Their
Objects.— Effects on Villainage.—Emancipation Gradual.—Freedom of Serfs by
Bologna.—Slave Trade.—Emancipation in Germany.—Abolition in Scandinavia a
Direct Effect of Religion.—English Slavery Causes Selling Children.—Number of
Slaves in England—Religious Influence in Emancipation.—Christian
Brotherhood.—Gradual Emancipation.— Forms.—Slave Trade Forbidden.—Slaves after
the Norman Conquest.—Religious Forces Causing Emancipation.—Sir Thomas Smith’s
Testimony.—Serfdom Disappeared in Reign of Charles 1.
Chapter XXII.—Chivalry
Ideal of
Chivalry.—Original.—Forms and Oaths Religious.— Virtues Taught Corresponded to
Christian.—Froissart.— Humanity. — Courtesy.—Pity. — Purity. — Brotherhood.—
Devotion to Woman.—The Ideal an Effect of Christianity on the German
Temperament.—Its Defects and Vices.—Uncertain how far Chivalry was a
Reality.—The Chivalric Character Endures under Religious Influences.
Chapter
XXI11.—Resum£ of Reforms in the Middle Ages
(1) Value
Attached by Christianity to Marriage, and New Position of Woman.—(2) Restraint
of Feud and BloodRevenge.—(3) Checking Private War by Peace of God.— (4) Urging
Arbitration.—(5) Opposing Judicial Duel and Ordeal. — (6) Restraining Torture.
— (7) Commanding Humanity to the Stranger and Shipwrecked.—(8) Power of
Religion over Codes of Law.—(9) Its Influence on Education.—(10) Gradual Effect
on Slavery arid Serfdom.—(11) Founding Charities.—(12) Influence on the
Chivalric Ideals.—Reasons of its Want of Full Success.
III.
MODERN
PERIOD.
Chapter XXIV —The Position
of Woman Under Modern Influences
Position
of Woman since Christianity a Composite One.— Christian Idea Entire Equality of
Man and Woman.— English Common Law Inherits Teutonic Prejudice of Measuring
Civil Rights by Physical Power.—The Wife’s Legal Existence
Suspended.—Coverture.—Woman Under Common Law.—Equity Courts.—American
Legislation. —Reforms in New York.—Position of the Mother.—Protection to the
Young Girl.—Partnership in Property.— Female Suffrage.—Woman in the United
States.—In Europe.—Future of Woman under Agnosticism.
Chapter XXV.—Divorce
Christian
View.—Roman Law.—Churchly Doctrines.— Views of Reformers.—European
Tendencies.—United States Law.—Views of Judges.—Laws in New York.— License of
Divorce.—Change of Opinion in the United States.—Effects of Free Divorce in New
York.—Future Effects in America.— General Happiness of Marriage in the United
States.—Concubinage.—Humane Progress.
Chapter XXVI.—Degradation
of Woman . . . Apparent Failure of Christianity.—Reforms Begun.—Masculine
Purity.—Efforts for Children.—Effects of Religion. —Hope for the Future.
Chapter XXVII.—International Law.—Arbitration . The
Expense and Curse of War.—International Law among the Greeks ; the Romans ; in
the Middle Ages—Cruelties and Barbarism in War.—Treatment of Prisoners ; of
Ambassadors.— Grotius’ Views.—Claims of Christian Nations on Heathen
Territory.—Privateering.—Franklin.— Congress of Paris, 1856.—Inviolability of
Private Property on the Sea.—The New Codes of Prof. Bluntschli, and the
American Instructions.—The Wounded.—Arbitration.—History
of Modern Cases.—Mediation.—Disputes as to Territories.—The Geneva
Settlement.—Universal Peace. — International Courts.—Objections. — International
Law Among Non-Christians.
Chapter XXVIII.—Slave Trade
and Slavery in Modern Times.......
Both
Catholic and Protestant Churches Guilty.—Sketch of Slave Trade.—Treaty of
Utrecht.—Slave Trade in British Colonies; in Great Britain.—The Struggle.— Its
Final Abolition. — Slavery and its Abolition in the British Colonies ; in the
United States.—Early Anti-Slavery Position of the Churches.—Later
Weakness.—Origin of the Opposition Religious.—Other Elements Mingling.
Chapter XXIX.—Modern
Serfdom .... 387 Royal Ordinances against it in Prussia ; in France and
Italy.—Christian Ideas Working against it.—Abolition in Germany, Hungary,
Prussia, and other Countries.
Chapter XXX.—The Duel
Benthatn’s
Arguments for it.—Reply.—The Struggle of the Church.—Its Prevalence in France
and England.—Public Protests and Laws against it.— Experience of the United
States.—Its Cessation due to Christianised Public Opinion.
Chapter XXXI.—Prison Reform
and Charities . 399 Constantine’s Legislation.—Howard.—The “ Irish
" Prison System.—American Reforms.—'Charities.—Societies to Protect
Animals.—Humanization of Punishments.—Cruel Penalties of the Past.— Modern
Improvements.—Imprisonment for'Debt.—The Sunday.— Its Value to the World.
Chapter XXXII.—Co-operation
and Pauperism Cooperation.—Communism.—Insurance against
Poverty.—Religion lessening Pauperism.—A Socialist’s Views on Christianity.
Chapter XXXIII.—Free
Trade—Humanity —Liberal Government
Progress
of Ideas in Favour of Freer Intercourse.— Humanity between Nations.—Treatment
of Inferior Races.—Missions.—Popular Education.—Churches.—Hope Implanted.—Liberal
Government.— Diminution of Pestilences, due only in Part to Religion.
Chapter XXXIV.—Intemperance
Its Evils
in America and Europe.—Temperance Movement.—Total Abstinence.—Influence of
Religion.
Chapter XXXV.—Persecution 441
No
Foundation for in Christianity.—Guilt of the Church.— Treatment of the Jews ;
of Heretics and Schismatics.— Liberal Views of John Robinson ; of
Grotius.—Experience of the United States.
Chapter XXXVI. — Humane
Progress Among Non-Christian Peoples
Continuity
of Revelation,—Spiritual Ideas of Hindoos.—Caste, and Position of
Woman.—Buddhism.—Inspiration of Buddha.—His Defects.—The Failure of this
Faith.— Confucianism.—Its Merits and Wants.—The Arabs.— Mohammedanism.—Its
Wants and Failure.—Position of Mohammedan Woman.—Buddhism, Brahmanism, Confucianism
not adapted for Humane Progress.—Climate not alone the Cause.
Chapter XXXVII.—Objections.—Resum£
of Reforms Begun.—The Future of Mankind Under Christianity
Objections
that the Christian Ideal is Unmanly; Unfit for the Struggle for Existence; Not
Favourable to Accumulation of Wealth, Opposed to Progress of Science and to
Liberal Institutions.—Objection to Slow Working of Christianity.—Obstructions.—The
Drift of Evolution in Favour of Sympathy, Unselfishness, and Morality.—
Christianity Works with it, and adds a New Force.—Its Final Tendency a Perfect
Society.—Inference from the Facts, and Argument for the Truth of the Christian
Religion.
Appendix.—Ancient Hungarian Legislation
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.—PLAN
OF THE WORK.
At a
certain era in the world’s history—not very remote as compared with the
duration of the human race on the earth—there appeared a new moral force in
human history. It originated in an obscure tribe of a remote province of the
Roman Empire, and was embodied in the personality, life and teachings of a
remarkable Being—called JESUS the Christ.
The moral
truths in these teachings were not absolutely new—as indeed the principles of
morality rest on the principles of human nature, and must be known, more or
less clearly, to all men—but they were presented with such unequalled
simplicity and earnestness, and illustrated by a life and character of such
unexampled elevation and purity, and accompanied with spiritual truths so
profound and universal, as well as with supernatural claims, that the whole
formed a new power in the world for the moral renovation of man—in other words,
a Religion ; but one claiming to
be absolute and universal, for all ages and races and circumstances.
The object
of this work is to examine the effects of this faith or moral power on the
advancement of the race in humanity and morality; both what it has
accomplished, and what it tends to accomplish. In other words, we shall seek to
show what Christianity has already done for the world, and, considering its
nature and objects, and its effects in a comparatively brief period, we shall
infer what will be its influence in a far longer period. The investigation is
difficult for various and often opposing reasons. Many influences, material,
moral and intellectual, have combined to effect the advance of the race in morality
and humanity. The problem is to estimate the peculiar influence of this new
moral power. Then the civilized world has become so imbued with the ideas and
feelings implanted or strengthened by this faith, that those who have
apparently opposed and attacked it, have not unfrequently been those most
animated by its principles. While, on the other hand—so dangerous is the effect
of power and ambition even in the religious field—the organization which might
be supposed to most expressly represent its truths has often been the most
opposed to it in life and action. In the course of history, the sceptics, in
matters of mercy and justice, have often been nearer Christ than professed
believers; and the Christian Church has favoured practices and encouraged
institutions, which have been a travesty on the teachings of Christ, and an
offence to every feeling of humanity. The student who searches for the pure and
benevolent impress of the great Teacher on the wild annals of human history,
must divest himself of much reverence for the so-called “ Church of
Christ" on earth. The Church that is seen and known of men, represents
often anything but His image. At times it is filled with bigotry and hate; it
implants persecution in Roman law ; it encourages frightful religious wars ; it
opposes liberty of thought, and the investigation of science; its skirts are stained
with the blood of the Inquisition, and wet with the tears of millions of
victims of the slave-trade ; it encourages war, and is often only an emblem of
power and lust and ambition. Still in every age were simple men and women, not
known perhaps to history, or even to those of their own time, whose souls and
lives were filled with the principles of this new faith. These gradually
affected social habits and practices; sometimes changing them before they
influenced legislation, sometimes, by a favouring public accident, being able
first to reform laws and public officials; thus, day by day, by imperceptible
steps purifying Church, State and people; gradually causing certain great
abuses and wrongs to melt away before the fervency of their spirit, and the
innocence and beneficence of their lives. These have been inspired by Christ. Though for the most part unknown
perhaps to ecclesiastical records, or the historians of empires, they have
illustrated and transmitted the divine truths which they received from Him. In
lives of purity and human brotherhood, in honesty, faithfulness, compassion and
true humanity, they have sought to follow their great Leader. They have formed
the true and invisible “Church of Christ.” While living for Him, they have
lived for the human race. Their spirit and their sacrifices have made it
possible that ages hence some of the great evils of mankind should come to an
end, that some tears should be forever wiped away, and a fair prospect be held
forth of a distant future of humanity, justice and righteousness. The victories
they have won in their silent struggles, and bequeathed to us, were really the
“ Gesta Christi"—the achievements of Christ.
The first
portion of these investigations relates to. the Roman period of history, when the
great empire, having its centre on the banks of the Tiber, controlled the
civilized world. The object here is to trace the influence of the new faith on
the Roman law, and on the morals, habits and practices of the Roman people and
provinces. Some of these researches must of necessity be somewhat technical, as
bearing on slight changes in laws relating to personal rights and the
succession of property. They are important, however, as affectihg the greater
changes and reforms which have since arisen, and are now in process of
development. Others relate to the lessening and doing away of abuses, so
deep-seated and long-continued, that it would seem that nothing but. the power
of a Religion could remove them. But in this field must ever be kept in view, the
power of a system of philosophy and morals, the most elevated and noble which
the Greek and Roman antiquity has known—the Stoical. The task of the
investigator is to trace out the peculiar working of the new Faith, as
distinguished from this older school of morals.
The second
division relates to a more interesting and picturesque period of history—the
Middle Ages. Here the difficulty lies in condensing and clearing the great mass
of material offered, and here, too, we stand on fields fought over in incessant
discussion. The exact position of woman in the German tribes, the precise
character of her Mund, or “Tutelage,” what marriage was with the ancient
Teutons, and what feminine rights were in those wild tribes, are subjects still
endlessly argued upon. Here, too, in all the reforms of the Middle Ages,
whether as to woman, or humane legislation, or checking war, or abolishing
cruel practices, or doing away with serfdom and slavery, the problem is to
trace the precise influence of Christianity, as distinguished from many other
moral and material forces. The only course in this investigation seems to be to
examine, so far as possible, original sources of evidence—codes of law, forms
of will, the canons of the Church, decrees of councils, the words of ancient historians
or of contemporary scholars, and the most trustworthy and candid historians,
and attempt to draw the most probable conclusion, without fear or prejudice.
It cannot
be hoped that absolute certainty will be attained. The question of the precise
work accomplished in the past by the great Teacher of Nazareth, will long be a
question of historical probabilities. We can only offer to the discussion,
patient investigation, and the love of Truth for its own sake.
In the
Modern Period, we enter on firmer ground. We are nearer the actors, or we have
taken part in the events. In such matters as the abolition of the slave-trade
and of slavery, in the repression of the duel, in the improvements of
International Law, and the various modern charities and reforms, as well as the
change in woman’s position, we know what part the Faith taught by Jesus has
had, and what power it exerted, and what it continues to exert. Here the weak
point which strikes the candid investigator, is not that Christianity has done
what it has in modern times, but that it has not done a great deal more. This,
too, must be considered in the argument.
And,
though not demanded by the investigation, a brief comparison of humane progress
under this Religion, and under the highest beliefs among modern non-Christian
peoples, will strengthen the conclusion.
We offer
the investigation to all lovers of truth. No friend of humanity will hesitate
to rejoice, should it indirectly serve to strengthen the ancient Hope and
Faith of the leading races of mankind.
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE LAWS, PRACTICES AND INSTITUTIONS OF
THE ROMAN PERIOD.
CHAPTER
II. PATERNAL POWER.
What may
be called the ‘‘ natural progress ” of mankind under the influence of the
Divine Spirit and the instincts implanted in the human mind, is towards respect
for the individual and towards self-control, in the preference of the higher
and distant good to the lower and present. Our plan in the beginning of this
investigation is to make plain the stimulus given to this progress in the Roman
Empire, by the new system of ideas and the new forces thrown into the world
through the Christian Religion. The improvements thus caused or hastened have
been at the basis of all modern civilization and progress, and, though often
apparently slight, are such as will influence all future history.
One
remarkable archaic institution survived and was transmitted through successive
ages of Roman history, before and after Christianity—the primitive paternal
authority. It was thought by Roman legal writers, even as late as the time of
the Pandects,1 to be peculiar to the Romans. But modern
investigation shows that it belongs to nearly all races in a certain stage of
development, and that the Germanic tribes who overwhelmed the Romans, had, many
of them, carried it to an extreme degree. In the father’s house, the Roman
father had absolute authority over the son ; he could chastise, put in chains,
exile or sell him as a slave; he had power of life and death over him. The
son’s property became the father’s ; he could assign a wife to him, divorce him
when married, or transfer him to another family by “ adoption.” The son only
escaped and was “emancipated”1 by a sale of his person, three times
repeated, by his father. This custom, originally designed to control parental
greed, became used as a fictitious legal form for freeing the son. The son in a
legal view seemed worse off than the slave: the latter, if formally
emancipated, was finally free; the former reverted to his previous condition
under his father, and in early ages required this triple form for entire
freedom.
The power
of life and death was not a legal fiction. Three different Romans of position,
Cassius, Scaurus, and Fulvius are mentioned by Valerius Maximus3 as
having been executed by their father; and another son was banished by his
father, Titus Avius. Seneca3 relates that the populace pursued with
daggers, on the public square, a knight (Erixon) who had scourged his son to
death ; an act legal, but held to be too severe. The right of a father to kill
a daughter taken in adultery was universally conceded. Cicero appears to admit
a right of life and death even in case of an adopted son.4 He
alludes to it as a recognised right in regard to a real son.
Manlius is
said to have put his own son, though victorious, to death for disobeying1
orders.; and Cassius Brutus killed a son who had negotiated with the enemy.
A Latin
historian says, “One has seen fathers authorised by law, drag their children
from the tribune while they were addressing the people, in order to punish them
at their discretion. They were dragged across the public square and no one
dared defend them. The consul, the tribune of the people, in fine the people
itself, so proud of its power and force, who came to applaud them were obliged
to keep silent, and respect in the fathers, an authority which the law gave
them.”
At the
close of the republic, the Lex Pompeia de Parric., or the law in regard to the
murder of relatives by relatives, is silent with respect to the murder of a
child by the father.
It is
related that the Emperor Augustus was present as witness and judge in a
family-council which a father had' assembled to decide on the fate of a son,
guilty of purposes of parricide. The Emperor Trajan is said to have
“emancipated” a son, because the father violated the duties of paternal
affection. And an ancient authority approves the sentence which had deprived
the father of the succession of a deceased son, thus emancipated. Even the
Stoical jurist, Paul, seems to recognise the right of a father to sell his son
in case of great need and poverty.
The
paternal power existed also over the person of the daughter.
This
deeply-rooted institution was grafted throughout the world wherever Roman
citizenship extended, though often modified and humanized. The spirit of
humanity, especially under Stoical influences, worked upon it through all
periods of the Republic and the Empire. No student of history can ever cease to
be grateful for the profound moral power which went forth from the Stoical
school in antiquity.
But under
the Christian emperors, whatever may have been their individual characters, a
great and marked change shows itself in this custom and the legislation upon
it. A new idea had entered all classes as to the rights and personality of each
individual, whether child or parent. When the son was recognised as the child
of God and “joint heir with Christ,” equal with his father in the kingdom of
the Lord, for whom Christ had died, paternal tyranny could not long continue.
The change did not at once show itself in legislation; society is usually
reformed before laws: but that elevation of each person began which, after many
ages, must result in absolute emancipation and equality of rights.
The
learned commentator on the Theodosian Code saw at once the source of the
reforms which appear in that legislation. “ It is Christian discipline,” says
Godefroy, in regard to the Roman law, “ which gradually softens the severity of
paternal authority.”
The spirit
of humanity as expressed in the thoughts and legislation of the Stoical
jurists, laboured steadily to mitigate this authority through many centuries.
The words of the jurist Marcian were quoted even by those who had absolute
power over the lives of the children :
“ Paternal
power ought to rest in affection, not in atrocity.”
Adrian
used these words on a remarkable occasion when the punishment of a son was
softened.
Constantine
(333 A.D.) was as far removed from the spirit of Christianity as possible in
his character, but his legislation, framed by men feeling the new power in the
world, shows the humane forces derived from this faith. He ventured to punish
as a parricide, a father killing his son.1 Under Justinian (528
A.D.) the Christian influences are more distinctly felt, and the father could
only inflict moderate penalties, and summon his children before the courts,
where he could suggest such sentence as might be appropriate to domestic
discipline. He could also disinherit. The mitigations in regard to the son’s
property were of gradual growth. At first, all his earnings and possessions
belonged to the father. The humane spirit step by step protected him, and
obtained for him more individual rights. Certain portions of his property,
acquired in specific modes, were secured to him. But it was only under
Constantine and the early Christian emperors that the son’s rights of property
were extended to acquisitions made in a great variety of public and religious
offices. He was not yet on a plane of legal equality with his father, but his
position approached the modern position under the laws of Christian nations.
Under the
former ideas of the paternal tyranny, the father claimed as a right all the
property of the deceased ancestors of the family, or of the mother, if they
died intestate, and of his own children deceased. The laws of the Christian
emperors gradually- converted these rights of the Roman father into what are
almost the rights of the modern father. He becomes only one of the heirs of
property thus left; and his interests are made inferior to those of the minor
children. The peculiar distinction of the new power in the world was the
protection it afforded to, and the interest it showed in, the child.
The
property of children who came under the power of a father by marriage, was
especially protected from his claims. The mother was shielded in her rights;
and her property, if she died intestate, descended at length to her children.
The modern conditions of inheritance appear even under Constantine. The son,
however, could not yet sell, mortgage, or bequeath by will his own property.
Under the new ideas, Justinian1 gave to the son full control over
all his acquisitions. In the new light spread through the world, it seemed to
him “inhuman” to do otherwise. The father had only a life-interest in his son’s
acquisitions or property, unless they were derived from his own. In case of “
emancipation,” he was allowed a life-interest of one-half. The father could
still disinherit.
These
changes in Roman law relating to paternal power after Christianity became a
power in the world, may seem to the modem reader of no great account. But the
difference between the father’s power under the old Roman law and that under
Justinian, measures the difference between the old and the modern world. The
tyrant of the family has merely become the judge, or indeed little more than
the modern father. He cannot “ expose,” buy or sell, or imprison his son
(except through the agency of the courts), or abuse or kill him; he cannot
adopt him into another family without his consent, or give him by force in marriage,
but is only permitted to declare a veto on a marriage which is not agreeable to
him.
The drift
of modern opinion and practice is towards the independence of the child, both
social and legal. The authority of the father is becoming more and more one of
affection and of moral influence. Paternal tyranny, even in the most private
matters of the family, is passing away. The beginning of this great change was
in the reforms of Roman law under the teachings which came forth from Judea.
Succession.—To understand these reforms still further, we must consider
a subject somewhat technical, but important as affecting modern society—the
bearing of the paternal power upon relationship and the transmission of
property.
The family
was for ages in Rome (as in many other countries) an imperium in imperio, and
it could only be maintained thus by limiting relationship to descendants by
males, or to “agnates" If a married daughter were considered a member of
the family, with equal rights to property and protection, it is manifest that
great confusion would arise and conflicting interests be introduced in the
family. From this principle arose much injustice to the woman. The relatives by
males were the persons said to be especially “ in power ” (in manu), or in the
family, of the father, though he was permitted to introduce others into the
family by adoption. Without enlarging upon this important topic, we would only
say that under the old Roman law the succession of property followed the bond
of “ power,” and was determined by family, not blood. One could be a near
relative of a deceased person, even a child, without being an heir. The son “
emancipated ” by the father was no longer in the family, and was not an heir.
The heirs were especially the children or grandchildren who were in the family;
they might even be adopted, but they are still first heirs. Daughters “ in the
family ” succeed like males ; there is under this archaic system no
primogeniture or inferiority of sex. The wife not married out of the family is
like a daughter and heir ; the wife of a son (himself in “ the family ”) is
also an heir and in power. These are called “ heirs of themselves ”1
or “ necessary heirs,” continuing the person of the father. When there are no
necessary heirs, then comes in the nearest agnate or relative by males, who
would be “ in power ” if his ancestor were living. " Emancipation" or
separation from the family breaks this relation, so that the direct descendants
of an emancipated son do not succeed any more than do the descendants by
married females.
Reforms in
this as in other directions of the paternal power began under Stoical
influences; but under the Christian emperors there was, as might be expected, a
more decided drift towards the natural bonds of succession. The influence of
the new Faith was everywhere to protect woman, and to give her equal rights,
whether in the family or out of it. Valentinian the Younger had enacted that
the children of the daughter (who had been legally outside of the family)
should succeed to the maternal2 grand father with the “necessary
heirs,” and that they should receive two-thirds of what would have fallen to
their mother. Constantine, whose legislation is touched by the new spirit, goes
still further. He provides in certain cases that she should take from the
agnates, their children and grandchildren, one-third of their succession,
excluding all other agnates. With Justinian (528 A.D.) came more of the force
of the new religion upon the law of the Roman Empire. The reforms of his code
struck deeper. The great codifiers who prepared his body of laws, seemed to feel,
and even in their dry labour to be elevated, by the fresh “ enthusiasm of
humanity ” working in the world. They often speak of such and such a measure as
“inhuman.” 1 Justinian’s code enacted that the children of the
daughter should represent their mother entirely, as if she were in the family.
It does away with all distinctions of being “ in the family ” or outside of it,
or those derived from the number of children (Jus liberorum) of a woman, and
established that those who had one as well as those with four children, whether
“ in power ” or emancipated, were called equally to the succession of their
deceased children. It preferred the mother to all the agnates or relatives by
the males ; all were excluded by her; the only competitors being the brothers
and sisters of the deceased. The natural relatives, or cognates, were made
equal to the relatives by the males or agnates. The new code abolished all distinctions
between agnates and cognates. The bond of “power” disappeared before the bond
of blood. Paternal authority lost its pre-eminence. Property reverted to the
natural descendants of the deceased, whether “ in power ” or of their own
right, whether “ emancipated ” or not, without distinction of sex or degree, to
the exclusion of all other relatives. The masculine and feminine lines are
equal. The drift of these reforms is towards equality of rights between women
and men, or between different members of the same family, so far as succession
is concerned. The children of the daughter separated from her family by
marriage, or of the mother who from some form of marriage had never been
considered as belonging to the family, and the mother and sister who had been
excluded by “ emancipation ” were placed before the relatives by males of a
distant degree. Even the male and female children by a mother from a former
marriage (“ uterine ’’ children) were placed on an equality with the other
heirs.1 All these with the female descendants of male heirs,
sisters, and shared equally in the inheritance.
These
reforms in the Roman law may seem to the modern student of little importance.
But they are an indication of the tendency everywhere of the Christian Faith
to introduce equality of rights among persons, to elevate the individual, to
control arbitrary power, to substitute self-command, consideration and the
influence of the affections for tyranny and unchecked power in the family. They
were apparently but small advances; they had, it is true, been begun by
Stoicism ; but they received their greatest stimulus from Christianity, and
properly heralded the greater and more profound changes which the new Faith was
to introduce into modern society.
CHAPTER
III. THE POSITION OF WOMAN UNDER ROMAN LAW.
It was a
necessary part of the archaic institution of the family, that woman should be
under the perpetual tutelage •of her relatives by males; the object being to
keep her property in the family and to separate her from public affairs. Under
the old Roman law, such of her property as was mancipii}—land, slaves and
beasts of burden,—could not be disposed of without consent of her tutor. But
she could not intervene in the government of the family, nor in industrial or
commercial affairs, nor in public matters. A •court of her relatives could
inflict upon her the severest penalties in case of certain offences. In the
time of Nero, a distinguished Roman lady, Pomponia Grsecina, wife of Aulus
Plautius, first conqueror of Britain, was accused of a “ foreign superstition.”
She was submitted to the judgment of her husband. Aulus assembled the
relatives, and, after an examination, he declared her innocent. There is much
probability that this lady, one of the last instances of the extreme exercise
of the marital power, was one of the first secret converts to Christianity. As
a mother, the Roman woman had originally no legal inheritance in the property
of her minor children. A child desiring to marry need not obtain her consent;
the children were not in the family of the mother but of the father; the mother
had no power over them. As a wife, the husband had, under old Roman law, power
of life and death over her, and absolute control of her property. When she
passed in manuni—into the power—of her husband, she became not his equal, but
his adopted daughter or ward. The law considered her as a sister of her own
children ; all her property became that of her husband ; all her earnings were
his. Like children and slaves, she was not, while in manu, a person in her own
right. She lost all her family rights, and her agnates were deprived of their
rights of tutelage or of succession to whatever of her property would revert to
them.
The great
object of these legal arrangements was undoubtedly to preserve the woman’s
property in certain families. Yet there was underlying them a deep contempt for
woman, utterly foreign to the new Faith, but familiar to the Stoical school.
Thus Gaius gives as the ground for the tutelage of woman, her “ levity of mind
”; and Cicero in like manner, explains it as due to her “ infirmity of purpose.”
The three
ancient forms of Roman marriage, the confarreation, or religious ceremony; the
coemption, or civil contract; and the ustis, or intercourse, all gave the
husband most of these rights over the wife. But side by side with the ancient
marriage, sprang up another form, of “ Free marriage,”—a re-action from the
former and in the interest of the woman, as that had been entirely in favour of
the man. It was recognised by law, and produced legitimate children, though not
always held as a respectable connection. Under it the children were submitted
to the “ paternal power,” and the woman lived with her husband, but she
possessed her own property, worshipped her own gods, and was still connected
with her own family. There was, under this form, entire separation of property
between husband and wife, and they could even bring a civil action against one
another in the courts. Such a wife was called uxor and matrona, while under the
old marriage she enjoyed the proud title of mater-familias. The old form of
usus became changed into this form whenever a wife absented herself for at
least three nights.
Thus, in
Rome, there were two extremes in the history of marriage ; the excessive power
of the husband under the ancient form, and too great laxity under the new. This
is to be borne in mind in considering the peculiar influence of Christian
teachings upon the Roman law. By the second century after Christ, usus and
usucapio had disappeared as a rite by which the husband acquired his wife as a
thing. “ Confarreation ” (the religious marriage) was only practised by
families who discharged certain pontifical offices, and where this marriage was
required as a condition of the children entering on these duties. “Co-eniption”
became the principal form for acquiring the absolute marital power. But “ Free
marriage ” grew to be more and more the custom. Its effects on the rights of
property in the woman were very marked. Under the old marriage, the woman in
manu had nothing, could earn nothing, and own nothing. If the husband died, she
divided the inheritance as one heir among the children; if there were no
children, she was sole heir like a daughter. If she died first, the husband
took everything, even the property which she had brought to the marriage. In
Free marriage arose the dos for a daughter; that is, the father and daughter
were bound to aid in the expenses of the future family. The Julian Law made it
obligatory on fathers and the paternal ancestors to dower their daughters. The
dos was acquired by the husband, and united with his fortune ; he could
alienate it, and even bring an action against his wife for objects in the dos,
and, at her death, he was not obliged to restore it to her heirs.
With
Christianity, naturally came in a new conception of the position of woman. Her
relation to her husband was gradually changed, and, step by step, these
disabilities or disadvantages disappeared. The husband was first obliged to
restore the dos to his father-in-law, solatii loco, as a solace at her death.
In case of her husband’s death, she was permitted to demand from his,' heirs
what she had brought in dos. And finally, dotes were guaranteed to the widow.
But the
spirit of the new times was especially expressed in the Code of Justinian. “ It
is worthy of the chastity of our times,”
say the Institutes, “ to give this new position to women ; tutelage of
women must be done away with.” The dos
must always be restored at the dissolution of marriage ; the husband was to
have only a temporary limited interest in it; it was inalienable even by
consent of the wife. She even had a legal mortgage over all the immovable
property of her husband to guarantee its restitution.3 The absolute
power of the husband ceased under Justinian’s laws.
This great
code, under the inspiration of the fervent humanity taught by the new Faith,
made one great step in this important reform, which is at length to give woman
entire equality of rights under the law.
The
tendency towards “the personal and proprietary independence” of women in modern
law and custom received its first great stimulus in the religion of Jesus
affecting Roman law.
The mother
acquires also under this code equal rights with the father over the succession
of deceased children ; she becomes their legal tutor, and presides over the
choice of a husband for the daughter. If the husband unjustly repudiates her,
she receives full paternal power.1 This is the beginning of that
advance in the legal position of the mother, which has culminated in modern
legislation.3
Divorce.—The “Free marriage” naturally gave rise to the utmost freedom
of divorce. Separation could be legally caused by either party, by a desire to
divorce expressed in writing (libelium repudii). Women. made use of this even
more than men. At the close of the Republic the licence was frightful. Augustus
attempted in vain to struggle with it by legal enactments. The Julian Law
deprived women of their dos who provoked divorce, but without effect. Seneca
speaks of “ quotidiana repudiadaily divorces, and in another well-known passage,
of the illustrious and noble-born women who reckon their years not by the
number of the consuls, but by that of their husbands. Juvenal’s epigram is
well-known, of the woman who had eight husbands in five years. Martial says: “who
marries so often, marries not all; she is but an adulteress”;
Tacitus speaks of “magna adulteria" of the time, and later, Tertullian
represents divorce as the very purpose and end of Roman marriage. Vice among
Roman families had reached its lowest depths during the first centuries of the
Christian era. The Roman senate in the year 19 A.D. was obliged to pass an act,
that no woman whose grandfather or husband had been a Roman knight was
permitted to make her person venal.4 A lady, whose father had been
of Praetorian rank, had appeared before the Ediles to make a public profession
of lewdness.
Even
before this, the more strict Romans had felt keenly the degradation of woman.
Porcius Cato, in the year 558 of the city, had reproached women from the
tribune for their desires for liberty and even licence in everything,5
and for so much neglecting the “right and dignity of the man” (jus
majestatemque viri). Juvenal might well say that no crime or deed of lust was
wanting to that age:—“ the age of iron,” 7 where the good were
indeed few.8 Even the calm philosophers, like Seneca, felt the deep
depravity of the time. Woman he stigmatizes as a foolish, wild creature, unable
to control her lusts.
INSTANCES
IN THE ROMAN PERIOD.
Paulus Emilius,
when he discarded the beautiful Papyria, only deigned to say, “My shoes are new
and well-made, but no one knows where they pinch me.”
Seneca
speaks of Maecenas as having “married a thousand times.” C. Sulp.
Gallus is said to have repudiated his wife because he had seen her abroad with
head uncovered.
Modesty
was held to be a presumption of ugliness. A correspondent of Cicero in one of
his letters casually mentions, as an item of news, a divorce without cause
{sine causa) of one Paula Valeria, who announced to her husband on his return
from a journey that she was separated from him and was about to marry Dec.
Brutus. Cicero himself repudiated his wife Terentia in order to escape his
creditors, by giving up to them the dos of his new wife, Publilia, whom again
he afterwards repudiated.
It is
possible that we may exaggerate the depravity of these times, and judge too
much from the epigrams of satirists and the condensed phrases of historians,
still such legislation as we have quoted from Tacitus is a kind of evidence not
easily to be overthrown. It should not be forgotten, however, that
intellectually the Roman woman must have received much training in the first
two centuries, through the great number of secret associations existing. The burial
inscriptions show that she bore an important part in these, and even held
office in some of the municipalities. It does not appear that these societies
elevated her morals or character.1
Of the
effect of the new Faith on this debasement of morals we shall speak elsewhere.
Our present concern is with its influence on legislation. Laws are often far
behind -the morals of a community; and the Christian principles would naturally
enter very slowly into the legislation of an empire like the Roman. Constantine
is the first nominally Christian emperor, but in life and character was much
further from the Christian standards than some of the Pagan emperors. Yet his
body of legislation first shows the new principles struggling with old habits
and modes of life. By laws passed in 330-331 A.D., a wife may be divorced from
her husband only under three conditions ; when he is a murderer, a magician,
and a violator of tombs. A wife who divorces herself without cause loses her
dos, and is banished to an island. The husband may be divorced from his wife
when she is adulterous or given to evil practices. The divorced husband can
marry again and keep the dos-of his first wife. But if the woman succeeds in
proving her innocence, she has right again to all the property of her 'husband,
and even to the dos of the second wife.
This
legislation under Constantine sought in every way to strengthen the marriage
tie. Civil equality was restored between the spouses. The duty of fidelity was
presented to the husband by the law, as a sacred obligation to him as much as
to the woman. A married man was prohibited (340 A.D.) from having a concubine,
and finally adultery was punished as a capital crime (facinas atrocissimum).
Concubinage
was opposed, and efforts were made to change it into a permanent marriage. This
legislation went on under succeeding emperors. Honorius and Theodosius- (421
a.d.) provided by law that any woman divorcing her husband, without legitimate
cause, should lose her dos and all gifts of her husband, and be banished without
hope of re-marriage. A husband guilty of this offence was punished in like
manner. A woman repudiated wrongfully could re-marry in a year; and the husband
abandoned by his wife, could re-marry at once. After a legal divorce, the wife
could re-marry in five years. Theodosius and Valerian III. returned somewhat to
liberty of divorce, but afterwards were compelled to limit it again.
It cannot
be said that this struggle of Christianity to- impress upon Roman law the
sanctity of marriage, was pre-eminently successful. What was gained in one
reign was lost in another. Justinian’s Code
even extended the causes of divorce. The marriage by “
civil contract ” could be dissolved
by mutual consent; but if one party only consented, heavy penalties were
inflicted on the other unless legal grounds for divorce existed. The woman who
divorced herself from her husband without reason, lost her dos and was shut up
in a monastery; her property was divided, one-third falling to the children,
and two- thirds to the monastery. The husband for a similar offence was first
fined, and finally imprisoned in a monastery, and deprived of his property.1
The children were usually delivered to that one of the parents believed by the
court to be most capable of taking care of them. A preference was expressed in
the laws, that that parent should have the charge of them who had not been a
cause of the divorce.
So
changing and inconsistent were the different laws of Justinian on this important matter, that the
commentators have been obliged to confess, that “ some were the laws of the
Caesars and some of Christ." 1
The
successors of Justinian fell into the non-Christian practice, and restored the
liberty of divorce by mutual consent.
Concubinage.—By the side of legal marriage, existed in Rome the
connection of concubinage. Constantine’s legislation shows the effect of the
new ideas spreading in the world, in its struggle with this evil. His laws gave
legitimacy to children born in concubinage, provided the parents were
subsequently married; another law forbade any gift or bequest to natural
children, and still another forbade official personages making public their
condition of concubinage.
Under
Justinian, natural children were legitimized in three modes : by incorporation
in the curia (the class from which magistrates were elected), by subsequent
marriage of the parents, and by special edict of the emperor.
As we have
said, these effects of Christianity on Roman law in regard to marriage and
divorce, and the violation of purity, are not striking> yet they
show the beginning of the great reforms which this Faith is adapted to produce.
CHAPTER
IV. PERSONAL PURITY AND MARRIAGE.
It
need not be said that the Christian system of morals demanded the utmost purity
of life, as well from the man as the woman. In regard to masculine purity, it
is still in advance of the current opinion of the civilized world. So strongly
is this elevation of morals characteristic of Christ’s life, that we do not
look for or expect direct teachings against vice. No direct denunciation is
transmitted from Him against one of the most terrible organized evils of
ancient or modem times—prostitution, or against the unnatural vices which were
eating out the heart of Roman and Greek society. The impression, however, which
an impartial reader would get from the narrative, is of a person so pure and
elevated that such vices could not even be thought of when under His influence.
His power goes back of organized vices, and touches the sources of character.
His relations to abandoned women; the story of the adulterous woman, which,
whether true or imagined, shows the popular conception of His character; and
the few words reported from Him on these and related topics, together with the
character of His early followers, all point to the unique elevation and nature
of His influence on the great weakness and sin of mankind. He required
absolute purity from man as from woman. He was not, however, alone in this. The
Stoical moralists had done the like ; yet but few of their followers had ever
practised this high self-restraint, and no great example stimulated them to it
Even the Stoical jurists1 alluded •to the principle ; but there is
little question that before Christianity entered the world, comparatively few
persons felt this obligation of morals, and it may be said that now, a great
multitude in all Christian countries have never yet reached the level of
Christian doctrines in this respect. Had the Founder of Christianity simply
taught purity as some of the early Fathers taught it—as meaning absolute
asceticism and celibacy—the world would have been comparatively little
benefited. The nature of man would have re-acted against it. We should have had
even more celibate sects, greater reactions, a more unnatural condition of
society, and a falling again into vices and habits as bad as those of the
imperial era. Such a system of morality could not have met some of the first
conditions of a divinely sanctioned system; it would have been only temporary
and incomplete.
Marriage.—But it is evident that Christ set the highest value on
marriage. The only human institution in regard to which He departed from His
ordinary habit, was that of marriage. He lays down here a direct and positive
rule. The words are so clear and definite, that a mistake of the historian or
transcriber seems hardly possible. He evidently felt the bond as one which more
than any other binds human society together. He foresaw the boundless evils
which would arise to the world from a looseness of its ties; the breaking up of
homes ; the neglect and ruin of children; the low position which freedom of
divorce would give to woman; the temptation to man to choose and to throw
aside; the destruction and degradation of family life which must ensue where
marriage is taken up and broken at every whim. He either foresaw these
evils, now so familiar to moralists, or He felt the sacredness of the union so
deeply, as to command that only one cause should break it—unfaithfulness to the
tie, or its moral equivalent.
And in the
case of separation for just cause—which He does not forbid—He does not permit a
second marriage. In His view, the unhappy partners must bear the evils they
have brought upon themselves, for the sake of the general good. At least this
would seem, from the few words reported, to have been the position of the
Founder of Christianity; and the words are quite as distinct as many on which
lasting Christian customs and doctrines and institutions have been founded.
In a
matter, however, of such vast importance to society, it would not be wise to
form our permanent judgment as to the teachings of Christianity from a few
literal words of Christ. There may be qualifications which have not been
reported to us, or other commands which have not reached modern times. We can
only reasonably infer from the language and drift of the gospel historians,
that our Lord attached the highest sanctity to the idea of marriage, and taught
the exceeding strictness of the tie, allowing no cause but unfaithfulness, or
some equivalent moral evil, to be a cause of separation.
Here,
again, as we shall show later, the Leader is far in advance of His followers ;
and the modern Christian world itself has not yet accepted the principles of
their Teacher. The Apostles followed on in the same footsteps. Marriage was,
to them, a mystical union of the most holy and ennobling character. Under the
great Christian idea that the body was “ the temple of the Holy Spirit,” all
forms of illicit intercourse were profanation, and marriage like the union of
Christ with the souls of his followers. This elevating and wholesome idea,
which was equally removed from asceticism and sensuality, was thrown as a new
purifying element into the fetid mass of Roman vices and evil habits. The early
Christians illustrated the principle with their lives and ennobled it with
their death. Their wives.shared every persecution and pain of mortal life, and
the repeated inscriptions on their tombs showed that the hope of sharing
immortality together lighted up even the ghastly arena with heavenly joy.
Though the Master had not promised the continuance of the relations of earth in
the present form, it became a favourite Christian inscription over the grave
that the departed had been the husband of but one wife, or the wife of but one
husband in the life below.
It is true
that this sense of personal purity worked at length beyond the original
teachings, and produced great calamities in the world, by the doctrine and
practice of asceticism. The history of celibacy in the early centuries after
Christ down to the Middle Ages, forms one of the darkest features in the annals
of the Church. The practice was commenced, no doubt, under reasonable motives,
to give greater freedom to the religious teacher in a wild age, and enable him
to consecrate himself more absolutely to the work of religion. It was
stimulated by the Oriental spirit of asceticism which early entered and finally
corrupted the Church. The opposition of the most elevated spirits of the
Church assailed it in every century; but it was sustained by the astute
ecclesiastical leaders, who feared the growth of a kind of ecclesiastical
feudalism with a married clergy, where power and possessions would be
transmitted from the priest to his children. The interest of the Roman curia
became in cutting off every servant of the Church from human ties, making
itself the sole power in the ecclesiastical world. A priest with children and
possessions, it was thought, would never be an utterly obedient and faithful
servant to churchly authority. Devoted Christians in every age, among the
clergy, opposed the practice, but the power of organization, the interest of
authority and no doubt often an exaggerated asceticism, overcame them. The
custom at length proved one of the curses of humanity. As has been frequently
remarked, it withdrew the most able and earnest among religious men and women
during many centuries, from family life, and cut off their legitimate line.
Those who were the most sincere left no children, and by so much diminished the
inheritance of ,human good. The weak and dishonest left children to chance care
and public protection, and thus increased the numbers of those exposed to moral
dangers and physical suffering. Then, worst of all, the practice let loose
through the early and middle ages after Christ, a fearful flood of
licentiousness, hidden indulgence, crime against families, and even unnatural
vices. The licentiousness of the convents and clergy became one of the greatest
obstacles to the progress of the Christian religion.1 But for all
this Christianity is not responsible. Asceticism was, in part, a natural reaction
against the boundless licentiousness and immorality of the Roman world.
The
Christian influence, it is true, worked with only partial success in its
struggle with Roman customs and laws in regard to marriage. The laxity had too
deeply penetrated the habits of the people. We have seen that the legislation
under the Christian emperors was of a shifting character, and it is evident
that the old customs of the Romans long resisted the new ideas. Christianity laboured
in two directions : it strove to ennoble and make firm the marriage relation,
and it by no means allowed the freedom of action which was permitted to the
Roman lady under the marriage of “usus,” or the “ Free marriage.” It elevated
the position of woman and the character of the relation between husband and
wife; but required of the latter a certain propriety and deference in appropriate
things to the wishes of her husband and the rules of the Church, which the
Roman uxor had not latterly known. The influence, however, of the Church on
Roman law relating to marriage and the sexes, is to be distinguished from that
of Christianity. All that the latter taught was personal purity, and the
absolute sacredness of the tie.
But when
we hear in Justinian’s1 Novella that nothing in human affairs is so
much to be venerated as marriage, we may be sure that here is a clear trace of
the new influence. •
We
contrast the position given to women by one of the noblest of the Stoical
jurists, Paul, who wrote in the third century, but under no influence from the
new Faith: “ Women,” he says, “ in every kind of affairs and obligations,
whether in behalf of men or women, are prohibited from having any concern.” 2
When
Justinian says :s “We enact then that all persons, so far as they
can, should preserve chastity, which alone is able to present the souls of men
with confidence before God,” we know immediately that here is a faint
reflection of the new Light shining in the world. And when the law-giver expresses
his belief in the Lord God, that through his zeal for chastity, a great benefit
will accrue to the Republic,1 we can see distinctly the workings of
the new power.
Under
Christianity begins that position of woman, which has been since both an element
and an evidence of the progress of the most civilized races. With all changes
of society, she has never lost the halo which the new Faith threw about her
then, and, as we shall show later, even the submergence of the Roman empire
under the Northern barbarians, only aided the influence of Christianity in
exalting the weaker sex.
Sir Henry
Maine, in his valuable work on the “ Early History of Institutions,” states
that the existing written law of the Hindoos has preserved many of the strict
and harsh features in regard to the paternal and marital power, which belonged
to the ancient despotism of the family, and is distinguished for “ its
excessive harshness to the personal and proprietary liberty of women.” 3
Whatever
independence from the family despotism has been secured to the child or the
woman in India, he justly attributes to the influence of religion—the ancient
faiths of India. Wherever there prevailed any belief in responsibility after
death,3 “ the conception of the individual who was to suffer separately
was necessarily realized with extreme distinctness,” and it is this conception
of the individual and his rights which lies at the basis of the great modern
legal reforms.
It is not
improbable that Buddhism, in teaching the absorption or annihilation of
individuality (nirvana) in divinity, may have also aided in giving that
inferior position to woman which is characteristic of Oriental countries.
The author
quoted above, who is certainly not too favourable to Christianity, admits that
among all the in- 1 fluences which have made the two great branches
of the Aryan races so different—the Hindoos on the one side and the European on
the other—the one most powerful in forming the civilization of each is, that
the one branch steadily carried forward the series of reforms which elevated
woman, and the other, though going a little way, recoiled from them.1
In other
words, the European races lived under the peculiar influence and stimulus of
the teachings of Christ, and the Hindoos under non-Christian faiths. The former
everywhere tended to elevate woman, both through the individual responsibility
taught and through the example of the Teacher. The latter only partially
ensured this end.
Unnatural Vices.—In one violation of personal purity, the Christian
system has achieved a signal and lasting victory ; and. yet—so far has the
Christian world advanced beyond the Greek and Roman standards—the subject
itself has become revolting and abhorrent to modern tastes. But to omit all
mention of it would be to leave out of view one of the great and beneficent
triumphs of the system of morals which came forth from the teachings and life
of Christ. Our Lord Himself never speaks of unnatural passions. The very spirit
of His personality would banish even the thought of them, and the personal love
He inspired put the soul far above all temptation under them.
One great
philosopher, who in Greek and Roman history approached nearest Jesus in his
conception of the reforming and renovating power of love to a Divine character—Plato,
speaks with a despairing sadness of these lusts which were eating out the
vigour and character of his people. He evidently looks to the future abolition
of these fearful evils as remote as we would in this day to the removal of
prostitution, or the entire doing away of war. Three principles or moral
forces, he says in the “ Laws,” may break up these evils. First, that of piety,
or love to a Divine person ; second, the desire for honour or the respect of
the good ; and thirdly, the love of moral beauty—that not of the body but of
the soul.1 “ These be perhaps romantic aspirations, but they are the
noblest of aspirations, if they could only be realized in any state ; and, God
willing, in the matter of love, we may be able to enforce this.” He urges then
that those, not only guilty of these passions, but all who sinned publicly
against the marriage tie, should be excluded from all civic honours and
privileges, and be deemed strangers and barbarians. In another passage, he
says, “Now if a law to this effect could only be made perpetual, such as
already prevents incest, such a law, extending to other desires and conquering
them, would be the source of ten thousand blessings.. . . But matters
have now come to such a pass that the enactment of such laws seems to be
impossible, and never likely to take place; just as the continuance of an
entire state in the practice of common meals is also deemed impossible.”
The
passion of which he speaks arose in Greece undoubtedly from an exaggerated
love of youthful beauty, and was, with some of the moralists, like Socrates,
one of the purest of sentiments. The three forces of which Plato spoke, were
especially thrown into the world by Jesus:— love to a Divine Person ; the
respect of the good or of His followers; and an elevated feeling for moral
beauty. In the mind of the humble follower of Christ was ever that pure and
Divine image, into whose likeness he hoped day by day to be changed ; around
him were the good, whose respect was his comfort; and before his thoughts were
oftentimes things pure and noble and of good report.
Nothing
shows more distinctly the degradation of the moral sense of the ancient world
in these matters than the speech which Plato puts in the mouth of Alcibiades in
regard to Socrates, in the drunken dinner of the “ Symposium.” It is utterly
untranslatable to modern ears; and though the great moralist is everywhere
pictured as free from vice, his purity seems rather an effect of his intellectual
pre-occupations, and is never once spoken of by dramatist, or biographer, or by
himself, as any virtue. The Greek, and more particularly the Latin literature,
is filled with traces of vices which have utterly passed out of memory in the
Christian world. Lucian, nearly all the Latin poets and dramatists, Apuleius, Petronius
Arbiter,’ Athenaeus, reveal a debasement of morality among classes not
corrupted by luxury, which has not been, known in modern times. It is not that,
like Juvenal, they pick out extreme immoralities for a biting sarcasm; but they
allude casually and without shame to excesses and habitual vices, whose very
name is lost to modern ears. Even Cicero says soberly that it was held as a
disgrace among the Greeks not to indulge in unnatural vices.1 He did
not say that his own countrymen fell even lower than the Greeks.
The early
Christians set themselves like a wall against this tide of sensuality. The
plain words of the Apostle are well known.8 Where Christianity had
the faintest power, there such impurity coifid not even be thought of. As soon
as its influence reached legislation, we find a vigour of denunciation and a
severity against these excesses, which show the new Power in the world. The
Theodosian Code, which codifies the legislation even of Constantine, orders the
most intense punishments on those guilty of such crimes.3 And again,
filled with the Christian idea of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit,
the law-maker speaks of the duty of preserving the abode of a manly soul
sacred,4 and threatens the severest penalty on any who should
violate it. Justinian shows even more clearly the influence of the Apostles and
of the Scripture in following the new ideas on these crimes. He says, “ taught
by the Holy Scripture, we know what a just punishment God inflicted on the
inhabitants of Sodom,” and he warns all who have the fear of God, to abstain
from actions so wicked and impious that even the brutes do not commit them. And
still again, the law bids the. offenders who violate nature, to bear in mind
the fear of God and a future judgment.
So far as
is known, no philosophy or religion among the Greek and Roman races freed
mankind from these detestable vices.
The
emperors under Stoical influences made some effort to check them, but without
success. Domitian punished certain knights and senators for these offences.
Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius had the virtue to avoid but not to punish.
A. Severus, it is said by the historian, “ habuil in animo ut exoletos vetaret”;
but he feared the increase of private vice, and therefore let alone the “scorta
virilia.” These vices still exist among peoples outside of Christianity. They
are well-known in Turkey and India. But so imbued has civilized society become
with the principles taught by the Master, that such evils are left behind in
its moral progress, and no longer threaten the future of the race.
May it be
an omen of other triumphs!
CHAPTER V.
SLAVERY.
There is
probably no one organised evil in history which has been so replete with human
misery, and has drawn after it such a train of vice, degradation and corruption,
as slavery. It is doubtful if it ever existed in a worse condition than in the
Roman Empire at the time of Christ. In the moral struggle with the abuses of
slavery in different countries and ages, especially where the victims were of a
totally different and inferior race, it has been the custom in the heat of the
argument to speak of modern slavery as worse than that of the ancient world.
But closer investigation shows that the system of Roman servitude had more
than the cruelty of the modern, and was even more of an irresponsible
despotism, while it debauched society and literature beyond what has ever been
experienced in any community of recent times.
A
distinguished French author on this subject (Wallon) has somewhere said, that
for public depravity to reach its utmost depths of licentiousness, there needed
to be a being with the passions and attractions of a man, yet stripped by
public opinion of all the moral obligations of a human being ; all whose
wildest excesses were lawful, provided they were commanded by a master. Such a
being was the Roman slave. We can see his influence in the disgusting and
debasing comedy and poetry of the Imperial age, wherein the relation of the
beautiful and irresponsible victims of power to masters without shame and youth
without virtue, is the perpetual theme.
We discern
the canker of slavery in the unexampled and incredible degradation of Roman
family life in the age accompanying and following the life of Christ. And the
political economist find^ everywhere in Roman polity the seeds of boundless
misery and of certain financial ruin, in the habits and customs born of this
institution.
It was not
latifundia, or the “large farm system,” which was destroying the Roman Empire,
but the poor agriculture, the waste, extravagance, bad management, aversion to
labour, and general discontent—the natural fruit, in the rural districts, of
slavery. This unjust system was eating away the character and life of the
ancient world, and preparing calamities which should be felt by Europe for
hundreds of years to come.
Christ
appeared in a remote corner of the Roman empire, in an age when these evils
were at their worst, though probably but few of them presented themselves
prominently in Galilee.
It might
have been thought that the great Reformer would have uttered some words against
this stupendous abuse. To the mind of the writer, it has often been a subject
of difficult questioning, why He, who felt so keenly the evils of humanity,
should not have put forth one simple command against this gigantic system of
injustice.
No direct
word against slavery, however, came forth from the great Teacher, It was not
until the ninth century after, that one of his humble followers, Saint Theodore
of Stude (Constantinople), ventured to put forth the command “ Thou shalt
possess no slave, neither for domestic service nor for the labour of the
fields, for man is made in the image of God.”
The
explanation of the silence of our Lord is no doubt to be found in the general
character and design of His mission, as we gather them from His life and the
words recorded of Him. An organised evil almost as destructive and debasing to
the world as slavery, was prostitution. Unnatural passions were consuming the
life and virtue of the Greek and Roman races. War was desolating almost every
portion of the world and bringing after it trains of evils and calamities. Yet
Christ only alludes to these, or implies his deep and fervent opposition to, or
condemnation of, them.
As is well
understood, His aim was to renovate and rescue the individual soul, looking
forward through that, in very remote ages, to the establishment of the “
kingdom of God ” on the earth, or in other words, to the social and complete
reorganization of mankind on His principles. We find no evidence in His words,
that He even designed to form a Church or general organization of believers,
but rather that He expected that little gatherings and brotherhoods of those
who loved and followed Him would form themselves for mutual good. His language
in innumerable similes showed that He believed that these principles He taught
would only be successful after long periods of time and gradual development.
Most of His figures and analogies in regard to the “ kingdom of God,” rest upon
the idea of slow and progressive growth or change. He undoubtedly saw that the
only true renovation of the world would come, not through reforms of
institutions or governments, but through individual change of character,
effected by the same power to which Plato appealed—the love- power, but a love
exercised towards Himself as a perfect and divine model. It was the “ kingdom
of God ” in the soul which should bring on the kingdom of God in human society.
With such a mission and such an aim, or filled with such intense sympathy
towards men and such a profound sense of what God could effect in each human
soul, the institutions and practices of men would sink away as of comparatively
little importance. The enduring things, below all governments and organized
evils, were the human conscience and the human affections. If they were pure
and right, all else would gradually become so. Such an aspect of human life
naturally takes no account of some ot the grandest movements of reform in
different ages. To a certain extent it is apart from all efforts for liberty,
for improvement of laws or the advancement of science, for the spread of
temperance or education, for opposition to social impurity, for the protection
of children and the elevation of the poor. And yet ultimately this Christian
system will be found at the basis of all these great movements of progress in
human history. But it began by aiming at the individual and not at society, and
aiming alone at an entire change of the affectional and moral tendencies.
If our
Lord may be conceived as looking at the immediate consequences of His
inspiration and His teachings (which we doubt), it may well be that He would
hesitate before preaching the duty of immediate emancipation in the Roman
empire as it then was. The truth is, that a fathomless pauperism was then
covering the empire—the result of conquests, oppression, bad finance, invasion
of barbarians, and slavery—and to thousands of the poor slavery was a less evil
than the poverty they endured. As we shall relate afterwards, there came a time
when an imperial law, permitting those who “ took up ” exposed, children to
make slaves of them, was a law dictated by motives of humanity. It is doubtful
if the world has ever seen an era when so many human beings were exposed to
such bitter poverty, and even to starvation, as during the few centuries after
Christ. Now for a Divine teacher to have proclaimed, then and there, the duty
of absolute and immediate emancipation, would have plunged the Roman world into
a “ misery " beyond all bounds of conception, and would have let loose a
war of extermination between masters and slaves, which would have turned Europe
and Asia into a field of blood and slaughter. The principles which Christ
taught evidently must overturn slavery from its foundation. They scattered the
seeds of absolute freedom and equal justice. They destroyed all distinctions
of caste and race. The individual soul became of infinite importance and of
equal value, whether in the slave or the king. The Apostles only followed in
the footsteps of the Master. In the great community of the lovers of Christ, “
bond and free ” were alike. There was no distinction in the sight of God, none
in the Church. They recognised slavery as they recognised the tyranny of
Caesar, but they put the slave, in their treatment and their language, on the
like footing with his owner. And the owner could only be a member of their
association by professing to be willing to treat his servant as he would
himself in like case be treated. The slave partook of the memorials of the life
and death of the Lord side by side with his master. The infant ecclesia, or
assembly and brotherhood of believers, began to be a shelter and receptacle for
numbers of that great despised multitude—the slaves of the Romans.1
It is true that in the succeeding centuries bishops and clergymen not
unfrequently held slaves. But the spirit of Christianity began immediately that
long contest with hurtian slavery, which, under changing fortunes and with many
defeats, has been waged now for eighteen centuries, and may be said only to
have won its final victories in the middle and latter half of the nineteenth
century.
In
considering this and similar struggles, it should be understood that I
distinguish always between “Christianity” and “the Church.” The history of the
latter has been by no means consistent with, or a development of, the spirit of
its Founder. Its course has been not seldom marked by the qualities which He
most condemned. It has committed gigantic blunders, which have retarded for
ages the progress of His principles. An organization may bear the name and
represent some of the features of a great principle, and yet in others be
entirely inconsistent with it. No true Republican would admit that the first
French Republic represented the genuine idea of a Republic, even if it had been
transmitted under that name for many centuries. Under the term “ Christianity
” we include the principles and moral sentiments taught and illustrated by the
life and words of Christ, as they are made known in the writings of the gospel
historians and the Apostles. They form a sufficiently distinct body of moral
teaching, and are often an entirely different matter from the teachings or the
example of the professed followers of Christ.
Christianity and Roman Law upon Slavery.—In studying the influence of
Christianity upon slavery in the Roman empire, we are never to lose out of view
the noblest school of moralists which the world has seen outside of Christian
believers—the Stoics. These philosophers had a profound effect upon Roman
jurisprudence just preceding the Christian emperors. The statements and
principles of the Stoical jurists in regard to liberty and natural right have
become apopthegms of liberty, and have influenced all succeeding ages. They
have reappeared in the declarations and charters of American freedom, and in the
enthusiastic statements of the French writers on Natural Right.
It does
not appear, however, that they had any very strong effect upon the position of
the slave under Roman law, and still less on the practices of the people
towards this unhappy victim. The Stoics were even more inconsistent with their
principles of humanity than the Christians ; and some of the most heartless
acts of inhumanity recorded in ancient history are those of Stoics to their
slaves.
Cato
deliberately gives permission to sell an old, or a sick slave.
The
following instance is related by Tacitus2: A wealthy citizen of Rome
had pledged freedom to a slave, and had broken his promise. The man, enraged
and disappointed, assassinated his master. By law, in such cases, all the
slaves under the same roof should be executed. The public duty in this case
was discussed in the Senate ; and the celebrated Stoic, Cassius, defended the
law, and urged its enforcement. The slaves, all innocent, to the number of six
hundred persons, were finally executed.
Plutarch
says that Flaminius put a slave to death merely to afford a spectacle to a
guest who had never seen a man die. Cato, the Stoic, when he put one to death,
used to take the opinion of all the others before killing him. The story of
Pollio—also a Stoic—is well known as related by Seneca ; how he amused himself
by feeding his fish with fragments of his mutilated slaves. Many were furnished
to the amphitheatres to be killed in the public festivals. Old and infirm
slaves were abandoned to die of hunger. Many were brought to an island in the
Tiber and left in the temple of Aesculapius to the care of the god. The poet
says of such, that to help them only lengthens out a life of misery.
Juvenal,
who wrote when Stoicism had full sweep among the Roman cultivated class, asks
with bitter irony, “how a slave could be a man.”
The Stoic
Ulpian speaks of “a slave or any other animal ”; even as the book of Revelation
describes the wealth of the wicked Babylon, as in “ the bodies and souls of
men.”
Seneca,
the great moralist, says that a slave has no hearth nor religion.
Even
Gaius, the Stoical jurist, under the rule of that mild philosopher, Marcus
Aurelius, could observe incidentally that with almost all nations, the right
of life and death is given to the master over the slave;6 and he
classes slaves with animals. Yet even he speaks of “ manumitting in church,”6
as if Christian ideas had reached the legislation of the Stoics, and he
afterwards quotes: “This age7 of humanity,” as if he felt the new
Power which was permeating the world.
Still the
inconsistencies of the Stoics should never cause mankind to forget that one of
those condensed expressions of human instincts, which has been a charter of
liberty to so many races and countries since, embodied by Justinian in a
Christian code, came originally from a Stoical jurist. “By natural right all
men are born free; by right of nations {i.e., by conquest) slavery has come
in.”
The number
of Roman slaves can only be judged of by side indications. A law of Augustus
forbade a poor exile from carrying away with him more than twenty slaves;
another reduced the number which could be maintained by testamentary
provisions, making one hundred the maximum, which, from the proportions
mentioned, would indicate that five hundred was not an uncommon number to be
owned by one person. We hear from Seneca, of a master counting the roll of his
slaves as a general counts his soldiers. Martial alludes to an eccentric person
being attended by from ten to two hundred slaves; Pliny says that Caecilius
left 4,116 slaves after his death. The poets mention them as the sign of
wealth; the want of them was the last evidence of poverty.4 Tacitus
speaks of the city becoming frightened at the increasing number of slaves. A
proposition was once made in the Senate to indicate the slaves by their dress,
but was dropped because of the danger that the slaves would outnumber the freemen.
When Alaric besieged Rome, he was aided by a force of 40,000 slaves from the
city itself. The number evidently was formidable throughout the period immediately
succeeding Christ;
In his
legal position the slave was a property, whose nature nothing but the will of
the master could change ; he could be given, let, sold, exchanged, and seized
for debt. He had no civil rights; could enjoy no legal marriage, only
cohabitation (contubernium), and therefore could not be accused of adultery;1
He had no legal parentage, no property, no right to legacy; could sustain no action
before a court, could not be a witness, and his testimony was only legal with
torture.8
Of his
capacities and moral nature it was said, “ immodesty is a crime in a freeman^
a necessity in a slave, a duty in a freedman (or liberated slave).” Still, with
all this, the Roman slave was not considered in law as altogether a thing. The
Cornelian law against murder applied to all conditions of men. The Stoical
spirit had begun before Christianity to bring about some alleviations to the
lot of the slave. A certain right of property was given him, and under Adrian a
master was forbid to kill his slave. Under Antoninus Pius, a master who killed
his bondman without cause was punished for homicide. Severus forbade personal
injury to foreign slaves. The Petronian law prevented masters from delivering
servants to be employed in the combats of wild beasts. Adrian prohibited the
sale of , slaves, without the intervention of judges, for the contests of
gladiators; and Marcus Aurelius, as one would have expected from his humanity,
enacted a similar law with reference to the combats of wild beasts. Antoninus
Pius permitted slaves to be sold, rather than punished, who took refuge at
altars or before sacred images. The recourse of law was gradually had to
prevent other abuses of the servile class ; thus the application of torture to
servants on trial or as witnesses was by degrees disused. Those blessed words
so much used by the Stoical j urists, “ favor libertatis,”1 the
presumption of liberty, came to have more and more power on legislation. This
was especially true of the interpretation of wills. It was not permitted to
bestow liberty for a certain number of years; “once free, always free,” was the
motto. If a slave had partly paid for his liberty, and his time of manumission
had come, it was not held humane to cause delay through a question of pecuniary
profit.3
Nothing
shows better how comparatively superficial the influence of Stoicism was, how
confined to the Roman cultivated classes, than the unhappy position of the slave,
both in custom and law, through all the reign of this noble philosophy. Even
the influence of Christianity, when united with the government, had a long and
often defeated struggle to ameliorate the lot of the unhappy victims of man’s
greed and cruelty.
The union
of the Christian Church with the State under Constantine we regard as one of
the great blunders of the historical Church, which has drawn after it a long
train of evils, whose effects are even yet experienced. Could Christianity have
been permitted to grow, as it did under the Apostles, in little voluntary
associations of believers, unconnected with the civil power and with a simple
organization, we should not have had, indeed, the grand spectacle of an
apparently converted imperial court, and an official hierarchy, and a Church
supported by armies and governed by warriors and courtiers, and of vast
populations suddenly made into nominal Christians—but we should have been saved
a paganized peasantry, a corrupt priesthood, a hierarchy full of greed and
ambition, ages of blood and religious warfare, and a Church which persecuted
both science and differing opinions. The Christian faith would have grown up
where it belongs—in quiet, humble (places —and have reformed manners
and morals before it took hold of legislation. Christ’s principles would have
been a spiritual power in the world, not a form or an institution, and would
thus have finally permeated society. So far from regarding the rapid spread of
the Christian religion in the Roman world as a sign of its Divine origin, and
an evidence of its triumph, we consider it as almost a fatal occurrence, and as
having impeded the spread of Christ’s real truth ever since.
We are
aware of the very strong arguments presented by liberal Catholic writers for the
early union of State and Church. It could not but be productive of some good in
a barbarous age. But the present spiritual condition of a large part of Europe,
is a proof how great was the mistake then made. The best effect of this union
was seen in legislation. A new spirit began at once to influence Roman law. We
only claim that this influence would have been more thorough and more lasting
had it more generally pervaded society first, and reached the law-givers
through the people.
Whatever
motives Constantine himself may have had in his change of faith, the jurists
who framed his legislation were evidently inspired and influenced by
Christianity. In laws relating to slavery, we hear of being “imbued with
Christian discipline”1 as a reason for humanity; of Christian
discipline imbutus. {Cod. Theod., ix. 12.)
emancipating
in church with “religious purpose,”1 and numerous other expressions
which indicate the new forces working on the law-givers. The “ Day of the Lord
” has become a day appropriate to emancipation and to a rest from all
litigation ;2 and emancipation in church has the same legal force
with the formal emancipation of a Roman citizen. The official setting free of a
slave became common as an act of piety or gratitude to God at recovery from illness,
at the birth of a child, at death, or in wills. Many charters and epitaphs bore
the expression of “ liberty for the benefit of the soul.”
The Church
early included a prayer in its liturgy “ for them that suffer in bitter
bondage.” The burial inscriptions and pictures recently made known, often show
the masters standing before the Good Shepherd, with a band of their slaves,
liberated at death, pleading for them at the last judgment.3 But
scarcely any Christian inscription speaks of the dead, as a “ slave ” or “
freedman,” but only of the “slave of Christ”; or the “freedman of Christ”;4
as if human slavery could not even be mentioned in the kingdom of God.
A series
of remarkable laws under Constantine showed the new spirit working upon
legislation. In 312 A.D. a law was passed declaring the poisoning of a slave or
the tearing his body with the nails of a wild beast, or branding him, to be
homicide. In 314, liberty was declared a right which could not be taken away :
sixty years of captivity could not take from the free-born the right of
demanding liberty. In 316, Constantine writes to an archbishop : “ It has
pleased me for a long time to establish that in the Christian Church, masters
can give liberty to their slaves provided they do it in presence of all the
assembled people and with the assistance of Christian priests, and provided
that, in order to preserve the memory of the fact, some written document
informs where they sign as parties or as witnesses.”1 In 321, he
directs that “he who under a religious feeling has given a just liberty to his
slaves in the bosom of the Christian Church, will be thought to have made a
gift of a right similar to Roman citizenship.” But this privilege is only
granted to those who emancipate under the eyes of the priest.2 In
322, various laws defined methods by which persons whose liberty is assailed,
even after sentence, may present new proofs of liberty and secure it.3
The
progress of legal emancipation under the Christian emperors was slow but
certain. Each new ruler enacted some measure which made emancipation easier.
The informer against those guilty of certain capital offences, became free.
Theodosius the Great freed those who had been circumcised by the Jews, and
those who informed against a deserter; and the emperor Zeno, those who joined
the monastic life with the consent of their masters.
A few
words from the priest, even away from the church, would manumit the slave.4
The law
threw every obstacle in the way of separating families. “Who can bear,” says
the Theodosian Code, “ to see children
separated from parents, brothers from sisters, wives from husbands ? ”1
The master
was held legally as a murderer, if by torture or branding he caused death,
after the cruel customs of the horrid barbarians.
Let the
reader compare this with the command of one of the purest of the Stoical
jurists. “ If by chance there is doubt ... for the sake of discovering the
truth, let hereditary slaves be tortured.”3
In 441
A.D. a church council (Orange) enacted that a slave once emancipated in church,
could not be made either slave or serf again, without incurring ecclesiastical
censures.
Justiniaris Reforms.—It is, however, finally under Justinian that the
great moral power of Christianity begins most to be felt in the Roman law upon slavery.
The Institutes (quoting indeed an older law) speak of that age as one of
special humanity, when no one is permitted to be cruel to his slave without
legal authority.
All
presumptions are to be now in “ favour of liberty.” Thus if there chance to be
several owners of a slave, the will of any one could emancipate, and the others
are forced to accept compensation at a reduced valuation.5
The drift
is everwhere towards “the inestimable value of liberty.” Slavery was suppressed
as a penalty. “We do not transfer” says the Imperial law-giver,1
“persons from a free condition into a servile—we who have so much at heart to
raise slaves to liberty.” He liberates the mutilated; and those who had served
in the army with the knowledge of their master, became as freeborn. Liberty was
a reward to certain informers against certain offences. The marriage of slaves
was strengthened, and the marriage of a free woman with a foreign slave was not
forbidden ; a freeman could marry a slave woman by first freeing her.
A slave
who was ordained priest became free by the act usually with the consent of the
master. The monasteries became refuges of slaves. Justinian’s Code required
every slave entering a monastery to pass a novitiate of three years, during
which he might be claimed ; if he was proved guilty of theft, he was to be
delivered up to his master, but to suffer no further injury. If nothing was
proved against him, and he was not claimed, at the end of three years he was
considered “to belong to the common Master of all.” A slave-priest, if he renounced
his sacred office, became slave again.
The old
law had fixed a limit to the age under which a bondman could be freed, and the
number who could be thus emancipated: it demanded of freedmen a maturity of
thirty years, and created different degrees between the citizen and slave.
Justinian abolished all this scale. Legacies and testamentary provisions made
before the final will, had been considered null. The new code changed this in
favour of liberty. The dying man in his last moments, could set free the infant
in the bosom of its mother. If the heir received directions to free one slave,
all became free. The new code takes the smallest indication as sign of the
master’s purpose to free his slave. The marriage of the master with a bondwoman
freed and legitimated all the children; and even without marriage, if a slave
had the position of wife, she became free with her children, and equally so if
bequeathed as a wife to a freedman. The law gave a new value to all familiar modes
of enfranchisement, whether by letter or in presence of friends ; by
abandonment, or by covering the slave with a symbolic bonnet at the funeral of
his master, or by marriage. The code, with a certain enthusiasm uncommon in
such dry documents, declared its purpose “to have the Republic frequented by
freemen rather than liberated slaves.” 1
Among
other laws, one act made the violation of a slave-woman an equal offence with
crime committed upon a free—punishable by death. The moveable property of
bondmen became their own property, and with it they often purchased their
liberty.
Other acts
made the killing of a slave with malice aforethought, homicide; and the death
of a slave after certain barbarous punishments, equivalent to the same offence.
Masters also were enjoined to send their sick and useless slaves to the
hospital.3
We find,
too, an expression in the code, as if an influence from the new Religion of
humanity, “ the intuition of humanity.”
Slaves or
freedmen could arrive at the most important offices, provided the masters did
not oppose.
The legal
weakening of slavery proceeded by various steps, such as the forbidding the
sale of new-born infants; the introducing new modes of emancipation by the
Christian Church; the delay afforded in proof of liberty and the legal
presumption in its favour; the privileges granted in reclaiming it, and many
precautions taken to prevent slavery from being used for purposes of unchastity
and of crime.
Reforms under other Emperors.—Under the Emperor Leo (717 A.D.) all slaves
on imperial domains were allowed to do with their property as they chose; the
law thus at once recognising the ownership of property by a large body of
bondmen. Again, the marriage of a free woman and a slave was recognised as
legal. The woman could buy her husband, to associate him in her liberty, or
share his servitude till the death of the master, which at once freed them and
their children ; or the man could free himself by labour for a term of years,
which term was fixed by law. The same rules applied to slave marriage, if one
of the parties became free. Many Christian freed- men married noble-born women
(feminse clarissimae1). One great source of slavery was dried up in
this age of “ misery ” by a law forbidding a freeman to alienate his liberty.
Other acts encouraged emancipation. A slave- child held over the sacred font of
baptism by the master, his wife or son, became free in the act. A servant taken
prisoner by the enemy, was lost to his master; and if he was returned to Roman
territory, he became a freeman, provided he had suffered in the public service.
By a law under Basil (867) it was declared that if a property reverted to the
state, the slaves in it became free, If a man died intestate, two-thirds of his
property fell to his natural heirs, and one-third went to the state: in this
one-third were reckoned the slaves, who thus became free. “It would be an
outrage,’" says the law, “ to the holiness of God, to the wisdom of the
prince, and to the conscience of man, not to permit the death of the master to
break the yoke of servitude.”
In the
tenth century the state preserved a right over the sale of prisoners and of
slaves. In 1098, Alexius Comnenus was obliged to invoke the great principle of
Christianity, “ One God, one Faith, one Baptism,” and order all slaves to be
freed to whom their masters had refused the benediction of the Christian
Church. Legislation became more severe against bondage : the bondman could
produce witnesses in favour of his freedom and opposing testimony was not
received. If a person was claimed as a slave and could produce witnesses of
good character in his favour, his oath could annul the suit (1094 A.D.). Manuel
I. (1143) proclaimed freedom to all fallen into slavery through the sale of
property, or who had been forced to sell themselves from reasons of poverty.
Slavery is
alluded to in the Eastern empire in 1344, 1358, and 1394. It existed in Greece
till 1437.
Among
other terrible results of the pauperism of the Roman empire, the masters were
in the habit of forcing freemen to contracts which alienated their
independence. To check this, Manuel Comnenus declared free all who had been
born in liberty.
In the
ninth century, as we stated before, is the first formal mention of a command of
the Church against slavery itself. They are the words of St. Theodore of Stude.
“ Thou shalt possess no slave, neither for domestic service nor for the work of
the fields; for man is made in the image of God.” .
No one can
carefully study this long series of laws, from Constantine to the tenth
century, in regard to slavery, without clearly seeing the effect of
Christianity. It is true that the unjust institution still survived, and some
of its cruel features remained; but all through this period the new spirit of
humanity is seen struggling against it, even in legislation, which is always
the last to feel a new moral power in society. The very language of the acts
speaks of the inspiration of the Christian faith; and the idea which lay at the
bottom of the reforms, the value of each individual, and his equality to all
others in the sight of God, was essentially Christian.
But laws
are often far behind the practices of a community. The foundation idea of
Christ’s principles compelled his followers to recognise the slave as equal
with the master. They sat side by side in church, and partook of the communion
together. By the civil law, a master killing his slave accidentally by
excessive punishment, was not punished; but in the church, he was excluded from
communion. The chastity of the slave was strictly guarded by the church ;
slave-priests were free. The festivals of religion—the Sundays, fast-days and
days of joy—were early connected in the Church with the emancipation of those
in servitude. The consoling words of Christ, repeated from mouth to mouth, and
the hope which now dawned on the world through Him, became the especial comfort
of that great multitude of unhappy persons,—the Roman bondsmen. The Christian
teachers and clergymen became known as “the brothers of the slave ”: and
the slaves themselves were called “ the freedmen of Christ”2
CHAPTER
VI. SLAVES IN CRUEL AND LICENTIOUS SPORTS.
The full power of Christianity over Roman slavery can only be
fully recognised by also studying its influence on the cruel or licentious
shows and games, for which the slaves especially furnished the victims and the
debauched actors.
The
highest gratification which an eminent Roman could furnish to the populace, was
in some bloody or licentious show. The Stoics spoke of the gladiatorial games
with contempt or reproval, but their censure never reached the masses.
Cicero
asks how a cultivated man can possibly take pleasure in seeing a weak man torn
by a strong animal, or a splendid brute transfixed by the spear of a well-armed
gladiator:1 and Tacitus dismisses the cruel Drusus, in one of his
condensed epithets, as rejoicing too much in cheap blood:2 Csesar is
said to have had 320 pairs of gladiators at once in the arena, and to add to
the scenic effect, the bloody struggles were at night.
Trajan
surpassed all in forcing 10,000 unhappy prisoners and gladiators to contend for
life in the Roman amphitheatre; the bloody and brutal sport lasted 123 days.
Constantine,
in the very year before his acceptance of Christianity, exposed a vast
multitude of prisoners to wild beasts in the amphitheatre, and glutted the
people with the sight of blood.1 Under the thorough reform which
Christian teaching has introduced in the world, in the matter of bloody sports,
we cannot conceive the passion for them among the Roman populace, a passion
which centuries of teaching and example scarcely broke up.
It is
related of one Prefect of Rome, Symmachus (392 A.D.), that he desired to make a
special celebration of a birthday of his little son (parvuli nostri) and for
that purpose held in reserve a large troop of Saxon prisoners, who were to be
slaughtered by wild animals in the arena. To the intense disappointment of the
populace and the grief of the Prefect, our savage ancestors, on the very day of
the hoped-for festival, all strangled each other (fractas sine laqueo fauces).
The worthy Prefect could only resign himself to the consolations of philosophy.
It was reserved for a Christian to remind this philosopher of his brutality,
in the well-put apopthegm : “ No one should perish in the city whose punishment
is an amusement.”
It was the
peculiar duty of Roman magistrates to provide cruel sports for the people; many
made a trade of it.
The early
Christians and the Fathers waged a continual struggle against these bloody
shows. So strong was the passion for them, that it is related by Augustine of
one convert, that he was forced to the spectacle by his family, but carefully
covered his eyes, when a shout from the multitude caused him to open them in
the midst of some bloody scene, and immediately the old savage thirst for blood
was aroused, and he became as wildly eager for slaughter as the heathen Romans,
and henceforth was an outcast from the Church.1 Even as late as the
time of Salvian (450 A.D.) the converts were led away to these shows, and this
great preacher thunders against those -renegade Christians who find their
highest pleasure in seeing men die in the arena, or, what was worse than death,
torn and eaten by wild beasts.2 In the East the cruel games ceased
with the reign of Theodosius, though combats of beasts still continued. Their
final abolition in the West, by the heroism of the monk Telemachus (404), who
leaped into the arena and gave his own life for the victims, is well known.
The first
effect of the new spirit on legislation is seen in a law of Constantine, as
early as 325 A.D. “ Bloody spectacles,” he says, “ in our present state of
civil tranquillity and domestic peace, do not please us, wherefore we order
that all gladiators be prohibited from cariying on their profession.” 3
He also
forbade criminals to be sent to the amphitheatre,—a practice he had formally
sanctioned ten years before.
Human
Sacrifices.—Besides the influence of Christianity on bloody sports,
it should not be forgotten that in the Roman empire, and wherever it has had
sway, it has done away with human sacrifices. Whenever, in the earlier history,
dangers approached Rome, foreign captives were burned in the forum, though at
the same period a poet could say that God was ever gentle and kindred to man.1
Even in the time of Pliny there were sacrifices of human beings, though Seneca
was proclaiming that " man ought to be sacred to man.” 3 Still
later, emperors like Commodus and Elagabalus believed that they gave the
highest pleasure to the gods by sacrificing children of noble birth and beauty.
It need
scarcely be said that such cruelties passed away under the faintest light from
the Religion of Love. Not only in the Roman empire, but in all countries where
Christianity has any influence, have these barbarities accompanying the
religious sentiment ceased to exist.
Licentious
Shows.—The cruel sports of Rome were not the only
source of the degradation of Roman society. The exhibition of licentiouk shows
and immoral plays had a profound influence. The extremes to which these were
carried cannot even be explained in modern writings. In fact, few classical
scholars who have not waded through the disgusting mire of a large part of
Roman literature, can, have even an idea of the depth of obscenity and immorality
which it reached. Athenaeus, Petronius, Apuleius (in his lighter works),
Juvenal, and many others, only show how debased even genius and talent may
become under such influences as so much of the Greek and Roman religions
furnished. Even the universal suffering and ruin of the Roman empire had no
influence on the public appetite for these enjoyments. In Salvian’s bitter epigram,
the empire “ridet et moritur,” laughs while it is dying. ..
It is not
strange that the early Christians came to have towards these shows somewhat of
the feelings which the English Puritans entertained towards all dramatic exhibitions.
They were not only offensive to the new ideas of purity spreading through the
world, ' but they were products of and associated with the idolatrous faith of
the day. The Fathers and early disciples set themselves especially to free
great classes of human beings who were the peculiar victims of these degrading
customs—the slaves of the stage.
The effect
of their spirit even upon a half-converted Roman, like Constantine, is
striking. Much of his legislation has the sound of Puritan rigidity and
purity. A- public show of the most indecent description, a great favourite with
the populace, called Maiuma, wherein, among other licentiousness, nude women
bathed before the crowd, was utterly forbidden and denounced as “fcedum atque
indecorum spectaculum”; yet, says wisely the law, “we allow ludicrous arts to
be practised, lest sadness be produced by excessive restriction.”1
In 385 several laws were passed against the profession of female musicians who
were frequently seduced, and whose - business was a means of vice. Theodosius
forbade judges and magistrates to be present at theatrical shows after noon,
for it was in that part of the day that indecent plays were exhibited. At
length all spectacles were forbidden on Sunday, and the prohibition was
extended still further to saints’ days by Theodosius III. A general endeavour
appears in all this legislation to withdraw from such professions all whom poverty
or slavery kept in. them. In 343 a law forbade procurers from selling Christian
female slaves to any except to Christian masters,1 and authorized
priests aiid all Christians summarily to deliver any Christian women who were
about to be handed over to prostitution,2 and on their complaint
they could be brought before the court and delivered from misery. No Christian
woman, free or slave, dould be forced to serve as a prostitute on the stage;
and if a slave, could be freed at once on appeal. .
It may
here be remarked, that in 439 a law of Theodosius suppressed the profession of
the leno, or “ procurer,” in Constantinople; though no legislation could cure
the: deep-seated disease of Roman society.
Under
Constantine, , the crime of violence upon a woman which had formerly been
punished only when the victim demanded redress, and was then considered merely
as a loss of services or property inflicted on the father of the woman,
received now the penalty of death, even if the one injured did not bring
action.
Justinian’s
Reforms.—The Roman law, as codified under Justinian, shows a
still greater disposition to deliver all Christians who were bound to these
foul trades.
In case of approaching death, it was provided that if the last sacraments were
administered, and still the slaves of the stage recovered, then these women
were freed from their bonds to the theatre. But even then, public officials
were bound to sit in judgment as to their need of the last sacraments. The
stern Roman law held them bound to these degrading occupations by a “natural
bond.” They were not even considered worthy of suffering the penalties of
adultery. The Christian law forbade them to be taken back to the stage if they
had become Christians and were leading a worthy life.1 If, however,
they fell again into their old vices, they were forced to retake their old profession,
and could be absolved from it no more until old age drove them from the stage.
Justinian also declared all engagements retaining women by force on the stage
as null and void. The archbishops were required, in union with the magistrates,
to watch over the execution of this law.
When at
length these unfortunate women, slaves of sensuality, were excluded from the
public stage, they were employed in private festivals, until Theodosius was compelled
to forbid by law women from being sold or trained for these social
entertainments. Even as late as the eleventh century, the Council of France
condemned the presence of the clergy at fetes, where such professional actors
were employed.
The Church
carefully excluded from communion all who had any connection with licentious
sports ; and so powerful was the new feeling of purity, that even obscene
statues in public places were forbidden by law.
It is a
part of this new reign of chastity and humanity, that the employment of
mutilated persons, as attendants, was forbidden by the Church, and the maiming
of them was attended with the severest penalties. A slave mutilated became
free.1 .
The early
Christians not only attacked and weakened slavery by freeing this unfortunate
class, who were bound to licentious professions, but their spirit of humanity
led to a ransoming of captives, which assumed considerable importance. The laws
encouraged this in the highest degree. The Theodosian Code especially exhorts
Christians who are near these captives, to take pains in regard to their
redemption ;2 and the commentator speaks of the ransoming of
prisoners as an act of special generosity.8 Whole populations were
ransomed, and it became one of the first duties of the Church “ to set the
captive free.” The wealth of private individuals, and the treasures of the
churches, were continually used for this purpose. One saint (Paul) is said to
have delivered himself up to slavery for the sake of saving the son of a widow
from captivity.
It was a
favourite proverb that to buy a slave is
to gain a soul.”
The
Christians equally dried up another source of slavery by steadily and
consistently opposing, as we shall show later, the abandonment and exposition
of children. Their charity, also, constantly saved families from the depths of
pauperism which were opening; for, as the eloquent Salvian says, the Roman
state in the fifth century, owing to its wasteful financial system and enormous
taxation, was “dying as if of strangulation.” The tendency, too, of the Christian
belief must have continually raised the poor by elevating their sense of their
own dignity—a sense which in all ages has worked against the degrading
tendencies of poverty, and would therefore preserve a population from falling into
slavery. Christ and the Apostles taught, by example and words, the value and
dignity of labour; and a cardinal doctrine of Christian morals was the
importance of industry. The word operative (operarius) became elevated in
public esteem, and Christian working men and women are praised in the epitaphs
for being good workers.1 In fact, throughout the Roman empire a
grand rehabilitation of labour began under Christianity, which has never
ceased. All the useless servants of Roman society —the parasite, the pimp, the
circus rider, the gladiator, the debauched actor, the representative of
indecent amusements, the servant of idols, the object of disgusting and
unnatural pleasures, the low and obscene comedian and prostitute—were changed
by the new Faith into industrious producers and workers.2 Work
became honoured under the new religion. Christ was reproached by the assailants
of Christianity as being born of a ‘‘ working mother" (operarise matris);
and the Christian ecclesitz became little fraternities of free labourers and
competitors of the great slave-estates.3
We have
already remarked that the word servus4 seldom occurs on a Christian
epitaph; as if the believer felt that in the kingdom of Christ all were free. A
slave, when examined before a judge, not unfrequently replied, “ I am not a
slave : I am a Christian—Christ has freed me.”
All these
profound moral and legal influences worked against Roman slavery. But the
fearful “ misery ” of the empire still sustained it. So profoundly was Roman
society disorganized by its own vices, by bad government, absurd finance,
civil war, the invasion of barbarians, and universal poverty among the working
classes, that bondage became often the least of many evils threatening.
Serfdom.—In such universal disorder, it is not unnatural that an intermediate
state should have formed itself between freedom and servitude. The peasants
and poor farmers would find themselves safer under the protection of a larger
cultivator, to whom they bound themselves for certain obligations ; or the
state settled such colonists {coloni) on the large farms, holding them bound to
the soil, but with many personal rights ; or, under these moral forces of which
we have been speaking, the personal slave was gradually transformed into the
serf bound to the soil.
The serfs
or coloni began to appear after Constantine ; they were especially found on the
frontiers of the empire, and in the Gauls, Thrace and Illyria. They were sold
with the land; their only obligation being a small rent. They could make contracts,
marry, and even acquire property under certain conditions.
Yet the
new law, modified by Christianity, protected even the serfs. Justinian was
careful not to accept the avowals of coloni who would become
adscriptitii,—those more closely bound to the soil and liable to a tribute,—
but demanded other testimony, lest “freemen might fall into an inferior state ”
from temporary misfortune. He abolished also the legal distinction which
existed between three different classes of freedmen, making them all equal
before the Roman law. A slave became at once free by any act of his owner
signifying an intention of bestowing freedom.1
It is of
course understood that many material and even economical causes combined with
such a moral power as Christianity to mitigate and overthrow an ancient abuse,
like Roman slavery. The province of the moral forces is to stimulate the
conscience and sympathies ; the result may be hastened or long delayed by
external influences.
CHAPTER
VII. EXPOSURE OF CHILDREN.
SLAVERY in
the Roman world, as we have said, was in part sustained by a practice so
revolting and inhuman as hardly to be comprehensible to modern ideas—the systematic
exposure or abandonment of the children of the poor, and of female or defective
children by the rich. So completely had luxury eaten away the natural instincts
in one class, and so deep and degrading was the misery in another, that parents
were found willing continually to abandon their offspring to the worst of
destinies, in order to escape inconvenience, anxiety or burden ;—these little
ones, be it remembered, being not usually the fruit of illicit connections, but
the children of legal marriage.
One of the
most powerful of the natural instincts and affections was, throughout a wide
multitude, utterly subverted by the low moral tone of the then civilized
world. There are innumerable allusions to this inhuman treatment of young
children throughout Latin literature. In two different comedies or dialogues,
the husband on starting upon a journey is represented as ordering his wife who
is soon to give birth to a babe, to destroy it, if it prove a girl; and the
plot of one turns on the wife’s foolish weakness in exposing rather than
killing the female infant.1 It has often been observed that the
famous apopthegm of humanity, “I am a man, and nothing of man is foreign to
me,” which called out such applause in the Roman theatre, is uttered in this
play by the very father who had rebuked the mother for thus sparing the child.
Plautus,
alludes to the custom of exposing the girl to death, without any especial
condemnation. Lucian speaks of it in his “ Courtesans.’'
Stobseus
says : “ The poor man raises his sons, but the daughters, even if one is poor,
we expose.” Quintilian’s apopthegm is that, “ to kill a man is often held to be
a crime, but to kill one’s own children is sometimes considered a beautiful
action among the Romans ; ” and he admits that the exposed little ones rarely
survive.3Ovid gives a pathetic picture of the new born whose first
day was its last, exposed to wild beasts; and describes those who flit about in
the nighty seeking for these unfortunate little creatures for the worst of
purposes.4 Pliny 5 speaks coolly of those who hunt for
the brains and marrow of infants, probably for superstitious or medicinal purposes.
Seneca
gives this horrible description of the mutilation to which unfortunate children
were exposed : “ Portentos foetus extinguimus; liberos quoque si debiles,
monstrosi^ que editi sunt, mergimus. Non ira, sed ratio est, a sanis, inutilia
secernere.” (Monstrous offspring we destroy; children too, if weak and
unnaturally formed from birth, we drown. It is not anger, but reason, thus to
separate the useless from the sound.) (De Ird, I. I5-)
In another
work (Controversi, lib. v., 33) he denounces the horrible practice, common in
Rome, of maiming these unfortunate children, and then offering them to the gaze
of the compassionate. He describes the miserable little creatures, with
shortened limbs, broken joints and curved backs, exhibited by the villanous
beggars who had gathered them at the Lactarian column, and then deformed them :
“ Volo nosse,” “ I should like to know,’' says the moralist, with a burst of
human indignation, “ illam calamitatum humanarum officinam—illud infantum
spoliarium !”—“that workshop of human misfortunes—those shambles of infants !
”
On the day
that Germanicus died, says Suetonius (Calig., n. 5), “ Subversae Detim arse,
partus conjugum expositi,” parents exposed their new born babes.
The little
ones thus abandoned were gathered, sometimes by witches, to use their bodies
in incantations, or more frequently by slave-dealers, to train as female slaves
or prostitutes. In the dialogue by Terence,, to which we have alluded, the
father (Chremes) while reproaching the mother for not killing the child, says,
“ What did you propose to do ? What did you desire ? Consider, you would have
abandoned your daughter to that old witch! That is clear enough. To make her,
by your help, a slave or a prostitute! ”1
The
exposure in Rome was commonly made by night, near the Lactarian column, and in
the Velabrum, a parish or district in the city, near Mount Aventine. Though the
father often designed the death of the infant, yet some benevolent persons now
and then rescued a child, who became afterwards distinguished. Several
instances of this are given by classic historians. Quintilian calls on his
readers to imagine the pitiable fate of the abandoned child, exposed to birds
of prey and wild beasts ;1 and Juvenal pictures the fine lady of the
day going to the Velabrum, to find some infant whom she can substitute for her
own,—in vain expected,—and thus secure some inheritance.2
With this
practice was intimately connected the custom of destroying life in its germ,
which was so common in Roman wealthy society. We need not adduce proofs of this
well-known crime.
It is not
to be supposed that the instinct of humanity before Christianity was utterly
silent as to these cruel or pernicious habits and practices. A Stoical jurist,
Julius Paulus, in the time of the Emperor Severus (222-225 a.d.), though he could not directly say
that these offences were contrary to law, yet ventured to pronounce the mother
who destroyed life in the womb', or who refused nourishment, or exposed her
offspring in public places, as equally guilty of murder.3
The
Stoical philosophers, rhetoricians, historians, and even the poets, pleaded or declaimed
incessantly against these crimes. They knew the right. Yet here, as in so many
other instances in antiquity, there was a fatal want of power to carry out the
good instincts into practical action. The overwhelming poverty of the empire
led the poor incessantly to these offences, and the rich had found no
sufficient impulse in the maxims of Stoicism to resist the enticements of a
selfish cruelty. Some of the more humane of the Roman emperors, as we have
described elsewhere, attempted to cure these evils, by founding charities for
abandoned and destitute children. It was all however in vain. Exposure and
child murder and the sale of children increased. Nor did the Stoical philosophy
seem to exert much more influence on legislation than on practical morals.
There was indeed under Severus a law passed which secured the liberty of a
child sold by its father from reasons of poverty; another act punished with
banishment the creditor who would receive children as security for debt, before
ascertaining whether they were free or not. The Emperor Diocletian renewed the
edicts of Severus, and took away from the father all right of giving, selling,
or pledging his children.
When the
peculiar power of Christianity began to work in the Roman empire, it tended, of
course, in every way to eradicate these horrible evils. Nothing could be
further from its spirit than such enormities. Human life everywhere was
profoundly sacred to it, and the Church began immediately to protect and
shelter unfortunate children. The Christian Fathers, whose influence in some
directions is by no means admirable, in this were consistent with the teachings
of their great Leader and the Founder of their Faith. They struggled
incessantly against the exposure of children: “We have renounced,” says one,1
“ your bloody spectacles, believing that there is no difference between
regarding a murder and committing it. We hold for homicides the women who
commit abortion, and we think that to expose a child is to kill him.” “ One
meets,” says another,2 “among all nations only children destined for
the most horrible purposes, and who are nourished like troops of animals ; you
raise a tribute on these children.”
“ The wicked alone can expose his children ;
for us, this impiety only inspires horror : first, because the most of these
unfortunate little ones are destined for debauch ; then, because we would fear
the accusation of murder if they should die.” Clement says, “ Man is more cruel
to his offspring than animals.” Tertullian’s appeal is well known.
Felix
speaks of children exposed to wild beasts and birds, and of these crimes as
exceeding the worst of ancient times, Lactantius, after an eloquent passage,
says, “ These parricides allege their extreme poverty and the impossibility of
raising their families.’' . . . “ They have educated their own blood for
slavery or the brothel.”1 Basil (381 a.d.)
preaches against the spectacle of free children sold by creditors in the
market, and those who expose them from reasons of poverty.2
Justin
pours forth indignation at those who expose their offspring, and thus suffer
both girls and boys to be brought up for the basest purposes.3
It is
unnecessary to give more instances of the unceasing protests of humanity,
addressed by the early Fathers against this cruel practice.
The great
obstacle to reform, however, was the profound and terrible pauperism of the
Roman empire. When, under Constantine, the spirit of Christianity began to
affect Roman legislation on this subject, there came up always the practical
difficulty—What shall be done with the exposed child ? He will only be
preserved from death by those who would make a slave of him. To forbid such
slavery may only increase the evils of exposure. These difficulties constantly
modified legislation on this evil. Constantine, in the year 315, was obliged to
put forth the following proclamation: “ Let a law be at once promulgated in
all the towns of Italy, to turn parents from using a parricidal hand on their
new-born children, and to dispose their hearts to the best sentiments. Watch
with care over this, that, if a father bring his child, saying, that he cannot
support it, one should supply him without delay with food and clothing; for the
cares of the new born suffer no delay, and we order that our revenue, as well
as our treasure, aid in this expense.” And again in 321 : “We have learned that
the inhabitants of provinces, suffering from scarcity of food, sell and put in
pledge their children. We command then that those found in this situation,
without any personal resource, and only being able with great trouble to support
their children, be succoured by our treasury before they fall under the blows
of poverty; for it is repugnant to our morals that any one under our empire
should be pushed by hunger to commit a crime.” 1
Constantine
was subsequently (331) obliged, in view of the increasing calamities of the
empire, to enact a law that any one “ taking up ” an exposed infant had the
power to adopt him as a child, or to keep him as a slave, and the natural
father had no right to reclaim him. He was however permitted to obtain his
child again, if he paid the full price, or replaced him by another slave.
Valentinian
(366) proclaimed to the empire the duty of parents supporting their children,
and threatened punishment for the crime of exposure ; but the unnatural parent
was not permitted “ to claim as his, whom he had led to death.” The sale of the
children of the poor was not absolutely forbidden (from motives of humanity),
but if reclaimed, parents were to pay the full price and one-fifth in addition.
The
Christian councils, which set themselves firmly against the crime, as well as
the Christian emperors and law-givers, were obliged through the fourth, fifth,
and sixth centuries to leave children to become slaves to save them, as the
phrase was, “ from the teeth of dogs.1' The councils repeatedly
exhorted the faithful to collect abandoned children, and to hold them either in
adoption or servitude.
As early
as 325, the Council of Nice ordered the foundation of hospitals in the
principal towns, some of which would no doubt shelter the foundlings. The
Council of Vaison (442) established rules as to the receiving and taking care
of abandoned little ones. Whoever shall find one, shall bring him to the
church, where the fact shall be formally certified. The following Lord’s Day,
the clergyman shall announce to the faithful, that a new born has been found,
and ten days’ time will be granted to the parents to recognize and reclaim him.
When these formalities had been fulfilled, if any one reclaimed a child or
calumniated him who received it, he was punished with severe ecclesiastical
penalties.1 No council, however, ventured to proclaim the
emancipation of the abandoned little ones.
The full
effect of the new Faith upon legislation on this matter was not seen however
before the reign of Justinian. This emperor (529-534) took the humane ground
that the abandoned infant, even if a slave, became free by the act; and that if
it were found, it became the property neither of the finder nor of the parent
who had exposed it; the law recognized in such children the power of acquiring
property for themselves and of disposing of it in favour of their own
descendants.1
In 533,
the emperor, finding how little legislation was lessening this fearful evil,
proclaimed as the height. of cruelty the depriving such unfortunate children of
their liberty, and threatened the authors of the crime with the severest
penalties. He announced again that all infants exposed near churches or in
other places, became free by this act,2 and declared anew that no
right of reclaiming existed over these unfortunate beings. The famous Code made
the act of exposure as much more cruel than murder, as it strikes beings more
feeble and worthy of pity. The Novelise3 speak of the crime as one
alien to human feeling and which even barbarians could not commit.
. In 553,
Justinian invited the Archbishop and Prefect of Thessalonica to give to exposed
infants all the assistance possible, while threatening a severe fine on all who
disobeyed.4 The law, however, still allowed the father, in extreme
distress, to sell his child at the moment of birth, and permitted the purchaser
to retain it in service.
Houses of
mercy for children were founded also by Justinian. The churches and Church
charities became refuges for this unfortunate class. Christian charity attempted
to alleviate the great evil which law could not correct or the usual spirit of
humanity prevent. A marble vessel was provided for exposed infants at the door
of each church. In a later age, this simple provision of humanity was imitated
in a manner which produced great evils, in the well-known “ turning-slide ”
{tour) of French asylums for foundlings. In that time of cruelty and hardness,
however, the church receptacle was for these infants the alternative to
“servitas aut lupanar,” the slave’s chain or the brothel.
The
servants of the Church (matricularii) or the clergyman received the infant,
and drew up a legal form, certifying to abandonment. The latter then enquired,
in the religious meeting of the faithful, if any would take charge of the
infant. All these formalities must receive the sanction of the archbishop.
Often a family was found who would consent to adopt the orphan, or, if not, the
Church took charge of him. In some of the towns, the new born thus abandoned
was exposed at the doors of the church by order of the archbishop, during ten
days.1 If any one recognized the babe, or could designate the
parents, he was bound to inform the ecclesiastical authorities. The nurses
(nutricarii) who had charge of the infant received a formal and legal paper, in
which their own compensation was fixed, and the circumstances of the exposure
were stated, and their right recognized of holding, if necessary, the child as
a slave.
The
churches generally held among their serfs the new born thus found and
supported. Many churches had orphan or foundling refuges connected with them.
In the
eighth century, the evil in Europe was at an extreme point; the poor sold their
offspring, and great numbers of children perished. In the Gauls, as well as
Germany, Italy, and England, needy peasants openly offered their children for
sale. Many of the saints are related to have been thus sold. In the British
Islands, the traffic became an object of a special mission by Pope Gregory, who
sought to abolish it. “Our Divine Redeemer,” says this pontiff, “ in making
Himself man, has delivered us all from servitude, and has restored us to our
primeval liberty. Let us imitate His example, in freeing from slavery the men
who are free by the laws of nature.”1
As we have
related elsewhere, Christian charity early began efforts to relieve these great
evils, by the foundation of refuges and orphan-asylums. There is an indication
of one as early as the fifth century in Treves;2 and another was
founded in 787, by Archbishop Datheus, at Milan, whose words are thus reported
: “ I desire that as soon as an infant shall be exposed in church, he be
received by the superintendent of the hospital, and entrusted to the care of
nurses employed for this purpose. These, children are to learn a trade, and
when they have arrived at the age of eight years, I desire that they be freed
from all servitude, and be at liberty to go aiid dwell where they please.” 8
Several
asylums are mentioned in the eighth century in different portions of Europe ;
some created by individuals, and others founded by royal authority. Still
others are spoken of in Italy in the fourteenth century. From these has sprung
the long list of Christian charities for children in all civilized countries ;
asylums, refuges, creches, infant and industrial schools, reformatory
institutions and aid societies without number, caring for the orphan, the
blind, the deaf and dumb, the crippled and defective, the foundling and outcast.
Christ especially showed his feeling for the child ; and Christianity,
following His teachings, has always set the utmost value on the person and
well-being of children, which, indeed, is but the natural fruit of the whole
tendency of this religion. Probably, of all practical changes which
Christianity has encouraged or commenced in the history of the world, this
respect and value for children is the most important, as it affects the
foundation of all society and government, and influences a far distant future.
CHAPTER VIII. humanity
in roman law.
We
refer continually to Constantine’s legislation, not because this emperor could'
be considered a Christian convert, but because now, for the first time,
Christianity was openly influencing Roman jurists. A brief review of some of
the humane legislation of Constantine will show the working of the new system
of morals. A law (312 A.D.) exempted Christian ministers from municipal
charges, even as the pagan priests had been, thus putting the officials of the
new religion on an equality with those of the old. An edict at Milan (313)
granted liberty of conscience to Christians and worshippers under all other religions.
In the same year emancipation was permitted in a Christian church. In 321
legacies were allowed to religious houses; succour was sent to the African
clergy, and the general observance of Sunday was prescribed. The panegyrics on
Constantine spoke of his laws, as especially established for the control of
morals and breaking the power of vices.1 His biographer expressly
says that he desired to conform his legislation to the spirit of Christianity,
and in this view he endeavoured to break down the old legislation which had
oppressed the weak. It was with this purpose that he conferred upon the
archbishops the legal right to protect the weak and become arbiters in civil
cases, which, in an age of such cruelty and oppression, was often a great means
of protection to the poorer classes. In fact this practice was the beginning of
the system of arbitration (Austrage), which in the Middle Ages became so
important an influence in rescuing society in Germany from “ private war ” and
anarchy. The custom itself dates from the habit of the early Christians, taught
by the Apostles, of deciding their disputes by arbiters chosen among
themselves.
An act
(325) asserts the right of all the inhabitants of the empire to have recourse
to the courts of justice, and the duty of all judges and magistrates to
exercise strict impartiality. All were held equal before the law. Another (33 0
protests against the venality so common throughout the administration. “ Let
the rapacious hands of officials cease from their plunder—cease, I say ! ”1
In 334, it was proclaimed that widows and orphans, the weak and the poor,
cannot be forced before a tribunal of their own province (where influence and
wealth might oppress them), but can appeal to the emperor. In 365, Valentinian
I. freed widows from the tax laid on the common people, and exempted orphans up
to the age of 20, and female orphans till they were married.
The first
laws upon the observance of Sunday are especially in the interest of the
working-classes, and clearly manifest the influence of the new ideas in the
Roman world. Thus one (321) forbade other labours than those of the fields on
Sunday, and all civil public acts, except emancipation. Soldiers, too, were
allowed the privilege of assisting at divine worship on that day.
If we
reflect on the condition of Roman slaves and all labourers at that period, how
incessant and wasting the toil, and what sacrifice of human life was the
result, we shall appreciate the humanity of the first “ Sunday Laws.”
A law of
Emperor Leo says : “ On the Lord’s Day, eternally worthy of honour and of
veneration, let no act of legal procedure be done ; let no debtor receive a
summons, let no pleadings be heard, let there be no process, let the hard voice
of the public crier be silent, let the pleaders see their discussions
interrupted, and enjoy a moment of truce ; let adversaries agree and repentance
enter into their soul. We make, then, this day a day of repose, but we do not
wish that obscene pleasures should fill it. On Sunday, let all theatrical
representations, and races in the amphitheatre, and lamentable combats of wild
beasts, be suspended ; and if the solemnity of our birth or coronation fall on
that day, let the celebration be deferred.”
The new
spirit touched even the forms of law. In A.D. 342, the enactments said boldly,
“ Let the formulae of ancient law, those captious syllables which are nets for
good faith, disappear completely from all acts.”
No classic
legislator, so far as we can recall, had ever cared for that often unfortunate
class—the prisoners. Many were merely confined as witnesses, many on false
accusations, and all demanded, at least, common humanity in their public
treatment.
The prison
reform of succeeding centuries began under Constantine’s, reign. Those accused
of crimes are to be examined with all diligence, and those arrested must be
confined in a humane manner. The cells must have air and light. Persons under
accusations are not to be put in jails, or scourged, but are to be placed under
“military arrest,” and in a prison open to the light. A law in 314 forbade the
judges to inflict capital punishment without the confession of the accused, or
sworn testimony of the accusers. The new moral power in the world seemed to give
a fresh dignity to the human countenance, as having been borne by Him who was
the Son of God, and who had died for men. “ Let those who are condemned,” says
a writing of Constantine (318), “whether to gladiatorial games or to the mines,
not be branded on the forehead, that the majesty of the face formed in the
image of celestial beauty be not dishonoured.” In 340, a law forbade the mingling of sexes in
prison ; and another was enacted protecting the modesty of Christian virgins
against traffickers in prostitution.4 Honorius 6 charged
the judges to visit the prisons every Sunday to see that the prisoners received
sufficient nourishment, and to guard lest the proper humanity be not shown the
convicts by corrupt jailors. The sentiment of humanity reached even the rights
over material things, and in Justinian’s Code the following beautiful passage
occurs in regard to selling the home of a minor :—
“It shall
not be lawful to sell the home in which the father has died and the youth grown
up; in which either to see the statues of ancestors not placed or overthrown is
melancholy indeed.”6
Such a
provision as the following, though made for a personal object by the emperor,
breathed the new spirit in the Roman world. By the severe old Papinian law, if
a free man should marry a woman who had been a slave, though now a freed woman,
and should afterwards chance to be elevated to the senatorial dignity, the
marriage was thereby dissolved. The law of the codifiers, full of the new
humanity, says: “ We then, following the judgment of God, do not suffer the
good fortune of the husband to become the calamity of the wife. Far from our
times be any severity of this kind! ” and it is enacted that such a marriage is
good.1
The deep
enthusiasm of humanity working throughout the Roman world under the new
impulse, finds its fitting expression in these mild provisions of the Roman
law. The personality of the Jewish teacher is felt by students labouring in
their closets in codifying or improving legislation for the empire, and the
dry details of law bear the stamp upon them of Him who held all men as children
of a common Father, and believed in overcoming evil with good.
These are
interesting as the first traces of the Gesta Christi in European legislation ;
they herald a long history of humane victories.
Opposition
to War by Christians in the Roman Period. —It need scarcely be said that the spirit of Christ’s teachings is
opposed to war, and, above all, to wars of vengeance or conquest. But this is
one of those points in which He was so much in advance not only of His own
times, but of all succeeding ages, that His followers have only been able to
make a kind of compromise between His principles and the ideas of the time.
They have often excused only defensive wars, or service given on compulsion, or
they have sought to mitigate the horrors of war, or to prevent it by
arbitration. The habits of arbitration in private matters were very early
implanted among believers by the words of Jesus (Matt, xviii. 15-17) and the
apostles (1 Cor. vi. 4-7). But the early followers, being under the more
immediate inspiration of the Master, went much farther, and great numbers seem
to have refused entirely to serve as soldiers, or to join in any war whatever.
The phrase is often repeated by the earlier Fathers, that “Jesus in disarming
Peter disarmed all soldiers.”
An
anecdote is related of a certain Christian, Maximilian by name, who was
brought before a Roman tribunal to be enrolled as a soldier in one of the
legions of Rome. On the proconsul asking his name, he replied : “ I am a
Christian—I cannot fight! ” He was enrolled, but still refused to fight. He was
told that he must either serve or die. He again replied, “ I am a Christian! I
cannot fight, even if I die! ” whereupon he was executed.1 Another
instance is given of a centurion named Marcellus, in the legion of “ Trajan.”
He became a Christian, and believing war not permitted by his faith, he threw
down his belt before his legion, and declared that, consistently with his
principles, he could not fight. He was sent to prison, but still persisting in
his refusal, and his declaration that it was not lawful for a Christian to
engage in war, he was put to death. Another officer2 in the same
legion resigned for a similar reason, and was also executed. A number of such
instances are recorded, and probably many more have never come down to us.
Many of
the early Fathers took the ground that no Christian could lawfully be a soldier
or engage in a war.
Justin
Martyr and Tatian speak of soldiers and Christians as distinct characters, and
Tatian says that Christians decline military commands. Clemens calls Christians
“followers of peace,” and says they use no implements of war. Lac- tantius
states repeatedly that, it can never be lawful for a righteous man to go to
war.1 Tertullian argues against it in “De Corona” (c. xi.), and
states that in a large portion of the Roman armies, embracing more than one-
third of the best legions, not a Christian is to be found. In another passage,
speaking of the prophecy of Isaiah as to universal peace, he adds:3
“You must confess that the prophecy of Isaiah is accomplished, as far as the
practice of every individual is concerned to whom it is applicable.” He calls
Christians “ priests of peace.” Irenaeus says, “ Christians have turned swords
and spears into pruning- hooks, and know not how to fight.” Justin Martyr
declares that “ the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, you have reason to know;
for we, who in times past killed one another, do not now fight with our
enemies.8
One of the
accusations against Christians was that they refused to serve in the Roman
armies. Origen, in answering this reproach from Celsus, says (Apol., i. 6):
“To those unbelievers who would force us to fight for the commonwealth, to
destroy human beings, we would answer: That even their own idol-priests, and
those who attend upon the service of their reputed gods, do keep themselves
unstained with human blood, that so they may offer sacrifices for the whole
nation with clean and unpolluted hands. Neither, in case war should arise, are these
men to be enlisted in their armies. And if this be done without reason, how
much more may they be said after their manner to fight, who, being priests to
the most high God, endeavour to preserve themselves free from blood and rapine;
that so, while others are polluted with spoil and slaughter, they may wrestle
with God Himself, by constant and incessant prayer, for the welfare of them that
make war justly, and for the safety of them that govern righteously.”
Le Blant,
in his investigation of Christian inscriptions, mentions that among 10,050
Pagan inscriptions which he had examined, 545 were those over the bodies of
soldiers, while in 4,734 Christian inscriptions only twenty-seven were
memorials of military men.1
Dymond
states, that for two hundred years not a Christian soldier is on record in the
Roman armies; and that only in the third century, when Christianity was more
corrupted, they began to be enrolled.
This may
be an exaggeration; for we know that some of the most influential of the
Fathers, as Augustine2 for instance, defended military service and
did not object to a Christian’s enlisting in a “ righteous war.” Then, much of
the objection on the part of the believers was more to the idolatrous practices
connected with the Roman military service than to the shedding of blood
itself. Still it all shows that the first unconscious drift of the early
Christian teachings was against war, or any participation in it. This did not
indeed become a reality in Christian life in later ages, for Christians have
supported war in every century, yet it prepared the way for the efforts for
peace and arbitration in the Middle Ages which we shall detail later,—for the
modern efforts to mitigate the evils of war and to prevent it by
arbitration,—and for the higher efforts of the followers of the Prince of
Peace, sure to come, to put an end to war on the earth, and bring on universal
peace.
CHAPTER IX. DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY.
There will be diverse difficulties in examining the direction
and effect of Christ’s teachings on the distribution of property. We are not to
define Oriental and half-poetic expressions as we would similar phrases in a
Western and more prosaic narrative ; and on the other hand, we should not
interpret Christ’s words solely by the practice of his later followers and by
the ideas of a modern and industrial age. It is not to be assumed, as is done
by most writers on this subject, that the modern form of the distribution of
wealth is the final and perfect one, and that society as it is now is
substantially what it must be in all coming ages, or what our Lord contemplated
in his future “ Kingdom of Heaven,” or regenerated society of all men. A
Christian writer in the early Middle Age would have had equal right to assume
that society must always be made up of landlords owning vast tracts of country,
who protected their vassals, of large bodies of military followers, and of
serfs bound to the soil, or that justice in regard to quarrels over property
and land must always be decided the judicial duel. Both conditions were not
directly touched upon by the teachings of the great Reformer, yet the principles
He taught must gradually undermine both. The feudal system belonged to a stage
of human progress. The modern industrial and commercial system may be equally
one phase in the gradual change or advance of mankind. At $11 events, it is not
the ideal or perfect system. A condition of society in which enormous masses of
human beings are born to an almost inevitable lot of squalor, penury and
ignorance, and still other multitudes to incessant labour with few alleviations
or enjoyments, while another considerable class, with little or no effort of
their own, have all the blessings of life and transmit them to others,—or an
industrial system which leaves to the few who are gifted with the brains or
enjoy the fortune to lead industrial enterprizes the power to reap the benefits
of labour, while the many who toil, only gain a bare pittance, —a society which
presents on one side, enormous fortunes and endless accumulations of wealth,
while on the other, it offers classes ground down by poverty and pinched with
want, is certainly not the Christian ideal of society or any approach to the “
Kingdom of God ” on earth.
The great
moral progress of the future of the race will plainly be toward some form of a
more equable distribution of the proceeds of labour. What form this will take
is as impossible to predict, as would have been for a citizen of the Roman
empire at the time of Tacitus to predict the present condition of Europe.
If we read
Christ’s teachings with perfect candour, and as far removed from modern habits
of thought as possible, we discover a continual tendency towards exalting
poverty, humbling wealth, and equalizing the conditions of life. Leaving out of
view the fact that Christ and His disciples lived in almost an atmosphere of
agrarianism, or at least of inalienability of family property in land, under
the Jewish land-system, and also the natural freedom from all
burdens of property which the teacher of a new faith might well inculcate in a
climate such as that of Syria ; still, there is even then a certain tone
throughout the gospels, if not of “communism,” at least in favour of greater
distribution of wealth than would suit modern ideas. Christ and the apostles
warn incessantly against accumulation of wealth. They almost denounce the rich
; they praise and commend the poor; their sympathies are strongly with the
working classes ; they urge continually the diffusion of property, in whatever
way would benefit the world; they warn those who do not scatter their acquisitions
among the needy; they leave the impression everywhere, that a greater
equalizing of human goods, a moderate acquisition, and a raising up from
poverty is what is demanded. The parable of Lazarus has been too often
interpreted under modern conditions, and it may well be that some explanatory
features given by Christ are omitted by the historian ; but its literal
interpretation plainly contains a plea against the great inequalities of
fortune in this world.
Nothing,
however, in Christ’s teachings tends towards any forcible interfering with
rights of property, or encourages dependence on others. As we have so often
said, He seldom concerns Himself with human institutions. He would not
interfere with property any more than He would with government. And, as we
shall show, in presenting His influence on the charity of the world, neither He
nor His apostles ever taught idleness or dependence. On the contrary, they
enforced the lesson of industry by word and example; and the very foundation of
the new character, stamped by Christ, contained those features of dignity and
true manhood which have lain at the basis of all real independence and liberty
ever since, Neither the idleness of socialism or monasticism nor the weakness
of pauperism finds any support in the gospels.
The
especial methods by which our Lord would resist accumulation, are by
inculcating the absolute duty of giving and of sharing means with others who
are less fortunate, and by withdrawing the mind from the excessive greed for
money. In many cases, the entire giving up of property for the good of others
is made the test of discipleship.
The early
“ communism ” of the apostles is an evidence how deeply these instructions
penetrated ; but nothing in the words of Christ or His disciples shows that
they set forth this as a model for the future. Their great principles were,
not to hunger for riches, to be content with moderate means, and if wealth
came, to hold it rigidly as a trust for the good of humanity. These principles
would certainly tend towards equalization of property.
Charity.—One
great means of equalizing human conditions was evidently to be through
benefaction and charity. Those who had were to give to those who had not. This,
however, did not arise under Christ’s system so much from a desire of setting
right the distribution of wealth, as from the great underlying principle of His
whole teachings, that the individual and society were to be renewed by love to
God, and to man through Him. The world never needed charity and compassion as it
did in the centuries just following Christ. The irresponsible and despotic
authority of Rome had stripped some of the richest provinces of the ancient
world of every vestige of wealth for the sake of adding to the incredible
extravagance and display of the imperial court and city. The system of taxation
in distant communities was like that in the states of European Turkey in this
century. It soon left nothing to the unfortunate peasants, and mortgaged their
harvests years before. Nor did the taxes always reach the imperial exactor.
Knavish tax-gatherers, peculating officials and
local “
rings,” plundered the money which was wrung from the half-starved farmers.
There was no science, order or justice in Roman systems of taxation. Incessant
wars and conquests added to the misery of the labouring classes; and slavery,
as we have shown, depressed the industry and wasted the means of the whole
empire. Vast masses of proletaires were gathered in the cities, especially in
the imperial capital; and poverty, orphanage, abandonment of children, with
wide-spread pauperism prevailed, as they have scarcely ever been known in the
history _ of the world.
But it
must not be supposed that there were no efforts of compassion to alleviate
these evils before the first proclamation of Christian charity. The sympathies
of humanity have been felt in every age and by every race, even if in a feeble
degree. In ancient Rome, men always acknowledged a certain duty in giving alms
to beggars and in relieving extreme distress, though infant misery seems to
have excited comparatively little compassion.
Still,
anything like the modern sentiment or conviction, born of Christianity, of the
obligation resting upon each man of doing all in hi's power to wisely relieve
human misery; and the wide-spread, thorough, conscientious benefactions by
individuals, so common in modern days, were things almost unknown in the
ancient world.
Nor were
the efforts of the imperial government for the poor, true charities. It
depended to a certain degree on the favour of the crowd, and therefore food was
supplied indiscriminately to all the hungry and idle who poured into the
capital. In Cicero’s time, it is estimated that about 12 per cent, of the whole
population, and in the year 683 of the Republic, 33 per cent, were supported at
public expense.1
1 Naudet, Mem. sur les secours publics chez les
Remains.
H
It is
related that Caesar found 320,000 persons, or nearly three-quarters of the
whole population of the city, on the roll of public succour ; five modii of bread
(or about 56 lbs.) were distributed to each person per month. Under Augustus,
there were 200,000 persons in Rome receiving “ out-door relief ” from the
authorities ; this was continued to the reign of Septimius Severus, who added a
ration of oil to the alms thus given. Valentinian the Elder ordered a
gratuituous distribution of white bread to each citizen ;1 80,000
modii were distributed per day in Constantinople, and an increase of 125,000
modii per day was made by Constans. Constantine, who desired to have as many
houses built in the new capital as possible, allotted bread according to the
houses, not to the number of persons. Some of the emperors appropriated large
amounts of money to keeping down the price of bread in the capital, while
others taxed the provinces heavily in order to make provisions cheap in the
metropolis. The effects of such a vicious system of charity can easily be
inferred. The idle and improvident of all countries were attracted to Rome to
enjoy this “ out-door relief; ” the industrious were discouraged, those who
produced the wealth burdened, and the working-classes were led to depend on
the government for everything, while the government lived in fear of them.
There was no spirit of true compassion in it, and no wise economy. The masses
supported a tyranny and received bread and shows. The real workers were
despoiled. But there were other indirect methods of distributing property under
the Republic and Empire. Such articles as salt were furnished gratuitously to
the people; patrons supported their clients; “ stay-laws ” were passed to
prevent the collection of debts; agrarian laws furnished, like the American
public-land laws, free home-
1 C. Theod,., xiv. 17, 5 and 16, 2 ; xi.
24, 2.
steads to
the landless, on conquered or public territory. Caesar bought lands to be
distributed among the poor. The vicious system of public distribution of bread
or grain among the people was not abandoned till the seventh century after
Christ.
There even
existed some forms of public assistance in harmony with modern ideas. Aristotle
had the wisdom to say that the best way to relieve poverty was to prevent it,
by giving means to buy a little piece of land or by a loan to found a trade.
Mutual assistance or insurance societies seem to have existed in Greece, and
are spoken of by Pliny1 in Trajan’s time, as formed for “making
poverty more endurable.”2 Before this time, the emperors had seen
with anxiety the constant diminution of population, especially shown in the
lessening number of children in the empire. Augustus attempted to encourage the
increase of children by well-known laws, and it is related that on his travels
through Italy, he was in the habit of bestowing an allowance (congiarium) of
400 sesterces3 on any one whom the authorities could prove to have
supported a family ; subsequently, children over eleven years of age were made
participators in these bounties.
The
Emperor Nerva left benefactions to encourage the increase of children. Trajan,
in 100 A.D., supported 5,000 destitute or orphan children at public expense,
and increased the number every year. Money was invested by him for this
purpose in land and farms at Veleia, Cisalpine Gaul, which appears to have paid
about 5 per cent, interest. In this particular school or asylum, there were 263
boys and 33 girls; in some villages poor children were supported in their homes
by the emperor, while municipalities maintained others.
1 Pliny, Ep. x. 93, 94.
2 Ad sustinendum tenuorum inopiam. 3
About £& or $41.
Pliny
endowed a charity for the children of the poor; while the emperors Adrian,
Antoninus, and M. Aurelius founded or continued benefactions of a like
character.1
Charitable
bequests are occasionally alluded to in the burial inscriptions. Thus a citizen
of Atona bequeathed to his native town a sum equal to ^3,200 or $16,000; a lady
of rank, “in memory of her son,” gives to Terra- cina .£8000 or $40,000 to
establish a charity; and various smaller bequests for benevolent purposes are
mentioned.2
One of the
nearest approaches to the charitable associations of the Christian world, were
the curious collegia of the Roman empire in the first and second centuries. The
history of these has been especially brought forward through the burial
inscriptions3 recently deciphered.
They seem
to have been a kind of social clubs or masonic associations, where all were
equal, where fraternal meals were common, and monthly payments prepared a fund
for sepulture, for common festivals, and sometimes for ornamental buildings.
They formed -a natural prototype for the Christian Churches and their
charitable societies; but, so far as can be ascertained, they^ did not use
their funds for the poor. They cultivated the habit of equality, and the
fraternal spirit, but they did not feel or express “ the enthusiasm of humanity,”
and therefore died out, or were converted into Christian societies. Yet the
ideal was sometimes there, as in one beautiful inscription on a woman’s tomb,
who is pictured as “the mother of all human beings, ready to help all, and who
had made the life of no one sad.” 1
1 Sen. de
Rhet., 71, 72, 75, 77, 79, 115.
2 Orelli and
Mommsen, quoted in Boissier, La Religion Romaine, 2, 191, and 2, 3, v. 4.
3 De Rossi,
La Roma sott. Christ.
4 Omnium hominum parens, omnibus subveniens,
tristem fecit neminem.
But few,
however, of such institutions existed in the pre-Christian period. The great
masses suffering poverty and orphanage in the Roman empire remained almost
untouched by any influence of compassion or any effort of relief.
With
Christianity began the organized and individual charity of modern Europe, which
for these eighteen centuries has wiped away so many tears, softened so much
suffering, saved so many young lives from misery and sin, ministered at so many
death-beds, made the solitary evening of life sweet to so many forsaken ones,
and the morning glad to so many who would have been born to sorrow and shame ;
which in so many countries has cared for the sick, the blind, the deaf, the
crippled, the outcast and tempted ; the young, the orphan, the foundling, and
the aged. Surely, if anything is a fore-gleam of that kingdom of heaven which
is yet to shine over the earth, it is the brotherhood of spirit, shown in the
charity of the modern world. This is most distinctly the fruit of Christ’s
teachings. And yet the Master did not lay any extraordinary weight on
alms-giving. He simply taught the love of man through love to Himself, that the
poorest and lowest of the human race represented Himself, and what was done to
them was done to Him. The equal brotherhood of man came forth from His
teachings, and all human beings of whatever rank, or under whatever disabilities
of misfortune, became of equal value in the eyes of His followers, as being
those for whom He lived and in behalf of whom He felt it not unworthy to die.
The unfortunate had henceforth around them the halo of the great Sufferer, and
a very different place in the sympathies of the new world of Europe.
The
Christian Churches became very early centres of charity. Refuges for orphans
(orphano-trophise) were
formed in
connection with them, and hospitals for mothers ; many of them maintained free
“ strangers’ rests " (xeno- dochise). The emperor Julian’s famous letter
to Arsenius, speaks in reproach of the Galilaeans supporting not only their own
poor, but also those of the Romans.
Valentinian
in 364 A.D., in a proclamation, says that the true worship1 consists
in helping the poor and relieving those in necessity, while he charges the
bishops to watch over the poor and save them from exactions. Several of the
Christian emperors took under their especial protection houses for the orphan
and infirm.2 The Code pronounces it a pious duty to support
orphan-asylums.3
Justinian’s
Code speaks of hospitals for mothers.4
Churches
were constantly enriched by the offerings of Christian charity, in order that
they might extend their benefactions; and the clergy were allowed especial privileges,
inasmuch as their property was employed for the good of others.5
This is the beginning of that ecclesiastical endowment and freedom from public
burdens, which afterwards became so great a weight upon many European
communities. It proves, at least in that age, the fervour of charity under the
new influences.
The month
of December, which had been the especial month in which gladiatorial games and
cruel shows were provided by the rich for the poor in memory of the dead,
became the month of offerings for the poor and suffering in memory of Him who
had died for all.
The first
hospital is said to have been built in Rome at
1 Corp.
Jur., 1, 3, 32.
2 Verus
cultus est adjuvare pauperes (sic) et positos in necessitate. {Corp.
Jur. 1, 4, 1.)
3 Pium atque religiosum officium pro tempore
orphanotrophos ita peragere convenit. {Corp. Jur., 1, 3.)
4 Cod. Theod., i. 2, 17, 22.
5 Ibid., xvi. 2, 10.
the end of
the fourth century. A little later, Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius the
younger, built and endowed several at Constantinople; they increased under
later reigns.1 The Church councils, by repeated acts of legislation,
imposed on. the clergy and citizens the obligation of supporting, feeding, and
clothing the poor, and these declarations were re-affirmed in every city by the
local clergy. ■
Effects.of
Charity.—It has been alleged with some apparent justice, that this spirit of
Christian charity, which has made modern society so different from ancient, has
cultivated dependence, and increased pauperism or that kind of poverty which is
without hope or energy.
But it
should be remembered that there is nothing in the teachings of Christ or the
apostles which favoured indiscriminate alms-giving, or the supporting the poor
without labour. “ If a man will not work neither shall he eat ” is evidently a
favourite proverb with the great apostle. He himself laboured with his own
hands. The disciples were working people, and Christ, in human relations,
belonged to the working-classes. The type of character He stamped on men was
the very opposite of the idle and dependent kind ; it was earnest,
self-controlled, under a deep sense of responsibility, looking continually to
Him to whom man should give an account of every word and work, with a
conviction of being the child of God, and therefore calling no man master. It
was such a character as could not possibly in the long course of ages sustain
tyranny, or support even priestly arbitrary rule, or encourage any form of
pauperism and dependence. It seems to contain the stuff out of which
republicans and lovers of freedom in all ages are made, and from which the most
independent and self-relying (because God-relying) 1 Cod. Just., i.
2, 17, 22.
races are
formed. Yet forms of government or laws relating to the management of the poor
were the last things which Christ would interfere with.
The
excessive and unreasoning alms-giving of European countries, and the monastic
associations of the Middle Ages, are not due to the legitimate and logical
influence of Christianity. They are a natural re-action from the selfishness
of the classic period, and sprang from the fearful economical condition in
which Europe found itself at the destruction of the Roman empire. So profound
and apparently remediless were the evils of the civilized world, so impossible
did it seem then to reach the sources of the universal calamity, that a humane
person, and above all, one filled with this new love of God and man might well
think he had done enough and the best, in sacrificing all to relieve present
human misery. He might be willing to take on him the garb of a servant, and,
unlike his Master, merely minister to terrible bodily wants, without regard to
what was beyond or to the causes of pauperism and suffering. He could become an
alms-distributing monk ; or, wearied out with the intense struggle to support
life amid a world of suffering and selfishness, it would not be strange that he
should join one of the “ mutual assistance societies ” of those ages, and
withdraw to a convent where he could pass his days in quiet labour, peaceful
studies, and rapt devotion. The world of the Roman empire seemed perishing ;
the imperial city was half-destroyed; the monk felt only too happy to belong to
the city of God, and to keep his thoughts on the world unseen and eternal.
Christianity
cannot be considered directly responsible for monasticism any more than for
numerous other vagaries of the human mind since its advent. A very large part
of the wealth of the community which before Christ
was
deyoted to the luxuries of the rich, or was expended in debasing and cruel
spectacles, was henceforth mainly distributed among the labouring classes
through hospitals, asylums, free-schools, institutions of learning and various
charities.
Charity is
not the best form of the distribution of the profits of labour, but it is
certainly one form. Education, as endowed by individuals or the State, is
another and better form. And this began in Europe especially after
Christianity, though the efforts of the Arabs in this direction in subsequent
ages should never be forgotten.
We do not
claim, of course, that the Christian religion in the Roman period solved the
problem of ages—the proper distribution of wealth. We only urge that its
principles and the words of its Founder tended towards a far more equitable
division of property than the world has yet known ; that, as its truths more
and more control men, there will continually be in some form or other a more
equal distribution of the profits of labour, and that something of the just
sharing by those who have with those who have not was seen at that period.
The method
of distribution will vary with each succed- ing age.
The reforms to be traced in the foregoing chapters show the
natural and legitimate influence of the Christian system. Parents are bid by
the apostle to respect their children, and under Christ’s ideas, the son stands
with the father as a common child of God whose rights and claims are to be
equally considered before Him. Such a tyranny as that of the Roman Patria
Potestas could not possibly exist for a long period where society was even
feebly touched with the spirit of Christ.
The
Stoical spirit of humanity had undoubtedly softened the extreme features of
harshness of this rule, but it did not come to an end till the new Faith had
reached the legislation of the empire. Equally so with the succession of
property. The humane views of the Stoical school had already modified the
strict tendencies of the Roman law, but it was only after the new doctrines of
brotherhood and justice, taught by the followers of the great Jewish teachers,
had touched the imperial legislators, that succession followed the bonds of
blood and moved in the channels of true equity.
The power
of Christianity on the Roman world was especially the influence of a Person, of
a pure and elevated character who claimed to be a supernatural Being in his
relations to men and God, and who was the Founder of a new religion. His nature
alone, from its purity and elevation, seemed to sweep away unnatural passions
from
106 ,
among men,
and both in the Roman empire, and since among all races following Him,
unnatural vice—one of the greatest evils of antiquity,—has substantially passed
away. His character and teachings naturally checked and finally rooted out such
a barbarous cruelty and selfish practice, as the exposure of children by
parents ; and through His influence began the long series of charities for
children and the poor and unhappy, which have come down through the centuries.
He was not only in advance of the Roman period, but of all ages since, in teaching
the duty of a more equitable distribution of wealth in behalf of the poor, the
unfortunate and the labouring classes.
The
influence of the great Friend of humanity was especially seen in the Roman
empire in checking licentious and cruel sports, so common and so demoralizing
among the classic races ; and in bringing on a new legislation of beneficence
in favour of the outcast woman, the mutilated, the prisoner, and the slave. For
the first time the stern and noble features of Roman law took on an unwonted
expression of gentle humanity and sweet compassion, under the power of Him who
was the brother of the unfortunate and the sinful. The great followers of the
Teacher of Galilee became known as the “ brothers of the slave,” and the
Christian religion began its struggle of many centuries with those greatest of
human evils—slavery and serfdom. It did not indeed succeed in abolishing them ;
but the remarkable mitigations of the system in Roman law, and the constant
drift towards a condition of liberty, and the increasing emancipation
throughout the Roman empire, are plainly fruits of its principles. All these
and similar steps of humane progress are the “ Gesta Christi ” and the direct
effects of His personal influence on the world.
As to the
position of woman, it was the continual reproach of the early enemies of the
Christians that they
put woman
on so high a position. Women had from the first a strong influence in the
Church; the earliest converts from all ranks of society were women, and the
example of, Christ and the apostles has given the key-note to all modern
civilization in the tender respect and dignity thrown around the weaker sex. In
this, the Jews of the imperial era only followed out much of the early
teachings of the Sacred Book. The picture of the Jewish woman in the last
chapter of Proverbs (xxxi. 10-31) might describe the position of a Christian
lady with many dependents in the nineteenth century in any civilized portion of
America or Europe.
At the
period of which we are speaking, the peculiar influence of the German tribes
upon the position of woman had not been much felt in the Empire. The “ tutelage
” of woman existed among them also. There was nothing in the Stoical mode of
thought, or in the teachings and example of Stoics, which especially tended to
elevate woman. The current opinion in the cultivated classes of the Roman
empire, if we may judge from poets, satirists, and fragments of speeches handed
down, was of profound contempt for woman in the moral and intellectual aspect.
There were of course happy marriages, and many instances of affection for
sisters and female relatives or friends, and the annals of Rome presented not a
few examples of very heroic and superior women ; but, in general, Roman women
merited by their conduct and their lack of intelligence in the imperial era,
the contempt and censure so freely showered on them by the men.
The change
in their legal position and the removal of tutelage, is plainly due to the
effects of the new Faith. Their own character rose with the increased respect
accorded them in the rising Church. They became the confessors of the Faith
under the most brutal and savage
persecutions
; their martyrdoms on the cross, in the bloody arena or under frightful
tortures, formed the most touching incidents in Christian traditions. The
sufferings and death of women in the early ages of the Faith for ever hallowed
the sex in the history of the Church.
Marriage,
too, under the Christian idea, was a bond of equal union, and the highest
spiritual partnership. It recognised the two partners as equal before God, and
as of one flesh, even though different offices were assigned to each. The Roman
tutelage could not exist long under it. It is true that this idea of marriage
existed with the Stoics, but it was seldom realized ; and what the Roman
practice became, we have seen. Yet the new Faith would not permit the entire
freedom and laxity which arose under the Roman “ free marriage,” any more than
it recognised the entire subjection and inferiority of the wife under the
ancient Latin marriage. It, demanded faithfulness, virtue, and propriety ; it
urged the indissolubility of marriage, except for unfaithfulness or its moral
equivalent ; it taught the continuance of the union through endless ages of a
coming life. So it happened, that this Faith had a composite influence on the
position of woman. It strengthened the marriage tie, and therefore, restrained
woman of the great freedom she had been enjoying as a married woman under Roman
practice. It gave her on the other hand, greater dignity, both as wife and
unmarried, and removed her from under the excessive restraints of the old Roman
law. The Church, with its Canon law, has undoubtedly often gone beyond the
teachings of its Founder, and subjected the wife to unreasonable legal
restraints. But at the period of which we speak, the power of both Religion and
Church entered Roman society as a thoroughly purifying and ennobling agency. It
did not accomplish, indeed, all that in its nature it was intended to effect;
the Roman
habits were too long formed and the influence of both laws and emperors was too
weak to eradicate them. Moreover, there comes a period in the history of the
decadence of a race when its moral condition is aparently beyond the reach of
any system of morality, or of the purest religion.1 We know that
moral changes are wrought out by slow moral means, and that it is possible for
a race as for an individual to reach such depths of corruption and weakness as
to forbid any reasonable possibility of renovation and restoration.
The Roman
race, and many of the races under its sway, had evidently fallen to that stage
of degeneracy. They were eaten away by vices and corruption beyond any hope of
redemption. Their great historian—the prophet of evil—Tacitus, saw this with
singular clearness, and this thought inspires his solemn and sombre eloquence.
But he sees no redemption possible. Human affairs seem to him the sport of
unseen powers,2 and final and general ruin the only and probable
ending. The poets are full of this melancholy tone. The moralists take refuge
in the sublime truths of Stoicism and create an ideal city of virtue which
shall take the place of the imperial city, soon to perish. It may be, it was
this idea which lay at the bottom of the solemn conviction of the apostles,
that the end of all things was at hand : the world of the day was coming to an
end ; not even the religion of Jesus could save it.
What could
preserve European society ? The usual
1 This seems the condition of the Sandwich
Islanders at this present time; the race is dying out, and Christian influences
do not reach it thoroughly enough to save it. On the other hand, the Fijis, a
more savage, but vigorous race, show the genuine action of the Christian Faith.
(See Miss Cummings on the Fijis.)
s Res
humanas superis ludibrio.
answer has
been, the invasion and intermingling of the German and Keltic races. But, as we
shall show later, it was not the fresh infusion of barbarian blood alone which
could renovate the world. The northern tribes brought indeed a more healthy
physical nature into the Roman empire, and purer habits, and characters less
enervated by luxury or corrupted by vice. But they had their own vices; they
were cruel, revengeful and passionate; certain lusts had made deep inroads in their
natures ; the paternal tyranny and a tutelage of woman existed among them.
Their ideas of justice were much less developed than were those of the Romans ;
and humanity was scarcely understood by them. Yet from the first, they formed
a fruitful soil in which Christianity could work. It is altogether probable
that this Faith can more easily plant itself in a wild barbarous nature, with
many generous qualities, than in a more cultivated mind, where the pride and
vices of luxury have been long growing rankly. Without the Christian
influences, the northern barbarians might have either overwhelmed Roman
civilization and brought on a night of barbarism, or have been themselves
corrupted and destroyed by the vices and sensuality which surrounded them; in
either case, they could not have renovated the world. Their influence would
perhaps have been like that of the Sclavonians on the Greeks ; and no important
result for human progress have appeared. The advance of mankind for future
ages seemed at that time to depend on two factors: the power of a system of
morality supported by supernatural sanctions, or upon Religion ; and a fresh
race in which this religion was to manifest itself. The Roman and Greek races
were in their last stages of degeneracy. Physical evils and weakness of will
had been transmitted for generations. Unnatural vices, the sign of final
decrepitude, had attacked all classes. Marriage had become a
farce, or
the feeblest bond. Exposure of children was practised to an incredible extent.
The spirit of cruelty was nourished by every device and encouraged by incessant
bloody sports ; even human sacrifices were offered at the altars of the gods.
Slavery had eaten out the life of the nation and wasted its substance. Owing to
forced labour, imperial tyranny, bad finance and wars, an almost immeasurable
pauperism covered the empire. The only help possible seemed in utterly breaking
up society and introducing fresh blood and new institutions.
A new
religion or a system of exalted morality could not penetrate to the heart of
Roman society as it then was. It reached certain individuals, who became
conspicuous instances to all ages of its power. But it left untouched great
masses of men, and therefore many of the evil habits and practices of a sensual
past. This was the more true in that the new Faith soon became a State
Religion, and therefore was upheld by force and self interest, instead of being
left to its own spiritual power. It was professed by multitudes who never felt
its converting influences, %
What
Christianity could do with an old and degenerate race under a State Church,
where religion became an externality and faith a matter of government, we see
in the dreary history of the Eastern empire. The power of the system never
touched the heart of the people. If we except the grand legacy of Roman law, as
reformed by Christian influences, left by Justinian and his predecessors, we
can hardly point to one blessing transmitted to the world by the nominally
Christian empire, whose seat was at Constantinople, The Greek population needed
the German blood.
What a
fresh barbarian race could accomplish in renovating the world without
Christianity, we may see in the
effects of
the Turkish conquest on the races of the Greek empire. The Turks had many of
the noble savage qualities of the ancient Germans; their faith in some points
was purer than the half-idolatrous worship of the Greek masses, and for this
reason and others, they did not accept the faith of the conquered races, as did
the northern barbarians. .
Christianity
never mitigated their savagery or purified their passions. Under Mohammedism,
Turkey and some of the fairest provinces of the world have been kept out of the
march of human progress. Sensuality and unnatural vice are said to prevail as
they did in the Roman Empire, and even this century has witnessed cruelties and
barbarisms such as were common in Europe before the new Faith appeared.
For the
coming triumph of Christianity, or even its partial infusion into European
life, there were needed fresh races or peoples, not exposed to Roman
corruption, who would receive its teachings gladly. These appeared in the
Germanic and Keltic tribes ; and their influence, as modified by Christianity,
on the moral progress of Europe is now to be examined.
POWER OF
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH ON THE HABITS, MORALS, AND LAWS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
When the German and Keltic tribes first met the influences of
the Christian Faith, they had about them something of the wholesome purity, as
well as the savageness of the vigorous life in the forests and on the waters.
For some unexplained reason, woman held, in the Teutonic tribes, a peculiar
and revered position. It is true that she was under the absolute authority of
her husband or guardian, and could be sold by the former, or bought or beaten
or killed. Yet she was the companion of his labours and dangers j1
her counsel in moments of great peril was looked upon by the tribe as almost
inspired ; she was often the prophetess of revealed destinies; she encouraged
the men in their fiercest battles, and it was said that, to the soldier
despairing and dying, her whisper would bring back life and courage, and often
arouse him to victory.2 Repeatedly in their long struggles with the
Romans, have women of the Germans deliberately murdered themselves, rather than
submit to dishonour. It may not be reasonable to trust entirely to an epigrammatic
satirist like Tacitus, or to a fiery denunciator like Salvian, yet under the
comparisons of both there must be some truth. The purity of German women must
have
1 Tacitus.
2 Gidd, Condition privde de la Femme,
Tacitus.
been a
striking contrast with Roman impurity; and according to the “ eloquent priest
of Marseilles,” the virtue of the Gallic Christians made but a poor appearance
placed beside this heathen chastity. The Teutons are represented as at first
shocked with the abominations they beheld in Roman cities ; they destroyed the
houses of lust and even slew the women who were instruments of such debasing
pleasure. The old sagas show the estimate the early Teutons put on female
purity; and the ancient legislation which affixes such severe penalties for
even innocent familiarities, and which has scales of penalties for every
approach against woman’s virtue, prove how early this was embodied in law and
custom.
Unlike
most barbarous or semi-civilized tribes, the Germans had succeeded in
preserving the morals of their women measurably pure. It was this undoubtedly
which retained the physical vigour of these tribes, and gave them the bodily
force which overwhelmed the degenerate Romans, and which has kept their
descendants at the head of the world’s affairs even to this day. Yet it will
not be wise to exaggerate these qualities. Such writers as Tacitus and Salvian
have no doubt painted their virtues in brighter colours in order to throw Roman
vice into darker shade. Polygamy was not unknown among them, or unnatural vice.1
The absolute tyranny of the husband often ended in cruelty and bitter
oppression. The provision in certain laws that the husband could not put out
the eyes or break the limbs of the unhappy wife,2 shows to what
violence he did sometimes proceed.
It is true
that as time went on the archaic form of purchase of the wife became more and
more a purchase
1 See Tacitus. Corpore infames. The one guilty
of these vices was called by the Anglo-Saxons badling; by the Salians,
cynitus.
2 See
Davoud-Oghlou’s Legislation des anciens Germains.
of the
guardianship and not of the person of the woman, and finally was only the mode
of providing a dower. Yet in the early centuries marriage with the Germans was
the buying1 of a woman like any other property, and one of the first
endowments of a wife was the barbarous and coarse Morgengabe. Woman was the
maiden serving her lord, who knelt at his feet during his meal and yielded to
his every whim.2 There was a coarse and brutal side to German
marriage, as well as a more elevated. A, wife rated at so many pieces of silver
could not be the ideal “ socium laborum et periculorum,” companion of labours
and dangers, whom Tacitus pictures. Nothing shows the degrading side of this
connection better than that provision of the Anglo-Saxon law, which we shall
quote, in regard to the compensation made to a husband for the adultery of his
wife, wherein a woman seems to be valued like any other property, and the
offender is obliged to furnish another wife in place of the false one.3
Whatever purity the Teutons may have preserved in their native wilds, they did
not long retain under the temptations of the Roman cities.
When
Christianity first touched them they were beginning to feel these degenerating
influences. It was fortunate for the future of Europe that the elevating power
of this Religion came to aid the German habit of purity and estimate of woman,
before Roman and Greek vices had sapped the Teutonic character. The best
results of modern civilization have probably come from the position given to
women in Europe by German customs, purified by the
1 According to Grimm (D.
Alterthiimer) the phrase “ buy a woman " for “ take a wife ” came down
into the Middle Ages in many parts of Germany. (P. 421.) .
2 Gidi.
3 Leg. Aethel., 32.
Christian
Faith. That modern society has not decayed like ancient, and that pure
family-life still supplies fresh forces to races a thousand years old, is due
above all to the teachings of Christ, acting on German barbaric virtue and
respect for woman. The peculiar chivalry in the sentiment towards woman which
softened manners and civilized certain classes so much in the Middle Ages, and
which still ornaments modern society, is a combined product of the German and
the Christian, and is a feature unknown to classic races.
German
Tutelage—The Tutelage or Mund (mundium, probably from manus) of the German
woman was very different from the Roman manus. It was a guardianship more in
the interest of the woman and ward than of the husband or guardian. The “
subjection of woman ” rested on a different basis from that implied, and often
acknowledged in the Roman law. There was none of that cynical contempt for her
which even the Stoical jurists could not avoid expressing as for an inferior
and very uncertain being. The German theory of tutelage simply rested on the
fact that she could not bear arms, and therefore could not appear personally
in the only forms of legal trial known to that people. She must be represented
by another who must guard her rights and her interests. It has been said by a
thorough investigator of this field,1 that
throughout ancient German legislation “woman appears with a mingled character
of feebleness and of grandeur,” which would not badly describe her position in
modern civilization.
No German
woman 3 of the higher classes was permitted
1 Sallantin.
De la Puissance Maritale en Droit Romain et en
Droit Frangais.
3 Nulli
mulieri liceat in suae potestatis arbitrio, id est sine mundio vivere. (Rotharis.,
p. 205.)
to live
without a guardian.1 The tutelage passed from the father to the
husband.2 If the husband died the relatives of the widow could
liberate the tutelage (mundium liberate) and buy rights of guardianship. The
tutelage gave the husband the right to sell, punish, or kill his wife. If he
killed her when innocent he was obliged to pay a heavy fine to the parents who
had given her to him.3
The
original form of marriage with the Teutons indicated a purchase; with the
Scandinavians it is called in the sagas brod-kaup,4 kaup
mali, mundi-kaup. By the law of the Alemanns, if the father demand the wife
back, the husband must return her and compensate her with forty solidi? By the
Saxon law the future husband must pay three hundred solidi6 to the
parents.
The law of
the Visigoths speaks of the “ price ” given by the groom to the parents;7
the Burgundians give it a similar name ; the Lombards call it meta. The Francs
in later time, when it had become a mere form, speak of it as uper
solidum et denarium.”
The laws
of king Ine (688 A.D) say: “ Gif man wif
1 Megede unde
wif muten aver vormunden hebben an jewelker klage. ([Sachsensp., I, 46.) Mulier
semper potestate viri aut potestate curtis regiaa debeat permanere. {Ed.
Rothar., p. 205.)
2 Maritus est
tutor uxoris post deponsationem. (Sachsensp., in, 115).
3 Sic maritus uxorem suam occiderit
immerentem, componat solidos mille ducentos parentibus qui earn ad maritum
dederint. (Rothar., 203.)
‘ Grimm,
D. Alt., p. 422.
5 - . . reddat earn et cum quadraginta
solidis earn componat. (L. Alem., tit. 54.)
6 Uxorem ducturus ccc. sol. det parentibus
ejus. (L. Sax., tit. vi.) Qui viduam ducere velit, offerat
tutori pretium emptionis ejus. (L. Sax., 7, 3.)
1 Si inter sponsum et sponsas
parentes ... . dato pretio, etc. (L. Visig., hi, 452.) Si pater de filise
nuptiis definierit, et de pretio convenerit, etc. (Ibid, in,
i, 2.)
gebycge,
etc.” “ If a man buy a wife and the marriage take not place, let him give the
money and compensate, and make bot (compensation) to his surety.”1
An ancient
historian speaks of marriage as being firmer if purchase-money had been paid.2
The ancient Germans could sell wives as an insult or a punishment; the Icelanders
had this power; the Frisians are related to have sold their wives and children
to pay their taxes to the Romans. The Saxons, as we have seen, could buy a
wife, but were not permitted to sell her. The Langobards gave away a wife,
sometimes to an unfree person, probably as a punishment.
Aethelbert
speaks also of buying a wife;3 the price was called a ceap, sceatt,
gyft. This king also commands that if a free man breaks the marriage tie with a
free married woman, he shall buy another woman and bring her to the injured
husband.4 And, again, “ If a free man take away a free man’s wife,
let him pay for it with his wergeld, and provide another wife with his own
money and bring her to the other.”5
By the
laws of the Alemanns, he who marries the wife of another shall pay forty solidi
to the injured husband, and restore the woman. If he keep .the wife with the
consent of the husband, he will pay 400 solidi—her full value; if she die
before the husband has reclaimed her, he will also pay 400 solidi. The children
born before the payment of her value, will belong to the first husband ; if
one
1 Leg. Incs, 31.
2 Tutiorem matrimonii fidem censebat quod
pretio firmaretur. (Jur. Gramm., lib. v. p. 88.)
5 Leg. Aeth., 76, 82.
4 Idem, 32.
Si liber homo cum hominis liberi uxore concubuerit ejus capitale redimat, et
aliam uxorem propria pecunia mercetur, et illi alteri adducat.
5 Idem, 31. ,
of them
should die, the second husband must pay wergeld or compensation that is, the
wife and all that belong to her, are regarded as the property of him who bought
her.
In the old
Welsh laws, compiled 1180 A.D. and belonging to a much older period, we find
the three stages of endowment of the wife existing together—the amobyr or
purchase-money paid to the father by the husband, the cowyll or morgengabe,
given by the husband to the wife on the morning after marriage, and the agwaddi
or dower given by the father to the husband.3 All the ancient Welsh
laws give the wife half the property if she be seven years married and
separated without fault of her own.
Scandinavian
Customs.—The most ancient German customs are those of the Scandinavian races.
They are stamped with a singular respect for woman ; and yet in some directions
she was especially under subjection.
Their
oldest laws punished the murder of a humble maiden more than that of a chief.
The weaker sex was protected in innumerable ways; and even as late as the 12th
century, a simple kiss forced upon a maiden was punished with fine or exile ;
and in the 15th century, a law of Copenhagen orders the adulterous woman to be
buried alive, and the guilty partner to be decapitated.
The
Scandinavian woman carried arms by a champion, and pleaded or sat in justice
through a representative. She was excluded from judicial debates but could act
alone in small matters. At times, she had the right to choose her own guardian
; if her tutor abused his rights she could bring an action. She had
personality—property which she could call her own. If a relative was killed,
she took a portion of the inheritance, or received the blood-money,
1 Lex.
Alem., 51, 1, 2.
! Ancient
Laws of Wales, Dimetian Code, p. 223.
though a
less share than the males. The price paid to her natural guardian was gradually
changed here, as everywhere among the German tribes, under the influence of
Christianity, into a dower, which was increased by gifts from her own family.
She received not alone arms and horses, but land and houses; so that her
independence might be guaranteed. Reciprocal fidelity was demanded from her and
her husband; if he abandoned or ill-treated her, he could be punished by the
relatives, and wergeld demanded of him. Her dower could be secured by a kind of
separation of goods. Partnership in property was permitted in Iceland between
husband and wife, but the husband usually had the power of management. At the
husband’s death, the widow succeeded to a portion of his power ; she could
dispose of the hand of her daughter, and be guardian of the minor children; she
was in fact tutor, except that she must call in her near relatives for
assistance. She could perform no acts in law, for in these arms are necessary,
but she could direct her champion ; she was not the legal guardian of her
children, but must be consulted by the “ tutor”; she did not fight, but
encouraged the warriors ; she did not sacrifice, but interpreted and revealed
the oracles.1
In Norway,
the woman was always in minority, but, under certain conditions, was allowed a
free administration of her property. In Sweden and Denmark, she was more like
a minor and the tutor represented her more generally; he could dispose of her
hand, but she could refuse, and, if he neglected his duty, choose a husband for
herself.
Marriage
in Scandinavia could take place without clergy, but divorce required a
religious rite.
The wife
could demand this, if the husband wasted 1 Gidi.
their
common property. The husband was absolute master of the property of the wife,1
even of her dower, but if they were separated, he must restore all that belonged
to her, and from one-third to one-half of their common acquisitions. Her
natural tutors could always act against him in law. She had few separate
rights, and could contract but few debts without his authority. It may be said
in general that the oldest and most characteristic German customs—the
Scandinavian—placed woman more under subjection than do those of the tribes
brought under Roman and Keltic influences. This peculiarity has affected all
modern legislation in the Scandinavian countries.
Marriage
under German Customs.—A wife under the old German law was in the power of the
husband in all acts of domestic life, and in civil life she could only act
through him. She entered with all her property under his Mund or guardianship,
but he could not dispose alone of her estate. In acts of sale, he appears as
her guardian, not master. At his death, she received a certain portion of their
common acquisitions, one-third in some tribes and one-half in others. There was
as yet no partnership, and she transmitted no right in the common property to
her heirs. The husband could dispose of their common goods; he alone had the
right to sell. The wife’s property consisted, first of the price of purchase,
which gradually became changed under the higher views of marriage taught by the
new Faith, into the dower, and was finally paid by the father ; secondly, of
the “ morning-gift thirdly, of
1 In case of there being no children, it
was not considered just for the husband to alienate the property of the wife,
but when it was done, the action must stand in law. Nulli prole suscitata vel superstite, alienare non debet prasdium uxoris
maritus ; si tamen alienaverit, stabit alienatio. {Lex Scania Simon, p.
97.)
her
private possessions, and. finally of a certain portion of the common gains.
During marriage, the husband managed the dower; if he died first, it returned
to the widow and her children, the principal belonging to the latter. If the
wife died first without children, the dower fell to the husband.
The
Sachsenspiegel, a German code of the thirteenth century, says of the wife, that
“she must live after the will of the husband, and be subject and obedient, for
she is not competent of herself without her husband, whether to do or to leave
undone.”1
Girls were
often excluded from the inheritance of land, under the necessities of a warlike
time.3 The position of woman was made secondary, and the rights of
succession were restrained, so that she could not bring too great estates to
her husband and thus break up a family property.
Approaches
to partnership in property in marriage, and equality of rights of the sexes,
have been the slow gains won by the Christian spirit in Europe. Even in the
seventh century, the customary wills, bequeathing property, begin to show the
Christian influence, equalizing the sexes. One of Marculfus’ forms speaks of
“the long- continued but impious custom ” of providing differently for the
sister from the brother, and divides the estate equally between the sons and
daughters.3
1 Und sie sol
nach seinem willen leben, und miterthenig und gehor- sam sein, denn sie ist
ihres selbes nicht gewaltig, one ihren man, weder zu thun noch zu lassen. (Sachs.,
I, 97.)
2 Glanville seems to assert in regard to the
old English law, that no female could share in any inheritance with males.
Mulier nun- quam cum masculo partem capit in hereditate aliqui. {Gian., v. 1.)
3 Diturna sed impia inter nos consuetudo
tenetur, ut tervS paterna sorores cum patribus portionem non habeant. Sed ego .
. . sicut mihi equaliter a Deo donati estis filio. (Marc. Form., 1. n, p. 177.)
Under the
German customs, all sins and errors of the wife are severely punished. The
husband can be faithless without redress. He can send her away, provided he
give her a dower as large as the original one, and pay a fine to the king ; he
may abandon his home, provided he take nothing with him. If she leave him
without good reasons, she may be suffocated in a ditch (necetur in luteo).
It is
obvious that the position of woman under all the Teutonic tribes bore a stamp
of barbarism. Something of that barbarism has descended in the English common
law; though here the ascetic principles of the Canon law have aided in making
her legal position as wife, inferior. The influence of the Christian idea as
distinguished from asceticism of the Church, on the one side, or from the
coarseness of German custom and law on the other, has been continually to make
her, in all personal rights, the equal of man, and his superior in the moral
field.
Free
Marriage.—As the Roman institutions were transplanted to Gaul, “ free marriage
” (terminated at will) was especially adopted. Even Christianity did not for a
time change it. The consent of relatives and friends was desirable, but not
necessary. Marriage was held good without religious ceremonial or dower. The
various laws of the Christian emperors only demanded the consent of the spouses
and the testimony of friends. Divorce was comparatively easy, and among some of
the tribes, was possible under mutual consent. Legal concubinage—a very
different relation from “ free marriage ”—was almost universal, and even at
times winked at by the Church.1 Justinian
regarded it as lawful, and it endured till the thirteenth century.
The new
Faith of course acted directly against these evils, and everywhere—when allowed
its natural power—
1 Dec. Cone. Toledo (589 A.D.). (Ic. xvii.)
tended to
abolish free marriage, unlimited divorce and concubinage. Even the Church, in
the matter of divorce, was true to the teachings of the Master. The Council of
Arles (314 A.D.) endeavoured to recall the Gallo-Romans to the respect of
marriage, and warns those husbands who had surprised their wives in criminal
practices, to take no others to wife,—a direction more strict than the apparent
teachings of Christ. Another Council (365) excommunicated those husbands who
abandoned their wives without proof of crime, and contracted new marriages ;
others were excommunicated who repudiated their spouses before the matter had
been brought to the bishop for judgment.
The law of
Aethelred1 is striking. “And we direct very earnestly that every
Christian man carefully avoid unlawful concubinage and rightly observe
Christian law; and let it never be that a Christian man marry within the fourth
degree nor have more,wives than one as long as she may live. Whoever will
rightly observe God’s law and secure his soul from the burnings of hell.” The
Pepin Capitulary, addressed (744) to the Council of Soissons, declares that
“during the life of the husband, no other ought to marry his wife,” etc., and
that the husband is not permitted to repudiate his wife except for the cause of
fornication.3 The Capitularies of Charlemagne (789 A.D.) are
strongly for the indissolubility of marriage. In one he declares that nothing
can break a Christian marriage,3 and calls another union adultery.
The
growing love and worship for the mother of Jesus, no doubt strengthened and
intensified this respect for woman, now increasing in Europe.
1 Lex.
Ethel., v. 11, vi. n.
2 Maritus non debet mulierem suam dimittere,
excepto causa forni- cationis deprehensa. (Bal., 1, 159.)
3 Nequaquam posse ulla occasione separari.
The
Church, too, set itself vigorously to root out the old venal character of
marriage. The Council of Treves (1227.) forbade the relatives of the bridal
pair from taking money under any pretence for the giving the woman in marriage.1
The maternal power introduced into, or strengthened in ancient legislation by
Christianity, was gradually developed until it finally reached almost the level
of the paternal power.
The low
idea of marriage, shown especially in the Anglo-Saxon laws, was elevated step
by step. Under the Burgundians, two-thirds of the purchase money of the bride
went to the father and one-third to the woman, showing that the archaic idea
of-sale still survived, This soon became only the purchase of the woman’s
tutelage, and later, under the higher influences, a mode of securing the
independence and safety of the wife. The Morge11ga.be was gradually merged in
the dower, and at length under the new refinement, dropped out of use. All the
various forms of protecting or adding to the wife’s property ;—the purchase
money, the morning gift, the Norman douaire, the “ thirds" or “half” of
the different tribes, the dos ad ostium ecclesicz, all have formed the modern
“dower.” The ring is the only relic of the ancient wed, or pledge, that the man
would fulfil his part of the money contract. Even as early as King Edmund
(940-946 A.D.), the influence of the new Faith was felt in elevating the idea
of the wed or pledge. It was then recognised as a promise that “ the husband
will keep the wife according to God’s law, as a husband should his wife.” Still
a wed is paid at the same time to the father for the tutelage (foster-lean) of
his daughter; and the husband’s authority is described as that of a baron over
his vassal; she is said to “ choose his will.” Even then,
1 . . . quocunque colore qusesito.aliquam
pecuniam pro matri- monia contrahenda, etc.
on
agreement, she was entitled to half the common property if they had children,
and she did not choose another husband on separation.1
In the time
of Henry I. (1070 A.D.) the widow was entitled to her dowry (when delivered to
her before witnesses), and her “ marriage gift,” and one-third of their common
earnings,, as well as her clothing and furniture. If she died without children,
her relatives divided her share with her husband.2
The Church
laboured unceasingly to confirm the dower. Many canons made marriage illegal
unless the woman were thus protected.3 And even as early as King
Canute, the Christian spirit seems to have influenced legislation against
selling a woman in marriage.4
Sir Thomas
Smith states that even as late as his time (I57o), gold and silver
were laid upon the “ church book ” at the door of the church by the husband
when the father or next of kin gave the bride up, “ as though he did buy her.”5
The laws
of the Germanic and Scandinavian nations show everywhere the effect of
Christian influence in modifying the old license of divorce. The West-Gothic
later laws permitted divorce only for adultery, though earlier customs allowed
it by mutual consent.
“Tutelage,”
at first a domestic right in the interest of the tutor, became by degrees,
under Christianity a public charge in the interest of the ward. In the time of
Clovis,
1 Leg. Edmund. Thorpe, p. 255.
2 L. H. Prim., lxx. 22.
3 Dubium non
est earn mulierem non pertinere ad matrimonium . . . nisi ilia mulier . . . et
dotata legitime • . . . videatur. Cone. ap. Tus.
4 And let no one compel either woman or man
to him whom she herself mislikes, nor for money sell her, etc. (L. of King
Canute, 75.)
6 The Commonwealth of England, p. 124.
the Mund
of the woman belonged to her family ; of Charlemagne, to the State. The
king became gradually the protector of the weak, according to the words of the
Holy Book, which entitle him the “Father of orphans and refuge of widows.” At
his crowning, he took the oath to be the “ guardian of widows and orphans ”
(tutor viduarum. et orphanorum) and promised officially to be the “ especial
defender of widows and wards ” (viduis et pupillis maximus defensor).
“Let our
envoys,” says Charlemagne, “enquire into the condition of all widows and
persons incapable of legal action ; let them watch that they be provided with
skilful tutors and friends of justice; if there be any bad tutors, let them
replace them, because, next to the Lord and the saints, the emperor is
constituted to be the protector and defender of such.”1
Whoever
injured the widow, was held to have violated the “ Peace of the king.” A
special jurisdiction was constituted in her behalf; justice was made easy for
her, and her complaints were always listened to. Woman was not yet made equal
to man under the law, but was at least protected.
From the
king, whenever his authority became weakened, the tutelage passed to the feudal
baron. At first, the woman could not inherit land, but later she held it under
the tutelage of the seigneur who represented her in law. Subsequently she was
permitted the right of choosing her guardian, and the seigneur sold his right
of tutelage. The tutor acted for her in all things. He could choose her “
champion ” (advocatus), and in this way gained the right of choosing her
husband. Her hand thus became venal. Both widow and daughter were sold in
marriage, for they
1 Quia
ipse Dominus Imperator, post Domini et sanctorum ejus, quorum et protector et
defensor constitutus est. (Cap. 1, 8.) „
became of
importance to any baron, as controlling one or more men-at-arms with their
estates. The baron had also an equal right in France over the marriage and
landed property of the serf (or mainmortable). During the early part of the
Middle Ages, the daughter of the serf did not succeed to the land of her
parents. Through these rights of the master, arose the extraordinary and brutal
“ droit de seigneur.”1
Under the
softening influences of the new Faith, all these “rights” were gradually
modified. The right of the seigneur over the hand of his ward was first
attacked, and he was not permitted to affix a high price to his consent; at
length the right of tutor came to apply only to the fief and not to the
patrimony; so there became two tutors, the seigneur and the natural guardian,
and the right of tutelage was bought and sold. As mercenaries took the place of
vassals in the service of the king, the fiefs became simple patrimonies, and
the two ‘sexes equal. The woman owning a fief soon exercised all the rights of
sovereignty; she became guardian, dispensed justice, signed treaties, and
performed all the public legal acts of the man.2
France was
the first to abolish tutelage ; charters in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries omit any mention of it. Outside of marriage was complete emancipation
; inside, the old incapacities. After the fall of feudalism, no guardian—at
least in the cities—was appointed for a girl no longer a minor, or for a widow;
she had access to all
1 See on
this curious subject, Delpit, Sur le droit du Seigneur, Delisle, Etudes sur la
condition de la classe agric. en Normandie, and other works on Jus primes
noctis. Also
Du Cange, on Macheta and Cullage.
2 Gidi. I desire to express especial
obligations to this most clear and through writer on this topic.
courts ;
could plead and was represented in judicial duels by champions selected by
herself. The incapacities of the Roman law disappear ; she can give bail,
appear in courts, be arbitrator and render testimony in civil or criminal
cases. Her incapacity begins with marriage, and is derived from the German
mundium or tutelage. The husband can beat his wife, though not to death, and
chastise her reasonably.1 The husband is responsible for his wife’s
offences and has the right to administer her property ; all their goods and
effects are common.
In
general, it may be said that throughout Europe the influence of Christianity
tended to purify law of the gross German prejudice, that bodily strength was a
condition of civil capacity, and that woman was an inferior being— an
impression from which even the Stoical jurists were not free. The sex unable to
bear arms was gradually freed from disability and received an equal part in the
succession of property, while in marriage the wife retained the administration
of her property, and gradually acquired almost full legal equality with the
husband.
It is not
to be understood, however, that in this matter the Church corresponded to the
Spirit of the Master’s teachings. The Canon law was a reaction from pagan
licentiousness, and too much narrowed the field of woman’s activity, holding
her in too close subjection, and has thus been adverse to modern progress.
In the
north of Europe the old German tutelage of woman continued the latest; in the
south, other incapacities from Roman law survived. In every part of Europe,
there was a preference for male heirs for many centuries. In France, it was
1791 before all children were assured
1 . . .
battre sa femme, sans mort et sans mehaing, et la castier resonablement. (Ord.
XII.)
equal
rights in the family. The Code Napoleon abolished all legal distinctions of
sex.
In
Scandinavia, it is only in this century that the legal disabilities of woman
have been diminished, and in some directions entirely removed; and in this
century also, woman may be said to have been legally emancipated in Germany.1
In England
the old inferiority of woman in marriage— an effect of German tutelage—was
retained longer than in France, which came more under the Roman law. The
canonists, who held the ascetic idea of marriage as an impurity, and of woman
as an inferior creature, and a source of endless temptations to man, were only
too rejoiced to place the wife under strict subjection and to almost absorb
her personality in her husband’s.
The
religious influence, promoting entire partnership in property and interests,
seems to have had more weight in France than in England
Of the
rigorous English common law Sir Thomas Smith says (1571) : “And although our
Lawe may seeme somewhat rigorous towards the wives, yet for the most part they
can handle their husbands so well and so dulcly, and specially when their
husbands be sicke, that where the law giveth them nothing, their husbands at
their death of their own good will give them all.”2 Glanville3
still earlier (1181) says : “It should be understood that a woman cannot
during the life of her husband make any disposition of her dower. For since the
wife herself is in a legal sense under the absolute power of her husband, it is
not
1 Tutelage
of woman was only abolished in Wurtemberg in 1828,
in Baden
in 1835, and in Saxony in 1838 ; it is said to still exist in the Hanseatic
towns and a portion of Hanover. Gictt.
3 Commonwealth of England, p. 125.
s Glanville,
c. iii. p. 16 (Beames).
singular
if the dower as well as the woman herself should be considered to be fully at
the disposal of her husband elect.” He adds, that the husband can give, sell,
or alienate her dower, and that the wife has no redress, even if she have not
consented to this disposition of her property.1 She cannot even make
a will without the authority of her husband.2 The same author
testifies to the influence of the Church in confirming her dowry, “ for every
man is bound as well by the ecclesiastical law, as by the secular, to endow his
bride at the time of his being affianced to her.”3
The
spiritual courts were not always in favour of the legal subjection of woman.
Thus in the reign of Edward III. (1336-1431, A.D.) they held that wives had the
right to make wills, and that efforts to prevent them were in violation of the
usage of canon law. The church-door dower {ad ostium ecclesice) seems to have
mainly passed away in the seventeenth century.4
The modern
idea of absolute partnership between husband and wife, is not to be found in
the old English law.
There
exists still a form of contract, made in the time of Edward I., in which a man
engaged to sell and deliver his wife to another man,5 and a
historical document speaks of a “bought wife delivered in a halter,” as late as
1782.6
1 Glanville
(Beames), p. 63. 1
Ibid.
3 Ibid., p. 163. It is clearly not the
canonists who put the wife’s dower and property so absolutely in the power of
the husband. This feature belongs to an archaic idea among the Teutonic tribes,
of the subjection of the weaker sex.
4 See that quaint book, The Woman’s Lawyer,
p. m.
5 Noveritis
me tradidisse et dimisse spontanea voluntate mea, Gul. Paynell milite,
Margaretam uxorem meam, etc. (Quoted from Rot. Pari., vol. i. p. 146, by
Pearson, in his History of England, vol. i. p. 601.)
6 Anne, daughter of Moses Stebbing, by a
bought wife, delivered to him in a halter, Sept., 1782. (Ibid., vol. i. p. 601,
from Purleigh’s Register.)
Fleta1
defines the legal status of woman as “ under the rod.”
The
conclusion from this very brief resum^ of an important topic, may fairly be
that the modern social and legal position of woman, while it owes much to
ancient German customs, has been far more influenced by the estimate set upon
woman and marriage by the Christian doctrines.
Christianity,
it will be seen, has done away with “ tutelage,” at least in central Europe;
has elevated marriage from the idea of a purchase to that of a spiritual and
bodily union ; it has protected woman by everywhere encouraging the dower ; it
has sought to make her in its own fields the equal of man ; and through its
influence, more than any other, has “ the proprietary and personal independence
of woman " been advanced throughout Europe and the Christian world. This has
been one of the most important contributions of the religion of Jesus to the
progress of the race; its effects are to be felt through all succeeding ages.
1 Qusedam
sub virga velutuxores. FI., i, c. 9.
PERSONAL
FEUDS AND PRIVATE WAR.
'In all
barbaric society, individual injury is at once revenged on the person of the
enemy, and the injured, being a member of a family, is protected by this
association, and his wrongs are held as wrongs done to the family. So “ feuds ”
(faida) arise, which are so large a part of the objects of legislation of the
early Teutonic and Keltic races. Wherever lands are inherited, there goes with
it the inheritance of the coat of mail and the family feud.1 Among
the American Indians, it is well known that the murder of a single member by
one of another tribe, entails a feud against all of that tribe, until revenge
is satiated by another murder. The same thing is still true of the Arabs, who
carry out blood-feuds to an extreme, and whose faith has not softened this
feature of barbarism. Philosophers have called the practice the habit of
“self-help,” as opposed to leaving punishment with government. It seems rather
the unbridling of revengeful passions, and belongs to a low state of human
progress. The Teutonic races, however, early attempted to restore order to
society by arranging fixed methods of satisfying enmities. A careful and
elaborate system of
1 Ad
quemcunque hereditas terras pervenerit, ad ilium vestis bellica et ultio
proximi . . . debet pertinere. (Leg. Angl. et Wer■ Lex.
Salic., tit 13, and many Anglo-Saxon Laws.)
137
fines, or
amends, was arranged, first no doubt paid to the sufferer or his family alone,
and afterwards to the prince or king also, as representing the injured
community. Each member and portion of the body was strictly valued, and every
possible injury estimated, so that all penal and repressive legislation was
represented by scales of fines and pecuniary penalties. A favourite Anglo-Saxon
proverb was: “ Buy a spear from the side, or bear it! ” (Biege spere of side
oder bere !) Capital punishment was seldom employed, as the tribe could not
spare a member, and preferred fines to death-penalties. The extreme punishment
with the early Teutons was. “ out-lawing,” which not only banished the offender
from the society of his fellow-men and made his murder an act of justice, but
even cast out his body from honourable burial. The first effort of the new
Faith on the barbaric tribes of Europe, was to repress feuds by encouraging
fines. King Alfred, in the introduction of his laws, speaks of the ordaining of
bot, or money-fines to repress feuds, by the legislative assemblies of
England, as a special effect of the Christian faith.1
The codes
of every tribe, after its conversion to Christianity, are filled with rules as
to pecuniary amends. The two sexes and different ranks of life are carefully
estimated as to their relative values. It is curious that by the laws of the
Wisigoths, the compensation, or wergeld (“man- money,” or “ blood-money")
of a maiden under fifteen years was only half that of a youth, while between
fifteen and twenty years, it was more than that of a man ; between twenty and
forty it was less, and still later, yet less. This people felt among the first
the influence of the new power4 in the world, and faida, or feud,
was early abolished, and it was declared that the author of the crime is alone
re-
1 See Thorpe’s Coll. end the chapter of
this work, on “ Anglo-Saxon Laws.”
sponsible,
and no persons, whether relatives, or neighbours, will have to fear any
calumnia (offence). (Lang. C. 6, 8.)
Among the
Alemanns and Burgundians faida still existed, though restrained, but with the
Langobards it was declared that: “ In all wounds between freemen, we have put
stronger compositions than the ancients, that no recourse be had to feud
(faida), and it be replaced by an amiable friendship.”1 And, “ He
who for a wound or a blow hath received fine for a murdered man, and taken care
not to exercise faida, yet killeth a man of the other party, he will pay to the
relatives double the fine/’3 Feud is raised, or ended, usually by
paying a certain fine. The steps for abolishing feud were gradual; first the
home was protected, and whoever killed a murderer in his own home, even in
anger, paid a fine equal to the legal value of the person, provided he were
slain at once. But if he were killed after consideration, the fine was
increased seven-fold. And in certain cases, all the offender’s goods were
confiscated, and even he himself was put to death. In the law of the Bavarians,
different parts of the house were valued even as different members of the body,
and suitable fines fixed on their violation. Next, certain places were made
sacred from feud, such as public places like the mallum (or legislative hall),
the market, the town, and various asylums, and most of all, the church. Then
the transit, or journey from the house to the mallum, the town, the market, the
court, or the church was protected. From protection in space, the legislation
was transferred to time. All religious days were sacred from feud, such as
Sundays, Festival days, the Christmas-tide, Good Friday, Ascension- day, and
the like. The power of the king, too, imposed peace on certain places, such as
royal roads, water-courses, and forests. Protection was extended also to widows
1 Leg. Roth., 74. 2
Ibid., 6.
orphans,
the poor, and pilgrims. And finally, even drawing the sword in presence of a
bishop, or dignitary of the Church or state, was punished by a fine.
Among the
Salian Francs, we find a decree very early (S96 a.d.)
against feuds. Childebert II. limits it to murder, and declares it a
pagan institution which had destroyed many families. He orders that unprovoked
murder should be punished with death, and should not be redeemed with fine,
“because it is but just that he who has known how to kill, should learn how to
die.”1
The Church
everywhere sought in the Middle Ages to encourage the settlement of contests by
fines rather than fighting, and to obtain concord by arbitration or through
judges rather than by litigation. It was earnest in its endeavours to determine
facts, not by duel, but by witnesses.2 In England, in the seventh
and eighth centuries, so great was the influence of Christian principles, war
itself was for a period regarded as antichristian, and a confessor at
shrove-tide would refuse absolution to a man at feud, who would not make peace
with his enemy.8
A precious
document describes to us the early influence of Christianity in substituting
punishment instead of fines for murder. Pravda 4 is the name of the
ancient Russian code, first collected thirty-two years before the introduction
of Christianity (988 A.D.). From this we learn that “ King Wladimir lived in
the fear of God, and murders waxed greatly. Then spake the bishops to Wladimir,
‘ Murders wax greatly. Why dost thoi^ not punish ? ’ He answered,
1 De
homicidiis, vero ita jussimus observare, ut quicumque teme-'' rario, ausu alius
sine causa occiderit, vitae periculum feriatur. N am non de
precio redemptionis se redimat aut componat . . . quia justum est, ut qui novit
occidere, discat moriri.
2 Reeves’ Hist, of English Law (1, 116).
3 Pearson’s
Hist, of England.
A Das dlteste Recht der Russen. Ewers.
Hamburgh, 1826.
‘ T feared
injusticeBut they replied, ‘ Thou hast been set by God, for the punishment of
the wicked and for grace to the good. It becometh thee to punish the murderers
; but only after much searching out.’ Then Wladimir rejected the wergeld
(fine) and punished the murderers.”
This
ancient chronicle shows remarkably the change which must have passed through
every barbaric tribe after the new power began to work. First the bitter and
deadly feud under the reign of private revenge; then blood-money paid to the
person injured or to his relatives ; then a fine paid to the prince by one who
had no family, and afterwards by any offender, as a surety of peace and to
atone for injury done to the community. The first effect of the new Faith is a
fresh sanctity given to human life. Wladimir feared to execute murderers, lest
he should do wrong by taking life. But the new view of justice and of
punishment which also came from this Faith, taught him that he must repress
evil-doers even at the sacrifice of life. The fines which were once a safeguard
of order, now became a composition with guilt. Capital punishment here was an
offspring of the spirit of true humanity.
Thus one
of the great movements in human progress, the substitution of law and legal
penalty for private revenge, was especially aided on the continent of Europe by
Christianity.
It is true
that society everywhere tends, under Divine influences and the instincts and
sympathies of human nature, towards this improvement. Yet imperfect faiths and
other causes retard the drift. Christianity has no purer page in its record,
than the history of its efforts to abolish feuds and blood-revenge, and to draw
men under law and government; thus beginning that great work of bringing Peace
to the earth, which after many ages it shall certainly consummate.
PRIVATE
WAR AND PEACE OF GOD.—ARBITRATION.
One of the especial curses of the Middle Ages—a natural
accompaniment of feudalism—was the practice of waging “private war.” This was a
privilege allowed in many countries only to gentlemen, but in Germany, the
custom prevailed through all classes. Every one who thought himself wronged,
had the right to send a formal declaration of war to his enemy. The forms were
fixed, a special code existed for it; the messenger or ambassador must convey
the challenge on the same day with the offence; the challenger and his
messenger must give proof by oath of having gone through the necessary forms.
If the ambassador happened to die, the author of the war must prove by two
compurgators that the challenge was given. If the messenger was injured by the
one challenged, he was dishonoured, and the other was not obliged to observe
the forms and delays of war. The challenge must proclaim openly that the one
desired to be the enemy of the other, and declared war ; as thus (in 1451)
“Know, Imperial cities of Ulm and Esslingen, that I, Claude, Duke Von Salz,
etc., etc., do declare and desire to be your enemies on account of Henry etc.,
etc.! And he who would deliver himself to acts of enmity before the time, let
him be considered brigand, incendiary, and murderer ; and we
142
desire by
this note, sealed by our arms, addressed to you publicly, to preserve our
honour.” 1
In France,
the author of the war could call upon those owing him assistance, and upon his
relations up to the seventh degree. If they refused help, they lost all the advantage
of relationship. Two brothers of the same father and mother were not permitted
to wage war with one another ; two “uterine brothers” were allowed t{je
privilege. Holy clerks, monks, women and children were not bound to join in
these personal wars. The towns often had the privilege of war granted them in
their charters.
Among the
instances of private war in the Middle Ages, it is related that in the
fifteenth century, a cook of Eppen- stein,—a sheep of his having been killed by
Count Von Solms, and the value not being paid—sent, with the scullions, a
formal challenge of war to the nobleman. In 1501, a ruined merchant of
Nuremberg is said to have been imprisoned for debt. He escaped and demanded
from the city a heavy sum as indemnity for his unjust imprisonment. The town
refused his demand ; whereupon he sent a challenge of war, seized one of the
wealthy citizens who had gone to visit his estates in the country, refusing to
ransom him for less than 3,500 florins, and forming an alliance with some barons,
plundered and annoyed the city till the inhabitants were obliged to yield.
In another
case, a nobleman declared war against the city of Frankfort, because a lady
residing there had promised a dance with his cousin and had danced with
another. The city was obliged to satisfy the wounded honour of the gentleman.
Even as late as 1450, there was a challenge from the baker and domestics of the
Margrave of Baden to seven Imperial cities ; and in 1462, a baker of the Count
Palatine defied three cities; and in 1471, the shoe-blacks 1
Wachter, Beitrage, etc. Beaumanoir.
of the
Leipsic University formally challenged the Provost of the city.
In the
fifteenth century Germany was described by a Roman Cardinal “ as one grand
robbery ” and that nobleman as most famous who plundered most.1
The
Margrave of Brandenburg boasted that he had burned 170 villages ; everywhere
were the desolation of farms and the obstruction of commerce. The peasants and
humble cultivators of the ground suffered most from this anarchy. An estate was
valued by its convenience of situation for despoiling peasants and travellers.
Of France,
in the eleventh century, a monkish authority says, that the whole kingdom was
disturbed by incessant fightings “ Everywhere were robberies, and besieging of
public roads, endless burnings of houses,” the only causes being an
unconquerable greed for money.3 So terrible were the evils that a
Church Council held near Soissons (a.d. 909)
declared that “ the cities of France were depopulated, the monasteries burned
or destroyed, the fields reduced- to solitude, so that we can truly say that
the sword has pierced to the very soul.”8 Wherever feudalism
extended, there was private war. Each gentleman and nobleman felt it to be a
peculiar right of his- class. It existed in all parts of Europe ; less perhaps
in England than elsewhere, owing either to the greater power of the Norman
kings, or to the deeper working of Christianity. In Germany, as we have said,
its effects were the most
1 Germania tota magnum latrocinium, et ille inter
nobiles gloriosior qui rapacior.
8 Erat eo tempore, maximis ad invicem hostilitatibus,
totius Franco- rum regni facta turbatio ; crebra ubique latrocinia, viarum
obsessio.
, . . incendia infinita, etc. (fiesta Dei per Francos, 1,482.)
3 Depopulate
urbes, destructa vel incensa monasteria, agri in
solitudinem sunt redacti, ut aut vere possimus dicefe, quia pervenit
gladius usque ad animam. (fiesta. Tros., 2, 536).
disastrous,
threatening even the dissolution of society. There was in that country a greater
number of nobles and of self-governing jurisdictions than in any other. Each
city or province had independent powers with especial privileges. The
interregnum between 1256-73 accustomed these powers to uncontrollable license.
The Diets seldom met, and were not, from their numbers, adapted to settle
questions of right. In consequence, Germany had no court capable of deciding
disputes between its more powerful members, or of repressing such evils as
private war.
The “
Peace of God."—A remarkable mode in which the religious spirit aided to
raise society of the Middle Ages out of this barbarism was through the
establishment, by the clergy and the mercantile community, of the so- called “
Peace of God.” In France especially, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, there
seems to have been a kind of religious “ revival ” of peace. The clergy
preached it; religious enthusiasts went from village to village proclaiming it
in the name of Christ the “ Prince of Peace ; ” holy relics were brought to
public places, on which the wild barons swore a vow of peace ; great councils
were held to spread abroad the ideas of brotherly amity, and the Popes
themselves wrote letters and published Encyclicals to recommend the vows and
habits of concord to all Christian nations. An enthusiasm thus nourished by
religion took possession of a military and uncontrolled population for a
period, in favour of quiet and good will towards especially the poor, the
unbefriended, the weak, and those engaged in useful occupations, or in the services
of religion. There was almost a “ crusade of peace ” in certain parts of France
, in the eleventh century, One of the old liturgies of this period made a
special ground of penitence that the petitioner had not reconciled two
enemies.1 The clergy not
1 Peccavi, duos non conciliavi. (Digby.
Mor. Cath., 9, 12.)
being able
in such an age to secure all the year for peaceful pursuits, induced the wild
barons to admit certain days, certain places and pursuits, as always resting
under the protection of a consecrated peace. Whoever violated this compact was
exposed to every worldly and spiritual penalty. He lost his fief if a baron,
his other property went to his heirs, he was driven out from among Christian
men, and his body refused Christian burial; if a serf he might be punished by
the loss of his hand or even of his life. All the thunders of the law and
religion followed the accursed man who broke the peace of God. The holy days
were protected, the feasts and other Christian festivals, and even in each week,
the time from Thursday evening to Monday morning—this period covering the days
of the Passion and the Resurrection. The peasants were especially guarded by
this humane impulse, and the cart and grain and cattle of the farmer were made
as sacred as the altar or the church. Christianity, with its usual spirit, led
men to protect particularly the weak, and every vow of peace included the
women, children, travellers, strangers, and holy clerks.
When
society was in the chaos we have just described, and law existed alone in the
strong hand, and all the weaker classes were exposed to incessant oppression
and cruelty from the stronger, we can imagine what it was to have created a
religious and sacred protection, if only for a time, for all who were trodden
down and injured. It gave European society its first taste of a rule of law and
order. The brotherhoods for the Paix de Dieu in France in the eleventh century
formed the great point of resistance against the feudal barons and their
anarchical conflicts. They laid the foundation for the rural Communes, which
have been so important an element since in the French political life, and they
formed the first great support for the kings when they subsequently endeavoured
to
introduce law and courts and royal power in place of “ Private War ”1
among feudal or half independent barons.
Many
religious fraternities to reconcile enemies were formed in the Middle Ages.
Muratori traces the guilds of Italy to missionaries, who in the time of
Frederick II. went about endeavouring to appease discords and make peace.2
One of the conditions for entering a fraternity of builders formed at Chartres
in the Middle Ages was that the candidate must confess and be reconciled to his
enemies.3
Among the
early efforts to bring about peace in France was a meeting of the clergy and
Christians at Charons, 989 A.D., which solemnly anathematized all who should
plunder the poor and attack the holy clergy. The establishment of peace was
held to be a means of removing Divine displeasure, and in 944, after a terrible
pestilence in Limoges, the clergy ordered a fast and the “ Pact of Peace "
was concluded by the seigneurs and the duke. It is related by the chroniclers
that the archbishop “on account of the violence of the men of war and the ruin of
the poor,” forbade divine worship in monasteries or churches to those engaged
in breaking the peace.
The form
of the pledge of peace, administered by the archbishop to the fierce barons, is
given by Du Cange:
“ I, W , Archbishop of Puy, in the name of the
Holy
Trinity,
to all who expect supreme pity . . . As we know that without peace no one shall
see the Lord; we order the faithful . . . that no one shall make an attack on a
church, that no one shall plunder horses, cattle, chickens, etc., from the
peasants . . . that no one shall attack merchants or plunder them ... If
1 See
Semichon, La Paix et la Treve de Dieu.
2 Ant. Ital., Ixxv.
3 Digby, 9, 12.
any one do
not keep this peace let him be excommunicated, anathematized and driven from
the Church.”
The
Council of Poictiers (1004 A.D.) attempted to establish forms of law to check
private war. If there was a quarrel between two dioceses both must appear
before the seigneur or judge of the county, and endeavour to obtain justice. If
one should refuse to appear, the judge must do justice and seize upon “the
hostage” of the recusant. If he had not the power, he must convoke the princes
and bishops, and all should unite to attack and punish the resisting member,
and not cease till he yields to the claims of justice.
These
first efforts under the religious impulse to bring order out of chaos and to
create law in a barbarous society, are highly important in the history of
progress.
In 1021
famine and war desolated the country around Amiens. To avert these evils the
relics of saints were collected in the churches, and a vow was made over them
of an inviolable “ Peace of God ” during one week, and the people took oath, if
a quarrel arose, not to resort to rapine; and burning till they had on a fixed
day exposed their’ griefs before the Church. The most terrible forms of excommunication
were uttered against those “Chevaliers who would not promise peace,” and “ in
the name of God the All-powerful, of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost,” they
were accursed of men.
These
efforts of the clergy succeeded in forming Peace Associations, which frequently
employed the barons to execute the orders of the councils, and to collect the
tribute (paciegium) which formed a fund to compensate the sufferers under
violence. Thus early began a kind of assurance fund or public tax to protect
the weak of society. In 1030, a famine occurred in parts of France, followed by
years of abundance. The popular gratitude to Providence
was made
manifest in councils for the Peace of God. Laws were passed to forbid
travelling with arms, and the church was made an inviolable asylum for the weak
and persecuted. The assemblies were electrified with pious ardour, and the
bishops raised their crosses to heaven, and men of the people, holding their
hands in the air, cried “ Peace! Peace ! ” and took God to witness of their
" perfect pact of peace.”1
Among the
ordinances establishing peace, are those of the Council of Limoges (1031),
making the church an asylum, protecting the clergy, forbidding violence or
rapine upon peasants, serfs or clerks, proclaiming fines for breaking peace,
establishing days of peace, and enforcing it on all religious days. Peasants,
serfs and their animals are protected, and war is confined to the seigneurs.
All disputes are to be brought before the bishop and his chapter. This, be it
remembered, was two centuries before the royal power in France attempted to
restrain the warlike propensities of the feudal barons. The proclamation of
peace was somewhat in this wise : “ From Thursday evening, among all
Christians, friends or enemies, neighbours or distant, peace must reign till
Monday at sun-rise ; and during these four days and four nights there ought to
exist a complete security, and every one can go about his own affairs in safety
from all fear of his enemies and under protection of this truce and this peace.
Let those who observe this peace be absolved by the Father All-powerful, by
Jesus Christ His Son, and by the Holy Ghost,” etc. etc.
“ Let
those who have promised truce and have voluntarily broken it, be
excommunicated by God, etc.; let these be accursed for ever, damned as Dathan
and Abiram etc. ... If any one in the days of the truce of
1 Quoted
from old chronicles, by Semichon.
God commit
a homicide, let him be banished from his country, let him depart from Jesus!”
etc.!1
The
decrees of the Council of Roussillon (1047) “ established this peace and this
truce, because the Divine Law and the Christian Religion were almost destroyed,
and iniquity passed all bounds, and charity was cooled,” etc.
The Popes
were not behind the councils in encouraging peace among the barbarous barons.
Pope Nicholas II. (1059) and Alexander II. (1068) make public
proclamation of the Peace of God, so that this first effort for civilization
and order spread into North and Middle France, Italy, Spain, England, Normandy
and Belgium.
It is
worthy of notice that in a charter of this period, from the Archbishop of
Bourges (1065), commerce is protected by this new pact of amity, and whoever
takes refuge in a fair is to be especially safe.
Under Pope
Urban II., the Council of Clermont (1095) re-affirmed this peace, and ordered
that whoever on the , days of peace should strike man or woman, unless in
self-defence, should be held a violator of the peace. If after a summons by the
archbishop he appear in seven days, he will merely pay a fine. If he refuse to
appear he will be excommunicated, and after excommunication will pay whatever
fine the bishop’s court may set. Whoever kills a man during these days will be
exiled for seven years, unless he reconcile himself with the relatives of the
murdered one, and pay a fine, which is to be divided between the ecclesiastical
and civil authorities. Merchants, travellers, women,2 and the
cattle, implements and flocks of the peasants are protected. If any baron
violated this compact, the count and other nobility must prosecute
1 Historiens
de France, quoted by Semichon.
J Statutum est ut in omni die, et monachi et clerici,
et feminae et quae cum eis fuerint, in pace permaneant, etc.
him, after
due warning by the Peace Association. This pact was to last three years. In
other associations, all the nobility over twelve years of age took oath to
observe this constitution of public order, and, if summoned by the archbishop,
to take arms and aid, “ so may God and the saints aid me !”
The king
gradually put himself at the head of these peace associations, and they were no
doubt one means by which the royal power in France controlled the feudal
savagery.
At the end
of the twelfth century, the enthusiasm was increased by the appearance of one
who claimed to be a divine messenger. A carpenter of Guienne, working in a
forest, had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who showed him a banner with the
words, “ Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world! give us peace!” and
directed him to carry this banner to the bishop and invite him to preach the
" Peace of God.” He obeyed, and was received everywhere as a messenger
from heaven, and various noble persons and others formed brotherhoods of “ Agnus
Dei ” under this banner, and laboured for peace.
In the
thirteenth century, Philip Augustus prohibited any one from commencing
hostilities against the friends or vassals of adversaries until forty days
after the offence ; this was called the “Royal Truce” or “King’s Quarantine.”
In the
same century, Friar John of Vicenza traversed a great portion of Italy,
preaching the “ Peace of God,” reconciling individuals, and even the feuds of
towns. In the succeeding centuries, other monks made similar journeys, and aided
to deliver Europe from its ancient barbarism. In the fourteenth century, a
great religious movement for peace stirred the minds of different nations of
Europe. Pilgrims with white bands around their necks,
I Bianchi}
marched through various lands, preaching the duty of a Christian peace. It is
related that in the month of October, 1338, there appeared in a church of Rome,
in the silence of the night, certain unknown persons who cried incessantly,
“Peace! Peace!” and uttered no other words. The people hearing these appeals,
went to the palaces of the Orsinis and the Colonnas, who were enemies, and made
peace between them in a truly miraculous manner.2 A
beautiful letter of the good king of France, St. Louis (1276 A.D.), to his son,
is handed down, showing how religion acted in promoting peace. “ Dear son, I
charge thee that to the utmost of thy power, thou keepest thyself from making
war with any Christian, and if any have injured thee, try various ways of
recovering thy right before thou makest war ; and have care to eschew the sins
that are committed in war,” etc. He is exhorted to spare the clergy, and poor
people, and the property of those who have not injured him ; and, best of all,
to avoid all wars, for that was pleasing to our Lord.®
The nobles
themselves, in France, feeling the calamities of private war, gave bonds of
assurance, by which any violation of order might be punished; and even agreed
to refer their disputes to a majority of their own number. But it required all
the efforts of the Church, the mercantile community and the crown, for
centuries, before this great abuse could be remedied. It is said that no less
than thirty councils in different parts of Europe proclaimed the Treuga Dei
(Truce of God), or dies treugarios. And it was not till the fifteenth century
that Charles VI. ventured
' 1
Muratori.
2 Lagacio (quoted by Digby, Mor. Calh., 9, 12).
3 Chier fiuz,
je l’enseigne que tu te gardes a ton pooir que tu n’aies guerre a nul Cretien,
et s’il te faisoit aucunes injures, essai plusieurs voies a savoir se tu
pensser recouvrer ton droit, etc. —Duchesne.
to put
forth a law absolutely forbidding, under heavy penalties, private war in
France.
The power
of Jesus on human society is seen in the slow humanizing of feelings and
practices. It is aided often by other forces, which are more selfish. All
self-guarding interests in European communities must have discouraged private
war; the influence of associated life in towns, the prospects of gains in
trade, and the struggle of kings against feudalism worked to put an end to it.
But more than any or all of these were the teachings of benevolence and
unselfishness read each day, or expressed at the altar, or from the chancel,
and the sentiments of affection and reverence cherished everywhere by individuals
towards Him who is the “ Prince of Peace.”
Germany.—The
Peace of God is said to have been first established in Germany in 1081, by the
bishop of Liege. It was agreed by common consent in his bishopric, that from
the first day of Advent till Christmas, and from the beginning of Lent to the
eighth of Pentecost, no one should carry arms, or be guilty of incendiarism,
brigandage, or acts of violence; that no one should wound or kill any one.
Every free man convicted of such an attempt, would lose his heritage, be
deprived of his fief, and driven from the diocese. Every serf would be punished
by loss of his property and his right hand. The " peaceful ” time each
week was to be from Saturday at sunset till Monday morning. The Archbishop of
Cologne soon after introduced a similar truce in his diocese, with the solemn
order that “one ought never to forget that the vow of holy peace must be kept
with a fidelity as much greater as it is made to God and not to man.” During
1093, an association was formed in Germany, of the nobles and princes, without
the concurrence of the emperor, for a peace to last from November for two years
till the Feast of the
Passover.
In 1097, the emperor united with it; in 1103, a pact of peace was formed by
nobles, bishops, and emperor for four years; it was similar to the French
compact, but included also the Jews1 Very severe penalties were
affixed to its violation. The council of 1105 proclaimed the Peace of God; but
in general it may be said that in Germany the imperial power, more than the
Church, sustained and protected order. Under Frederick II. (1224) the “truce of
God” had become the “truce of the empire,” with similar days devoted to
cessation from violence and war.
The evil
of private war, as we have before described, had reached in that country its
utmost extreme. All efforts against it seemed in vain. The emperor (1255)
forbade it absolutely, but without avail. Finally cities and nobles entered
into alliances and associations to form a public peace, and to punish those who
should violate it; and in this mode, the leagues of the Rhine and of Suabia,
from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, endeavoured to secure general order
and security. Owing to the greater independence of the rural nobility and of
the separate provinces in Germany, the devices which were so successful in
France failed here. The religious sentiment alone could not put an end to this
savagery. The last remedy tried was the application of an ancient religious
custom, under the combined influence of the Church and the free cities— the
formation in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries by the barons,
nobles, bishops, and cities, of courts of arbitration, or Austrdge?
1 The
Sachsenspiegel also includes the Jews. Clerici, mulieres, monickes, agricole,
mercatores, itineratores, piscatores, Judei, omni die et omni tempore firmam
pacem habebunt in personis et in rebus. (.Ssp., ii.
66.)
s Das Austragal-verfahren d. D. Bundes. Von Leonhardi. Frankfurt,
1838.
A
rbitration.—This practice exerted so strong an influence in bringing order out
of anarchy, and introducing peace instead of war, in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries through a large portion of Germany, that it is worth while to dwell
on it briefly. It was an ancient custom among the German race, when a case in
dispute could not be readily decided by the wager of battle, to refer it to
wise men of the tribe for arbitration. Yet even as late as the tenth century,
an Emperor of Germany (Otto I., 938 A.D.) refused to decide certain difficult
cases by arbiters, and preferred to refer them to the sword;1 and
another important legal question—whether the sons of brothers should inherit
property equally with the fathers or ancestors—was decided in Otto’s reign
(942) by the sword, in favour of the former.3 When Christianity
became a living force among these tribes, the practice of arbitration was
strengthened and reinforced by the words of Christ to His disciples: “ If thy
brother sin against thee, go, show him his fault between thee and him alone; if
he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with
thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses, or three, every word
.may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the
congregation,” etc. (Matt, xviii. 15-17); and by the words of Paul, “If then ye
have to judge of things pertaining to this life, do ye set them to judge who
are of no account in the church ! . . . Is it so, that there cannot be found
among you one wise man who shall be able to decide between his brethren, but
brother goeth to law with brother and that before unbelievers? Nay, already it
is altogether a defect
1 Von
Leonhardi.
5 Rex autem meliori consilio usus noluit
viris nobiles ac senes populi inhonesti tractari; sed magis rem inter
gladiatores discerni jussit,
etc.
(Annal. de rebus Saxon, etc., quoted by Leonhardi, p. 20.)
in you,
that ye have lawsuits one with another” (i Cor. vi. ii, 7).
It became
a habit of the Christians to refer their disputes and difficulties to their own
brethren, or their leaders and overseers, for decision. The bishops’ trials
(audienticz episcopales) became a regular part of the legal machinery of
Christian society. Their decisions1 were often without appeal; and
on the request of one of the litigants even purely civil cases could be decided
by them. The habit of referring contests and disputes to the clergy as
arbitrators, came down in Germany into the Middle Ages. And at length in those
centuries we have mentioned, there seemed no other way out of the anarchy of
society, than by some new application of this principle. The feuds of the
barons with one another, their disputes with the peasantry, the contests of
city with city, or of each with the nobility, the differences of the clergy
with the parishes or with the barons, were continually referred during the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to Austrdge or courts of arbitration. These
arbiters were sometimes named in treaties, sometimes chosen by mutual consent,
or appointed by neutral persons, or taken by lot.
Leonhardi,3
who has written a learned work on this subject, gives a list of numerous
arbitrations during these centuries, and in almost all cases the arbiters are
the clergy. One of the first Austrdge reported is in 873, in a dispute between
the Emperor Lewis and the Bishop of Strasburg, which is referred to suitable
persons among the neighbouring citizens and among the faithful.3
A few
cases are also related in the succeeding centuries.
1 Cod.
Theod., tit. i., tit. iv. de jtid. episcop. J Leonhardi, p. 20.
3 Ut per idoneos circa vicinos et fideles
nostros, fideliumque
nostrorum homines plenissime sub sacramento inquiratur et ad finem vite
usque. (Leonhardi,
vol. i. p. 20.)
In the
thirteenth century they are the most common; and various leagues are formed
during this period among the free cities and others, for mutual support and
defence, all of which contained provisions for settling disputes, feuds and
contests by arbiters.
The Forms
of Arbitration.—These present a remarkable evidence of the religious sentiment
working. Thus in the following, from Martene, quoted by Digby, “ I, Henry, by
grace of God bishop of Liege, mindful, nay solicitous of our Lord’s example,
who, coming into the world, brought peace to men of good will, and who,
departing from it, left peace to his disciples, make known to all, present and
future, how the contention between the Church of St. Peter of Liege and the
Monastery of St. Hubert shall be decided,” etc.1
Or this in
1100 A.D.: “As the state of the whole Church is consolidated by the pacific
bonds of Charity, and as the unity of holy charity is dissipated by the
pestiferous scandal of dissensions, whoever wishes to come to the vision of
eternal peace, must of necessity study with all diligence to keep peace, if
possible, with all men, and especially with brethren ; therefore we, the Canons
of the Church of M——, loving peace and concord, and desiring to take away from
the midst of us the evil of discord, have put an end in this manner to the
dispute between us and the Monks of St. Vincent,” etc.2
This form
breathes a like spirit. It is found in the pact of reconciliation between
Henry, Archbishop of Treves, and Theoderic, Abbot of St. Matthew, and a certain
monk at Rome. “The pacific hearts of those persons enlightened by truth and by
the doctrine of Christ teaching peace to men, though sometimes liable to be
' Mor.
Cath., 3, 82.
1 Ap. Martene. (Digby, 2, 83.)
torn by
the enemy of the human race, sowing the seeds of hatred, yet in the process of
time, we are sure to expel the darkness of that chief maligner, and to recover
peace, which puts an end to all strife.”1
A striking
instance of arbitration is given in the Rhenish League (1254 A.D.), which
stipulates with its confederates, that in order to remove every occasion for
contest and every source of discord, they should each choose four men who
should together amicably decide all questions which arose between them.2
Many cities, knights and parishes united with this confederation on these
conditions. A characteristic instance of the use of Austrage appears in the
sixteenth century, when a contest arose between the Schwabian League and the
rebellious peasants of Baiers- furth (1525 a.d.),
where each party were to choose two arbiters of honour and position, who
were to be laymen.3 Another also is mentioned in 1324, when a very
ancient feud between the Archbishop of Mainz, Count of Busdeck, and Count John
of Nassau, with the Landgraf of Hesse, was settled in this way ; and again
where (1350 A.D.) a dispute between the Emperor and the Count of Brandenburg
was thus reasonably and peacefully closed.4
These
courts of arbitration came first to assume a fixed and legal position under
Maximilian I. (about 1500 A.D.) ; and thus were the foundation of the Austragal
Court of the German Confederation in modern times.
In 1495,
Maximilian put under the ban of the empire, and fined to the amount of 2,000
marks gold, every city or individual who accepted or gave a challenge to
private
1 Quoted by Digby. (3, 83.)
2 Ad removendum autem omnem litis occasionem
aut discordia fomitem . . . quatuor viros inter nos elegimus, etc. (Quoted by
Leonhardi, vol. i. p. 26.)
3 Leonhardi, vol. i. p. 45.
* Ibid., vol. i. p. 24.
war. This
was the formal, though not the final, close of the right of “ diffidation,”1
as it was called.
Such then
was the arbitration of the Middle Ages. In other words, the Christian
principle, aided by self-interest, put an end during those centuries to private
war in Germany; it lingered, however, till the end of the sixteenth century.
In Spain
and Italy, it was also abolished by the combined influences of the Church and
of mercantile society; in the former, Charles V. (1519) enforcing by a special
law all previous prohibitions of it.
In Iceland
the Gragas hand down to us a form of anathema against whoever shall break the
Peace of God. “ Let him be proscribed with celestial anathemas, wherever men
pursue the wolf, or Christians visit the Church, or pagans make sacrifice, or
mothers give birth to infants, or infants call upon their mothers, etc., let
him be accursed ! ”
Here, too,
as in other countries, Christianity aided to bring order out of chaos.
1 Du Cange (Diffidatio). Fiebant etiam
diffidationes plerumque scripto ad hostem modo. The word implied a breaking of
faith or peace ; and thus war between individuals.
Grotius
defines diffidare as “ to declare war." (3, 9.)
WAGER OF
BATTLE AND ORDEAL.
ONE of the
grandest fruits of the human intellect and conscience combined has been the
system of the Roman law. It carried the principles of justice and reasonable
administration to the remotest and wildest tribes of the empire, and
everywhere, to a certain extent, substituted law for force, reason for passion,
and equity for abuse and injustice. Whatever were the inconsistencies of its
practical execution, and the abuses of its administration, it rested on some of
the sublimest principles attainable by the human reason, and exerted a most
profound influence on the progress of mankind. We have seen, however, how
ineffective Roman law was to eradicate some of the worst abuses of antiquity,
and how much Christianity modified it under the later emperors.
With the
rise of the northern barbarians and the dismemberment of the empire, this
grand work of antiquity was submerged by the current of barbarism and superstition,
and the progress of the world, in regard to right- reason and equity, was put
back for centuries. In this retrogression the Christian religion had no share.
Its principles are in harmony with the best of the Stoical jurists, and the
rules of equity and fairness which form so large a part of the system are such
as the Christian faith especially commends. The Church, however, cannot claim
any such credit. It did indeed do great service in
160
repressing
among the German and Keltic tribes, violence, cruelty, and lust, as we shall
abundantly prove ; it steadily resisted some of the worst tendencies of the
Roman law ; but it permitted and encouraged the childish superstition which
for ages substituted the compurgators’ oath, and the ordeals of cold water,
red-hot iron, the cross, and the sacrament, for the grand principles of
evidence of this great body of law ; covering Europe with relics of a childish
age and retarding human progress for hundreds of years. The great principle of
the Stoical jurists, that the defendant is acquitted if the accuser do not
prove his case,1 was reversed for almost a thousand years in Europe,
and the burden of proof was thrown on the accused by innumerable superstitious
conditions and observances. Instead of the old Roman rule, that a negative
need not be proved,.was adopted the opposite maxim, and the greater portion of
the tests required the negative side to be made evident.3
It is true
that the Church often opposed ordeals, but it finally surrounded them with
every ceremony to make them impressive, and in many cases required them as
religious obligations.
In another
of the great abuses of the Middle Ages, the “ wager of battle ” to decide
disputes and legal differences —a relic of barbarism which lasted till this
century in England—the Church has a better “ record,” and the spirit of
Christianity had much to do with its final disuse and abolition. But that for a
thousand years, in Europe, a title to the ownership of real estate, or a legal
difference, could be settled by duel, under the very shadow of the Church,
shows how slow was the progress, and how feeble the influence, of the Christian
Faith.
1 Accusatore
non probante, reus absolvitur.
2 Lea. Superstition and Force.
M
One legacy
Roman law left to the world, which has been a storehouse of curses and evils,
the use of torture for the accused and for witnesses. This horrible enormity,
which so shocks all sentiments of justice and humanity, endured in Europe from
the time of the Twelve Tables to the present century. Every principle of Christianity
is against it, and the power of this Religion has finally eradicated, it; the
Church, for several centuries being more inspired with its faith, opposed it,
but at length, as we shall see, in the interests of bigotry, accepted this
bequest of German barbarism and Roman law, and inaugurated an era of cruelty
and injustice rarely surpassed in the world’s annals. The Inquisition is the
great blot on the historical Church. For centuries all principles of justice,
reason, and humanity were forgotten, and the name of the Teacher of love became
the cover for deeds of cruelty and injustice, equalling the worst under Greek
and Roman faiths. As the study of the Roman law revived in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, this evil feature was. eagerly adopted in the combined
interests of centralized power and of ecclesiastical superstition. The
commercial spirit and the spirit of the free communes, struggled against it,
but it was only uprooted by the gradual spread of Christian principles.
Wager of
Battle.—Tacitus says of the warlike tribes who are the progenitors of the most
vigorous races of the present day, that they believe “ God is especially
present with those in battle.”1 Two
hostile tribes, before engaging in hand-to-hand struggle, frequently deputed a
courageous warrior from each to contend for the cause at issue, and the result
was thought to show on which side the god of battles inclined. The combat,
whether between two
1 Deum
adesse bellantibus credunt. (Germ., 9.)
or many,
seemed in its uncertain issue to be especially connected with unseen powers,1
and the consciousness of rectitude, no doubt did often strengthen the arms, as
the conviction of guilt would weaken the muscles, of one of the other
combatant. The single combat, to the minds of the northern races, became the
great test of truth. This was especially the fact after the experience of
general perjury and falseness, introduced by the ancient custom of the
compurgators’ oath. Under this peculiarly Teutonic custom, which long remained
in English jurisprudence under the name of “wager of law,” a person
accused>of a crime appeared to deny it surrounded by a number of
compurgators, who swore not to their knowledge of the facts, but as partakers
in the oath of denial.3 This legal practice, which existed in Europe
as late as the sixteenth century, offered irresistible temptations to false
swearing, and to the bold and honourable Northman, a usage which tested the
truth by his own right arm and at sacrifice of his blood seemed infinitely
preferable to this taking refuge behind the oaths of associates. Wager of
battle took the place of the compurgators’ oath in both civil and criminal
cases. It suited the fierce habit of the German and Keltic tribes to decide
doubtful cases by the stronger hand ; and the settlement was in harmony with
that singular defect of barbarian jurisprudence for a thousand years in Europe
(of which we have already spoken), which, above all, showed the loss of the
influence of Roman law upon civilization— namely, the throwing the proof of a
negative on the accused.
Under the
compurgators’ oath, the wager of battle, ordeal
1 An old German proverb said : “Davon sollen wir Gott
getruwen,
das er den Kampf nur nach Recht sheyde.”
3 Lea,
Superstition and Force, p. 24. Reeves’ History of English Law.
by fire or
water or the sacraments, and the system of torture through so many centuries,
Europe forgot the rules of equity and the maxims1 of the Stoical
jurists, and threw the great burden of proof on the defendant. Centuries of
injustice to unfortunate persons in every portion of Europe prove what harvests
of wrong a single unjust principle will sow in the world, while they measure
the blessings which the noble ideas of the Stoical jurists have scattered
through every people which has felt the influence of Roman law.
Wager of
battle is to be distinguished from the duel, though eminent writers confuse
them. It is essentially a judicial trial ; like war, an appeal to the god of
battles, conducted under given ceremonies and conditions, where the penalties
were fixed and legal. To nearly all Europe outside of Roman law, it was as
natural once to determine a title to real estate, or a question of law and
evidence, or matters of mortgage or debt, or questions concerning service or
slavery, or the guilt of a criminal charge, or innumerable similar questions,
by single combat, as it is now by juries, courts, and arbitration.
Nearly all
the tribes which overthrew the Roman empire held to this practice; it belonged
to the Keltic, Slavonic, and German races. Singular enough, it is not found in
the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Danish Codes, and is believed to have been introduced
into England by William as a Norman practice. The absence of mention of the
judicial combat in the laws of the Anglo-Saxons is not, however, conclusive
evidence against its practice.3
The Goths,
who were more under the combined influ-
1 . . . cum
per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit. {Const., 22. De prob.,
iv. 9. Quoted by Lea.)
3 An apparent allusion to judicial combat
occurs in the laws of Henry I. {H., I, 92.)
ences of
Roman law and Christianity, do not appear to have retained the trial as
judicial. The practice gained its greatest power in the custom of challenging
witnesses. Any litigant finding his case going against him, could accuse a
witness of perjury, and challenge him to the combat, thus adjourning the case
and deciding it. This privilege was finally extended to the power of
challenging the court itself; and the extraordinary spectacle was presented of
a defeated suitor fighting with the judge who had decided his case adversely.
The mode
of conducting these combats will, perhaps, be best shown by referring to the
English practice. In the thirteenth century, the accused had the right to
choose only in doubtful cases, between trial by jury and combat. The latter for
a long period determined all questions of fact; and in the reign of Henry II.
it decided in pleas concerning freehold, and in writs of right in regard to
land or goods sold, debts upon mortgage or promise, sureties denying
suretyship, validity of charters, manumission of serfs, questions concerning
service, etc., etc.1
According
to the English law, the defendant in doubtful cases could choose his trial,
either per corpus or per patriam, by battle or by jury. But in certain cases
the justices had the right to control the mode of trial: thus, if a person was
accused of poisoning another, he was compelled to accept the wager of battle or
to confess ; and again, other cases were too clear to admit of risking any
doubtful decision. When the trial by battle had been decided upon, the defendant
gave security that he would defend his case, and the plaintiff that he would
maintain his appeal. Each made oath ; the plaintiff in a form of this nature :
“ Hear this, O man ! whom I hold by the hand, called John by the name
1 Reeves’
Hist, of English Law. See also Mirror of Justices- (Trans, by W. H, 1768, p.
160.)
of
baptism, that thou art perjured because thou didst wickedly and feloniously
kill my brother, etc., etc., and this I saw, so help me God and these Holy
Gospels.”1
Both
parties were then committed to two knights or “ other lawful men ” to lead them
to the field assigned. Each then took another oath of innocence, and, after certain
ceremonies, engaged in combat. If the defendant supported the combat all day
till the stars appeared, he was acquitted. If the plaintiff was defeated he
suffered capital punishment under certain circumstances and forfeited all his
goods, both his own and those which would come to his heirs. If he withdrew his
charge when he appeared on the field, he was committed to gaol.
In cases
of suits in regard to titles of land, the form of oath was thus : “ I am ready
to prove it by my freeman, John, whom his father at his death-bed enjoined by the
duty he owed him, that if at any time he should hear of a-suit for this land,
he should hazard himself in a duel for it, as for that which his father had
seen and heard.” 2
Glanville
gives the following form in a suit against a tenant: “ I demand against this
H., half a knight’s fee or plough-lands in such a village, etc., and this I am
ready to prove by my freeman, I., and if any accident happen to him by such a
one, or by a third, etc.” 3
The tenant
had the right to defend himself upon the the king’s grand assize, and so prove
his right to the land.
The Mirror
says : “ In personal combat for felony none can combat for another, but in
actions personal it is lawful to make battle by their bodies or by loyal
witnesses.” “ The battle of two men suffice th to declare the truth, so that
victory is holden for truth.” 4 “ And in cases where
: Bracton. 2 Reeves. Bracton.
3 Beame’s Glanville, p. 41.
4 Mirror of Justices. A. Horne, trans. 1646,
pp. 155, 158, 159.
battle
could not be joined, nor was there any witness, the people in person acting
were to help themselves by the miracle of God in this manner, as if the
defendant were a woman.’'
Green, in
his History of England, gives a striking instance of the wager of battle and
its effects.
“At
Leicester,” says the historian, “one of the chief aims of the burgesses was to
regain their old English jury trial (or practice of compurgation) which had
been abolished by the Earls in favour of the foreign trial by duel. It chanced,
says a charter of the time, that two kinsmen, Nicholas the son of Aeon, and
Geoffrey the son of Nicholas, waged a duel about a certain piece of land,
concerning which a dispute had arisen between them, and they fought from the
first to the ninth hour, each conquering by turns. Then one of them fleeing
from the other till he came to a certain little pit, as he stood on the brink
of the pit and was about to fall therein, his kinsman said to him, ‘ Take care
of the pit, turn back lest thou shouldest fall into it.’ Thereat so much
clamour and noise was made by the bystanders and those who were sitting around,
that the Earl heard these clamours as far off as at the castle, and he inquired
of some how it was there was such a clamour, and answer was made to him, that
two kinsmen were fighting about a certain piece of ground, and that one had
fled till he reached a certain little pit, and that as he stood over the pit
and was about to fall into it, the other warned him. Then the townsmen being
moved with pity, made a covenant with the Earl that they should give him the
pence yearly for each house in the High Street that had a gable, on condition
that he should grant to them that the twenty-four jurors who were in Leicester
from ancient times, should from that time forward discuss and decide all pleas
they might have among themselves.” ,
The
customs of continental Europe varied somewhat from the English in regard to the
judicial combat and its results, but it is not necessary to particularize them.
Throughout the whole Christian world, for many centuries, the personal battle
was the final decision of cases of law. Beginning with criminal cases, it was
soon transferred to civil, and it survived in parts of Europe, at least
nominally> to the present century. Its great power in the Middle
Ages was
as one of the privileges of the fighting class, the feudal aristocracy, while
it appealed to the superstition of all classes.
In the
struggle everywhere between the crown and the nobles, and in the growing
influence of Roman law after the thirteenth century, this was upheld as one of
the institutions which resisted the Roman tendency to centralization and royal
encroachment. Its great enemy was the new spirit which Christianity had spread
abroad in the world, and which thus far had especially imbued the commercial
classes. These everywhere opposed trial by battle, and one of the privileges
granted to commercial communities was often freedom from this necessity.1
These communities were also especially influenced by Roman law, and in the
Admiralty law which they derived from it, there is no mention of trial by
battle.
The Church
in its attitude toward this barbarous practice was for a long time faithful to
the spirit of its professed Leader. Both the Councils and the Popes declared
boldly against it. In 1080 the Synod of Lillebonne adopted a canon, punishing
by fine any of the clergy who should engage in these combats without special
licence. The practice however was still continued, though condemned by Popes
Innocent II., Alexander III., and Clement III. Celestin III. even deposed the
clergy who had engaged in it, while all these prohibitions were confirmed by
Pope Innocent III. and the Lateran Council of 1215, and as late as 1492 the
Synod of Schwerin published a canon prohibiting Christian burial to those who
fell in such combats.3
1 Ferrum . . . pugnam, aquam vobis non
judicabit vel judicari faciet. (From a charter granted to Bari by Roger, King
of Naples,
1132A.D.)
Muratoii, quoted by Lea. Set Muratori, Ant. Ital.
3 Lea, p.
148.
Louis
VII., in granting the privilege to certain of the clergy of exemption from this
combat, said boldly, “ We hold that these wicked habits should be uprooted from
the foundation.”1 The power of Christianity tended naturally to do
away with this relic of barbarism, and where it was freshly introduced at once
affected legislation.
One of the
best known arguments against the practice was written by St. Agobard,
Archbishop of Lyons, as early as 826 A.D., in a treatise entitled, “ Liber
contra judicium Dei.” 8 In his letter to the Emperor he says, “ The
faithful mind must not suppose that Almighty God desires to reveal the secret
things of man by hot water or hot iron, much less by cruel battle.”3
It is a foolish and proud presumption to suppose that the Divine judgments can
be manifested by battle.4, “ Such contests are strongly opposed to
Christian*simplicity and piety and adverse to the doctrine of the Gospels.”5
All these efforts of the Church did not however prevent its spread through
Europe. The first code in which the judicial duel was forbidden was among the
most warlike tribes of the German stock, the Norsemen of Iceland, about the
same time with the introduction of Christianity (1011 A.D.). The Danes soon
imitated the Icelanders. Both reforms were clear fruits of the doctrine of
Jesus. Prince Luitprand, in his laws of
1 Lea, p. 148. Tenemus pravas consuetudines
fundetus extirpari. Duellas et alias purgationes
vulgares prohibitas sunt.
2 See St. Agobardi, Ep. Ecc. L. opera.
Parisiis, MDCV. Ad Im- peratorem de duello, p. 103. Contra damnabilem opinionem
putantium divini judicii veritatem igne vel aquis vii conflictu armorum
patefieri. (p. 287.)
3 Ad Ludov. Imp. Epist. 4 De Pace.
5 Talia certamina vehementer contraria sunt
simplicitati et pietati Christianse et doctrinse Evangelicas nimis adversa. (St. Agob., c. 7.)
Proinde experimenta hasc appellata fuere Judicia Dei quasi ad omniscientis
Judicium controversia deferretur et inde justa sententia expectanda foret. (Muratori,
De Judiciis Dei.)
the
Langobards,1 even earlier (712 A.D.), protests against this
settlement of disputes, though he avows himself powerless to prevent it, and
calls the law, “ impiam legem.”
Another
legal measure taken against it was by the Emperor Frederick II. in 1231, in his
Neapolitan code; he pronounces the trial by battle as more a kind of fortune-
telling than legal proof, and equally inconsistent with common law, nature, and
the principles of equity.®
The
Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg, in his charter to the Duchy of Styria, in 1277,
forbade the wager of battle. Other princes also prohibited it. Alfonso the Wise
of Castile, in his celebrated code, Siete Partidas, stigmatized the combat as
an “ effort to,tempt the Lord our God.” 3
The Duke
of Burgundy, Philip le Bon, abolished the wager of battle, and in his code of
1459 there is no mention of it. In Hungary it was prohibited in 1492, and in
Italy in 150s.4
The
Christian spirit, as affecting the imperial Roman code in regard to gladiators,
worked upon the Middle Ages with respect to the “champions” employed in these
judicial combats. All the contempt and disabilities thrown by the Christianized
Roman law on the former, were transferred by those following Roman legislation
to the hired fighters in these duels.5 They were held incapable of
being witnesses or of succeeding to property, and even their children were
disgraced.
1 If by respect for the usages of our
Langobard realm we cannot forbid the judgment of God, it none the less appears
to us uncertain, having learnt that many persons have lost their causes
unjustly by an impious combat. (Quoted by Lea, Lex Long., p. 63.)
2 Non tam vera probatio quam quaedam
divinatio . . . quae naturae non consonans, a jure communi deviat, nequitate
rationibus non consensit. Lea, p. 149.
3 Que quiere
tentava Dios nuestro Senor.
4 Lea. s Ibid.
All these
influences, however, were slow in uprooting this unreasonable practice among
the nations of Europe. It endured in Russia till the middle of the seventeenth
century. It was not abolished in England in civil cases till the reign of
Elizabeth. In 1571, in order to determine a disputed title to real estate,
Westminster Hall was forced to adjourn to a duelling ground at Tothill Fields,
“ not without great mental disturbance of the learned lawyers ” (non sine magna
jurisconsultorum perturbatione). All the forms of combat were passed through,
but the contest was compromised.1
In
criminal cases, a man indicted for a capital offence, was allowed to confess
his crime and to charge any one as accomplice. This appeal was usually decided
by wager of battle. In 1539 there was legislation on this, and even in the
seventeenth century instances occurred of the judicial duel; Sir Matthew Hale,
at the close of the century, speaks of it as “ an unusual trial at this day.’’
Sir Thomas Smith, as late as near the close of the sixteenth century (1570-77),
says of the judgment by battle: “This at this time is not much used, partly
because of long time the Pope and the clergy, to whom in time past we were much
subject, always cryed against it as a thing damnable and unlawful,’' and
partly, as he explains, because of the natural change in manners and customs. “
But,” he adds, “ I could not learn that it was ever abrogated.”2 And
of the appeal to battle in murder cases, he says : “ The Popes of Rome, and men
of the Church who of long time have had dominion in our consciences, and would
bring things to a more moderation, have much detested this kind of trinll and
judgment. . . . This kind of triall of long
1 Spell.
Gloss., p. 103.
3 The Commonwealth of England, 1589, p. 100.
time hath
not been used. . . . Nevertheless, the law remaineth still and is not
abolished.”
In 1775,
one of the grievances of the American colonies was being deprived by English
legislation of the right of wager of battle in criminal cases ; that is, a man
acquitted of a charge of murder could be again prosecuted by the nearest
relative, and the question was to be determined by the judicial duel.1
The English Liberals denounced, in the strongest terms, this oppression of the
colonists. Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, described the appeal for murder
as “that great pillar of the constitution.” “ It is called,” he said, “ a
remnant of barbarism and Gothicism. The whole of our constitution, for aught I
know, is Gothic. Are you then to destroy every part of that Gothic
constitution, and set up a Macaroni one instead.”
Burke
said, “ If there is an appeal for rape and robbery, you ought to have one for
murder. ... I allow that judicial combat was part of this appeal—which was
superstition and barbarism to the last degree. Yet I cannot consent that the
subject should be dealt with piecemeal.” Wedderburn, in reply, said on behalf
of the ministry : “ They allow that the appeal for murder is only an effort for
a private revenge, that it may lawfully be stopped at any time by the appellant
on the receipt of a sum of money, and that if it proceeds the appellor or the
accused, by throwing down his glove, is entitled to have his guilt or innocence
determined by a deadly combat,” etc., etc. The clause objected to in the Bill was
subsequently withdrawn by the ministry. The appeal for murder was attempted
also previously (1699), in the case of Lord Cowper’s brother> but was
quashed on account of informality. Lord Holt
1 Campbell’s Lives of the Chancellors of
England, vol. vi. p. 112.
declared
it “ a noble badge of the liberties of an Englishman.” 1
In 1818,
in England, a probable murderer, acquitted on a jury trial, was challenged by a
brother of the girl murdered, when he pleaded “not guilty, and I am ready to
defend the same by my body.” The Chief Justice sustained his right to this mode
of trial, and but for the challenger’s withdrawing, the world would have seen a
wager of battle in the nineteenth century before the Lord Chief Justice of
England.
In the
next year, by Act 59 Geo. Ill, cap. 46,3 this relic of
ante-Christian barbarism was abolished, and law finally substituted for force
between individuals in Great Britain.3 The wager of battle or appeal
of murder appears even to have been inherited in American legislation,4
and Lea states that it probably exists legally in several of the United States.
The
reflection of the reader will no doubt be of wonder that such a barbaric folly
and abuse should have lasted so long under even the apparent reign of
Christianity and right reason. But in all matters connected with the instincts
of pugnacity and the fiercer passions, the teachings of Christ work very
slowly. They are just beginning in the nineteenth century, their appropriate
and lasting work. As we shall show later, their influence is only now felt on
the relations of nations and the passions of war. The
1 Campbell, vol. iv. p. 275.
2 All appeals of treason, murder, felony or
other offences shall cease, determine and become void, and become entirely
void, and be utterly abolished, and in any point of right, the tenant shall not
be received to v/age battel nor shall issue be joined nor trial be had by
baltel in any writ of right. (59 Geo. III. c. 46.)
* Lea, Campbell, Reeves, and others ; the
case of Ashford v. Thornton.
‘ Still,
of S. Carol., vol. ii. p. 715, note.
wager of
private battle is perhaps only a shade more unreasonable and unchristian than
public battle. Time has given a slow victory of this Faith in one ; it will yet
bring about a like success in the other.
The
Ordeal. — The Carlovingian Capitularies, which expressed the most intelligent
legal judgments of the early Middle Ages, make this formal and solemn
statement: “ In doubtful cases our opinion should be reserved for the judgment
of God. What men certainly know they reserve for their own, what they are
ignorant of, for the Divine judgment; since he cannot be condemned by human
examination, whom God hath reserved for His own judgment.”1 The
“judgment of God” was the famous ordeal by fire, water, red-hot iron, the cross
and the Eucharist. It was no doubt an early barbarian practice, which survived
after Europe had become civilized. Almost all nations have employed the ordeal
in a primitive stage of their development. In various forms, it endured in some
civilized countries till the last and the present century.
The early
history of the Church is consistent in its opposition to the practice.
Christianity, as cultivating brotherly love and the spirit of justice, tended
to weaken the power of this custom. As early as the sixth century, Avitus, the
Archbishop of Vienne, remonstrated with Gundobald on account of admitting the
ordeal in the Burgundian code ; and in the ninth century, St. Agobard,
Archbishop of Lyons, in a famous treatise, attacked the whole system.8
Leo IV. in the middle of the ninth century condemned it in a letter to the
English bishops, and many succeeding
1 In ambiguis,
Dei judicio reservitur sententia. Quod certe agnos- cunt suo, quod nesciunt,
divino reservunt judicio, etc. Carlov. Cap. lib. vii. c. 239, quoted by Lea.
2 St. Agobardi opera, previously cited.
pontiffs
opposed it. 1 Great numbers, however, of the clergy defended the
practice, and it received the approval of many synods and councils. The ordeal,
by the religious ceremonies accompanying it, was too powerful a help to the
Church to be easily abandoned ; and bigotry and superstition found in it a
ready means of punishing heretics.
The Popes,
on the other hand, in the latter part of the twelfth century and the beginning
of the thirteenth, condemned it in the strongest terms. Alexander III. with
his whole apostolic authority forbade it.2 The Fourth Council
of Lateran (1215) prohibited the employment of any ecclesiastic ceremonies in
such trials. In 1200 Philip Augustus, in bestowing certain privileges on the
students of the University of Paris, made a condition that a citizen accused of
assaulting a student shall not be allowed to defend himself by the duel or
water ordeal.3 In the third year of Henry III. of England,4
when so many reforms were begun, an order was issued to the justices not to try
persons charged with robbery, murder or similar crimes, by fire and water, but
to keep them in prison under safe custody, so as not to endanger them in life
and limb, seeing that the judgment of fire and water is forbidden by the Church
of Rome.5 The canons which especially are thought by Glanville and
others to have abolished ordeal in England, are those forbidding man to tempt
the Lord his God.6
Matthew of
Westminster, in 1250, speaks of ordeal by fire and water as abolished ; and
Bracton does not allude
1 Lea, p. 267.
2 Imo apostolica
auctoritate prohibemus firmissime. Alex. III. Eft., 74. (Quoted by Lea.)
a Lea. * Reeves.
6
Sftellman, Glass.
6 Ch. xiv.
Cum sit contra preceptum Domini, non tentabis Dominum Deum tuum. (Dec., part
2.)
to it as
still practised. Throughout the same century it was gradually done away with in
Italy, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. In France it fell into disuse about the
same time; but in Germany the superstition of the people resisted the mandates
of the Church, and even in the fourteenth century the practice was not
uncommon. In Spain, the celebrated code of Alfonso the Wise (1260) had
expressly prohibited it; but even in 1322 a Church Council was obliged to
threaten with excommunication all engaged in administering this test.1
Lea, in his admirable work from which we have quoted so often, says that the
well- known Muratori affirms his belief in the ordeal, and that it was common
in Transylvania in the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth century in
West Prussia.
The
treatment of witches in the early history of the United States must have
contained a large element of the belief in the supernatural “judgment of God.”
Even in 1815 there was a trial for witchcraft in Belgium, and in 1836 the
population of Bela, near Dantzic, twice plunged an old woman accused of being a
sorceress, into the sea, and, as she rose, she was pronounced guilty and beaten
to death.3
Other
causes besides the influence of the Church or the spread of Christian ideas
tended to remove this abuse— the revived influence of the Roman law, and the
spirit of the mercantile communes and commercial leagues, who were more imbued
with correct principles of evidence, less affected by superstition, and more
inspired by religion. The early codes of commercial law make no reference to
ordeal.3
1 Du Cange,
Ferrum candens. Lea. Muratori, Ital. Antiq.
2 Lea.
3 I desire to make especial acknowledgments
for the assistance I have derived in these chapters from Lea’s admirable work
011 Superstition and Force.
The
abolition of ordeal is not one of the most undisputed victories of the
Christian religion. We can only say with confidence, that as this Faith imbues
men with benevolence and the desire to render to all their due, the injustice,
cruelty, and absurdity of such means of arriving at truth become more apparent.
N
TORTURE.
The Roman law, in recognising one system of injustice,
permitted of necessity the cruel and unjust proceedings legally connected with
it. Slavery was assumed and acknowledged as legal, and with it, the torture to
exact the truth from one who was in the view of the law scarcely a human being.
Even the Stoical jurists allow torture to a slave who is a witness. But such an
injustice once suffered to exist would be easily propagated to other classes.
It was first applied to freemen suspected of crimes against the State or the
emperor ; and, under the imperial legislation of Rome, was employed against
many offences of freeborn Romans. Still, under the Roman practice, there were
many safeguards for the accused. The plaintiff was obliged to inscribe himself
formally, and was exposed to the lex talionis, or reprisals, if he failed to
prove his charge. Under Constantine, a person accused of treason, whatever his
rank, was liable to torture, but accusers and informers, if they could not
prove their charge, were equally liable to this penalty. These provisions were
preserved by Justinian.1 Even freemen were tortured as witnesses,
and so enlightened a ruler as Justinian could order a rod to persons suspected
of false witness, in order to extract the truth. It is certainly one of the
extraordinary per-
1 13 Theod.
Cod., ix. 8.
versities
of the human reason, that for so many centuries in Europe, alike under Roman
law and the Christian Church, the innocent could be exposed to frightful pains
in order to obtain evidence; and the accused, who might be innocent, were given
up to fearful agonies to compel a confession, which might be the result of
fear or pain. This savage procedure was unknown to the great race related to
the European races—the Hindoos—and was not a part of the code of the people
who, through Christianity, have so much influenced modern progress the Jews.
The northern barbarians, owing to their sense of individual independence, did
not usually permit the torture of freemen, but only that of slaves ; and then
under strict conditions. The wager of battle, the compurgators’ oath, and the
ordeal took the place of torture, as a means of obtaining truth. The Gothic tribes,
who were more influenced by Roman legislation, early adopted the practice,
though with many of the Roman protections for the accused.
Christianity
in its essential spirit was utterly opposed to such a cruel and unjust
practice. One of the wisest kings of Europe expressed in his code the
foundation principle of this Faith, when he said, “ The person of man is the
noblest thing on earth.”1 Yet even Alfonso the Wise was obliged to
admit torture in his legislation, though he modified its effects by provisions
which were afterwards imitated throughout Europe. No confession under torture
was held technically valid ; the victim was sent back to prison ; he was again
brought before the judges; if he persisted, he was condemned ; if he recanted,
he was again tortured, and these steps were repeated ; the accused never being
convicted except by free confession.2 Even after that, if the
1 La persona del home es la mas noble cosa del mundo. Siete
Partidas. 3 Lea.
judges
found reason to consider the confession an effect of fear or pain, he might be
acquitted.
The
history of the early Church, when perhaps the teachings of Christ were fresher
to the minds of men, is full of instances of opposition to this cruel practice.
But gradually, as the study of the Roman law revived in the thirteenth century,
and later, as the spirit of bigotry increased, torture, and all the dark
accompanying practices were borrowed from the old code, and employed by the
Roman Church in the processes of the Inquisition. Under this new spirit of
persecution they became tenfold worse than they had ever been under Roman law.
For centuries, the very light of justice passed away under the shadow of the
Inquisition. Men were tortured on the feeblest suspicions ; all the maxims of
Roman equity were forgotten ; their confessions were allowed to implicate
others,, and often they charged themselves when innocent, to escape ■ further
pain. Agents were permitted to enter their prison- cells to worm out their
confidence, and even judges, falsely promised them mercy to win a confession.
The
following were some of the tortures habitually used in Europe for hundreds of
years: “ The strappado, so common in Italy, and which is yet forbidden under
Roman law ; . . . the vigils of Spain, which oblige a man to support himself by
sheer muscular effort for seven hours, to avoid sitting on a pointed iron which
pierces him with an insufferable pain; iron stools heated to redness on which
we place poor half-witted women accused of witchcraft, exhausted by frightful
imprisonment, rolling from their dark and filthy dungeons, loaded with chains,
fleshless and halfdead, and wei pretend that the human frame can resist these
devilish practices, and that the confessions which our wretched victims make,
are true.”1
1 Nicholas, Diss. Morale etjurid. sur la Torture. (Quoted by
Lea).
The
strappado, to which allusion is here made, was a species of torture used to
extract the truth from witnesses or accused persons. The hands were tied behind
the back, with a piece of iron between them ; a cord was fastened, to the
wrists by which, with a pulley, the unfortunate person was hoisted from the
ground with a weight of 125 lbs. fastened to his feet. In extraordinary cases
the weight was increased to 250 lbs. When the victim was raised to a sufficient
height, he was dropped with a jerk which dislocated the joints, and this was
repeated three times. The most agonising and efficacious of all torture was
considered to be enforced sleeplessness. The person was placed between two
jailors, who slept in alternate periods, but kept the unhappy victim awake for
several days and nights.
In
applying torture to those suspected of witchcraft, one judge (according to
Nicholas) boasted of despatching nine hundred victims in his district in
fifteen years; and another in the diocese of Como burnt one thousand persons in
a year. The cruelty and arbitrary character of the system of torture reached
such a degree in Europe, that intelligent persons decided, if chance should
expose them to any suspicion, they would at once admit every charge, preferring
a speedy death to -these long-continued agonies.
Under the
German Code after the sixteenth century, the rule of the Roman law was
followed, of beginning with the weakest in torture. If husband and wife were to
be tortured, they commenced with the wife. Von Rosbach warns the tribunals that
their greatest fault was in looking only at the testimony adverse to the
accused, and that they “ used torture as though nature had created the feelings
of prisoners to be lacerated at will.”1
As soon as
a charge was made, the judges began by ’ Quoted by Lea.
torturing
all who were suspected, without waiting to ascertain if any crime had really
been committed. The accused generally did not see a copy of the accusation;
often was not allowed to be heard in defence, and was tortured at once after
the adverse evidence was heard. Even the right of appeal was evaded, by the
judges sending the accused to the rack without a preliminary formal order. The
rule prevailed that torture should not be so prolonged as to endanger life and
limb, but, in fact, the unfortunate victim was often crippled for life under a
false accusation. Von Boden says, that the devil himself could not invent any
worse torment for the human body than these judges often used on the innocent.1
The judge himself was obliged to be present during the torture, and naturally
grew callous to the misery he inflicted. He was liable to indictment if the
prisoner did not confess, so that every motive urged him to torment the
miserable sufferers. It is said that in these refinements of cruelty over nine
hundred different instruments for inflicting pain were invented and used.
Torture was permitted even after conviction, to prevent appeals ; and if the
unhappy, person asserted his innocence at the place of execution, he was
hurried back to the rack again.
One candid
magistrate of Milan is reported by Nicholas to have tested the system, by
killing a favourite mule and allowing the .accusation to fall upon a servant.
The man denied the offence, was put to the rack, and confessed ; and
subsequently, after the torture, persisted in the confession. The judge, it is
said, resigned his office and became a cardinal.
In France,
at the close of the fifteenth century, all the
1 Sic
adhiberi soleant ut diabolum ipsum asperius quid quo corpori humano in hac vita
ncceat, excogitare posse dubium sit. (Quoted by Lea.
worst accompaniments
of this cruel practice were in continual use; the secret investigation of
criminal cases; the separate and secret examination of witnesses; the prisoner
not being informed of the accusation against him, nor allowed an opportunity of
preparing a defence. The principle of French legislation in this matter in the
sixteenth century being, as Lea well puts it, that it were better that one
hundred innocent persons should suffer, than that one guilty one should escape.
The old
maxim of Roman law, that no one who had confessed his guilt should be examined
as to the guilt of another accused, was forgotten, and the new method was the
application of the rack to compel a confession as to the guilt of others. This
continued even under the reign of Louis XIV. Silence under the agony inflicted
was not considered evidence of innocence ; so that a man not found guilty after
torture, could be punished for some other offence of which he had not been
convicted. This horrible condition of legislation endured in France till the
eighteenth century.
In Spain,
as might have been expected, this barbarous practice and all the abuses of
secret inquest had their especial seat. The dreadful procedure of the
Inquisition was transferred to secular legislation. Torture was adopted even on
charges of theft or counterfeiting, and for all weighty offences. Evidence
sufficient to justify it was considered to lie in common report, or in
unexplained absence before accusation, or in prevarication at examination, or
even in silence and pallor.1 The magistrates went so far as to
employ the lot or divination to obtain proofs suf- cient to justify to their
minds the rack or the strappado. Witnesses were not spared either in civil or
criminal cases.
1 Deinde a
pallore et similibus oritur judicium ad torturam secundum. (Von
Rosbach.) Lea, p. 358.
In
general, torture was seldom practised in their early history by the nations
where jury trial prevailed and evidence was open, and where Roman law had
little or no influence. In the Danish and Swedish Codes, from the fifteenth to
the end of the sixteenth centuries, when this cruel process was so common in
Europe, it is not mentioned. It-does however appear very early in the
Icelandic Code, but seems afterwards to have fallen into disuse.
Torture in
England.—It is the boast of the common law of England, that this practice was
never recognised in its provisions. Among the Anglo-Saxons, the ordeal, the
wager pf battle, and the gradual growth of the jury took its place.
By the
laws of Henry I. it is laid down that no credit is to be given to a confession
about another’s guilt, and that a confession extorted by fear or fraud is
invalid.1 It is thought that the expression in Magna Charta, “ No
freeman may be arrested or imprisoned except by legal judgment of his peers,”2
may refer to this power of magistrates and kings, so freely exercised on the
Continent at that time.
In the
fourteenth century,, this cruelty was almost unknown in legal proceedings in
England. The Archbishop of York states this publicly, and asks in a letter,
which has been preserved, what he shall do in regard to the examination of
certain knights templar.
Yet
torture was occasionally employed during succeeding reigns, and gradually, as
the royal prerogative was strengthened, it gained ground. Under Henry VIII. it
was held that a royal warrant justified the use of this means of investigation
and of secret inquest. Arguments were
1 Nemini de se corifesso super alienum
crimen, credatur; conTessio per metum vel per fraudem extorta, non valet.” {L.
Hen. /., 5, 16.)
2 c. xxx.
made
against its practice during Elizabeth’s reign, but still it was held that the
royal command rendered it legal. Sir Thomas Smith says of torture in his time
(1570): “Likewise torment of question which is used by the order of the civil
law and custom of other countries, to put a malefactor to excessive paine, to
make him confesse of himselfe, or of his fellows or complices, is not used in
England ; it is taken for servile. . . The nature of Englishmen is to neglect
death, but to abide no torment. . . Likewise confession by torment is esteemed
for nothing.”1 Even Lord Bacon, at as late a period as 1619, recommended
its use to King James. As was the experience in other countries, this method of
examination was transferred from cases of treason and of offences against the
State, to ordinary offences—even to the examination of persons accused of theft
and horse-stealing.
After
1640, pain as a means of investigation was never applied to those accused of
political offences. The Rebellion put an end to such' practices.
In
Scotland the use of torture began somewhat late, after the fifteenth century,
but it was applied fearfully, especially in the trials for witchcraft in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was not abolished in that country till
after the Union, in 1709.3
The
Opposition of the Church.—As we stated before, the Church in its early history
was consistent with its doctrines in opposing this cruelty and
injustice. Under the Merovingian line, torture was only exceptionally
employed, except against scorcerers. A Church Council in 587 A.D. forbade by
special decree every elder or deacon from being
1 Commonwealth of England 1589, p. 100. See
also Jardine On Use of Torture, etc.
- Lea.
present at
the infliction of this pain.1 Another canon (585 A.D.) prohibited
any of the clergy from even beholding these agonies.2 A prominent
Bishop, Hildebert, in 1125, in a letter to his clergy, says, “To torment
criminals, or to extort confession by torture, is not a part of the discipline
of the Church.”3 The early Popes were not behindhand in their
denunciation of the practice. Gregory I. in the sixth century speaks with
contempt of a confession where the innocent are compelled to avow themselves
guilty.4 Nicholas I. in his Epistle to the Bulgarians, says that
this is a process which no divine or human law can approve of, “ for a
confession ought not to be unwilling but spontaneous.”5 “ Abandon
all such practices,” is his command. Ivo of Chartres, in the beginning of the
twelfth century, proclaimed that the confession of the clergy, whatever they
were accused of, should always be spontaneous, not. forced.6
Fifty
years later, Gratian proclaims that confessions must not be obtained by
torments.7
This cruel
practice was not adopted by most of the countries of Europe till the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
1 Non licet presbytero nec diacono ad
trepalium ubi rei torquentur stare. Cone. Autiss., con. 33.
2 Ad locum examinationis reorum nullus
clericorum accedat. Cone. Matii. 1. (Lea.)
3 Reos tormentis afficere vel suppliciis
extorquere confessionem . . . est non ecclesiae disciplina. (Hild.., Ep. xxx.
Lea.)
4 . . . noxios se fateri cogantur etiam
innoxii. Greg., lib. viii.
Ep. i, 3
c.
6 Quam rem
nec divina lex nec humana prorsus admittit, cum non invita sed spontanea debet
esse confessio. (Ep. 97, 86.) . . Relin- quite itaque talia. (Quoted by Lea.)
6 Ministrorum confessio non sit extorta sed
spontanea. (Quoted by Lea.)
7 Confessio
cruciatibus extorquenda non est. Dec. crus, xv. 6, 1. (See Lea.)
Italy,
which was the centre of Roman ideas, was the earliest to employ it in obtaining
evidence, and the last to abandon it. Frederick II. in his Neapolitan Code
(1231) is said to have substituted torture for ordeal in judicial trials. In
the thirteenth century the Church began to drift far from the principles of its
Master, and to be imbued with a spirit of cruel bigotry. The Inquisition
accepted torture and secret investigation as its appropriate implements; and
Pope Innocent IV. ordered this process in the examinations for heresy. The
influence of the Inquisition on secular law was widespread and most disastrous.
>
Two causes
began now to spread abroad this cruel proceeding : one, the revived study of
Roman law, and the consequent desire by the Royalist party through Europe to
restore to imperial and kingly power its privileges—among them the right to
obtain evidence by inflicting pain—and the other this terrible anti-christian
spirit of the Church and the Inquisition.
The spirit
of humanity ’taught by Christ, wherever it could struggle against
ecclesiastical tyranny, opposed this barbarity through every century. As the
Scriptures became more circulated among the common people after the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, all men felt more of the compassion taught by Him, and
this abuse seemed more and more a shame to the faith they professed. The influence
of the Roman law indeed upheld it, and the bigotry of priests and cruelty of
rulers, but the Teacher of love everywhere through the Gospels preached against
it in the hearts of men. Nothing but His influence seems finally to have
uprooted it among European nations.
The
authors from whom we have quoted, A. Nicholas Von Boden, Bernhardi, are filled
with the Christian spirit, and strike telling blows at the evil. The latter
writer states that the abuse was abolished in Holland, because in Utrecht,
a man
brought a false charge of theft against a shoemaker. 1 The workman
was tortured, confessed, and was finally executed. It subsequently appeared
that the accusation arose from the shoemaker’s refusal to buy a pair of shoes
from the man. Such instances were no doubt constantly occurring and aiding to
bring Europe to right reason. This author says, that the system of torture
ought to be cast out of the doors of Christianity, and that it is destitute of
any appearance even of a divine test of truth.
It is but
just to say that in these matters of humanity and public right, the sceptics
were often in their practice nearer Christ than were the popes, 'bishops and
clergy. The Christian spirit affected the ideas of those who were nominally
unbelievers. The French free-thinkers and their followers opposed the use of
torture with all their eloquence. Montaigne uttered ‘his condemnation of it, Voltaire
addressed (in 1777) an earnest appeal to Louis XVI. against it, and the
philosopher king, Frederick the Great, made it the first act of his reign to
abolish it (1740), though his humanity was not sufficient to prevent his using
it on those accused of treason and rebellion against himself.
In Saxony,
Switzerland, and Austria, it was abdlished towards the end of the eighteenth
century; in Russia it survived till 1801 ; in Wurtemburg and Bavaria it was in
use in 1806 and 1807 ; in Hannover till 1822; and in Baden till 1831,3
In France, the storm of the Revolution swept it away; and almost at the same
time it camp to an end in North Italy, but was 'used in the prisons of Naples
and Palermo down to the middle of this century.
It is
remarkable that, according to Lea,3 instances of
1 Quoted by Lea.
2 A Reading on the use of Torture, etc.
D. Jardine, London, 1837.
3 Page 522.
judicial
torture to extort evidence have occurred in Europe within a few years : one in
Roumania in 1868, and the other in the enlightened Republic of Switzerland, in
the Canton of Zug, in 1869.
The
civilized world has happily for ever passed beyond this great abuse and
injustice, which has caused such untold pain and misery, and has broken the
courage and endurance of such countless numbers of human beings. Unfortunately
for the name of Christianity, the Church sustained and employed this diabolical
system of cruelty and oppression. But the teachings of Christ, and the protests
of many of His followers have opposed it in every age. As men have become more
and more filled with His spirit, or indirectly influenced by Christian ideas,
torture has disappeared, and is now as one of the horrible .spectres of a
dismal and bloody past. In non-Christian countries, however, it exists, but is
gradually abolished as their codes of law come under the influence of the
doctrines of Jesus. In one of the most civilized of these—Japan—it was formally
abolished as a means of procuring evidence,1 in 1873, —the new code
being reformed after those of Christian countries.
1 Reed’s Japan, vol. i. p. 324.
THE
STRANGER’S RIGHT.
UNDER the
old Greek and Roman habits of mind, the stranger was mainly looked upon as a
barbarian and enemy.1 Something of the same savagery, which in
Stanley’s travels through Central Africa made almost every new tribe he met
with at once attack him like a dangerous wild beast, animated the ancient
races, both barbarous and civilized, in their relations to foreigners, Stoicism
indeed cultivated a more humane feeling among the learned and refined ; but the
masses of the people in the ancient world were full of prejudices and hostility
against those not of their own race or country. It is true that the Roman
empire, with its imperial unity, tended to melt different peoples together
under one rule, and strangers and enemies gradually became only those outside
of the limits of this grand domain. Toward those, however, the old barbaric
feeling and custom were strong as ever. That expression in Plautus, “ A man is
a wolf to a man he does not know,”2 is probably an echo of an old
Roman proverb, and utters a common sentiment of the
1 Hostis enim
apud majores nostros is dicebatur quem nunc pere- grinum dicimus. (Cic.)
Aristotle says, Of all wars those are most necessary and just which are made by
men against wild beasts, and next those made by Greeks against strangers, “who
are naturally our enemies.” (Pol., Ii. 8.)
2 As., 2, 4, 88. Homo homini ignoto lupus,
etc.
190
Italian
peoples. When the Empire broke up and the Teutonic codes to a large degree
controlled Europe, we see the revival of the inhuman spirit towards strangers,
and at the same time the larger humanity taught by the Jewish Scriptures and by
Christ, struggling with and mitigating the spirit of old and savage
legislation.
That
humane command of the Old Testament, “Thou shalt not vex the stranger” (Lev.
xix. 33, 34), seems to have rung in the ears of almost every Christian
legislator of the German, Keltic, and Anglo-Saxon tribes; and the spirit of the
new Revelation is seen everywhere inspiring and teaching a broader humanity,
though often in vain against the ingrained and inherited habits of barbarism. 4
There were
indeed certain justifications of the old Teutonic dislike of strangers. The
land of the tribe was held in common, and a stranger, as a lawless man, was out
of connection with the community, with no possessions and no obligations ; he
was no doubt often a runaway, vagrant, or thief, or a disturber of the peace ;
if he came as a merchant he was outside of the “ mutual pledge ” system which
bound, for instance, the Anglo-Saxons to good conduct. It followed almost
naturally that the laws in regard to him were often very strict or cruel.
According to the Burgundian law1 he could be tortured under suspicious
circumstances, and even one of Charlemagne’s capitularies permits the same
treatment. By a law of the Salian Franks, when a stranger wished to settle in a
village or canton he was not permitted the privilege if a single resident
opposed. If also within ten days any member of the tribe presented himself with
witnesses, and summoned
1 Quicumque
hominem extraneum cujuslibet nationis ad se veni- entem susceperit,
discutiendum praesentet ut cujus sit tormentis adhibitis fateatur. Lex. Burg.,
i. 39, and Cap. 2 (803 a.d ).
him to
quit the village, and this was repeated twice after the ten days, he was
obliged to. depart. If he refused, he was summoned to the mallum, and. not only
expelled, but compelled to abandon his property and pay a fine. In England, as
we shall shortly show, a; stranger who was accused of any crime must be at once
put in jail; if he was found off from the four main roads and. making no noise
of bell, he could be killed as a thief; no one could harbour him more than
three nights, and whoever did so even for that time was responsible for his
good conduct. He was taxed wherever possible. Even as late as the time of Henry
VIII. all foreign artificers were prohibited from working in the kingdom.1
The Saxons are said to have sold into slavery a stranger who had no patron.2
By a law of many German tribes, if a stranger had resided twelve months in a
district he was safe ; if he was guest of a member of the tribe, the host after
three nights became responsible for him. The proverb was common, “Two nights a
guest, the third night a servant.” In Gaul, among the Keltic tribes, the
stranger was equally held as one outside of the community and unable to own the
property of a warrior. The early German codes soon begin to show the effect of
the new spirit in. this matter. The laws of the Bavarians of the twelfth
century quote the Bible text in regard to vexing the stranger, and lay a heavy
fine on him who shall plunder, sell, or wound a stranger, while a burdensome
fine must be paid to the treasury for his murder.
That great
legislator, Charlemagne, in 803, calls upon every one in his empire, as he
would that Christ should be merciful unto him, not to refuse hospitality to
strangers
1 32 H.
VIII., c. 16.
3 Peregrinum
qui patronem non habebant, vendebant Saxonis.
Weginhordt.
and
travellers.1 He directs all judges to give just judgment, and to
make no distinction between the stranger and the citizen, because that is the
true judgment of God.2 No official is permitted to oppress strangers
with taxes or any other burden.3
Alfred, in
the Anglo-Saxon code, orders his subjects not to vex the stranger and
far-comer, in memory of the Lord’s people being strangers in the land of Egypt;
and each of his successors repeats this injunction on religious grounds.
The
ancient Hungarian law enjoins humanity towards strangers in that we ever have
the example of the Master, and the command “ I will have mercy and not
sacrifice.” 4 Droit d'Aubaine.—One of the most remarkable instances
of the continuance of a barbaric custom in a Christian country, down to modern
times, has been the droit d’au- baine,5 or stranger’s right, in
France. The stranger for centuries in France was looked upon in law as a serf,
and treated accordingly. An aubain, or stranger, living a year and a day in a
French community, and not professing citizenship or attaching himself to a
baron, became serf to the seigneur on whose lands he resided. It was the
fourteenth century before the strangers ceased to b& regarded as bound to
the soil in France, and features of the droit cP aubaine have survived to the
present day. The
1 Volumus ut infra regna, Christo propitio
nostro, omnibus iteran- tibus, nullus hospitium denegat, mansionem et focum
tantum. Char.
3 Cap., and others.
2 Quod justum est, judicate. Sive civis sit
ille, sive peregrinus nulla sit distantia personarum, quia Dei judicium. (62.)
3 72, 9 c.
4 Semper illud Domini exemplum, etc.
5 Probably derived from Albanus, or
Scotchman, as being the foreign people most often strangers in France. It may
also be from alibi nattis. Others give, Celt, all, autre ; bann, juridiction,
district, contrde, pays. (See Hist, de la Cond. civ. d'Etrangers en France. Par
C. Demangeat, Paris, 1844.)
oppressive
custom had indeed been lightened by the greed of the seigneurs for money
obtained by selling their rights over foreigners, and by the power of the
kings, who protected strangers in the interest of royalty against feudal
barons. The Christian religion, too, softened, though for centuries it could
not remove, the oppression. The absolute servitude of strangers was formally
abolished from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century. In the earlier times
the seigneur at the death of the stranger took, by law, all his inheritance.
But toward the end of the thirteenth century, if he had left children, half the
property was permitted to descend to them. Louis X. (1315) ordered servitude
to be changed to freedom,1 but the efforts failed against the
struggles of the feudal gentry.
The
aubains, or strangers, of the Middle Ages seem to have been in almost the same
position with serfs. They were bound to the soil, and masters could pursue them
if they ran away ; they sold their rights over them like any other property.
The stranger was obliged to pay dues to the baron ; if married to a person of
another class, he must pay a fine, and, if his marriage was without the consent
of his master or seigneur his goods could be confiscated and the marriage
declared null and void. In divers ways the unfortunate foreigners in France
were plundered and taxed throughout the Middle Ages. They could not inherit or
bequeath property. Even as late as the sixteenth century the aubains could not
transmit property, except a fixed small sum, or succeed to an estate. In 1461,
Louis XI. exempted from the droit d’aubaine and the correlated right of
barbarism, the droit de naufrage— wreckers’ right—certain large districts in
Flanders and the adjacent regions. It was not till 1606 that England and France
released merchants by treaty from these oppressive
1 Servitude
fust ramende k franchise.
dues and
exactions. Henry II., in 1554, expressly exempted Scotch merchants from the
droit d'aubaine. Still with these various exemptions, the general law for
centuries in France was that a stranger, if he did not recognise the seigneur
on whose land he lived, could, after a year and a day, be arrested and his
goods confiscated, or he be forced to pay a heavy fine. He became the man of
the baron and must bestow on him a certain surrt by will, or the baron
inherited all his property. Even native Frenchmen wandering to some other than
their native district were liable to become native aubains.
This
odious right was finally abolished by the humane impulse of the Revolution in
1790 ; that is, strangers could transmit property to other than French
children, but they were not permitted to collect property left to them in
France, nor were they made equal with Frenchmen in regard to imprisonment for
debt, the transference of property, or the ability to appear as plaintiffs in
court.
It was not
till this century (1819) that strangers in France were placed by other than
treaty law on an equality with native Frenchmen, and allowed to receive
bequests and to own real estate. In 1832 a still further improvement was made
in their condition by their being delivered from imprisonment for small debts.
As regards
foreign countries, these odious relics of a barbarous age were abolished by
treaty in France, first in 1760;—the privilege of exemption being secured by
the United States in 1778, and by Russia and England in 1787.
Similar
inequalities in regard to strangers, derived'from the ancient customs of
half-civilized tribes and from feudalism, still exist under the common law of
England, and have been continued in many of the United States. The right of a
stranger to own real estate in most of the
American
States is only given by special statute or on application to the court.
The
struggle of Christianity against this spirit of intolerance is only seen in
the early legislation of the German and Keltic tribes, because then the motive
power was fresher and more distinctly expressed. But when Paul on Mars’ Hill
uttered to the race most proud of its blood in antiquity and who held all
foreigners as barbarians, that watch-word of modern humanity, “ God hath made
of one all races of men,” and when He repeated it in so many forms to the great
conquering race of the past —the Romans—we may be sure that an idea from the
great Master was thrown into human society which must everywhere break down the
hatred of race to race.
As this
humane principle became more an element in human progress, it was less spoken
of as a religious influence. It entered into legislation silently, and after
long struggles began the reforms which are not yet finished; for under the
teachings of Christianity, there can be no unjust and oppressive
discriminations made against the stranger and foreigner, but all nations are of
“ one blood.”
THE
WRECKERS’ RIGHT AND PIRACY.
Of
all persons claiming the offices of common humanity, it would seem that the
unfortunate sailor or stranger, wrecked on a foreign shore, was the one most
innocent and most deserving. And yet in all ages before Christianity, and often
since, either the shipwrecked mariner and traveller were held to be the slaves
or captives of those who rescued them, or their property became lawful plunder
of any into whose hands it fell. They were considered the outlaws of mankind.
The
Visigoths, more than any of the German tribes, were at least externally
influenced by the Christian principle, and their code showed one of the first
efforts to do away with this barbaric practice towards the shipwrecked. Severe
penalties were threatened against plundering the goods of wrecked vessels. The
Anglo-Saxons too were somewhat touched with the higher humanity of the new
Faith, and one law proclaims (about 978 A.D.) “ Let every merchant-ship have
frith (peace) that comes within port, though it be a hostile port, if it be not
(storm-) driven ! If it be (storm-) driven, and it flee to any peace- burgh,
then let these men and what they bring with them have peace.”
Henry I.
(1130 A.D.) referring to the wreckers’ right, says: “ Hanc abhorrens
consuetudinem,” abhorring this
197
custom, he
ordains a law, that whoever escapes from a wreck should be allowed to possess
his property.
Richard
II. (1190) proclaims that, having himself experienced the calamities of
shipwreck, he does “for the love of God and the salvation of his soul demand
safety and protection for all shipwrecked persons-and their goods in whatever
land or sea.”1
The
ancient mercantile community was the first to feel the new spirit of humanity,
and their interests would naturally move them to resist barbaric practices.
Every old mercantile code contains provisions against the ill- treatment of
these unfortunate persons. The Code d’Oleron (dating before the fourteenth
century) is full of honest indignation against those who injure the
shipwrecked, and commands the plunderers to be half-drowned and stoned like
dogs.
It is said
to be “ against the command of God the All-powerful, notwithstanding any custom
or ordinance, to plunder the shipwrecked, and all such are accursed” (Art. 38)
; and whoever should put up false lights to mislead the unwary and thus cause
disaster and wreck, ought to be bound in the midst of his house and fire to be
set to its four corners and be burned with it, and the whole place be turned
into a hog-yard.3 Nothing however seemed to uproot this barbarous
practice. In the tenth and eleventh centuries the Dukes of Brabant still
claimed the right to plunder all persons who were so unfortunate
1 Ricardus Rex jam expertus calamitates
naufragorum, pro amore Dei et salute animse suae et parentum suorum quietem
clamavit in perpetuum Wrec per totam terrain suam citra mare, et ultra statuens
; quod omnis naufragus qui ad terrain pervenerit, omnes res suasliberas et
quietas habeat. Leg. Sax., Wilkins, p. 342.
2 Et doibt
estre lid k une esteppe en millieu de sa maison, et on doibt mettre le feu es
quatres corni^res de sa maison et faire tout brusler, etc. Art. 41,
c. 8.
as to be
cast on their coasts. The Council of Nantes (1127) thundered against it; and in
1231, the good king, St. Louis, made a treaty with the Duke of Brabant,
endeavouring to convert these rights into money payments.
Among the
religious efforts made to limit this odious custom of a cruel age, may be
mentioned, the “Judgments of the Sea,” a code of St? Louis, in 1266. By these
new regulations, the seigneur on whose domains unfortunate vessels were cast,
was not permitted to seize the property or to enslave the persons of the crew ;
but he is required to aid the sufferers and to save the property. “ Whoever
shall do the contrary, shall be excommunicated from the church, and punished as
a robber" (Art. 29), and by Art. 30, if, after a year, no owner appear,
the baron shall publicly sell the wrecked property, and distribute the money
among the poor, and otherwise do works of compassion with the proceeds.
The
Lateran Council (r 179) promulgated one article against the inhuman practice,
and forbade any one despoiling the wrecked.1
These
efforts however did not avail, for in 1277 Philip the Bold was obliged to issue
an ordinance, excepting from the usual royal claims the property of Italian
merchants thus brought to misfortune.
Louis XI.
(1465-69) claimed all shipwrecked goods as legal property of the crown ; the
only exceptions being in favour of the Dutch and Flemings, and of the Hanseatic
League. The ordinance of 1543 is said to be the first legal evidence of a
reform in this practice in France ; by
1 Ne patientes naufragium quisquam spoliare prsesumat.
(C. 21.) Excommunicatione quoque poenas subdantur qui Romanos aut alios
Christianos pro negotio vel aliis causis honestis navigio vectos, aut capere
aut rebus suis prassumunt. (3 Cone. Lat.)
this act,
the wrecked persons were permitted to reclaim their property within a year and
a day.1
In other
portions of Europe there was much humane legislation against this evil. In
Spain, Sicily, and Italy, the commercial cities and Republics strove everywhere
to include humane treatment towards the wrecked in the privileges granted to
them by treaties. The religious bodies universally denounced the practice of
cruelty towards these unfortunate persons. It existed on the coasts of Scotland
till the thirteenth century ; and in Germany it was only in the twelfth century
that the right of the baron or the crown over wrecked property was changed to a
fine for protection. On the coasts of Prussia the ancient right of plundering
and enslaving the shipwrecked was believed to be derived from the old Rhodian
Law.
Many
treaties were made in the thirteenth century between Christian and Mohammedan
countries, endeavouring to protect Europeans from this cruel practice. The
final abolition of this inhuman custom was due to a combination of influences.
The sense of humanity taught and encouraged by the new Faith was also
stimulated by the broadening effects of commerce, and by the mutual interests
of traders and their customers.
The only
nations among whom this barbarism still endures in modern times, are the
non-Christian, especially the Mohammedan peoples of the north of Africa. But
even here, the power of civilized races has checked it; and humanity to the
shipwrecked is now stamped by the Christian Faith on the public law and custom
of all leading nations. It would not only be considered in this age a
violation of international law to plunder or treat cruelly the shipwrecked, but
the religious and humane spirit of
1 Pardessus.
Collection de Lois Maritimes.
Christian
countries has made it a duty and satisfaction to aid these unfortunate persons.
Piracy.—The
practice of indiscriminate plundering on the sea in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, was only a part of the private war prevailing on the land. Every individual,
or town, or state who chose, could equip a vessel and plunder all others. No
richly freighted ship was safe. Entire coasts became asylums for marine
freebooters. Towns employed vessels against other towns ; and cities thus waged
war with one another.
The
leagues of commercial towns did much to clear the seas of these free-booters,
and piracy was finally checked by privateering. The evil (in a mitigated form)
has lasted down to our own day in the practice of “ Private War ” under letters
of marque, or privateering.
The new
spirit infused into international law by the great Teacher is gradually
abolishing privateering, and this century will probably see the end of “
Private War ” on the sea, as a former century saw that of a similar savage
custom on land.
CHARLEMAGNE’S
CAPITULARIES.
No student
of the Middle Ages can be otherwise than deeply impressed with the wonderful
personality which led the work of reforming and re-organizing that portion of
Europe held by the German and Keltic tribes. Charlemagne’s legislation bears
the constant impress of the new moral power in the world ; and though his
practical action was by no means always guided by Christianity, these laws
often give a fair example of the influence of the religion of Jesus on the laws
of barbaric tribes.
One of his
capitularies (789 A.D.) uses almost the language of the Bible, when he says, “
Let no one claim wrongfully the lands of another, and pass not the boundaries
of his fathers.” “ No one should turn away the offerings which may be the whole
patrimony of the poor ! ” “ Let peace and good intelligence rule among bishops,
abbots, counts, judges, and men of all conditions, for without peace, nothing
pleases the Lord.” “ If ye love one another, all will know ye are Christ’s
disciples ! ” According to the command of our Lord, let no murder be committed
in the spirit of vengeance, avarice, and rapine ; wherever this crime be
discovered, let Our judges punish it in virtue of our orders, but let no one in
future lose his j life if the law
do not condemn him.1 Widows and orphans
1 Cap. Eccles., 61, 66, etc.
202
and minors
are to be protected, as under the peculiar care of God, and are everywhere to
have peace and receive justice.”1 “And it pleases us that the
faithful should be admonished concerning hatred and discord, which extinguish
charity among those nearest, and destroy affection.”3 The true
charity which loveth God and our neighbour is to be cultivated ;3
and friendship and affection are to be observed according to the words of the
Apostle to the Corinthians.4 The people were exhorted to peace and
concord, because they have one Father in heaven,5 and because the
blessed book had taught them that “ Blessed are the peace-makers.” They are
warned against feud,6 and in the words of Scripture against any rash
shedding of Christian blood.7 The powerful are cautioned against the
oppression of the poor ;8 and all are exhorted to be imitators of
Him who would save the souls of men.9 And all Christians are most
solemnly warned to give their utmost diligence, lest they be for ever separated
from the kingdom of God, by their strifes and contentions and falsehood and
wicked vices.10
The great
sin of the Middle Ages was the habit of false swearing. These laws bid the
citizen beware of perjury, not only on the holy Gospels, the relics of the
saints and the altar, but in common conversation. “ There are some
' Ut viduas, orphani et minus potentes sub Dei defensione, etc. (c.
ccxxvii.)
2 Placuit ut
fideles admonentur de odio et discordia, etc. (c. cclxi.)
3 Vera
caritas qua Deus proximusque diligitur, etc. (cccxlvii.)
’ c. cccxlii.
0 Quia unum
Deum patrem habemus in coelo, etc. (Lib. 7.)
6 Pro Faidi,
etc. (Lib. 5, c. ccv.)
7 c.
cccxxvii.
8 c.
ccclxxxii.
9 c.
cccxxxiii.
1,1 . . . a regno Dei se alienos faciant. {Add. 2,
cxxii.)
who swear
by charity and truth, and know not that the same God is charity and truth ”1;
they urge honest weights and measures in towns and monasteries, for “ my soul
hateth false measures.”2
On the
question of marriage, no one is permitted to marry a divorced woman (43); -and
if a man abandon his wife, he is to be punished. No husband shall desert his
wife, except for the cause allowed in Scripture—criminal conduct.3
And still more remarkable, the slave is protected in his marriage, and even if
the partners be sold to different masters, the union is still lawful and must
be respected.4 The Christian abhorrence which first animated the
Roman law against unnatural vice, appears in the capitularies. The great
emperor speaks of the Roman Law as “ the mother of all human laws ; ” and draws
a warning from the fate of the nations of Spain and the tribes of the
Burgundians, who had been given up to unnatural vices and were therefore
permitted by God to b.e enslaved by the Saracens.5
His law
also shows mercy to the outlaw (wargendum) by making his blood-money the same
as for killing a Frank. He repeats the humane phrase, unfortunately too often
only a phrase : “ Ecclesia abhorret sanguine " (the
1. . . ut
caveant perjurium, non solum in sancto Evangelio, vel in altare, seu in
sanctorum reliquiis, sed in communi loquella, etc. (63.)
2 Lib. 7. c.
cclii.
3 Nullus
conjugem propriam nisi ut sanctum conjugium docet, for- nicationis causa,
relinquat. Cap. Reg. Fr., c. lxxxvii.
4 Unde nobis
visum est ut conjugia servorum non dirimuntur, etiamsi diversos dominos habeant
sed in uno conjugio permanentes. {Add. Tert., c. iv.)
5 Sicut aliis
gentibus Hispanias et Provincas et Burgundiorum populis contigit, quae, sic a
Deo recedentes, fornicatas sunt, donee Judex Omnipotens, etc. (Cap. 4,
16.) See also lib. 7, cxlii. Ut monachi secundum regulam vivant.
Church
abhorreth blood) ; he calls cupidity the root of all evil; and recommends
hospitality for the reason that he who receiveth a little child in the name of
Christ, receiveth Him; the observance of Sunday was ordered, which is a special
legislation for the working- classes ; respect for the dead was encouraged, and
the obligation of prayer impressed on all. The laity were ordered to learn the
Apostles’ Creed ; and, to soften them, the emperor quotes incessantly from the
precepts of Christianity, forbidding the oppression of the poor and humble, and
ordering the judges to hear the cause of the poor before that of the rich. To
break up tj^e ancient feuds which desolated society, he orders that whoever slays
his enemy after peace has been declared, must lose his hand and pay a fine
(cap. 50). The stranger and far- comer are especially protected, under the
injunctions in the Bible, and because such may be journeying in the service of
their common Master.1
It is true
that much of this legislation was violated in practical experience, and that it
was largely swept away after the death of the great reformer. But it shows with
remarkable clearness, what the direct influence of this Faith from Judaea was
upon legislation through the wild period of the Middle Ages, and what it tended
to bring about.
1 Advenam non contristabis, etc. (Lib. xxviii.) Nemo enim ausus sit inquietare vel nocere peregrinum, etc. (Lib. 7.)
ANGLO-SAXON
LAW.
THERE are
two opposite difficulties in weighing correctly the influence of religious
faith on the laws, and thus on the moral^ of a country : one, that the laws may
be far in advance of the practice of a people and thus merely represent the
ideals of conduct; and the other, that the practice and customs may have far
preceded the legislation, which is thus only a " survival ” of an ancient
period. In regard to the Anglo-Saxons or Old English, it would appear that the
legislation of their kings and assemblies was much in advance morally of the
habits of the people ; and that it represented the new and living moral forces
which were gradually to change England from barbarism to civilization. That
these forces were essentially Christian, is evident from the chronicles and
biographies of the period, and especially from the language of the legislation,
and the motives habitually employed in it to promote good action. The great
peculiarity of the Christian system of morals is the impulse given to virtuous
and disinterested action by regard to a Person, to a perfect life and
character, which has supernatural relations, and by a consideration of consequences
in another existence. These features are especially stamped in the Anglo-Saxon
legislation. Whether the well-known religious character of some of the kings,
or the deep religious tendencies of the law-makers, have given these
peculiarities to old English laws, is uncertain. It is
206
well-known
that the ministers of religion at that era in England were, to a large degree,
lawyers ; and they exercised a powerful influence on the making of laws. It
was an influence, however, moral rather than ecclesiastical or technical. The
Anglo-Saxon laws certainly form a great contrast, in this respect, to most
other codes of that age. Society in England was more barbarous, and more
stained by crime and violence than on the continent of Europe. But no ancient
code of the German or Keltic tribes in France and Germany (with the exception
of Charlemagne’s Capitularies), or of the Welsh in Britain of the same period
breathes any such religious spirit or such pure morality founded on Christian
faith. The Anglo-Saxon laws, too, have avoided the errors of the Christian
Church in separating morality and faith : they are nearer the great Master, in
teaching the direct connection of good action or pure thoughts, and respect or
love for Him. It is true that in England, as in all other countries, the
teachings of Christ were forgotten or obscured by superstition, or submerged by
tides of human passion and selfishness, and Christianity was eclipsed there as
it has been everywhere in the world. But for a time we see its clear light
shining in English history, and we know how many fogs of ancient prejudice it
dispelled ; how many abuses it silently melted, and what a soil it prepared for
all that is best in English growth since. It did not indeed accomplish all that
might be expected from its power. But history is long; and the life of one
nation can show but an inconsiderable part of the effects of this renovating
influence. It is sufficient to describe forces which are capable in their
nature of bringing about a complete and perfect moral transformation of
society.
In the
British Islands, as through all Europe, among the tribes outside of Roman law,
personal revenge, as we
have already
stated, and family feuds took the. place for a long period of legal and
judicial punishments. Society was resolved almost to its primeval savage
elements. The first influence of Christianity in England (as elsewhere) was to
curb personal revenge, by encouraging the existing system of bot or fines, so
that every kind of offence should be compensated for by some amend, paid in property,
in part to the sufferer, in part to the king. From this, the next step is to a
strict legal and perhaps bloody punishment by the proper authorities, instead
of which no payment can be accepted. Then, beyond this, come the milder
punishments, inculcated by the spirit of humanity. Religion aids in each of
these steps, but in England, as throughout Europe, it checked private revenge,
especially by the “ Peace of God ” enforced on certain holy days, and in
certain places; and by the refuge offered in the churches to the victim fleeing
from the anger of a powerful enemy. All these privileges offered by the Church
tended to restrain passion in that wild age. It is an instance, too, of the
peculiar effect of Christianity, that the freeing of bondmen or the prohibition
of their sale in foreign countries, from the earliest Saxon laws down into the
Norman period, is always accompanied by such words as that “ it is not right to
sell him for whom Christ hath died.” The commands against unchastity, or
cruelty, or oppression, are all accompanied with religious motives. In fact,
the laws often sound more like pastoral letters than legislation from warlike
kings. A remarkable heading of a law in regard to honesty in King Canute’s
code, “Ad Eucharistiam et probitatem ” (about the sacraments and integrity)
might give a rebuke to the Christianity of our own day.
The Laws
of Old English Kings.—From King Wiht- raed,1 about 690
A.D., we hear that “ men living in illicit 1 Thorpe’s Collection of
Anglo-Saxon Laws (No. 3).
intercourse
should take to a righteous life with repentance of their sins, or that they be
separated from the Church.” Howell the Good, in the beginning of the tenth
century, ordered his Welsh subjects to hold their assemblies in Lent, “because
in holy tyme every one should be pure, and should do no wrong at a time of
purity.”
One
provision of his laws shows the effort of the religious officials to promote
the integrity of the judges. “A judge is to serve a year’s apprenticeship, and
then the king's chaplain is to take him to the church, having with him twelve
principal ecclesiastical officers, to celebrate Mass. And after Mass and an
offering by every one, let the chaplain require him to swear by the relics,
and by the altar, and by the consecrated elements placed on the altar, that he
will never deliver a wrong judgment knowingly.”1 King Alfred (about
870 a.d.) introduces his code with
the ten commandments and other laws taken from the Bible: he quotes almost
directly from Exodus a command especially applicable to his age : “ Vex not the
far comers and strangers : for ye were once strangers in the land of Egypt.”
(No. 33.) The “doom” on slaves has the humanity of the Mosaic law: “ If any one
buy a Christian bondsman, let him be bondsman to him six years ; the seventh be
he free unbought. With such clothes as he went in, with such go he out."
Justice is to be impartial. “Doom thou very evenly ; doom thou not one doom to
the wealthy, another to the poor ; nor one doom to the more loved, other to the
more loathed, doom thou not.” (No. 41.) Of his laws, the king says : “These are
the dooms that the Almighty God Himself spake to Moses, and bade him to hold ;
and when the Lord’s only begotten Son, that is Christ the Healer, on middle
earth came, He said that He came not these dooms to break nor to gainsay, but
with all good to do, and with
1 Quoted by Bridgett (Haddam and Stubbs, 1,
229.).
P
all mild
heartedness and lowly mindedness to-teach them”1 “ That ye will that
other men do not to you, do ye not that to other men. From this one doom, a man
may think that he should doom every one rightly; he need keep no other
doom-book. Let him take heed that he doom to no man that he would not that he
doom to him, if he sought doom over him.”
Through
all the Saxon and early Norman laws, the interests of the working classes are
protected in the matter of Sunday. If a bondman work on Sunday by his lord’s
order, the lord must pay a fine of thirty shillings; if without this order, he
must be flogged. If a freeman work without his lord’s order, he must forfeit
his freedom or pay sixty shillings ; a priest pays double. Under Edgar and
Guthrum (about 900 A.D.) we find : “ If any one engage in Sunday marketings,
let him forfeit the chattel. ... If a lord oblige his slave to work on a
festival day, let him pay the fine.” (No. 7.) In another law, a wrong to a
foreigner is held as wrong done to Christ and the king. (No. 12.) We have
already stated that by the customs of the country, if a wreck happened on the
coast, the cargo and crew fell into the hands of the king, and in many
countries the crew might be enslaved, and that every foreign merchant trafficking
among the English must give hostages for his good conduct,—so that it will be
understood how important were the Jewish and Christian directions of kindness
to the stranger in the Anglo-Saxon law. The following law of King Wihtraed (700
A.D.) gives a curious picture of the state of England : “ If a far-coming man
or a stranger get out of the high way, and he then neither shout nor blow a
horn, he is to be accounted a thief, either to be slain or redeemed.” 2
(No. 28.)
1 Hughes’ Translation.
2 The same law appears in King Ine’s code.
No. 20.
False
Swearing.—King Edward (940-946) commands that “those who swear falsely and work
enchantments, let them be for ever cast out of all communion with God, unless
they turn to repentance.” (No. 6.)
The
religious impulse appears especially in King Ethel- red’s dooms. (978 A.D.) “
This then first: that we all love and worship one God, and zealously hold one
Christianity . . . that every man be regarded as entitled to right; and that
peace and friendship be lawfully observed within the land before God and before
the world.” (No. 1.) “ And let every Christian man carefully eschew unlawful
concubinage and rightly observe the Divine laws.” (No. 16). “And aj: those holy
tides (certain religious days) let there be, as is right, to all Christian men,
general peace •and concord and let every strife be appeased.” (No. 19.) The
following seems the injunction of a Christian pastor rather than of a king : “
And let God’s law be henceforth zealously loved by word and deed, then will God
soon be merciful to this nation.” (No. 26.) “We will also yet earnestly
admonish every friend, as it is our duty frequently to do, that every one
earnestly consider himself, and that he earnestly turn from his sins and that
he correct other men for injustice, and that above all things he love his
Lord.” (No. 42.) “And that they comfort and feed God’s poor . . . And that they
do not too often oppress widows and step-children, but willingly gladden them.”
(Nos. 46-49.) “And let every injustice be carefully cast out from this country
as far as can be done. And let fraudulent deeds and hateful illegalities be earnestly
shunned ; that is, false weights and wrong measures, and lying witnesses, and
shameful fightings,” etc. “ And it is the ordinance of the General Assembly,
that Christian men be not for altogether too little cause condemned to death ;
but in general let mild punishments be decreed for
the
people’s need ; and let not for a little, God’s own handiwork and His purchase
be destroyed, which He dearly bought . . . And let him who judges others bear
in mind very seriously what he himself desires, when he says : Et dimitte nobis
debita nostra.” (vi. 10.)
The
ancient laws of King Canute (1017 A.D.) have the tone of a sermon: “Let every
Christian man do as is needful for him, let him keep his Christianity/' etc. “
Let every man guide his words and works aright, and carefully keep oath and
pledge, and let every injustice be strictly cast out of this country, as far as
it can be done, and let God’s law be henceforth earnestly loved by word and by
work, then will God’s mercy be more ready for us *all.” (No. 19.) “ And we
instruct that every one ever guard himself against foul lasciviousness, and
against every kind of fornication, and against every kind of adultery. And we
also instruct every man that he earnestly have the dread of God in his mind,
and by day and by night that he fear for sins, dread doomsday, and shudder for
hell, and ever suppose the end of his day near to him.” (Nos. 24, 25.) This
again has the special stamp of the new teaching : “ Let us ever help those who
especially stand most in need of help, then shall we obtain the reward of it
where it will be most pleasing to us. For we ought always for love and fear of
God, to doom and command more lightly to the feeble than to the strong, because
we know full well that the powerless cannot raise a like burthen with the
powerful, nor the unhale alike with the hale . . . And both in religious
shrifts and secular dooms, these things ought to be scattered abroad.” (No.
69.) In regard to the sale of a woman as ward or wife, Canute’s law says : “And
let no one compel either woman or maiden to him, when she mislikes, nor for
money sell her.’' (L. Can., lxxv.) And as to mercy to wrong-doers, this humane
legislation directs :
“ If any one
will earnestly turn him from wrong again to right, let him have mercy shown
him, or fear of God, as best may be, very earnestly.” In a very ancient Anglo-
Saxon writing, “ The Institutes of Polity,” it is said, that “seven things are
befitting a righteous king: first, that he have very great awe of God ; second,
that he ever love righteousness; third, that he be humble before God; fourth,
rigid towards evil; fifth, that he comfort and feed God’s poor; sixth, further
and protect God’s Church; and seventh, that towards friends and strangers
alike, he be guided by just judgment.” 1 (No. hi.)
Of judges,
it is said: “they need to love justice before God, and before the world, and
nowhere through unjust judgment for money or for friendship neglect their duty,
so that they turn justice to injustice, or adjudicate unjust judgment to the
injury of the poor; but it is their duty above all things to honour and defend
the Church, and gladden widows and step-children, and help the poor and protect
the slaves, if they will rightly execute God’s will. Thieves and public
wrong-doers they shall hate, and spoilers and robbers they shall condemn,
unless they desist, and they shall ever rigidly shun injustice. Woe to him who
practises wrong too long, unless he desist right surely shall he pass through
the dim and dark abyss of hell, of all help deprived. . . . Let every one guard
himself, so that he anger not God too greatly, but propitiate his Lord with
righteous deeds.” (v.)
Feuds.—Nearly
all the Teutonic tribes, as we have said, had a custom or a law, that the
inheritance of the land carried with it the inheritance of the armour, and the
family-feud or ultio proximi.
1 Thorpe’s
Laws and Institutes.
One of the
first objects of the English rulers under the new impulse of humanity is to
curb this bloodthirsty spirit.
In the
ancient Welsh laws, feud was lessened by establishing certain protections for
every attendant of the court, and for given hours of the day and fixed places.1
King
Edmund also makes “ known to all people, both old and young, that are in my
dominion, what I have deliberated in the Council of my Assembly, first, How I
might most promote Christianity. To me and to us all are exceedingly offensive
the unrighteous and manifold fightings that are among ourselves. If any one
henceforth slay 'any man, that he himself bear the feud unless with the aid of
his friends, and within twelve months he compensate with the full amend, be he
born as he may. But if the kindred forsake him and will not pay for him, then I
will that all the kindred be free of the feud, except the doer, if afterwards
they do not give him either food or protection.”
Almost the
first provision of the ancient Saxon code of ^Ethelbirht (who was baptized in
597 A.D.) was to make the fine for revenging a feud in the refuge of the
Church, double of that in any other violation of sanctuary.
By King
Ine’s law, “ If any one take revenge before he demand justice, let him give up
what he has taken to himself, and pay the damage done and make amend with
thirty-five shillings.” (No. 9.)
Feuds were
restrained by the “ Peace of God ” declared on certain days,3 to
violate which would expose the offender to severe punishments. Certain places
also were made inviolable sanctuaries. Vengeance at private festivals,
1 See Thorpe’s Laws of Wales. This curious
code is full of pro
visions to
restrain feut}; and the most archaic penal provisions.
3 Ab adventu
Domini usque ad octavum Epiphanie pax Dei, et sancte Ecclesie per omne regnum. Leg. Ed.
Can., No. 2. (1047 a.d.)
was
restrained by such remarkable laws as the following : “At a banquet or any
gathering, those assembling must first agree to maintain the peace of God and
of the housemaster. If any one has a feud he must engage to satisfy his adversary
by pledge in a certain place ; but if they cannot arrange, the guilty one must
leave the banquet; but if after this, one troubles it, he shall pay a fine.”
(Laws —Henry I. iioi a.d.
No. i, 2.) In the ancient laws in regard to the Dun Setas1
(mountain-dwellers) or the natives of Wales, a new spirit will be seen after
the introduction of Christianity. The Welshman is no longer hunted as a wild
beast; he is permitted to pay fines like an Englishman, and personal raids on
his territory are not permitted. “ If a Welshman slay an Englishman, he need
not pay for him on this side, except with half his fine, no more than an
Englishman, on that side,” etc. (No. 5.)
These
provisions only express the early substitution of humanity for barbarism in the
bitter feuds and enmities between two neighbouring peoples, and this under the
influence of the new Faith—a single instance of the transformation going on
throughout Europe.
Alfred, in
the introduction to his laws, expressly states it as a special result of the “
Faith of Christ,” that many nations through their religious assemblies had
ordained, “ out of that mercy which Christ had taught,” that secular lords
might without sin take for almost every misdeed, on the first offence, a money
bot or fine which was fixed by law. This at once took away the necessity for
revenge, and substituted law and legal punishment for personal vengeance.
Individual passion he seeks in every way to restrain. “ We also command that
the man who knoweth his foe to be home-sitting, fight not before he demandeth 1
Thorpe’s Collection.
of him ”
(No. 42) ; and in various laws, the good king seeks to hold back the
bloodthirsty passions of the day. There are more than thirty laws in his code,
establishing bots or fines for various offences.
In all
these words of human brotherhood, of piety, and the spirit of justice, of pity
and humanity, uttered by the barbaric lawgivers of a wild race, there speaks a
great Personality—the embodiment of the highest sympathy and most disinterested
virtue of mankind.
It cannot
be said indeed that these religious influences, so apparently genuine, produced
any powerful effect on society in Anglo-Saxon England, though they modified the
laws. Still they began the history of the religious forces in England, which,
though obscured by much formalism and hypocrisy and weakened by selfishness,
have yet worked out slowly the great moral and humane reforms in the history of
that country, and have tended with other influences to make it one of the great
leaders of modern progress.
There can be no doubt that the peculiar
interpretation given by the early Fathers, especially by Augustine, to the Old
Testament, and their views of inspiration, often caused the Church to be
opposed to science and mental progress. Christianity, however, in its essential
power, tends to open the intellect to truth; to cultivate the humility and the
fair-mindedness which especially enable the mind to see what is, as it is ;
and, awakening the whole moral nature, to indirectly arouse the purely intellectual
faculties.
The mental
stimulus given to Europe in different ages by non-Christian forces, is ever to
be gratefully acknowledged. Roman law, Greek and Roman literature have not yet
spent their influences on human progress. Arabic science had for one period a
prodigious power. Yet it becomes increasingly evident that the races which have
been partially (though imperfectly) moulded by Christianity, are to be the
leading powers in the intellectual and scientific progress of mankind. The
especial truths of Christ were not apparently intended to affect science or
intellectual advancement. Yet, being in harmony with the most complete and
healthy moral condition of man, they did so arouse and dignify the whole nature
as to fit it for high mental progress. They tended to form a candid, generous,
self-forgetting character, intensely in-
217
terested
in moral truths, and things unseen and eternal; a character which would
naturally also concern itself with other researches, beside those religious.
Hence it is probably, that for eighteen centuries, the Christian believer has
been the especial leader in science ; for we include under the “ Christian ”
character, even those scientific sceptics who have grown up under all the
peculiar influences of Christianity.
The Church,
it must be admitted, has often been entirely false to the candid, charitable
and humble type of character, taught by the Master. Its bigotry, intellectual
narrowness and one-sidedness, its opposition to science and freedom of thought,
its cruelty towards those of differing opinion and indifference to
intellectual activity, and its want of charity, have no foundation or excuse in
the Gospels. But, while lamenting its errors, we must never forget its great
services to intellectual progress. In ages of brutal violence and of barbarous
ignorance, the religious associations of convents and monasteries became the
shelter of learning and study. The classics were revived under the shades of
the cloister. The lamp of science and literature was kept burning during the “
dark ages ” in the monk’s* cell. Manuscripts were painfully copied and the
relics of a higher intellectual age were preserved to animate a future century.
Without the influence of these monasteries and churches, Europe would have sunk
into a yet darker ignorance, and we might have had in Germany, France and
Italy, the history repeated of the Byzantine Empire;—a degradation and
ignorance which would require the shock of foreign conquest to dispel and
remove.
The
Christian Church, from the very first centuries, naturally connected itself
with the school. The child under the view of Christianity took (as we have
often
said) a
very different position from that under Roman law or classic custom. When
Christ called the little ones to His arms and blessed them, they became for
ever consecrated in Christian tradition. Their mental condition must also not
be neglected. The Councils early began to consider this.
The
Council of Vaison (529 A.D.) thus treats of education : “ It hath seemed good
to us that priests with parishes should receive into their houses, according to
a sound custom in Italy, young readers to whom they give spiritual nourishment,
teaching them to study, to attach themselves to holy books and to know the law
of God.” The Synod of Orleans (799) thus exhorts : “ Let the priests in
villages and towns hold schools, in order that all the children entrusted to
them, can receive the first notion of letters. Let them take no money for their
lessons.” (Tlwodcap. 20.)
The
Council of Chalons (813) decreed1 that bishops should establish
schools where both literature and Scriptures should be taught. Still another
Council proclaimed (859): “ Let one raise everywhere public schools, that the
Church of God may everywhere gather the double fruit of religion.’' (Cone.
Ling., cap. 10.)
The
Council of Mayence (813) orders the priests to exhort the fathers of families
to send children to schools opened in monasteries, in order that they may learn
to pray and be fortified in the Christian faith. Another Council (826) at Rome
orders three kinds of schools to be founded in all Christendom; firstly,
episcopal schools in towns ; secondly, village schools ; and thirdly, wherever
necessary.
1 “. . . ut
episcopi scholas constituant in quibus et litteraria solertia discipline et
sacrae Scripturas documenta discantur.” (Cone. Cub., cap. 3.)
The
Council of Trent commands that the children of the poor have at least one
master to teach poor scholars grammar gratuitously.1 Charlemagne had
already (789) given these wise instructions: “ Let one open schools to teach
children to read; let, in every monastery, in every bishopric, some one teach
psalms, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and employ correct copies of holy books
; for often men seeking to pray to God, pray badly on account of the
unfaithfulness of copyists.” (Cap. Ecc., 61-66.)
A
beautiful letter on this topic, nominally from this remarkable man, has come
down to us, addressed to the Abbot of Fulda (787 A.D.): “During past years we
have often received letters from different monasteries, informing us that at
their sacred services, the brethren offered up prayers on our behalf; and we
have observed that the thoughts contained in those letters, though in
themselves most just, were expressed in uncouth language. And while pious
devotion dictated the sentiments, the unlettered tongue was unable to express
them aright. Hence there has arisen in our mind the fear, lest if the skill to
write correctly were thus lacking, so too would the power of rightly
comprehending the sacred Scripture be far less than was fitting. And we all
know, that though verbal errors be dangerous, errors of the understanding are
yet more so. We exhort you, therefore, not only not to neglect the study of
letters, but to apply yourselves thereto with that humility which is well
pleasing to God ; so that you may be able to penetrate with greater ease and
certainty the mysteries of the Holy Scripture. For as these contain images,
tropes and similar figures, it is impossible to doubt that a reader will arrive
far more readily at the spiritual sense, according as he is better instructed
in
1 “. . .
qui clericos aliosque scholares pauperes grammaticam gratis doceat.” (Cone*
Trid. occ.)
learning.
Let there therefore be chosen for this work, men who are both able and willing
to learn and also desirous of instructing others ; and let them apply
themselves to the work with a zeal equal to the earnestness with which we
recommend it to them.
“ It is
our wish that you may be what it behoves the soldiers of the Church to be,
religious in heart, pure in act, eloquent in speech, so that all that approach
your house, in order to invoke the Divine Master, or to behold the excellence
of your religious life, may be edified in beholding you, and instructed in
hearing you discourse or chant, and return home, rendering thanks to God most
high.” (Const, de Sckolis. Baluze.)
We have
again an instruction of Theodolfus (796 a.d.),
under Charlemagne :
“ Let the
elders found schools through the towns and villages; and if any of the faithful
desire their little children to be commended to them for learning liberal
studies, let them not refuse to receive them, but teach them with the utmost
charity.”1
All these
exhortations were not without their effect, and great numbers of schools sprang
up throughout Christendom ; an immense quantity of manuscripts were also
copied by the monks.
From the
sixth to the fifteenth centuries there was a deep interest in the monasteries
in copying and binding manuscripts, especially of classic authors. The following
striking words are from a monk who has exerted a deep influence on the world: “
Do not trouble yourself at the fatigue of your work, for God, who is the source
of every good and just labour, will give the reward, according to your efforts,
in eternity. When you shall be no more,
1
Presbyteri per villas et vicos scholas habeant et si quilibet fidelium suos
parvulos ad discendas literas, etc.
those who
will read the books, once copied by you with elegance, will pray for you; and
as he who gives a glass of cold water does not lose his reward, so he who gives
forth the living water of wisdom, will receive more surely his recompense in
heaven.”1
A Council
(1179) proclaims : “As the Church of God is provider of those who have need of
the nourishment of such, as well as of those who fail of success of body; in
order that the poor whose relatives fail of resources may have the possibility
of learning to read and to be instructed, we appoint in every Cathedral church
a master to instruct clerks and poor scholars. . . . Let one reestablish this
in monasteries where it has existed anciently; but let no one demand pay for
teaching.” {Cone. Concl.)
All
classes studied in these monastic schools, so that rich and poor were brought
together on the field of learning. Nor were the popes altogether wanting to the
intellectual movement. Pope Innocent IV. (1254) publicly recommended
philosophic study instead of legal. A decree of Clement V. directed Hebrew,
Arabic and Chaldee to be taught in the monasteries. Sylvester II. is said to
have introduced Arabic numbers into Christian Europe.
We do not
continue the enumeration of these evidences of the services of the Church to
learning in the Middle Ages, because they are only indirectly the effect of
Christianity. All that we urge is, that the Christian teachings, in their
natural and legitimate influence, open the mind of man to truth, and by their
moral power awaken the whole nature and thus stimulate the intellect.
The
position of the Church on Biblical inspiration, and therefore towards science,
and her fierce bigotry towards differing opinions, receive no countenance from
the Master.
1 Thomas k
Kempis, Doct. Juv., c. iv.
It is true
that He teaches that child-like humility and purity will lead to higher
spiritual and moral truth than mere learning or scholarship. And Paul proclaims
that in a future existence, the moral powers will exist when intellectual
acquirements have been found to be of little worth.
But
neither of these aspects belittle science in this world. Indeed, the Christian
“ simplicity ” is one of the guarantees to the scholar that he will attain
truth and not be led away, as have been so many, by the false lights of conceit
and prejudice. The whole world might be entirely inspired with the Faith of
Christ, and yet no obstacle offered anywhere to the freest scientific research,
but the path of knowledge be made easier, in that all men sought justice and
mercy, and truth was the holiest thing.
Under the Romans, in the Later Empire, as we have already said,
serfdom arose almost naturally from the universal disorder and chaos of
society. The slave, if freed, could not protect himself, and preferred the
state of half freedom and of safety which serfdom offered. The small farmer
found himself better guarded from robbers and invaders, by attaching himself as
serf (inquilinns) to the estate of some powerful nobleman or leader. The
wealthy patron at Rome rewarded his faithful clients by bestowing on them
parcels of land in the provinces, where they were attached, as coloni, to the
soil; and again, the government settled bodies of prisoners or immigrants on
large districts of public land, and made them serfs to the soil. These 1
coloni (or adscriptitii) were considered as free-born, but attached to the
soil; they could fall into slavery, and if they ran away from their estates,
they might be punished with servitude. Their marriage was held legitimate, and
the children, by a mild provision due to religious influences, followed the
condition of the father; they were excluded from the army and from public
honours, but could become priests with the consent of the master;—this
provision showing one mode in which the Church could indirectly emancipate
them. They were freed
1 Du Cange, Coloni.
S24
from any
tax to the government, and could only be sold with the land ; the land could
not be sold without them. As far back as Marcus Aurelius, the legacy left by a
master of a serf not attached to an estate, was not good in law.1 A
colonus could be, under certain circumstances, a freeholder. Salvian speaks of
the poor farmers who had made themselves serfs for the sake of protection.
As we have
noticed before, the Roman laws modified by the new teachings began at once to
protect the serfs. The penalty of death was denounced in Gaul on him who should
seize the persons of serfs or serf-stewards {villici) in payment of debts or
taxes. The laws of Constantine forbade the separation of near relatives among
slaves of the soil; husband could not be separated from wife, nor parents from
children.3
A runaway
slave or serf who had been free for twenty years, or had held a public office,
or had been in military service, or had voted in the assembly, was presumed to
be free, and could defend his own rights. A free-born person or one who became
a slave by violence, could always reclaim his liberty.3 The child
became free, even if the mother had been enslaved within the nine months before
its birth ; or if the mother was a slave and was emancipated without her own
knowledge, the child was free. The effect of the Faith from Galilee was to make
all the presumptions in favour of liberty. Freed slaves became Roman citizens
in the presence of the assembly (ecclesia) and the bishops who signed the acts
of manumission. The clergy did not need such formalities, but could free by
word of mouth.4
1 Si quis
inquilinos sine prsediis quibus adherent legaverit, inutile est legatum. (D. de
legal., 11, 12.)
2 Cod. Theod., 11, 25, 1.
3 Ibid., iv. 7, 2.
* Ibid., iv. 7, 11.
Q
The
various Church Councils thundered their anathemas at those who re-enslaved
those freed under religious forms. The reformed law under the influences from
the Gospel teaching differed from the Roman law in admitting a kind of marriage
between slaves (contubernium), for the reason that “ We have a common Father in
Heaven.”1
Both
slavery and serfdom descended into the Middle Ages. The Christian Church
struggled to a certain degree against these abuses. But, whether this
organization was faithful or not to its Master, the spirit of Christianity
worked continually on individuals, and thus on society, to mitigate and remove
these evils. Still slavery in the Middle Ages presented some of its most
peculiar features. Up to the twelfth century, there was an absolute power of
the master over the life of the slave. After this, only a slight fine was
inflicted for his death, while cruel punishments by the owner were permitted.
The latter had also full control over the slave’s property and earnings. Even
the marriage was not held fully equal to the Christian tie. For several
centuries after Christ, the barbarian nations did not receive benediction, or
hold religious ceremonials at the nuptials of slaves. When this began to
possess more the character of a legal union, a slave marrying without the
consent of his master was liable to severe punishment, even of death; this was
later reduced to a fine alone. All the children of the slave became the
property of the master, and could be sold like any other property.
The slave
had no title to anything but his clothes and subsistence; if he had a property
(peculium) given him by his master, he could not save out of it. All his
effects at his death fell to his master. He was distinguished by his dress and
appearance from other classes;
1 . . . quia unum patrem habemus in poelo.
even his
testimony could not be received against freemen. From this condition of severe
bondage there was, throughout Europe, a-"gradual and often
unnoticed passage to serfdom.
As early
as 119 A.D. we hear that Hermes, a Prefect of Rome, being converted, presented
1,250 slaves for baptism, all having been freed. Another Prefect, Chromatius
(284 A.D.), after his conversion to Christianity, is related to have freed 40
slaves, first having baptized them, with the. words : “ Those who begin to be
children of God ought not to be slaves of man.”
Thirty-seven
Church Councils are reported to have passed acts favourable to slaves. In the
year 305, any master ill-treating his slaves is condemned; in 517, the murderer
of a slave is excommunicated ; in 549, the right of asylum in a Christian
church is offered to the runaway, and slaves freed by the Church are protected
; in 666, bishops or priests ill-treating slaves are severely punished. In
441, emancipation is protected and encouraged ; in 585, the ornaments and
property of the Church are permitted to be sold for ransoming slaves; in 566,
Christians are forbid reducing freemen to slavery, and in 922, no Christian is
permitted to enslave a fellow Christian. In 656, any slave compelled to work
upon Sundays becomes free by the fact, or if he be held over the font for
baptism. This idea that baptism made free, existed even as late as the American
colonial history, when American masters hesitated to baptize, lest by the act
they freed their slaves.1
The
forbidding the labour of slaves on Sunday and
1 There are two acts Reported of the
Virginia Colonial Assembly, assuring to the masters the undisturbed condition
of slavery, after the baptism of their slaves. (Anderson’s Hist, of Col. Ch.,
vol. ii. p. 552 ; vol. iii. p. 227.) See also Hefelen, Con.ciliengeschich.te,
and Landon’s Manual of Councils.
Festival
days was a humane protection ; the scourging of slaves or driving away their
cattle was denounced under the strictest penalties. The West-Gothic laws were
especially under the influences of the Church ; and they are remarkable as
carefully protecting the honour and the marriage of bondmen. Under them, the
serf could transmit and inherit property, and appear in a court of law. The
monasteries gradually ceased to sell serfs, and forbade their exchange. Step by
step this class could give testimony, and certain individuals act as judges ;
they were allowed to carry on trades and even to win knighthood. In the twelfth
century, Adrian IV. confirmed the marriage of slaves against the will of the
masters, in the most solemn manner.1 The property of serfs was more
and more secured to them.3 The Church encouraged manumissions at
festivals, at births and deaths; and made all forms of manumission full forms
of freedom. It enacted laws that if a serf saved a certain sum, the master was
obliged to free him on payment of this ; and it made all bondmen free who
entered the service of Church or State.
The
Christian belief and impulse tended everywhere to undermine both serfdom and
slavery ; and encouraged the ransoming of slaves and prevented the slave trade,
especially the selling of Christians.
Among much
similar legislation, the decree of the Council of Chalons (650 A.D.), with
forty-four bishops in session, ordered that no Christian slaves should be sold
outside the kingdom of Clovis, with the words, “The
1 Si
contradicentibus dominis et invitis, matrimonia servorum contracta fuerint,
nulla ratione sunt propter hoc dissolvenda. (Cap. 1. x. 4, 9).
2 Non licet
pecuniam suam servo auferre quam ipse labore suo
adquisiverit.
Egberti. Conf., c. 35.
highest
pity and religion demand that Christians should be removed entirely from the
bonds of servitude.”1 The melancholy trains of slaves in the various
slave markets of Europe, which used to offend the eyes of the humane, were
gradually removed. The slave trade was punished, as an act of “ diabolic
inspiration ” in the ninth century, though this indignation did not reach the
trade in heathen slaves.
An edict2
of Charles le Chauve (864) threatened a heavy fine on those who sold beyond sea
such unfortunate persons as were reduced to slavery by famine.
It was a
not uncommon practice for the poor in the Middle Ages to sell themselves into
slavery, or to become slaves by debt. The new humane legislation permitted such
persons to buy their freedom by paying the purchase money with one-fifth in
addition, or by a sufficient duration of the service.
The
religious element in emancipation is seen strikingly in the forms of
manumission of the Middle Ages, transmitted to us by Marculfus, and in the
words of those urging the duty of freedom, as well as in the ceremonies used.
Pope Gregory the Great, at the end of the sixth century, proclaims that
inasmuch as the Redeemer of men had taken upon Himself humanity, to restore us
to liberty, so it becomes us to restore those men whom nature had made free,
but the law of nations had made slaves, to their natural condition—namely,
liberty.3 The influence of the
1 Pietatis
maxima et religionis intuitus ut captivitatis vinculum omnino a Christianis
redimatur, etc.
2 Et quia
hominum ingenia, qui non Deum timent, diabolo suadente, multa mala excogitant,
potest fieri ut qui tales homines liberos, necessitate cogente, in servos
suscipiunt, etc. (Ed. Ris., c. 34.)
3 Cum
Redemptor noster, totius conditor naturae . . . humanam carnem voluerit
assumere ut . . . pristinas nos restituerit libertati, salubriter agitur, ut
homines . . . libertati reddantur. (Greg. Mag. op. Pol., lib. iv.)
Stoical
jurists, as well as of Christianity, in these ideas, is worth noting.
A common
mode of manumission was for the master to lead the slave with a torch around
the altar; he then took hold of the horns of the altar, and the earnest words
of liberation were spoken. One form, given by Muratori, of bestowing freedom,
uttered these solemn words : “ For fear of Almighty God, and for the cure of my
soul, I liberate thee, and may the angel of our Lord Jesus Christ deem me
worthy of a place among His saints.”1
Another
form utters the prayer of the master, that he may by this act attain to eternal
blessedness and shake off the yoke of servitude to his sins.3 A
common phrase of emancipation is “ pro remedio animse meae,” “ for the cure of
my soul,” while the heirs are warned through their love to the Lord Jesus
Christ not to return the slave to bondage. Another legal expression is, “ I, in
the name of God, thinking of the love of God, or eternal retribution ... do
free this slave from the bonds of servitude.”3 Such words as pro
peccatis minuendis, “ for lessening my sins,” or “ bond and free are one in
Christ,” or “ forgive, and it shall be forgiven,” show the spirit animating
the framers of these ancient wills. Still another form says, “ I, J. N.,
thinking how I can attain to the absolution of my sins, and looking to the time
when the slave shall be freed from his master, do hereby emancipate my slaves,
fifty in number,” etc. Others look forward to the Divine tribunal, and would
show mercy, even as they hope for mercy ; others speak of “ Divine compassion
inspiring.”4 Another form of manu-
1 . . . absolvo
te, Clerisa, pro timore omnipotentis Dei et remedio animas, etc.
2 . . per quam ad eternam beatitudinam
valeat pervenire, etc.
3 Ego, in nomine Dei, cogitans de Dei amore
vel asterna retribu- tione . . . ab omni vinculo servitutis . . . absolvo.
4 Ego, in nomine Dei . . . ut quando de hac
luce migravero,
mission
(Muratori), wherein a countess grants freedom to a female slave (1056 A.D.),
makes this humane appeal: “ Thus we who are formed of the earth, in like manner
ought to pity our fellow-creatures . . . and whatever hath been bequeathed unto
us, we ought to make free.”1
This
historian, who is an impartial observer of the Middle Ages, holds that the
great moving force in bestowing freedom is the love implanted by the Christian
religion.3 Many charters and epitaphs bore the expression of “
liberty for the benefit of the soul.” Even as late as the thirteenth century,
the early feelings in regard to Christian emancipation were kept up, and it was
the custom in France to release caged pigeons on Christian festivals, and
prisoners were freed “ in the name of Christ.” The unwonted respect for
humanity was shown in that term used in the new rites of manumission, where
freedom was called ingenuitas, or “ nobleness,” as of one free-born.3
One form emancipates a slave for the salvation of the soul, so that he may
henceforth lead a free life, as if he had been born from free or noble parents.4
If a slave became priest, and his master did not oppose it, or had not
reclaimed him for a year after his ordination, he was free. One can see how
anima mea ante Christi tribunal : veniam merear accipere . . . libero
servos meos—inspirante divina misericordia.
1 Ita nos qui
de terra formati sumus, etc. Ant. Ital., p. 858.
2 Sed causa
frequentior manumittendi miserum hoc hominum genus fuit Pietas et Caritas erga
Deum, cujus amore plerumque manu- missiones celebratae reperiuntur. p. 875.
Muratori, ibid.
3 . . . ne eorum
ingenuitas vel nobilitas vilescat. {Dip. Cart. Calv., 844 A.D.)
4 Igitur ego in
Dei nomine et conjux mea, pro remedio animae vel retributione seterna, te ex
familia nostra, a praesente die, a'b omni vinculo servitutis absolvimus. Ita ut
deinceps, tanquam si ab ingenuis parentibus fuisses procreatus vel natus, vitam
ingenuam ducas. {Form. Sec., LXC. Rom. xii.)
directly
this must have acted in lessening the number of the slaves.
Peasants'
Wars.—The condition of the peasants during many centuries in Europe forms one
of the most melancholy pictures in human annals. They were frequently bound to
the soil; sometimes they could not bequeath any property to their descendants ;
the master was allowed at their death to appropriate the choicest animal or
most valuable product of the farm ; they were obliged to sell to him at his own
prices, or to take certain necessaries from him at rates fixed by him ; their
children were held as almost the property of the master, and the odious droit
de seigneur, or its equivalent in money, stamped upon their feelings the sense
of their degradation.
Even where
the person was free, the serf was subject to innumerable taxes and burdens ; he
must keep his master’s buildings in order,-do public work on the highways or
for the baron sometimes for five days in the week ; allow his fields to be
trampled down and his crops wasted by the gentry in their hunt for game. Even
where he could not be sold away from the land, he could be disposed of with the
estate, or could be driven off by persecution. His food was bad, his dwelling
wretched, his children were without education, he was robbed of all things, and
lived without hope, hating his master and the world which thus ground him to
the dust.
It may
well be believed that the renewal of the Christian message in the Protestant
Reformation, preaching afresh the dignity of the “child of God " and the
“joint-heir with Christ,” and giving a strange emphasis to the Christian idea
of human brotherhood, fell upon these masses of wronged human beings like an
inspiration from on high. The serfs saw clearly that their old religious teachers
were imposing upon them, and that such an injustice as serfdom could
not be
reconciled with the teachings of Christ. They accepted the reformed doctrines
as a new gospel of liberty. In different countries they burst out against this
oppression of ages, and proclaimed freedom in Church and State. Unfortunately,
most of the chroniclers of the Middle Ages have been on the side of the
masters, and we know but little of the real aims and designs of the
much-oppressed serfs. They committed great excesses, no doubt, but these were
the natural reaction against centuries of wrong and injustice. The explosion,
however, aided in finally removing the heavy burdens which had so long weighed
on them.
In the
fifteenth century especially, these outbreaks burst forth in Germany. Many
associations were formed among the peasants to obtain release from their
burdens, and these all had religious mottoes or devices. One is spoken of on
the Upper Rhine,1 which had a banner with a picture of Christ
crucified, before whom kneeled a serf, with the legend : “ Nothing but God’s
justice! ” The demands made by the Schwabian peasants in the insurrection of
1525 ran somewhat thus :2 (1st) “ It hath been the custom till now
to hold us for serfs, which is a pity, seeing that Christ hath bought us and
redeemed us with His blood ” ; and (5th) “It is found in the Holy Writ that we
are free, and we . . . desire to be free, ... we would have God as our Lord,
and know our brother in our neighbour.
. . . We
would willingly obey our chosen rulers, but we have no doubt that they, as true
and good Christians, will willingly free us from serfdom, or prove to us from
the Gospel that we are serfs.” The fourth article claims on religious
1 Zimmerman, p. 153. Der Bauemkrieg.
2 Ibid., vol.
ii. pp. 99, 102. See also Bensen’s Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, p. 172.
grounds,
the use of wild game, and wood from the forests. Article'sixth protests against
the increase of burdens upon an oppressed people. It is striking that with the
demand for freedom from feudal burdens, is included always that for a free and
elected clergy. In conclusion, say the peasants, " If any of these
articles are opposed to Holy Writ, and this can be proven to us, we will give
them up. The Peace of Christ be with us all! ” The oath of the peasants banded
in insurrection near Bietigheim, is similar in tone: “ Because God hath ever
enlightened us with His word, and hath made known to us how utterly we have
been despoiled, not of daily bread, but of eternal; and because He lendeth us power
and might according as we firmly believe," etc. Then follow similar
demands for a free Gospel and freedom from the bonds and burdens of serfdom.
The peasants of Elsass 1 proclaimed that “ the Gospel should be
preached after its true meaning, for it hath been preached for selfishness, and
great burdens have been laid on the poor peasant; ” they demand freedom from
tithes, from taxes on woods and waters and game, and that serfdom be done away.
The peasants on the Neckar,8 under the inspiration of the free ideas
of Christianity, went beyond its teachings, and claimed an absolute equality,
under the Emperor, of all men. “ All worldly lords are to be reformed, so that
the poor cannot be burthened by them beyond the rules of Christian freedom :
the same law is to be for the highest and lowest.” “ Princes and nobles must
guard the poor and hold themselves brotherly.” . . . “All cities and parishes
are to be reformed in divine and natural rights after the principles of
Christian freedom.” In England, a little before this (1356), a monk, John
Balle, had preached liberty and equality as principles of the Christian Revela-
1 Zimmerman. 2
Ibid.
tion.1
These doctrines, and Wickliffe’s religious influence (1360), resulted in a
great resistance of the lower classes to serfdom and its burdens. The English
peasants’ uprisings of 1381 proclaimed the entire abolition of villenage; and
Richard II. (1380) consented to the doing away of many of its vexatious burdens
and payments, but these were subsequently restored by Parliament During the
century and a half after the Peasant Revolt, says Green (p. 230), “ villenage
died out so rapidly that it became a rare and antiquated thing.” Stubbs 3
also notes that the result of the rising of 1381 was, that “the landlords gave
up the practice of demanding base services,” and emancipation was greatly
advanced.
We have
touched upon these remarkable movements of the peasant class in various
countries, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, because they are so
manifestly connected with the liberalizing influences of the reformed
preaching of Christianity. They did not, it is true, succeed, but they
undoubtedly undermined serfdom, and caused all classes to be more ready for
gradual freedom. They show the natural and inevitable action of Christ’s
teachings on men’s minds, where they have long been oppressed by injustice.
Even the
highest classes felt this inspiration of freedom through the Gospel. The
Emperor Sigismund (1436) thus proclaims: “ It is an unheard-of thing that in
the holy Christianity one should be so proud as to say to a man, Thou art mine!
” “ For whoever is baptized and believeth, be he noble or ignoble, rich or
poor, he is counted among the members of Christ. Whoever therefore calleth a
fellow-Christian his own, he is not a
1 Inter eos
aequa libertas, eadem nobilitas, par dignitas, similisque potestas. (Quoted by
Sugenheim, p. 295.)
2 Constitutional History of England, vol.
ii. p. 463.
Christian,
is against Christ, and all the commandments of God are lost on him.”1
The
process of emancipation under the Christian influences was often gradual,
first from slavery to serfdom, and then from a lower to a higher form of
serfdom. The serfs of the public treasury (fiscalint) and of the Church
(ecclesiastici) acquired peculiar privileges. The laws forbade them to be
reduced to the condition of ordinary serfs ; they had a right to their own
property; the fines to protect their persons were double those for other
serfs, and one-half of those for freemen. They could appear in court and testify
; while the ordinances of the Councils protected them from forced labour and
oppression. In Burgundy and France, there was a gradual transition in the ninth
and tenth centuries from serfdom to a condition which was intermediate between
servitude and freedom. Persons in this condition acquired the right to their
own property, both in land and personal effects; they had the power to transmit
to descendants, and even to dispose of their estate by will, or, leaving no
descendants, the State inherited from them. They could use their own property
to purchase their liberty.
The
coloni, as we have said, were a species of serfs under Roman law, and they are
found through the Middle Ages. They were often bound to public labours and to
forced work for others. Some of the abuses from this system extended down even
to the eighteenth century in the Jura. A colonist could buy and possess land,
and even slaves, but could only sell real estate with the consent of the “
Patron ” ; and in France he was forbidden to give or to sell to another
seigneur. He could transmit property in direct lines, but in collateral only to
brothers and sisters and their children.
1
Zimmerman, p. 107.
Gradually
through the Middle Ages, there was a transition from the state of colonists
and mainmortables 1 to that of tenants and freeholders. Among the
serfs, marriage was not permitted outside of the domain without the consent of
the master. One of the fruits of religious influence on the Roman law was that
in a mixed marriage of a serf woman and free man, the children did not follow
the mother, but, by a humane principle, the best condition.3
Up to the
eleventh century there were, under religious impulses, isolated acts of
manumission at death-beds and by will. The crusades, both as a grand movement
of religious enthusiasm, and as breaking up classes of society, increased the
tendency. It was not uncommon, before starting on a crusade, for a noble to
free his serfs, as an act of conscience towards God; he perhaps going to his
death.3 Many also manumitted in order to raise money for the
expedition.
In the
eleventh century, Emperor Conrad speaks of the sale of human beings as a “
thing nefarious, and detestable to God and men.” 4
In 1096,
in France, Philip I. and Louis Le Gros (no8)
1 Maimnorte (the dead hand). An absolute
incapacity to transmit property—a condition of serfdom. Thus ancient French ordinances say : Comme creature humaine qui est
formde a l’image de nostre Seigneur, doic generalment estre franche par droit
naturel, . . . que les hommes . . . en leur vivant sont reputes ainsi comme
morts. (Ch. de Vol. Ordon., vii. 12.) See Du Cange (Manus mortuce). Homines
manus mortuae sunt servi glebas.
2 Cod. Theod., iv. 3 c.; Just., xi. 67, 4.
It is singular that this humane provision, bequeathed by Christianity through
the Middle Ages, was dropped in the American Law of Slavery.
3 Ego
Jerosolimam profecturum intelligens a viris religiosis, sa- pientibus et
discretis . . . ne si posteris et successionibus meis exemplum hoc rapine et
exactionis inique relinquerem . . . om- nino remisi in perpetuum. (Lois de la
ville de Lille.)
4 . . . etiam
ut rem Deo hominibusque detestabilem, etc. (Pertz, xi. 38.)
gave
examples of a more general freeing of slaves. The leading nobles and clergy
granted municipal charters which were charters of emancipation.
In the
fourteenth century, the Count of Valois, brother of Philip the Beautiful, freed
the serfs of his comt6 with the words : “ As the human creature who has been
formed in the image of our Lord, ought to be free by natural right ... let
these men and women be free,” etc. In 1256 Bologna, feeling the influences
working through European cities, freed all its serfs, paying an indemnity to
the masters, and decreeing that in the future none but freemen should inhabit the
city, with the remarkable words : “ Our Lord God hath established at the origin
of things, paradise, and hath placed man there, in giving him a full and entire
liberty. By sin all the human race hath been poisoned, that which was immortal
becoming mortal, liberty perishing in servitude. It is then just and salutary
that men freed and saved, should be delivered from the bonds of servitude in
which the abuse of force has enchained them. It is for these reasons that the
city of Bologna, which has always combated for liberty, remembering the past,
and its eyes fixed on the future, in honour of our Saviour Jesus Christ, hath
ransomed all the serfs on its territory, and decreeth that it would not suffer
there a man not free.”1
Many
efforts ^re recorded of St. Louis (1315) to abolish mainmorte.
Slavery is
spoken of in French annals up to the twelfth century, but no traces appear in
the thirteenth, as many of the laws prove.
The slave
trade was common in Europe in the tenth century, as is abundantly shown in the
papal bulls; there
1 Istoria di Bologna, Girarhacci,
quoted by Laurent. (Sugenheim and von Raiimer, vol. iii. p. 168.)
are but
few traces of it, however, in the fifteenth and none in the seventeenth; the
trade was almost entirely in heathen captives. In Florence as late as 1526,
there was a traffic in Mohammedan slaves. The right in France to sell Christian
slaves was first abolished, and finally the whole traffic was done away with.
In
Germany, the code of the thirteenth century, the Sachsenspiegel, or “ Mirror,”
is full of traces of Christian influence against slavery. The Lord is said to
have “ put poor and rich equally under His own love.” (3, 42.) Slavery is
declared to have its ‘‘origin from unjust captivity”; and quoting the Bible,
the law affirms1 that man belongs to God' alone, and " whoever
holds him as slave, sins against the power of the Almighty.” The stranger under
the heathen code was presumed a serf or slave ; under this, the presumption was
of liberty. “ How can those,” asks the law, “ who are not permitted to give
themselves to slavery, reduce others to this state ? At the great jubilee year
of the Jews, in memory of the Seventh Day and of the Rest of the Lord, did not
one give liberty to all the Israelites who had become slaves, even to those who
had not desired to be freed ? ”
The
killing of a slave was forbidden in the strictest terms,2 and the
“half-free’' were not allowed to hold slaves, which was a marked softening of
the old codes.
The
abolition of slavery in Scandinavia in the early centuries is unquestionably
the effect of the Christian religion.3 One of the first Christian
kings of Norway— Knut the Holy—at the end of the eleventh century,
1 Ex his
verbis colligitur, hominem ad Deum pertinere et qui eurti occupat, in
Omnipotentis peccat potestatis. (Ssp3, 42.)
2 Wisse aber
dass kein Herr seinen Knecht toedten mag. (Ibid., 11. 32.)
3 Die Aufhebung
der Leibeigenschaft. Sugenheim.
publicly
proclaimed that slavery should be abolished. In 1214, it would appear from the
laws1 that it had almost ceased, and in the fourteenth century are
no traces of it in Norway or Denmark. In Sweden, the king Magnus Eriksen (1335)
proclaimed that in honour of the Holy Virgin and for the salvation of the soul
of his father and uncle, no Christian should be held in his kingdom as a slave.3
Owing to the strong religious feeling against this injustice, serfdom did not
take deep root in Norway and Sweden. This conscientious conviction of the Norse
people was strengthened by the natural independence of a brave race, and the
consequent weak hold which the feudal system had in those countries. Nearly all
the peasants owned land, and the nobles did not acquire large estates. Serfdom
and all its attendant curses were comparatively unknown in that portion of
Scandinavia. In Denmark, however, owing to the many Wars and the greater
success of the feudal system, considerable numbers of the peasants were reduced
to this condition. Terrible insurrections broke out there in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries which only increased the burdens of the unfortunate serfs.
The
religious impulse touched one king—Christian II. (1513)—who made himself
remembered as the “friend of the serf,” and who forbade, among other things,
“the wicked and unchristian custom of selling and giving away free peasants ” :
he permitted also the free migration of serfs, and ordered that their children
be taught various trades, and that they should not be oppressed with heavy
burdens.3
The Middle
Ages, however, did not see the disappearance of serfdom in that portion of
Europe.
1 Die Aufhebung
der Leibeigenschaft, p. 542.
2 Ibid., p. 542. 3
Ibid., p. 508.
English
Slavery and Serfdom.—In England, as upon the Continent, slavery arose
from various causes; from birth, from captivity in war, as a punishment by the
authorities, as a penalty in gambling where a man staked himself, and by
marriage. By the Ripuarian Law, a free woman marrying a slave became a slave ;
by the Anglo-Saxon law, under the Christian teaching, the offspring of the free
and slave followed the condition of the father,1 instead of the
mother, as according to the Roman law.
Residence
also often brought about slavery. Die Luft macht eigen (“ The air makes
the thrall ”), says some old German proverb. If runaways were found living on
strange properties, they could be enslaved. The blood- money, or wergeld, sometimes
included bondage, and many debtors became slaves. Thousands of Britons, in
times of famine, during the first century after the Norman Conquest, sold
themselves into thraldom. Children were even sold by their parents to escape
extreme poverty. “ If a Christian,” says Theodosius in his Penitentials, “sell
another into a foreign country, he will not be worthy to have repose in the
midst of the faithful until he has restored to liberty and country him whom he
sold.3 If a Christian has found another Christian wandering and
vagabond, whom he has seized fraudulently and sold as slave, he ought to sit no
more in the assembly of the faithful, until he hath repaired his fault and
submitted to a penitence of seven years.” “ A father,” says another passage of
the Penitentials, “driven by necessity hath the power of delivering into
servitude a son, if he be under eight years; after that he hath no power,
except by the will of the son.”3 When a
1 H. /., lxxvii. 12.
2 Theod. Pam. I, 5, 13.
3 Pater filium servum VII. annorum,
necessitate compulsus, potes-
youth had
passed the age of thirteen, he had the power of selling himself as a slave.1
In
Scotland there was the same privilege. “ Ilk frey- man may leff his fredome gif
him like is.”
The later
law in England required certain conditions : among them, that the sale should
be made by other than the man himself.3
“ Though
any one sell his daughter to servitude,” says an old English law, “let her not
be altogether such a theow as other female slaves. He ought not to sell her
among a strange folk.” 3
That
feature of slavery, lower than anything “brutal,”— the raising children for the
slave market,—was not unknown in England. It is alluded to frequently by the
historians,4 and was preached against with righteous indignation by
the clergy. Bristol was the great slave market, and there might be seen long
trains of British youths and maidens— the latter often ruined for the sake of
selling their off-spring —all to be sold either to Ireland or to foreign
countries. Bishop Wulfstan5 of Worcester (about 1086 A.D.) was in
the practice of coming to this city every year and spending several months In
preaching the gospel against this iniquity. The hardened Northumbrians at
length were deeply impressed by these truths, and finally in solemn assembly
vowed not only to give up this sinful
tatem habet tradere in servitutem: deinde sine voluntate filii,
licentiam tradendi non habet. (Theod. Porn., xix. 28.) '
1 Ibid., 29.
2 . . . qu’il
est vray que l’homme franc et sub jure se peut vendre . . . La premiere qu’il
se fera vendre par autre, que par lui, etc. {Col. Celt. Lac.) 3 Leg. Can., ii. 74.
4 Illud erat
a natura abhorens, quod multi ancillas suas ex se gravidas, ubi libidinem satis
fecissent, aut ad eternum obsequium vendicabant. {Mill.
Matus. 57.)
6 Beda
{Ecc. Hist,) makes this name Wulstan.
practice,
but to induce all England to renounce it. The resolve made a deep impression
throughout the country.1
One
authority says that from Aethelwulf to William the Conqueror, for 230 years, a
great part of the English peasantry became reduced to slavery. After Malcolm’s
invasion of England (1061 A.D.), so many young men and maidens were carried
away as slaves to Scotland, that it was said not a village or a house could be
found without them.2 When Canterbury was burned by the Danes in
1006 A.D., all the 8,000 inhabitants were killed excepting “ four mass priests
’* and eighty lower monks ; these were severely whipped and, if they could not
redeem themselves, were carried off into perpetual slavery.
By the
Domesday Book (1068-71 A.D.) the number of male slaves for Sussex is given as
9,200, which would make the whole number about 50,000, while the free inhabitants
of the county were only 38,000. In the whole of England enumerated, there
appear to have been reckoned 25,000 servi or slaves; 82,000 bordarii, and 7,000
cotarii (different kinds of serfs), and 110,000 villeins.3
Among the
evidences of the deep root of English slavery is the statement of Strabo,4
that slaves are a British export; and the historical statement that the sister
of Canute and first wife of Godwin, derived a large income from selling English
slaves to Denmark.
J. . .
ancillasque prius ludibrio lecti habitas, jamque prsegnantes venum proponebant.
. . . Hunc tam invetaratum morem . . . Wulfstanus paulatim delevit . . .
divinas prasdicationis semina spargens. Quas adeo per inter alia temporum apud
eos convoluere. ut non solum renuntiarent vitio, sed ad idem faciendum casteris
per Angliam essent exemplo. (2 Ang. Sac., 258.)
2 . . .
repleta est Scotia servis et ancillis Anglici generis, etc. (Frn. Dont., 1070
a.d.)
3 Villani
dicuntur ... qui villa seu glebas adscripti sunt.
4 Lib.
4, 199-
There is
proof that slaves were branded, and even yoked !as cattle.
If a
master killed his slave without knowledge of the judge, the Church punished
him, where the civil law could not, with excommunication or with a penance of
two years.1 The Church, too, sentenced a mistress who should beat
her maid-servant with such violence that she died, to seven years’ penance ; if
the death was accidental, the penance was for five years. According to a law of
King Edward, whoever killed a slave man must fast three years. The killing a
slave was recognised in the law and by the Church as a sin.2
It can
only be repeated that the gradual working of Christianity had its usual effect
on slavery and serfdom in England. The prohibition, on religious grounds,
against selling Christian slaves to heathen countries, runs all through
Anglo-Saxon law, and is repeated by William the Conqueror and other Norman
kings.3 The provision in Alfred’s laws (taken from the Bible) that a
Christian bondsman could only be held seven years, must have tended gradually
to free all slaves. Alfred’s feelings in regard to slavery are shown in his
final will, and they only indicate the religious sentiments of the day. “ And I
beseech in God’s name and His saints, that none of my relatives do obstruct
none of the freedom of those I have redeemed. And for me the West Saxon nobles
have pronounced as lawful, that I may leave them free or bond, whether I will.
But I, for God’s love and my soul’s health, will that they be masters of their
freedom and of their will; and I, in the
1 C. Theod. Pan., 21, 12.
1 Qui servum suum occiderit, suum peccatum est et
damnum (475 Cone.).
3 Cavendum
enim valde est ne anime in dampnacionem vendantur, pro quibus Christus vitam
impendit. (4
Gul, V; xli.)
living
God’s name, entreat that no man do not disturb them, neither by money exaction,
nor by no manner of means,” etc.1
When
Edward the Confessor (974 A.D.) utters such expressions in regard to human
equality as the following, we may be sure that the idea of Christian
brotherhood is beginning to penetrate barbaric society. “ We know,” says the
pious king, “ that through God’s grace a thrall has become a thane, and a churl
has become an earl (or squire), a singer a priest, and a scribe a bishop ; and
formerly, as God decreed, a fisher became a bishop, etc. . . . We have all one
heavenly Father and one spiritual mother, which is called Ecclesia, that is,
God’s Church, and therefore are we brothers.”
A law of
Wihtraed encouraged manumission, by making it when performed at the altar
absolute (No. 9). William the Conqueror gives a form of liberation, and enacts
that if slaves remain a year and a day without calumny in the royal cities or
burghs, walled towns or camps, they should be free for ever.
Still,
under English law, the slave was a thing; one of the catalla, a chattel. The
Christian sentiment, as we have said, first felt the iniquity of selling one “
bought by the blood of Jesus Christ” ; and later, of possessing him as a
bond-servant.
The
slaves, as we have already shown, were protected in England on Sundays and
feast-days. Masters who compelled them to work on those days lost their
property in them. Under Aethelred they were confiscated to the treasury; under
Canute, emancipated. The slaves were permitted to work for themselves for
twelve days at Christmas, in the week before and after Easter, and during the
week before Assumption, and could thus earn money to free
1 Hughes’ Life of Alfred.
themselves.
“ The slaves shall be freed,” say the Brehon laws,1 “the plebeians
be exalted by the orders of the Church, and by performing penitential service
to God.” St. Aidan, a bishop of Northumbria, is said to have ransomed slaves,
instructed them, and then ordained them as priests.2 The synod of
Celchyth (816 A.D.) proclaimed that, at the death of a certain bishop, all who
had been his slaves during life should be freed; and that every bishop
throughout England should grant freedom to three men, giving each three
shillings for masses for the deceased bishop’s soul.3
Bishop
Wilfred having received an estate with two hundred and fifty Christian slaves,
emancipated them with the words, “ All those whom baptism hath rescued from the
service of the devil, become by that worthy of the liberty which changeth them
from servants to men.” 4
Among the
steps towards gradual emancipation in England, may be mentioned, the punishment
of excommunication, threatened by Ecgberth of York, for any sale of a child or
kinsfolk; slave-murder by the master became a sin before the Church, though not
always a capital crime before the law.5 The slave was often attached
to the land and could only be sold with it; he sometimes acquired land and
bought his emancipation.
One of the
protective features of the Anglo-Saxon law, the mutual responsibility of the
citizens, was extended to slaves as to free men, under ^Ethelstan. (924 A.D.)
A female
slave who was led into sin by the master,
1 Bridgett, 1, 250.
2 Beda, 11, 5.
3 Landon’s Manual of Councils. Celchyth. Haddan
& Stubbs, Councils. Bridgett’s Hist, of Holy Eucharist.
* Beda, II. Ecc., iv. 13.
s Green.
became
free;1 a provision which especially protected the helpless, and was
due to the influence of the religious principle. Slaves were set free on the
Church-porch or before the altar, and the Gospel-book bore on the margin a
record of emancipation. Sometimes the master placed the slave at a point where
four roads met, and bade him go whither he would. In a more solemn form the
master took him by the hand 2 in the full assembly, showed him open
road and door, and gave him the lance and sword of a freeman.
Before
Alfred, slaves could own nothing; under his legislation, they were permitted to
dispose by will of what was given them, or what they could earn in their free
hours. He forbids also any masters who have incurred a fine or amend, from
buying off by the sale of man as well as beast.
The seven
years’jubilee, taken from the Jewish system, must have gradually destroyed
slavery in England. Slaves, too, were more and more permitted to ransom
themselves. Under Canute, when a slave had fallen in the presence of his master
on a military expedition, his equipment and possessions could be divided among
his heirs.3 The slave as soldier became thus a vassal.
A slave,
even as far back as Wihtraed, if freed was obliged to leave his property with
his master for blood- money (wergeld), so that he was thus transferred into a
kind of serf. So a slave freed by the violence of his master, did not at once
enjoy all the rights of a freeman, but was a client of the sheriff (gerefa).
Slave-birth
prevents any one from appearing in court as
1 Pen. of St. Theod14.
"
Green, and Leg. Gul.
3 L. Can., 75.
witness.
To be free, the bondman needed not merely the will of the master, but also
certain public ceremonials.
Emancipation
became more and more the Christian work par excellence; it was performed at
death-beds and in wills, pro remedio animce, for the salvation of the soul; the
ceremony was consecrated by the Church and the priest; and the written proof
was preserved in the Church records.
The forms
of manumission show the spirit which worked towards liberty, “ Geatflsed hath
freed, for God’s love, and for her soul’s sake, E. the smith, and A. his wife,
and all their offspring, born and unborn, and A. and C, and all the men who
bent their heads in the evil days. Whoso shall set this aside and deprive her
soul of this, may God Almighty deprive him both of this life and of the kingdom
of heaven, and be he accursed, quick or dead, for ever and ever.” 1
Another
form has : “ And we make all the serfs free for both our souls’ sake.” 3
As late as
1535, we find an act of manumission repeating the familiar expression of the
Stoical jurists, modified by Christianity, in regard to slavery. “ Whereas at
the beginning, nature brought forth all men free, and afterwards the law of
nations placed certain of them under the yoke of servitude, we believe that it
is pious and meritorious towards God to manumit them and restore them to the
benefit of pristine liberty,” and then the author (Bishop Sherborne of
Chichester) liberates a serf.
The
slave-trade was forbidden from English ports by law, but legislation did not
check the inhuman traffic. One hundred years after Dunstan (946 A.D.) the
nobles
' . . .
ewic aa on ecnysse. (CodDip., No. 925.)
2 . . . for unker bother soule. (Ibid. 979.)
still
acquired wealth from the breeding of slaves.1 Under William the
Conqueror, the influence of the religion of mercy at length secured the passage
of a law forbidding the slave-trade, whose principal port and centre was
Bristol.2
After the
Norman conquest, the condition of the slaves did not for a time improve, as the
new conquerors were understood to own the chattels of the native Saxons,3
and did not at first permit the bondmen to buy themselves into freedom. Henry
II. enlarged the laws of emancipation. He recognised blood-money for a slave,
with a different amend for different classes of slaves. The master’s power
over the life of his bondman is limited ; if he kill him, he must pay
blood-money to the relatives of the servant; the reason in the law being one of
those antithetical passages of which our ancestors are so fond “ because a
slave is a servant for serving, not for killing.” 4
By an act
of the same king, no born slave was admitted to holy orders, unless manumitted:5
a provision which must have had a compound influence on both the Church and
slavery, in diminishing bondage.
The Church
councils thundered against the slave trade in Christians. One called in London
(1102), by Anselm, forbade absolutely that nefarious business of selling human
beings like brute beasts ;6 and another meeting at Armagh, Ireland
(1171), declared all English Christian slaves free'
1 Green.
2 Leg. xx.
15.
3 Quia omnia
catalla cujuslibet nativi intelliguntur esse in potestate domini sui.
(Glanville, 5, 5.)
4 Quia servus
ad serviendum, non ad occidendum servus erat. (H.,
h 75 •)
5 L. H., 1.
(lxviii. 4.)
6 Nequis
illud nefarium negotium quo hactenus in Anglia solebant homines, sicut bruta
animalia, venundari, deinceps ulla tenus prassumat.
Another
decreed that no English thralls who had been freed should be re-enslaved.1
It is
remarkable, that no one can say precisely when slavery was merged into serfdom
in England, or when serfdom disappeared.
In the
reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., some masters transformed their serfs into
freeholders ; but if the serf did not do his service as vassal, the master
could confiscate his land ; if he performed this service, however, the master
had no power.
There is
no evidence of a transference of the persons of villeins in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. They were only obliged to pay for a marriage licence, and
were not permitted to select their calling.
A petition
was presented to Parliament in the reign of Richard II. that villeins should
not be permitted to send their children to school in order to advance them in
the Church, which shows that many were then rising out of their condition into
that of freemen by becoming priests.
There were
many influences throughout England gradually raising up the serf; but the most
powerful was the slow action of religious motives on the conscience of the
masters. The selling one “ for whom Christ died,”—that is, a Christian,—was
felt from the earliest ages to be a great inconsistency and offence. Gradually
the holding such a person in bondage was seen to be equally against the
teachings of the Master; and finally, the laying unjust burdens on
fellow-Christfans was perceived to be contrary to the Gospel. This sense of
justice worked silently and gradually through English as well as European
society in the Middle Ages, and continually lightened serfdom by reforms not
necessary to be related here, until at length it
1 ... in
pristinam revocentur libertatem. (Concil. Lond. Girald. Cambr.)
disappeared
as snow melts before the spring sun, no one being able to say precisely when
winter ceased or the new season began.
A
trustworthy testimony as to the motives leading to emancipation in England, is
given by Sir Thomas Smith, a statesman in the time of Elizabeth, who wrote his
“ Commonwealth of England ”1 at the close of the sixteenth century
(about 157°)- He argues without any partiality towards the Church, though with
a full sense of the value of religion ; and states 2 that already in
his time slaves were unknown in England, and of serfs only a few survived, but
that both conditions were recognised in English law. Of the causes working
towards freedom, he says: “ I think both in France and England the change of
religion to the more gentle and more equal sort (as the Christian religion is
in respect to the Gentiles) caused this whole kind of servile servitude and
slavery to be brought into that moderation . . . so that they almost
extinguished the whole. . . . This persuasion I say of Christians, not to make
nor keep his brother in Christ, servile, bond and underling for ever under him,
as a beast rather than as a man, and the humanities which the Christian
religion doeth teach, hath engendered through Realmes (not near to Turks and
barbarians) a doubt, a conscience and scruple to have servants and bondmen;
yet necessitie on both sides, on the one to have helpe, on the other to have
service, hath kept a figure or fashion thereof” (pp. 130, 131). And again : “
Howbeit since our Realme hath received the Christian religion which maketh us
all in Christ, breathren, and in respect of God and Christ, conservos, then
began men to have conscience to hold in captivitie and such extreme bondage,
him whom they must acknowledge to be his brother, and, as we use to
1 The Commonwealth of England\ by Sir
Thomas Smith, 1589.
z p. 129.
term him,
Christian; that is, to have equall portion with them in the gospel and
salvation.” And then with a sly hit at the Church : “ Upon this sample, in
continuance of time, and by long succession, the holy Fathers, munkes and
fryers in their confession, and specially in their extreme and deadly
sicknesses, burdened the consciences of them whom they had under their hands ;
so that temporall men, by little and little, by reason of that terror in their
conscience, were glad to manumit all their villaines; but the same holy
Fathers, with the abbots and friars, did not in like sort by theirs, for they
had also conscience to impoverish and dispoyle the Church so much, as to
manumit such as were bound to their Churches, or to their mannors, which the
Church had gotten, and so kept theirs still ” (c. 10, p. 129).1
In 1391
serfs still appear in England ; but before the middle of that century the
majority had become hired labourers. There were acts of enfranchisement in the
reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. The act of the latter emancipating serfs in 1574
on certain manors was one of the last.3
Even in
1610 James I. appears to have possessed rights over serfs; and serfdom was not
finally swept away till the reign of Charles II.
In
Scotland the arbitrary rights of serfdom over the labourers in the salt works
endured till the middle of the eighteenth century,
1 See also on villenage, Mirror of
Justices, c. 11. p. 209. (Trans, by W. H., 1768.)
2 Queen Elizabeth is reported to have
commissioned Lord Burleigh and Sir W. Mildmay to inquire into the condition of
the villeins on her domains in Cornwall, Devonshire, Somerset and
Gloucestershire, and make such as were born bond compound for their freedom.
(Dr.
Truster,
quoted in Bell’s Feudalism, p. 259.)
CHIVALRY.
HE
phenomenon of chivalry is one of the most singular
L in
history. As an ideal of character and life it is quite distinct from any
classic ideals, and not entirely corresponding either to the German or
Christian conception. It may be said that the world of the Middle Ages was
peculiarly false to its chivalric ideal. But the same may be said of the
relations of the classic world to the Stoic standard, or of the Christian world
to its model. Still, for some centuries—from certainly the eleventh to the
fourteenth—the chivalric ideal was that of the great body of martial young men
of the higher classes of Europe, and exerted a very manifest influence on
manners and morals. It softened the cruelty of war in a barbarous age, led the
popular mind away from material ends to certain ideas, sometimes whimsical, but
more often generous and noble; it strengthened the position and power of woman,
cultivated some of the purest virtues, and formed a conception of character
which has come down into modern society, and influenced countries where
feudalism was never known.
To
determine the part which Christianity had in chivalry, we must examine the
customs and received ideals of the latter.
The
initiation of the knight was essentially religious in
form ; but
the outward ceremony seems to have descended from the ancient Germans. Tacitus
tells us that the young German who aspired to be a warrior, was brought into
the midst of the assembly of the chiefs, where his father, or a relative,
solemnly equipped the youth for his future vocation, with shield and javelin.
The act was looked upon as a rite of religious solemnity. So chivalry taught
that the youthful knight was to enter on his calling under religious
ceremonies. He was first divested of his clothes and put into the bath as an
emblem of purification ; then a white robe, symbol of purity, was wrapped
around him ; next a red robe, symbol of the blood which he should shed for the Faith,
and of the blood shed for him ; and finally a black garment was worn, to remind
of the death which would be always near him. He was then to fast twenty-four
hours, and in the evening to enter the Church and pass the night in solitary
prayer, or sometimes in company with his godfathers. The next day his first act
was to be confession ; after this, he was present at mass and listened to a
solemn sermon on the duties of knighthood ; finally, he kneeled before the
altar, his sword was blessed by the priest, and he made solemnly his knightly
oaths. Among these was one that “Avarice, recompense, gain, or profit should
never oblige the knight to any action, but only glory and virtue.” Another,
that he would “ never fight with more than one against one, and to avoid all
fraud and deceit.” Another bound him “ to conduct a lady or maiden whom he
might meet in danger,' to a safe retreat, to serve her, protect her, and save
her from all danger and all insult, or die in the attempt; to never do violence
to ladies or maidens without their will and consent, although they had been won
by arms.1
A more
formal statement of the knight’s oaths is the
1 Guizot, Hist, of Civ., vol. iii. p. n.
following
:—i. I shall fortify and defend the Christian religion to the uttermost of my
power. 2. I shall be loyal and true to my sovereign lord the king, to all
orders of chivalry, and to the noble office of arms. 3. I shall fortify and
defend justice with all my power, and that without favour or vanity. 6. I shall
defend the just action and quarrel of all ladies of honour, of all true and
friendless widows, of orphans of good fame. 7. I shall do diligence wheresoever
I hear that there are any murderers, traitors, or masterful robbers who oppress
the king’s lieges and poor people, to bring them to the law with all my power.1
An old
French ballad,3 quoted by Saint Palaye, says: “ You who desire the
order of knighthood, you must lead a new life ; devoutly watch and pray, shun
sin, pride and villainy, the Church you must defend, the widow’s cause and the
orphan’s undertake, be hardy and loyal, and plunder nothing from others—thus
must the knight guide himself.”
The mother
of the celebrated knight, Bayard, is said to have uttered these words when he
received his sword : “ Serve God and He will aid thee; be sweet and courteous
to every gentleman in divesting thyself of all pride. Be not a flatterer or
talebearer, for this kind of people come not to great perfection ; be loyal in
word and in deed ; keep thy word, be helpful to the poor and orphan, and God
will reward it to thee.”3 The young aspirant for knighthood was not
uncommonly trained to serve in some
1 Selden,
quoted by Mill, Hist, of Chivalry, p. 153.
? Vous qui voulez l'ordre de chevalier
II vous convient mener nouvelle
vie;
Devotement en oraison veiller,
Pech6 fuir, orgueil et villenie, etc.
3 Servez Dieu
et il vous aidera; soyez doux et courtois k tout gentilhomme en 6tant de vous
tout orgueil; ne soyez flatteur ni rapporteur.
noble
family, and was thus early taught one of the virtues of chivalry—a dignified
obedience, and a subordination to elders and superiors, which had no mixture of
obsequiousness.
The
Helden-Buch, an old authority on Chivalry, says of the duties of knighthood :—
“The
Princes young were taught to protect all ladies fair,
Priests
they bade them honour and to the mass repair ;
All holy
Christian love were they taught, I plight;
Hughdietrich
and his noble queen, caused priests to guide them aright.”1
The ideal
of knighthood is thus given in an old chronicle, translated by Bullfinch : “
Then King Arthur stablished all his knights and to them that were not rich he
gave lands and charged them all never to do outrage or murder and always to
flee treason ; also by no means to be cruel, but to give mercy unto them that
ask mercy, upon pain of forfeiture of their worship and lordship ; and always
to do ladies, damosels and gentlewomen service, upon pain of death; also that
no man take battle in a wrongful quarrel for no law or any world’s goods. Under
this were all the knights sworn of the Table Round, both old and young; and at
every year were they sworn at the high feast of Pentecost.”
The Church
itself strove in every way to confirm these ideas. Thus the Council of Clement
made solemn declaration that every noble person should, at the age of twelve,
take solemn oath before the bishop to defend to the uttermost widows and
orphans ; that women of noble birth, both single and married, should enjoy his
special care, and that nothing should be wanting in him to render travelling safe,
and to overthrow tyranny.2
1 Quoted by Mills, p. 224.
2 Ibid., p. 216.
The
translator of St. Palaye’s “ Memoirs of Ancient Chivalry,” says eloquently: “
Women in particular, ought to hold these ancient writers on chivalry in high
esteem,, for the deference they paid to modesty and the same they so liberally
bestowed on virtue. They taught generous firmness, judicious observance of
superiors and constant love to unite in the same hearts. They taught to honour
the valiant, to attend the wounded, to relieve the distressed and to dispense
the sweet solace of cheerful and gentle manners to all around them; they taught
them to respect themselves and to prefer others; to be silent, observant, and
industrious in youth, graceful and dignified in maturity, venerable in age and
lamented in death.” Foulque, a young knight, is thus described by St. Palaye1:
“ He is eager to expand his heart and to diffuse his wealth to all who approach
him and ever without partiality or limitation to all the world, the declared
enemy of injustice and of all who dare to be its patrons. The being unable to
redress wrong is his sole cause of grief; if this ever happens, he is
inconsolable. He is taught2 that simplicity and modesty alone gave a
lustre to victory and he has been directed from a child to be the last who
should speak high things and the first who should do them, to be mild among the
aged and stout among the brave, and that he can never praise himself too little
or others too much.” Spenser gives us the same ideal in his “ Red Cross Knight
”:
“ And many
hard adventures did achieve Of all the which they honer wonne, ■
Seeking
the weak oppressed to relieve,
And to
recover right for such as wrong did grieve.”3
1 St.
Palaye, p. 67. 2 Ibid., p.
31.
3 Fairy Queen, iii. 1-3.
An old French
ballad says :—
“ A true
knight the people must defend And his heart’s blood for the Faith expend.”1
Chaucer
also thus pictures the knight—
“ A knight
tkere was and that a worthy man That from the time he first began To riden out,
he loved chivalry Truth and honour, freedom and courtesy.
* * * *
And tho’
that he was worthy, he was wise,
And of his
port as meek as is a maid,
He never
yet no villainy ne said,
In all his
life unto no manner wight ;
He was a
very gentle perfect knight.” s .
One of the
first virtues taught the knight, which has greatly influenced modern warfare,
was pity for his enemy. It was a common phrase, that “a warrior without pity
was without worship.” “ In all the wars of chivalry,” says the historian3
of Brittany, “true soldiers never injure the tillers of the ground.”
The
celebrated knight, Du Quesclin, is reported to have said on hisdeath-bed to his
companions in arms : “Neither the clergy nor women nor children are your
enemies.” Chevalier Bayard, being told that it was permitted to live in an
enemy’s country upon the inhabitants, replied: “ It is true, but I think we
ought not to do all that is permitted; the right of war is one thing, the right
of justice another. I rebuke not what others do, but I will not do it myself.” 4
The courtesy
and pity of the knight evidently entered
1 Ils doivent le peuple defendre
Et la sange pour la foi espandre.
9 Prologue,
Cantei-bury Tales. 3 Argentre.
4 St. Palaye, p. 196.
into
practical affairs and became characteristics of warfare in certain countries.
“King Edward,” says Froissart, after the battle near Calais (1346), “sat down
to supper and made the captive French knights sit down also, greeted them
honourably and ordered them to be served with the first course, while the
gentle Prince of Wales and the knights of England were served with the second
course at another table.” To the knight who had nearly killed him, King Edward
said : “ I have never found in battle any man who man to man hath given me so
much trouble as thou hast done, I therefore give thee the prize by a just
decision above all the knights of my court.” The courtesy of the Prince of
Wales to the French King John as prisoner after the battle of Poictiers is too
well known to need recounting. The English prince constantly refused to sit
down at the table of his captive, and gave him the highest honours.
“Can it be
conceived possible,” says Froissart, “that in a hot fire of the squadrons of
the French and English met near Cherbourg (1379), the knights and squires
having dismounted to fight closer, stopped in the midst of these furious
transports to give one among them who remained on horseback the leisure to
challenge that knight among his enemies whom he esteemed to excel the most in
love.” This historian relates again that after a battle between the French and
English, in 1344, “the English dealt like good comrades with their prisoners,
and suffered many to depart on their oaths and promises to return again on a
fixed day to Bordeaux.”1 After the battle at Otterbourne, the Scots
are said to have set their English prisoners to ransom, and every man said to
his prisoner : “ Sir, go and unarm yourself and take your ease,” and so made
their
prisoners
good cheer as if they had been brethren, without doing them any injury.1
The chivalric custom of ransom undoubtedly mitigated to a great degree the
horrors of war in the Middle Ages. The knights were punctilious to the last
degree in keeping the pledges made to their captors. Thus the Duke of Gueldres
is said to have been captured by a squire of low degree and carried to his
stronghold. The forces of the duke approaching, the squire made him promise
that he would come to him wherever he might be on a fixed day and remain his
prisoner till ransom was paid. The duke was immediately liberated by his
comrades, but held himself bound by his pledge, and after months of delay and
against many remonstrances, penetrated the enemy’s lines and delivered himself
to his captor, from whom he was subsequently ransomed. As an instance of
knightly manners, the romance of Farumbras relates that the famous knight
Oliver, in a battle with the Saracen cavalier Farumbras, assisted his foe to
lace his helmet, and before they fought, both bowed politely to one another.
Such an
action as the following, related of the wars of Robert Bruce, shows what a
humanizing reality chivalry might be:—
“ The king
has heard a woman cry:
He askfed
what that was in hy (haste)
It is the
layndar (laundress) sir, said one,
That her
child-ill (bed) right now has taen,
And must
leave now behind us here,
Therefore
she makes an evil cheer.
The king
said, Certes it were pity That .she in that point left should be,
For,
certes, I trow there is no man That he no will rue a woman than.
His hosts
all then arrested he And gert a tent soon Stinted (pitched) be And gert her
gang in hastilie And other women to be her by While she was delivered, he bade,
And syne
forth on his way’s rade ;
And how
she forth should carried be,
Or he
forth fare (journeyed) ordained he ;
This was a
full great courtesie That swilk a king and so mightie Gert his men dwell on
this manner But for a poor lavender.”1
Writing of
knightly courtesy, Froissart says, “ there is no pause between them (the
English and Scotch) as long as spears, swords, axes, or daggers will endure.
When one party hath obtained the victory, they then could glorify in their
deeds of arms, and are so joyful that such as are taken, are ransomed ere they
go out of the field, so that shortly each of them is so content with the other,
that at their departing, they will say courteously, God thank you ! ”2
That incident of Sir Philip Sidney, the chevalier of more modern days, refusing
the cup of cold water when dying that he might give it to a wounded soldier,
will probably never depart out of human memory. It shows what Christianity can
do, acting on the traditional habits of the gentleman and soldier.
The
chivalric ideal forbade all violence to the prisoner. An Italian writer of
eminence even blames the soldier who struck the tyrant of Padua, “ since it is
as vile an act to wound a prisoner whether noble or otherwise, as to strike a
dead body.” 3
1 The Bruce, x. I, 270. This humane
incident is said to have occurred in Robert Bruce’s campaign in Ireland, in
1319.
2 Froissart,
ii. 142.
3 . . . quam
gladio caadere cadaver. (Rolanderius.) Quoted by Hallam.
The model
of the knight was that of exceeding gentleness. Arthur is described as replete
with all grace and virtue, “ for he is free, meek and gentle as a lamb.”1
A common
motto of a noble family in France was “ the braver the milder ” {quo fortior eo
mitior).
When the
chronicles picture a knight wandering in a wilderness and asking his way of
some cowherd, they describe him as riding away “ while commending the lad to
God.” When King Arthur met some unknown ladies in the forest, the biographers
relate that “ as soon as he saw them, he lyghted downe of his hors and ryght
sweetly saluted them.”
Of Rodrigo
it is said that,—
“
Journeying on he greeted whom he met With such short interchange of courtesie
As each to other gentle traveller gives.”
Hospitality
was equally a duty with courtesy. “ Then it was,” says Perceforest, “ that in
Great Britain charity of manners reigned in all; noble dames and gentle knights
placed on the tops of their castles a helmet, as a sign that all good, knights
and worthy ladies travelling that way should enter as freely into their castle
as if it were their own.” Handsome presents were given to the guests, “ but the
courtesy they learned in those castles was above all riches; no spirit of
discord or peevishness was ever allowed in these knights to one another. Their
manners displayed every kind of friendship and goodwill.” 3 “
Nothing was small or despicable in the eyes of a knight, if it comprehended
the welfare of an individual; if he in his voyage or expedition received the
hospitality of the meanest person, gratitude would never suffer him to consider
that person but as a noble and generous benefactor; he declared himself for
ever his knight, and swore to renounce all the 1 Quoted by Digby. s St. Palaye, p. 282.
glory that
could be proposed to him, to acquit himself of the debt to defend, protect, and
succour him in time of need.”1
The
following passage shows the Norman ideal of chivalry in the twelfth century.
Geoffrey says of the reign of King Arthur: “ Britain had arrived at such a
pitch of grandeur that in abundance of riches, luxury of ornaments, and
politeness of inhabitants, it far surpassed all other kingdoms. The knights in
it that were famous for chivalry, wore their clothes and arms all of the same
colour and fashion ; and the women also, no less celebrated for their wit, wore
all the same kind of apparel, and counted none worthy of their love but such as
had given proof of their valour in three successive battles. Thus was the
valour of the men an encouragement for the women’s chastity, and the love of
the women a spur to soldiers’ bravery.”2
The
brotherhoods in arms were one of the remarkable features of chivalry,
undoubtedly a survival of German customs. There is said to have been one association
called the “ Order of the White Lady with the Green Shield,” whose especial
object was to restore to ladies, property taken from them by unjust plunderers.
A
celebrated cavalier, named Hugh de Carvalai, being forced to separate from his
brother in arms, Boucicaut, is related by the Chronicle to have thus spoken: “
Gentle lord, we who have been together in happy companionship, have had the
same wills, the same conquests, and the same joys ; nor has either received a
joy that the other has not partaken of. But in the account, I think, I have
received more from you than I have given ; therefore I pray you that we may
settle, and what I owe you I will pay or assign over to you.”
1 Si.
Palaye, p. 228.
3 Quoted in Troubadours, etc., p. 250, by H.
W. Preston.
“ This is
a sermon indeed ! ” answered Bertrand, “ J have never thought of this account,
nor know I whether I am indebted to you or you to me, but I pray you, as we are
■about to
separate, let us be quit therein. But if we meet again, we will make a new debt
and will have it written ; it now only remains for each of us to act nobly, and
for you to follow your master. May that affection which hath ever been,
continue with us; and since it must be so, in love let us depart.” 1
Of these
fraternities the old ballad says,—
“ From
this day forward ever mo’
Neither
fail either for weal or woe,
To help
other at need :
Brother be
now true to me,
And I
shall be as true to thee ! ”
The ballad
then pictures the knights as vowing never to injure or villify each other, and
to share1 one another’s dangers and trials.
Froissart
says, that there was a bond of brotherhood among all knights, and that
“nobleness and gentleness ought to be aided by nobles and gentles.” It was
evidently a custom among them that no ransom should be set so high that the
knight could not pay it with ease, and maintain a suitable rank afterwards.
In the
tribunals of justice, the title of knight was especially respected, it being
presumed that those who had borne it were always disposed to defend the cause
of right. For this very reason, when condemned for any offence, the knight paid
a double fine.
The
devotion to ladies was the crowning grace of chivalry. This respect for the sex
went so far that an act is on record of James II., of Aragon, that any man,
1 St.
Palaye, p. 224.
whether
soldier or civilian, native or foreign, travelling through the kingdom in
company with a high-born lady, should be safe from all attack or pursuit,
unless he were a criminal under the charge of murder.1
“ You
should elect,” says an ancient chivalric history, addressing the young knight,
“ a lady of noble blood who has the ability to advise and the power to assist
you ; and you should serve her so truly and love her so loyally as to compel
her to acknowledge the honourable affection which you entertain for her. . . .
But he who loyally serves his lady will not only be blessed to the height of
man’s felicity in this life, but will never fall into those sins which will
prevent his happiness hereafter. Pride will be entirely effaced from the heart
of him who endeavours by humility and courtesy to win the grace of the lady.
The true faith of a lover will defend him from the other deadly sins of anger,
envy, sloth and gluttony; and his devotion to his mistress renders the thought
impossible of his conduct ever being stained witlj the vice of impurity.”2
There can be no doubt of the capacity of the knight of chivalry for this pure,
unsensual devotion to his mistress. The romances, chronicles, and histories are
full of instances of it, and it certainly formed the ideal of great numbers of
young men of the higher classes. Each sex too elevated the other, as the “
Romance of the Rose ” says. “ The better the chevaliers the better the ladies,
and the more chastely did they love.”8
1 Statuimus quod omnis homo, sive miles sive alius qui
iverit cum domina generosa salvus sit, etc. (Quoted by Hallam, 3, 375.)
1 UHistoire,
etc. du Petit Jehan, etc., 1, 36.
3 Les
chevaliers mieux en valoient
Les dames meilleures dtoient
Et plus chastement en vivoient.
—Romance
of the Rose,.
The
peculiar home of chivalry was France and England. If we may trust Froissart,
the Germans were too rude and covetous in the Middle Ages, to feel powerfully
the especial influences of the system. “ Their excessive covetousness quencheth
the sense of honour.” 1 “ When a German hath taken a prisoner, he
putteth him into irons and hard prison without any pity, to make him pay the
greater penance and ransom.”3 No chivalric spirit checked, in
Teutonic countries, feudal licentiousness, and it was the democratic influence
of the cities rather than the generosity and chivalry of the knights, which
protected the people from oppression. In Italy, too, there was little influence
of chivalry to soften the barbarisms of war or raise the position of woman. The
frequency of cruel massacres in the Italian wars and of assassination in time
of peace, shows how superficial was the power of this ideal. Even in Spain, the
model knight, the Cid, is described as cheating without scruple the unfortunate
Jews who had lent him money. All the knights, too, were bigoted to the last
degree. That “ sainted knight and most Christian king,” Louis IX., is said thus
to have instructed his knights: “Argue not with an unbeliever, be he infidel or
heretic, but thrust the Christian lance or sword into his body as fast and as
far as you can ! ”3
Still,
from all the above and innumerable similar extracts from ancient chronicles,
ballads and histories, there comes forth a very distinct ideal of character,
which unquestionably exceedingly influenced the higher classes of the Middle
Ages, and has not yet lost its power. It is a conception of a character,
self-centered, ruling its
1 Froissart,
ii. 125.
2 Ibid., i.
43J.
3. . . mais k bonne espde tranchant et en frapper les
mddi- sans et mescreans, etc. (Joinville, i. 23.)
life by an
elevated standard of self-respect, the elements of which are unshaken fidelity
to a pledge, indifference to danger and hardship, generosity to the weak,
forgetfulness of self in small things, and devotion to certain ideal and noble
ends, as the main objects of life. There go with it too, in its highest forms,
unselfish devotion to woman, courtesy and consideration to the lowest and
poorest, an eager passion for adventure, danger and warfare in a good cause,
and a supreme consecration to some supposed supernatural guide or inspirer. It
need not be said that the highest moral traits of this ideal are an inheritance
from the Faith whose influence we are studying. They bear the clear traces of
their origin. Other and more earthly features belong to the vigorous and ardent
temperament of the ancient Germans.
By what
means could pity for the unfortunate, generosity to the enemy, charity for the
widow and orphan, unselfishness and consideration for others’ feelings and
unswerving truthfulness, be taught the wild soldiers of the Middle Ages, as by
the Gospels ?
The ideal
before them, though mingled with many earthly qualities, was a Christian one.
The
defects of this character, as history has described them, are but too well
known. The knight cared most of all for his class, and soon began to be
indifferent to, or to oppress, the common people. Even the chivalric times are
stained with terrible acts of cruelty and brutality against labouring men and
citizens. The enthusiastic devotion to woman degenerated into a licentiousness
which contaminated a great part of European society, and affected considerable
portions of literature. The barbaric jousts and tournaments of the Middle Ages,
with the class feeling cultivated by chivalry, transmitted the modern duel, one
of the barbarisms which still endures in modern
society.
The spirit of chivalry long supported feudalism, which was so great an obstacle
to popular liberty and to material progress. The crusades were an offshoot of
chivalry, and though they indirectly removed so many abuses, and awakened in a
few directions the human intellect, yet they brought untold calamities on Europe,
and strengthened the power of bigotry and superstition for centuries.
It is of
course very difficult to say how far chivalry, as an institution, was a
reality. It certainly was an ideal and a sentiment, and left a deep impress on
society among the upper classes. But to what extent the great body of knights
were governed by their vows and professed principles, and whether this
devotion, purity and disinterestedness existed more in the fancy of poets than
in the real life of the Middle Ages, is a question not easy to determine.
Whatever
in the chivalric ideal was a direct product of Christian influence, has
endured, and still exerts its power. The high respect for woman, a combined
result, as we have often said, of old German habit and Christian teaching,
still remains and is strongest in nort-feudal lands. The remarkable respect and
courtesy shown to women throughout the United States, is at once a chivalric
and Christian inheritance. If any one would find a modern “survival” of the
journeys of the knight of chivalry with his fair ladye through a savage
wilderness, let him follow Miss Bird’s ride1 through the Rocky
Mountains for six hundred miles, accompanied by desperadoes and wild trappers.
Her influence in those solitary camps is precisely the chivalric ideal and the
Christian reality.
The error
of chivalry was in centering all things on selfregard and the opinion of a
class.
1 Ride
through the Rocky Mountains.
Chivalry
as an institution has passed away :—
“ The
knights are dust,
And their
good swords are rust;
Their
souls are with the saints we trust.”
But the
ideal of character endures. Christianity, acting on the German temperament, has
contributed this ideal to the humane and moral progress of the leading races.
It has its definite and peculiar features.
A
character and life, where the smallest stain on integrity is felt as a sin ;
where the “ word is as the bond ; ” where the weak and unbefriended, the orphan
and oppressed always claim the immediate and unhesitating defence and support;
where woman is held in purest honour; where an habitual consideration and
gentle courtesy, especially for inferiors, govern the feelings and manners ;
where there is a capacity for true friendship and for self-forgetting services,
and the habit of hospitality; where high aims and generous purposes, give an
inherent and unconscious elevation and dignity to the whole nature ; a
character in which there is a silent heroism and courage that would face death
and every ill cheerfully, in a cause pleasing to the Master—this still lives.
Certainly
true chivalry has not died out in modern days, and is more distinctly Christian
than ever before.
The “
Gesta Christi," the achievements of Christianity, are not like the
victories of a great general, distinct conquests in a given place, or on a
fixed date; they rather resemble the triumphs of science or of civilization.
Here and there, indeed, a definite and convincing step will be made in humane
progress, but in general, the minds of man will become first silently imbued with
Christ’s principles and be personally transformed by affection for Him. Then,
as love and unselfishness more and more control their lives, and the
responsibility with reference to a future life grows, and the habit increases
of living for distant and impersonal good, certain great abuses which they have
hitherto supported through ignorance and selfishness, will drop away, and
gradually the great injustices of human society will be either be uprooted by
such men, or will melt away under the fervour of their benevolent sympathies
and the example of their upright lives.
Of many
great social evils, it is often difficult to say when they came to an end. They
disappeared before the new Spirit in the world.
The
victories of Christ are silent victories, won in the individual heart and life.
No history chronicles them. Their fruits are seen later in the lessening or
overthrow of great social abuses, and in the gradual growth of justice,
270
benevolence,
purity, truth, and all those feelings and practices which specially result from
Christian teachings. The Spirit of God everywhere works in human society, and
there is a “natural progress” apart from Christianity. Many forces, too, of
selfishness or of the intellect have aided in the final results of human
progress. The tendencies of commerce, the struggles of kings with barons, the
associated life in cities, the opening influences of science, have all worked
throughout the Middle Ages to advance mankind ; but no help to right living and
towards a more perfect state of society has ever been found like the religion
of Jesus.
(1) Its first and most powerful effect on
barbaric and half civilized society in Europe was the new position which it
gave to woman, and the sacred value it attached to marriage. As centuries go on,
the test of advancing civilisation in each country is the advancement in the
social, legal and political position of the weaker sex. The influence of
Christianity from the beginning tended to make woman in all appropriate things
the equal of man, to throw her influence into every department of life, and
even to surround her with a certain sacredness. In this, we need hardly repeat,
the new Faith was aided by German habits of thought. Christianity purified the
morals of woman, bound her to sacred duties as wife and mother, pledged her to
labours of humanity when single, and everywhere sought to make her worthy of
the homage she began to inspire. It changed the low idea of marriage, common
even in the German tribes. It protected woman’s rights and her property, and
throughout Europe, encouraged the system of dower, which was so important a
safeguard in a wild age. Family life in these disturbed centuries was first
purified by the religion of Christ, and from that has sprung whatever of good
now exists in
European
social life. The best human condition which has been transmitted, which gives
the truest fore-gleam of a higher earthly life yet to be attained, is marriage;
and no power known in history has done so much to elevate and strengthen that
as the teachings of the great Master. The “ free marriage ” and easy divorce
customary throughout Europe in the early Middle Ages, were especially
struggled against by the influence of Christianity; and whatever is stable in
the union of husband and wife has been won by it against masculine selfishness
and caprice.
The
reactions of the human mind at this period are not chargeable on Christianity;
neither the asceticism and celibacy of one portion of society nor the
strictness of the canon-law. The Gospels give no countenance to any of these
extremes.
(2) Human society rises out of its low estate,
not merely by elevating woman, but also by curbing the barbaric passion for
blood-revenge. The first influence of a love and faith towards Jesus Christ is
to lead men to imitate and obey Him by controlling revenge and hatred. This
religion accordingly acts on the half-savage tribes by making legal
satisfactions take the place of blood-revenge and feuds, and elevating law in
place of violence. In doing this, it may sometimes sanctify capital punishment,
as placing a legal retribution higher than “ blood-money.” This, the first step
of barbaric Europe from anarchy and violence to a condition of law and order,
was plainly assisted by the new Faith.
(3) A feudal and wild society falls naturally
into “private war,” where each chieftain fights “ for his own hand,” but under
definite forms and laws. Europe, as we have seen, was nearly reduced to anarchy
under these uncontrolled habits. The figure which appeared in the storm, and
quieted,
if only for a time, the waves of strife, was Christ,
It is a touching history—to read of the plundered peasants; the
desolated towns, the wasted fields, - the weeping widows and orphans under this
curse of unrestrained war, and then of some simple, enthusiastic believer, who
holding aloft an Agnus Dei, goes from village to village preaching, as if a new
truth, the doctrine of human brotherhood, ithe “ Peace of God,” until all men
are inspired, by a new spirit, and for months or years the bloody, swords are
left to rust, the homes of the poor are unplundered, and an unwonted peace of
God falls on a land' drenched with brothers’tears and blood. Or the messenger
of religion declares certain places and certain days sacred to peace; and the
wild soldiers and pirates are awed , into seeming quiet, and the poor and
down-trodden have a brief respite from the savage tempest, and society, under
religion, gets its first experience of peace. Surely the most materialistic of
sceptics reading of that “ Peace of God ” of the Middle Ages, and of that
sacred person, the Friend of man, calming the bitter storms of human wrath and
strife, must be grateful that even the so-called “myth” of a Jesus survived,
and that it could thus control, even for a moment, the passions and hate and
blood-thirst of men.
(4) The arbitrations (Austmge) of the Middle Ages,
are the fruits at once of the Christian, and of the com-, mercial spirit: they
show the first settlement of European society, and foretoken that higher
system. of Christian arbitration, which shall yet reform the relations of
nations. For in the light of the teachings of. the great Master, and of the
higher reason, it cannot be; claimed, that “private war” is less justifiable
than “public war,” as a means of redressing injuries.
(5) Among the great impediments to progress in
Europe through the Middle Ages, and the brutalizing influences,
T
were the
unreasonable and cruel methods of obtaining truth and determining justice in
both civil and criminal cases. The “ wager of battle ” and the “ ordeal ” were
opposed from the beginning to the spirit of the “ Religion of humanity.” The
teachings by Christ allowed no such mode of testing facts or obtaining justice,
as single combat; and superstitious tests have no support in His words or in
the spirit of His life, The' purest among His followers in every age have
objected to them and argued against them. As His spirit has slowly imbued more
and more individuals of all classes, the barbarous “judicial duel” has dropped
out of use, even as His influence in modern times has swept away the “ duel of
honour.” To one inspired by Him the appeal to irregular methods of ascertaining
the will of God, is an irreverence to the Father of all, and opposed to the
very spirit of His life. The abolition of the ordeal is not indeed one of the
most apparent Gesta Ckristi, but it can be distinctly traced to Him.
(6) Had the “ Son of Man" been in body upon
the earth during the Middle Ages, hardly one wrong and injustice would have
wounded His pure soul like the system of torture. To see human beings, with the
consciousness of innocence, or professing and believing the purest truths,
condemned without proof to the most harrowing agonies, every groan or
admission under pain used against them, their confessions distorted, their
nerves so racked that they pleaded their guilt in order to end their tortures,
their last hours tormented by false ministers of justice or religion who
threaten eternal as well as temporal damnation, and all this going on for ages,
until scarce any innocent felt themselves safe under this mockery of justice
and religion,—all this would have seemed to the Founder of Christianity as the
worst travesty of His faith and the most cruel wound to humanity.
It need
not be repeated that His spirit in each century struggled with this tremendous
evil and inspired the great friends of humanity who laboured against it. The
main forces in mediaeval society, even those which tended towards its
improvement, did not touch this abuse. Roman law supported it; Stoicism was
indifferent to it; Greek literature did not affect it; feudalism and arbitrary
power encouraged a practice which they could use for their own ends ; and even
the hierarchy and a State Church so far forgot the truths they professed as to
employ torture to support the “ Religion of Love.” But against all these powers
were the words of Jesus, bidding men “Love your enemies! ” “ Do good to them
that spitefully use you ! ” and the like commands, working everywhere on
individual souls, heard from pulpits and in monasteries, read over by humble
believers, and slowly making their way against barbaric passion and hierarchic
cruelty. Gradually, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the books
containing the message of Jesus circulated among all classes, and produced that
state of mind and heart in which torture could not be used on a fellow-being,
and in which such an abuse and enormity as the Inquisition was hurled to the
earth.
(7) The Jewish religion and the gospel of Jesus
both taught protection to the stranger, and help to the unfortunate. The old
abuses inflicted on the stranger and the shipwrecked accordingly melt away
before the new teachings. Almost every code in Europe, Charlemagne’s
capitularies, the laws of the Northern tribes, the Sachsen- spiegel, the
Anglo-Saxon laws and others, contain touching reference to the scriptural
commands in regard to the stranger and “ far-comer,” and enforce the duties of
hospitality and mercy. The shipwrecked and homeless are to be gently and
mercifully dealt with, even as all men hope
to be
dealt mercifully with at • the great; tribunal. . The change from that century
when a stranger in England was shut up in jail like a thief, or a foreigner
(aubain) in France became a serf of the seigneur, to the comparatively
hospitable laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the contrast
between the age when vessels were brought to wreck by false lights, and all
shipwrecked were slaves and their property fair, plunder, to the age when the
laws of all nations protect the shipwrecked, and almost all civilized peoples
feel it a duty to help such unfortunates,—these changes are among the most
apparent and blessed of the. Gesta . Christi,—the achievements of
Christianity. Jesus in human annals, were He less than He is, might well be the
patron-saint of the stranger and the shipwrecked. . ,
(8) The progress of the Middle Ages was largely
assisted by their codes of law. . These early efforts to establish order,
restrain passion, cultivate self-control and promote humanity, are deeply
stamped with , the teachings of the Master. Some of these codes, like the
Anglo-Saxon laws, seem like religious and moral exhortations, rather than a
body of legislation. Nearly all of them call up the sanctions of religion to
enforce earthly injunctions : some appeal directly to the teachings of our
Lord, or the Bible: all inculcate the gospel lessons of purity,, good-will,
integrity, honesty, truth and neighbourly , kindness, not alone as moral and.
legal duties, but as portions of religion ;. as pleasing Him who embodied such
virtues, and as part of men’s responsibility to God..
The Roman
law too, wherever modified by Christian influence, carried down the spirit of
the humane Teacher through ages of lust, cruelty, and barbarism.. That it did
not accomplish more is scarcely to be wondered at. Laws can only effect their
best work when they represent the
united
opinion and feeling of society. Christianity had not yet sufficiently
impregnated individuals to transform society and make laws one of the
manifestations of religion.
(9) Along with improvement of the laws in the
Middle Ages, went advance in education. Christianity opened men’s minds to all
truth ; it produced that humility which is the best guarantee of the intellect
against conceit and pride,—often the greatest obstacles to discovery and progress
; it withdrew the faculties of superior men from pursuits tending to damage and
destruction, towards those which would benefit humanity. The same result was experienced
in the “ Dark Ages,” which has often been since, that a high moral advance is
favourable to the intellect. When the spiritual and moral faculties and
sensibilities are elevated, the probability is that the other powers of the
soul will feel their inspiration,' and reason, judgment and imagination be
elevated by the same influences.
The mere
turning of the mind by thousands of the youth of Europe from war to matters of
religion was an immense gain to the intellect. There is only a certain amount
of vital force in a generation, and this during many centuries was in some
degree drawn from plans of mutual injury, to truths and thoughts connected with
the Christian faith. The human mind could not but gain a great advance from
this influence alone. To this effect of religion was added the power of the
Church, exerted, as we have seen, in founding schools and institutions of learning,
and the influences of monastic life encouraging the study and copying of the
classics. Against this latter is to be weighed the depressing and retrograding
power of bigotry and superstition, which found their appropriate home in the
monastic life, and indeed air the opposition Of the Church to pure science. . 1
While
recognising the elevating force of the Christian faith on the intellect of
Europe during the Middle Ages, we should never fail to acknowledge the
remarkable influence on intellectual progress in the revival of classic
literature and of Arabic science.
(10) One of the great steps in humane progress in
these Centuries, and one on which the influence of the truths preached in
Palestine is peculiarly apparent, is the gradual diminution or cessation of
serfdom and slavery. The gospel of Christ in its pure form is not consistent
with permanent slavery. His early ministers were called “the brothers of the
slave.” They felt “ for them in bonds, as those in bonds with them.” Wherever
He is truly loved and revered, there the fetters of the slave are broken. This
power is shown at this period in the humane legislation of various countries
towards serfs and slaves, based often on the avowed motive that “he for whom
Christ died, ought not to be held in bondage.” It is shown in the innumerable
forms of will and bequests where bondsmen are liberated pro remedio animce, for
the salvation of the soul, and to prepare for coming judgment. It is proved by
the general influence of the clergy in emancipating captives ; and in the
gradual change of slavery into serfdom, and of serfdom into freedom. Sometimes
a great act of emancipation, like that of the city of Bologna, avows the
religious impulse. Sometimes an eloquent preacher breaks up by his appeals the
slave trade, as was done by Bishop Wulf- stan, in Bristol, in the eleventh
century. More often the minds of men and women in all classes become touched by
the truths of the Gospel, until they feel that to hold a fellow-being in
slavery or serfdom is contrary to Christ’s commands, and they privately
manumit; or they permit laws to be passed which gradually relieved the
oppressed of their burdens ; or they accept some form of compen
sation for
the services due to them, and the injustice slowly melts away. As the
Scriptures circulate among the peasants, these become filled with the new
feelings of human dignity imparted by the teachings of the Gospels, and they
everywhere demand their liberty—in terrible outbreaks which measure the burdens
under which they suffered; yet these violent protests, though met with greater
violence, bring after them new rights and liberties for the serf. Throughout
the Middle Ages conscience was on the side of manumission, as shown in
countless deathbed acts of emancipation. The Church itself became a citadel of
liberty to the bondman. It is true that other forces worked with the religious
motive : the influence of cities and independent communes; the Stoic philosophy
as felt in legislation ; the struggles of rival powers in the State, and the
inconveniences of slavery itself—all these tended towards emancipation. But the
great Emancipator of history is Jesus Christ. Where He rules, there all chains
are finally broken and the oppressed go free.
(xi) It
scarcely need be said that all the countless institutions of human compassion
and charity, which attempted throughout Europe to relieve the horrible misery
following the overthrow of the Roman empire, came from Him. The blessed
associations of mercy, the hospitals, asylums, refuges, schools and centres of
charity, which everywhere radiated human mercy and goodwill; the lives of
beneficence to which so many noble souls devoted themselves; the innumerable
actions of benevolence, philanthropy, and heroic self-sacrifice which light up
these dark ages—these are all from the “ Son of Man ’’— the true Gesta Christi.
And not
entirely to be passed over among His grander achievements, are the grace and
heroism and humanity infused into Middle Age society, and so into modern life,
by the
action of His faith on the German temperament. Chivalry has indeed a large
proportion of transitory, whimsical and earthly elements; but the humanity
infused by it into wars, the' respect inspired' for women, the courtesy and
consideration taught, the grace and gentleness cast over society, the
compassion it illustrated, belong to Him who embodied such pure qualities
without the alloy of class-feeling, and who, as the “Son of Man,” was in
sympathy with all conditions of men, and an eternal ideal of compassion to the
unfortunate.
It is true
that Christianity in the Middle Ages never accomplished what should be
appropriately expected of it in the reform of human evils. But various
circumstances were peculiarly unfavourable to it as a moral power. It was first
made known among degenerate and corrupt races, inheriting the vices and conceit
of ages of successful violence and unrestrained lust. It then reached the wild
tribes of the north, who were stamped with their own savage qualities, or
tainted by contact with Roman depravity. But most fatal of all were the entire
overthrow and confusion of society, and the invasion of ignorance and
lawlessness consequent on the destruction of the Roman empire; and the
formation of a State Church and hierarchy, with the natural paganization of
large classes, who were only nominal followers of the great Teacher.
This
combination of unfavourable circumstances has delayed the triumph of Christianity
for many centuries.
REFORMS IN
HUMANE PROGRESS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THIS MORAL POWER DURING THE MODERN PERIOD.
28X
WE have
seen in previous chapters that the steady drift of law and custom in Christian
countries has been towards “ the personal and proprietary independence ” of
woman, towards equality of rights with man, and a position of high moral and
spiritual influence in family and social life.
In the
Roman period the manus or absolute power of the husband over the wife, yielded
to the new spirit abroad and became but a weak authority. Tutelage was done
away with, dower was guaranteed, and the right of the wife secured over her
personal property. While the moral position of woman in the Christian portion
of the empire grew into one of remarkable sacredness and power, the example of
Christ and the apostles elevated the feebler sex in the moral field, and threw
into their hands the management of many of the charitable and spiritual
interests of the new communities of believers.
The Middle
Ages brought into the world a fresh sentiment of respect for woman—a
characteristic of the Teutonic tribes—to strengthen the Christian feeling of
reverence. But the German habit of mind—of measuring civil rights and social
position by physical power or the capacity of bearing arms—tended to depress
the standing of woman in all countries under the influence of Teutonic customs;
283
while the
ascetic and Oriental theories in regard to marriage and woman which had arisen
in the Church also combined to make the legal and social status of the female
sex below that resulting from the example and teachings of the Master, and
below what was suited to the conditions of progress.
The
greatest inequalities and injustices rested upon woman in the oldest and most
characteristic Teutonic tribes ; the Scandinavians, and among the
Norman-English. Greater privileges were allowed her among the German tribes of
Central Europe, and in countries where Roman law (Christianized) had a greater
power. But here again, ascetic influences, under the canon law, depressed her
position, especially in the married state One ideal, however, survived
throughout Europe among the higher and more martial classes, which everywhere
exalted the weaker sex and produced an effect unknown to antiquity, even
greatly influencing modern society. To chivalry woman is indebted in the Middle
Ages for a position she had never before enjoyed in history, which gave her a
charm almost unknown till then, and which spread over a society steeped in
barbarism: a grace and refinement that have come down to our day.
It will be
seen then that the position of woman from the advent of Christianity till the
modern period, has been a composite one in civilized countries. In some
countries she has lost personal independence and control of property in
marriage ; in others she has retained her proprietary power, and has been
substantially independent of her husband; again in others she has entered into
a partnership in property and interests in marriage. 1 '
In some
regions, under feudal rights, her hand had been under the control of her
guardian and became venal. In others she had been under the guardianship of the
king
alone; and
finally she achieved such independence as to control her property herself and
govern her own vassals.
Tutelage
continued much longer in some parts of Europe than in others; and canon law in
many portions of the Continent brought the wife under a peculiar subjection,
though leaving the maiden singularly free.
The
Christian idea we believe to be the entire equality of man and woman in rights
and responsibilities, though this must be limited by practical necessities and
the present condition of society. The drift, in all ages, under the teachings
of the Master, has been towards this ideal; but like His teachings in regard to
war and utter unselfishness, they must be compromised somewhat to suit the
present state of the world. Each age will see an approach towards that happy
condition, wherein bond and free, male and female, learned and ignorant, are “
one in Him,” with equal rights and equal possibilities (so far forth as nature
permits).
The modern
position of woman, as related to Christianity, is perhaps best tested by her
position in the society and under the law of the United States.
The
American Union naturally inherited, through England, the old Teutonic ideas in
regard to woman’s position in marriage. They were certainly not the ideas of
the Founder of Christianity, whose few words in regard to marriage and His
whole bearing towards women, gave an impression of His tender respect for them,
and of His sense of the sacredness and equal value of the tie. Nor are they
ideas of the German tribes of the centre and south of Europe, who allowed a
much greater independence to the married woman, and more personal rights over her
property. Nor are they altogether the principles of the canonists or the
advocates of the extreme churchly view.
The
ecclesiastical authorities held indeed the theory of the inferiority and
subjection of woman in marriage; but
they were
equally earnest in favour of the communio bono- rum, the partnership of
property, and of the protection to the woman in securing her dower. Then they
held to the idea, which nowhere appears in the English common law, of marriage
as an impurity and a degradation to man and woman.
The
English common law ideas of woman and marriage evidently came down from the old
Scandinavian customs and principles. The sex incapable of bearing arms could
not appear in the highest form of legal trial, the judicial duel, and hence
must be represented by a tutor or guardian. The husband became 'the natural
guardian of his wife, and both represented and absorbed the person and property
of his ward. Legal rights were measured by physical power. Then the archaic
idea came in of retaining the property of the woman in her new family, and
preventing both her relatives or herself separating it from her husband’s.
Thus, perhaps, arose the peculiar English idea of the married woman which has
come to us in the common law. Under it the wife’s legal existence was suspended
or extinguished during marriage ; her property was sacrificed, and she was
placed almost absolutely in the hands of her husband as regards civil rights.
Her fortune passed to her husband for his temporary or permanent enjoyment.
She could not earn anything for herself, nor in general make any legal
contract, sue or be sued, because she was not legally a person.1 The
great dramatist only pictures the common law when he makes one of his
characters declare : “ I will be master of what is mine own. She is my goods,
my chattels; she is my house, my household stuff, my field, my barn, my horse,
my ox, my ass, my anything.’’
The
husband, on the other hand, loses little or nothing
1 Schouler, Domestic Relations, etc.
of his
independence; but, as a compensation, the law compels him to pay his wife’s
debts, not only when she acted as his agent, but those incurred before
marriage. The husband and wife have each an interest in one another’s landed
property, but the advantage is always with the husband. The wife has an
interest alone after her husband’s death, she has none as wife. He is permitted
despotic sway. Under the old legal nomenclature he was the baron, she the feme.
If the husband killed the wife, under the old laws, he was tried as if he had killed
any other person ; but with the wife, the offence was like treason, a more
atrocious crime, and she was denied “ benefit of clergy.” In case of children
and real estate left without a will, a son, though younger, inherited before a
daughter. The, wife’s personal property belonged to her husband, which he can
bequeath to another; if he dies without will, she has one-third of the personal
property if there are children; one-half if there are none. This, however, is a
provision derived from the Roman rather than from the old English law.
The
husband is absolute master of the wife’s rents and profit from landed property
during their marriage, and if there are children he retains a life interest in
the real estate. If the wife survive, she has only a right to dower, or
one-third of the real estate for life. The husband, after his wife’s death, has
a right of “ curtesy" in her estate; but the wife at his death has no such
right; she is taxed on other property than her dower, without representation.1
“ The very goods which a man giveth to his wife,’’ says a curious work of the
seventeenth century, the “Woman’s Lawyer,”2 “ are still his owne;
her chaine, her bracelets,
1 Blackstone, i. 445, Npte.
2 The Lawwes Resolutions of Women's Rights,
p. 129. 1632, London. It should be remarked that Magna Charta protected dower.
her
apparell, are all her good-man’s goods. If before marriage the woman were
possessed of horses, sheepe, corne, Woole, Plate and Jewels, all manner of
moveable substance is presently by conjunction the husband’s, to sell, keep, or
bequeath if he die.”1 ;
The
husband’s and wife’s legal existence was merged into one, and that was the
husband’s.2
This state
of coverture was defined as that of one “ covered,” or sub potestate viri,
under the absolute power of the husband. “The Law of Nature hath put her under
the obedience of her husband, and hath submitted her will to his,” which she is
not permitted to contradict during her life.8 She wants free will as
minors want judgment.4
Among
other singular injustices inflicted on women by this old Teutonic system, is
that the wife, at the decease of her husband, was not allowed to administer in
preference to liis kindred, on the personal estate, though it had once been
entirely hers. He, on the other hand, could administer on her estate for his
own benefit, and exclude her kindred altogether even from a share in the
assets.5
If she
survived, she had only her own real estate and such of her personal property as
he had not appropriated to his own use, and a few unimportant articles (“paraphernalia”).
She cannot restrain his rights by will.
Till the
reign of William and Mary, Blackstone states,6, woman by the English
common law could receive sentence of death and. be executed for the first
offence in such crimes as larceny, bigamy, and manslaughter, while a. man (who
could read) was, for the same offences, subject
1 P. 130.
s Sa feme et lui ne sont fors que un person en ley.
(,Littleton, Liv. ii. sect. 168).
3 Baron et Feme, p. 71. 4 Ibid., p.
71 (1719).
6 Schouler,
p. 61. 6 Vol. i. p. 445.
only to
the burning of the hand or a few months’ imprisonment. This, however, is a
discrimination against woman as not being admitted to. spiritual orders, rather
than against her as woman. In case of a daughter’s ruin by the deceits of a
pretended lover, the only reparation to the unhappy father was through the
plea, that she was his servant and that he was deprived of the benefit of her
labour, and that the seducer had trespassed on his premises.
“ Female
honour, which is dearer to the sex than their lives,” says this authority, “ is
left by common law to the sport of an abandoned calumniator,” referring of
course to oral defamation. The elopement of a wife with a guilty partner took
away from her, by an ancient statute, all right of dower. The husband might
commit the same offence and still retain a right over his wife’s property.
“A poor
woman,” says the “ Woman’s Lawyer,”1 “shall have but the third foote
of her husband’s lands when he is dead, for all the service she did him during
the acouple- ment (a long time and tedious), and if she be extravagant with a
friend, this is an elopement and a forfeiture.” The criminal conduct of men,
the author claims, is not noticed ; “they may lope over ditch and dale, a
thousand out-ridings and out-biddings is no forfeiture, but as soon as the good
wife is gone the bad man will have her land, not the third, but every foote of
it.” 3
The
husband, too, as in almost all the Teutonic codes, had the right to beat his
wife. “Justice Brooke,” says the Woman’s Lawyer, “affirmeth plainly that if a
man beat an outlaw, a traitor, a pagan, his villein, or his wife, it is
dispunishable, because by the Law Common these persons
1 The Lawwes Resolutions of Women’s Rights.
2 P. 146. '
can have
no action. God send gentlewomen better sport or better companie! ”1
The
tendency of the early English common law, was met in the English legislation,
by the influences of right reason, and Christianity. The principles of the
Roman law and of equity were early applied to correct the evils and the
injustices of the old Teutonic code. The Lord Chancellor’s Court or Court of
Chancery, which was essentially a Court of Equity, became a court of great
importance and of ordinary jurisdiction, even as far back as Edward III. In the
reign of James I. adjudication was obtained through this court to secure to the
married woman a separate use of her property; and by 1695, it was clearly
established that a wife might have her separate estate in trust.2
Especially during the last hundred years, a doctrine of woman’s rights more
consonant to humane and Christian ideas has been maintained in the Equity
Courts of England. The great truth everywhere urged by the Master, of the
distinct personality and responsibility of each human being, has been applied
to the woman as wife by these courts, and her equality with man more and more
advanced. The Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870, 1874, and especially that
of 1882, seem to give absolute liberty to the wife of acquiring, holding, and
disposing of any property as her separate property; so that even the wages of a
married woman in Great Britain, the profits of her literary, artistic or
scientific skill, her deposits in savings banks, and indeed all property which
may belong to her at marriage, or be acquired by her during marriage, is hers,
as if she were a feme sole. We do not dwell on these important stages of humane
progress, because the American legislation better shows the high-water mark of
this drift of ideas and of practices under the power of Religion.
1 P. 128. 2
Spencer’s Equity Jurisprudence, p. 596.
American
Legislation.—The highest fruit of this influence on legislation as to women, is
to be seen undoubtedly in the United States, and particularly in the
legislation of the State of New York, which has always led in the field of
humane administration.
The
reforms in this matter seem to have begun in the New England States—especially
in Massachusetts and Maine—early in this century. The first object was to
secure the independence of wives who were abandoned, or of those whose husbands
were convicts, runaways or profligates. A public recognition was made of
marriage settlements and of trusts for the wife’s separate benefit. Then her
right was secured to her of disposing of her property by will, and, in some
States, her estate was exempted from liability for her husband’s debts. The
great and sweeping reforms in this direction, however* date from American
legislation in 1848.1 These laws extend the doctrine of a separate
estate for the wife ; they provide that her real and personal property shall
not be put at the disposal of the husband or made liable for his debts. It
continues her sole estate, and she is permitted to receive property in like
manner by gift, grant, devise or bequest. This humane and advanced legislation
has been imitated and followed. Most liberal provisions have been enacted,
securing the property held by a woman before her marriage, and all acquisitions
made through her husband or third persons, after marriage. All her earnings are
in her own power, and there is almost complete emancipation from marital
dominion. She can bequeath by will as if she were single.2
In
1860-62, these rights were still farther enlarged.3
1 Schouler, p. 209. These are reforms
especially in the legislation of the State of New York.
2 New York legislation. See
Schouler. 8
Ibid.
Married
women were permitted entire control of their personal property, and could carry
on any trade or perform any labour on their sole account; and their earnings
could be invested for themselves. A wife is permitted to sell or convey her own
real estate, to sue and be sued, to bring an action <in her own name against
any person or body corporate, and to make any bond to bind her separate
property. None of these transactions bind her husband.
A judgment
can be enforced against her separate estate.1 Of the general
position of married women in the legislation of New York, a high authority,
Schouler, says, “ Married women in that State are well nigh emancipated
altogether from marital restraints, so far as concerns their property, while
the husband’s own rights therein are exceedingly precarious ”2
A recent
case in the courts of New Hampshire, gives a practical illustration of the
advanced American view of the position of woman. A husband was sued for
slanderous words of his iwife against another woman. He took the ground that he
was not responsible for the torts of his wife ; that her property was not his,
nor her earnings his, nor her legal subjection to him any greater than his to
her, and that he was no more liable for her wrong doing than she for his. The
court sustained his demurrer, stating that “ the husbands of these female
parties are strangers to the proceedings.” The Boston Herald (April 15, 1882),
quotes thus from Judge Foster’s decision :—
“As Judge
Foster states it, the woman being thus by the common law utterly within her
husband’s control, his chattel, his ‘ox,’ he became personally and solely
answerable for her torts, as for the trespasses of his other domestic cattle ;
and, of course, the law could pursue no other consistent system than that which
declared all her contracts absolutely void. Such was the social and legal
status of a married woman
1 Kent's
Comm., ii. in, note. 2 Domestic Relations, p. 214.
centuries
ago ; and the change of her condition before the law seems to be much less in
England than in New Hampshire. The influences of Christianity and a more widely
diffused and higher system of moral and religious education have gradually
ameliorated woman's social condition, and elevated her to the state of dignity
and importance she possesses to-day. Like all the changes of advancing
civilization, this change has been very gradual, but it has been a steady march
from slavery to freedom. Herbert Spencer says that in the United States women
have reached a higher status in the social structure than anywhere else, and
Judge Foster adds that it is equally true that in many of the States, certainly
in New Hampshire more than anywhere else, have the legal distinctions between
the sexes been swept away.’’ He continues :
“ Thus, by
progress in the same direction, by changes religious, social, customary,
legislative and judicial, the rule of the common law has been abolished and
obliterated; and it is no longer possible to say that in New Hampshire a
married woman is a household slave or a chattel, or that in New Hampshire the
conjugal unity is represented solely by the husband. By custom and by statute
the wife is now joint master of the household and not a slave or a servant. The
rule now is that her legal existence is not suspended. So practically has the
ancient unity become dissevered and dissolved that the wife may not only have
her separate property, contracts, credits, debts, wages, and causes of separate
action growing out of a violation of her personal rights, but she may enter
into legal contract with her husband and enforce it by suit against him.”1
We have
observed how, in the history of the past, Christianity has strengthened the
position of the mother.
From the allusion
in Justinian’s Code,2 where reverence is enjoined on the sons
towards their mother, but no legal rights are given her, and the dictum of
Blackstone, that “ a mother as such is entitled to no power, but only to
reverence,”3 to the American legislation of i860, there is
1 This case
has not yet, however, become a precedent. It only
shows the
tendency of judicial decisions.
3 Code, lib. viii. tit. xlvii. 4. . . . reverentiam
autem debitam exhibere matri filios coget.
3 Comm., 1. 453.
a progress
which shows the profound power of the ideas scattered by this Faith.
The
inferior legal position of the mother in the English courts of law, as
distinguished from equity, was no fiction. An English case1 has
often been quoted where a father was permitted by the court to take the
children from a blameless wife, and place them under the charge of his guilty
partner. Judge Story, even before the reformed legislation, ventured to
contradict the presumption of the English law, that the father has any vested
right in the custody of the children. But in the United States, such is the
power of the humane principles of the Gospels taught in every pulpit and
school, the people become imbued with sentiments of justice and mercy before
the lawyers or the judges, and legislation has been usually in advance of the
courts.
By the
legislation of i860 (afterwards changed), every married woman was declared
joint guardian, with the husband, of their children, with equal rights. Earlier
statutes gave the custody of the child to the mother where the partners lived
separated without divorce. In some States, the preference was given to the
mother, where the child was very young. In general by American legislation,
the custody of the child is determined by its interests and not the claim of
the parents. The mother in a legal point of view may be said to stand on an
equality, in most respects, with the father in the more advanced American
legislation.
Another
peculiarity of legislation in the same direction, is the protection afforded to
the young girl against the deceptions of the other sex. In many States,
seduction accompanied with promise of marriage is a serious crime, and is
severely punished; and the loss to the girl of 1 Rex v. Greenhill.
hitherto
pure character is not measured by the value of her services to her father or
her guardian, but by the higher consideration's in the new estimate of woman.
Judge Kent
says very justly of all this class of legislation in woman’s favour ; “ The
pre-eminence of the Christian nations in Europe and of their descendants and
colonists in every quarter of the globe, is most strikingly displayed in the
equality and dignity which their institutions confer upon the female
character.” 1
The Civil
law in such southern portions of the Union as had been brought more closely
under the influence of Roman law, secured a remarkable independence to the
wife. But the communio bonorum or partnership in property, which is a feature
of marriage under this legislation, was one of the slow gains won by
Christianity;— Roman law having substantially dropped it before Justinian.
In the
Middle Ages, where we find this feature, it is a fruit of the religious
sentiment, urging justice and equality in the marriage relation. It cannot be
regarded, however, as so high a stage of progress, or so pre-eminently
Christian, as the position assigned to woman in marriage by the American
legislation; for each human being, under the Faith taught in Galilee, is an
independent responsible existence having a right from all others to the same
justice and consideration which he is bound to extend. Each woman under these
teachings has a claim to the utmost exercise of her capacities, and to perfect
equality with all others as to rights of property and personal rights. Woman
from the earliest times of Christianity held a position of independence and of
great responsibility. Marriage under the religious conception is the highest
moral union, and whatever is yielded by the one sex is given up from motives of
unselfish affection, and the 1 Comm., vol. ii. p. 187.
claims of
the one sex are balanced by those of the other. Accordingly rights of property
in both are equal; and personality may be asserted in them, if it be for the
highest interest of both.
The
progress of the religious sentiment and of right reason will be continually in
this direction, towards asserting the absolute legal independence and equality
of woman.
It will
here be asked : Does not this lead to the share of women in government?
Undoubtedly it does ultimately. Christianity by itself no more teaches female
suffrage than it does republicanism or free trade. But it throws into human
society that sentiment of equality before God, that principle of equal rights
and equal responsibility, and of universal brotherhood, which all lead logically
to these results. The thorough application and carrying out of Christian
principles in human society is a result only to be expected in distant ages. In
the meantime it is the part of wisdom to prepare the world for these great
changes, and to begin them by slow and careful steps. In the United States, and
England, a useful beginning has been made in regard to woman, by admitting her
vote in elections for school trustees and in municipalities. The time is not
far distant when in some communities her vote, limited by education and
property, will be received on larger fields of suffrage. So great and vital a
change will thus be made slowly and with careful preparation. Woman will be
trained and educated for her new duty.
The final
effects on society of this important reform cannot now be predicted; but as it
is in the line of all the other great changes which have attended humane
progress under Christianity, we may reasonably hope that the ultimate results
will be equally happy for mankind.
The moral position
of woman in the leading Christian
races is
far advanced beyond anything known in the past. A very considerable portion of
the education of the youth of the United States, for instance, is in the hands
of female teachers. The public and private schools, the academies, high
schools, ward and village schools are taught to a very large degree by women.
Colleges for women, too, have sprung up in various States, in many of which
advanced courses of instruction are pursued. The medical profession is open to
a certain extent to women ; and there are female physicians with large and
profitable practices. But the field where women publicly are most efficient is
the management of charities, especially for the young. They conduct most of the
orphan asylums, “homes” for the poor, industrial schools, foundling asylums and
similar charities throughout the United States. Hundreds of thousands of the
poor are brought continually under their influence. The ladies of the educated
classes organized, during the Civil War, the remarkable agency for helping the
wounded, which worked in co-operation with the Sanitary Commission, and
relieved an untold amount of misery. This association was in affiliation with
hundreds of societies of relief throughout the country, and was as remarkable
for its organization as its humanity.
Since the
war, women have mainly founded the various important societies for inspecting
public charities, and the charity organization associations which have reformed
so many public abuses, and prevented and relieved so much misfortune.
Women are
now being appointed for the State boards of charity, the school boards, and
similar important public organizations.
Almost
equally important work has been done by women in Europe, in labours of public
charity, in assistance to the wounded, and in the direction of education.
In
England, ladies of position have been elected to the school boards, and have
been placed in public offices connected with charities. They have long been
(where they represented property) members of vestries and have voted in
municipalities.
In
Germany, during the Franco-German War, associations of women everywhere sought
to heal the terrible evils of war, and to relieve the wounded, whether among
the enemy or their own countrymen.
In social
and private life in the United States, woman has profound and often
well-deserved influence. In her early direction of the education and religious
training of the young, in her social influence and the moral power she exerts
over the other sex in all classes, we begin to observe the true and legitimate
effects of the faith of Jesus. In the lower classes she checks intemperance,
and continually strives to raise the children to a higher range of life. In
the middle classes she urges the moral side of all causes, promotes honesty in
the payment of debts, supports the best movements of charity and religion, and
has often a high ambition for the education and advancement of her children. In
the fortunate classes, amid much frivolity and display, the sex still keeps
family life pure, and leads the other in all humane efforts, and in real
religious feeling. It is true that the sex has much to answer for in the United
States, in stimulating extravagance and vulgar ambition. But woman still leads
the nation in all the higher and more unselfish aims and labours.
And if, as
often seems, a night of scepticism in America and Europe is to descend upon the
most generous minds among the men, woman will still keep lighted the torch of
faith, and guide the race till the morning shines again to all. Whatever
position woman holds in civilized society is clearly a fruit of Christianity.
Even should,
WOMAN
UNDER AGNOSTICISM. 299
I
by evil
chance, agnosticism at length become for a time the creed of the world,
Christian traditions would long survive. But if after the lapse of ages all men
and all women should live “without God and without hope” in the world, and the
Christian “Good News” be as a long-forgotten, once welcome sound of Sabbath
bells heard in a dream, and reverence for anything supernal have faded away,
and the ties of earth be but the accidental bonds of beings soon to disappear,
and the unselfish living for others an “ altruism ” to end in nought in a few
days, then will woman become but as a weaker fellow- animal, with no especial
respect encircling her, and perhaps will herself lose the purity and sanctity
which made her under Christianity the object of so much reverence.
Woman, in
a society to which immortality is a dream and Christ a myth, would after the
course of centuries lose the ideal position which Christianity had given her.
On her would especially fall the degeneracy and melancholy of the race.
We need
not say, however, to those who have studied the laws of human progress, that a
reaction must come to any such degeneracy, or the race must die. Faith and hope
must resume their power; unselfishness must become again the highest ideal of
the soul; Christianity, or some new revelation of the unseen, must shine again
after ages of darkness, and as the human race advances, woman must retake the
position the Faith of Jesus had given her.
Either
this, or an utter degeneracy and the final ruin of mankind.
DIVORCE.
Humane and moral progress is almost coincident with the
increasing sacredness attached to the marriage-bond. That earliest of
evolutionists, Lucretius, justly dates the first true refinement1 of
the human race from “ chaste single marriage.” We have shown to what degree the
extraordinary social depravity and degradation of Roman society under the
emperors were due to the looseness of this tie. In the modern world, that form
of faith which has most neglected monogamy and has most clearly taught freedom
of divorce, has been followed by the greatest degradation of woman. The
Mohammedan countries show what social fruits a license in this matter brings
forth.
We have
already spoken of Christ’s view of marriage, repeated and followed by the
Apostles and the early Christians. The Master regarded it as one of the most
holy and permanent of human relations. He evidently set a value upon it as upon
no other external relation or institution. All other human connections were to
be abandoned for it: God Himself had formed it, and it was only to be broken
and a new relation joined for the most serious and profound reasons. The
Apostles, indeed, did not always so fully
1 Turn
genus humanum primum mollescere ccepit. {De Rer. Nat., lib. 5.)
appreciate
it; yet they compared it to the most mysterious and earnest bond known to
man—that uniting the soul to its Redeemer. All these, too, have everywhere
taught that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that any connection,
other than that of marriage, defiles that temple. .
It is true
that the Church early fell into an extreme of asceticism and celibacy. Still
the distinctive teachings of Christ must be admitted to present the highest
possible ideal of marriage, and the utmost sense of its sacredness. We are not,
however, prepared to say that the words of Jesus are to be followed, without
admitting any possible limitation or exception. In the few precepts quoted from
Him, He apparently admits but one ground of divorce— unfaithfulness ; and He
forbids re-marriage if the partners are separated through any other cause. Paul
extends the grounds to malicious desertion by an unbelieving partner, and
apparently permits re-marriage; yet this permission is doubted by many
commentators.
It may
fairly be reasoned in so difficult and important a matter, that the Master
included in unfaithfulness anything which openly and clearly perverted the ends
of the relation ; and that Paul, who probably knew of teachings by Him of which
we have not heard, inferred even a greater latitude, where so great a
separating power as difference of religious faith came in between the partners.
As we have
stated before, the true inference from these early teachings is that the utmost
sanctity is to be attached to marriage, and that divorce is only to be
permitted from the most serious grounds, which affect the very existence of the
relation.
Under the
Christian teachings, men are not lightly to enter on marriage ; they are to
observe it loyally; it is a bond for life and death; much is to be endured for
the
sake of
sustaining it, even if it be not in all respects complete; perfect faithfulness
and purity are demanded from man as from woman ; if separation occur from light
cause, the partners are not permitted to marry another; and if a final breaking
of the tie take place, it must be from very profound and serious reasons, such
as make the marriage no true union of body and soul. This we believe to be
substantially the Christian doctrine of marriage.
But as
this is the one exception in which Christ’s words apply to institutions or
outward acts, and not to principles, we may easily be mistaken as to the
application of His teachings.
What has
this moral doctrine accomplished in the world’s progress ? The words of the
Lord were first uttered amid a community—the Jewish—where polygamy had been
tolerated, and free divorce of the wife by the husband was permitted.
They were
thrown as seeds into another society—the Roman—where, as we have shown,
divorces were daily, and the marriage relation had reached its lowest state of
degradation, and family morals were corrupt to the last degree. The struggle
against free divorce, as we have indicated, was a changing one under the
so-called Christian emperors of Rome, and throughout the ancient world. Even
Justinian was obliged to issue a law,1 which revoked what he had
promulgated against too free divorce. Still everywhere into Roman and barbaric
society was penetrating a new conception of marriage, or at least a respect
and reverence for it, and an opposition to divorce, such as the ancient world
had never known. The Christian conception was in harmony with the German,
though the northern tribes permitted polygamy, and often indulged in too free
divorce. This fresh principle of purity and respect 1 Nov., 140.
for
marriage, did more than anything towards saving the barbaric tribes from the
degeneracy which had overtaken the Greeks and Romans. Roman law, before
Justinian, showed the effect of the new Faith, in strengthening this bond, but
not by any means to the degree which might have been hoped for. Where divorce
occurred on account of the guilty conduct of one of the partners, the consequences
to the guilty one in a pecuniary direction were made more heavy than under the
old Roman law, and occasionally re-marriage was restricted ; but divorce by
mutual consent, with liberty of re-marriage, was finally permitted.
The drift
of influence, as the Christian doctrines came more and more into power in the
Middle Ages, was in favour of the permanence of marriage. Yet this was modified
by non-Christian views which also imbued society under the influence of the
Church. Celibacy became too highly honoured, and marriage was looked upon as a
species of impurity. A vast deal of concealed vice and concubinage existed,
especially among the clergy—a natural reaction against these extreme views. The
clergy, who were generally unmarried, had the framing of the canon-law on
marriage, and in consequence made it the expression of the extreme ascetic
doctrine. Under their influence marriage became a sacrament, and for scarcely
any cause could be broken; while the position of the woman was inferior in this
relation to what it had been under the purely Christian view. The general
churchly view of divorce in the Middle Ages is thus concisely stated by Pres.
Woolsey in his excellent essay:1 (1) That no crime of either
partner, being Christian, justified re-marriage to another during the life of
the offender. (2) If an
1 Essay on
Divorce. This valuable little book is the clearest and most able monogram on
divorce, in modern writing.
infidel
partner deserted a Christian, the latter could remarry. (3) Consorts separated
by criminal conduct could unite with each other again, but the guilty one must
do penance.
There were
conflicting views in regard to the right of re-marriage after separation for
criminal conduct; but on the whole, the prevailing belief was that this should
be only a separation, not a divorce.
These
extreme views, going far beyond the Christian doctrine, first discouraging
marriage, then making marriage a very heavy burden which could never be
removed, produced naturally a great reaction. The Protestant Reformers
expressed in their lives and doctrines this reaction. They were, as might be
expected, indignant at the fearful amount of corruption and vice, natural and
unnatural, which had grown up under the extreme Roman Catholic ideas. They saw
that the worst offence against the marriage-bond was looked upon with
indifference or excuse; and that where this crime separated the partners, it
did not relieve the innocent one ;1 she, perhaps, being compelled to
a life of solitude and penury, while her guilty partner continued his round of
wicked pleasures, or lived in open concubinage ; or, if of weak nature, she was
left to temptations which she could with difficulty resist. The Protestant
Reformers were accordingly in favour of freer divorce. There was a difference
of view among the Churches, some few holding that the bond could only be broken
by death or criminal conduct, but the majority extending the causes of divorce
to malicious desertion, and some permitting even cruel treatment or the opinion
of the judge to determine a lawful breaking of the tie.8
The modern
tendency of opinion in Europe, partly as a re-action against excessive
strictness, is unquestionably 1 Woolsey. • 3 Ibid.
towards
freer separation. France has passed through the period of revolutionary ideas,
and under the famous Code Civil has permitted great laxity in this matter, but
with the fall of the first Empire, she returned to the old ecclesiastical
legislation on marriage ; yet this stage of opinion will probably not endure
long, and legislation will be obtained for more ready divorce. Much freedom of
divorce is given by the Prussian Code, yet certain obstacles are thrown in the
way of separation from mere caprice ; and in case of criminal conduct,
provision is made to compel the guilty partner to make compensation for the
benefit of the children of the innocent partner.1
The
Austrian Code is very lax in its restrictions on divorce towards non-Catholics,
though retaining the ecclesiastical laws for Catholics. In Switzerland there
is also very considerable freedom of divorce. In England the legislation is
much stricter than in other Protestant countries. Separation from “ bed and
board ” is permitted for injuries and cruel treatment, for desertion during two
years, or for criminal conduct. Divorce is allowed for the adultery of the
wife, and for “ incestuous adultery/' or bigamy, with other similar offences of
the husband. Both parties can remarry at once after divorce ; and the guilty
member be united with the partner in crime. The courts are permitted to settle
the guilty wife’s property on the husband and children.
United
States Law.—The views expressed by courts and jurists in the United States in
regard to marriage, bear evidently the stamp of the Christian doctrine, but it
cannot be said that American legislation has been at all in harmony with it.
Thus Chief Justice Robertson 2 says,
1 Woolsey, p. 147.
3 Logan v. Logan. Quoted by Cord, sect. 936.
“ Marriage
being more fundamental and important than any of the social relations, is controlled
as to its obligation by a peculiar policy, deemed essential to the welfare of
the whole community. Being a contract for life, indissoluble by the consent of
the parties merely, it should not be dissolved by the sovereign will for any
other causes than such as are subversive of its essential ends, or inconsistent
with the general welfare. And it is certainly important to the general
stability and harmony of that relation, that the parties should know that
having taken each other with all their infirmities and vowed reciprocal
fidelity and forbearance for life, it is their interest as well as their duty
to bear and forbear, as far as the resources of love, philosophy and religion
can enable them.”
And again,
“The
institution of marriage, commencing with the race and attending man in all
periods, and in all countries, has ever been considered the particular glory
of the social system. It has shone forth in dark countries and in dark periods
of the world, a bright luminary on his horizon. And but for this institution,
all that is valuable, all that is virtuous, all that is desirable in human
existence, would long since have faded away in the general retrogression of the
race, and in the perilous darkness in which its joys and its hopes would have
been wrecked together.1
A careful
writer on the “ Domestic Relations,” Schouler, says,
“ When
parties united in the solemn responsibility of marriage, can coolly discuss and
arrange the preliminaries of final dissolution, and haste to obtain judicial
relief for the purpose of forming a new union, as is sometimes done in our
land, they are hardly fitted to discharge nature’s highest obligations to one
another ; certainly they cannot do justice to their children nor to society.
Thus may marriage lose half its significance by parting with all its sanctity.”5
Judge
Story says,
“It
(marriage) appears to me sometimes more than a mere contract. It is rather to
be deemed an institution of society, founded upon the
1 Bishop. On Divorce, p. 13.
2 Schouler. On the Domestic Relations, p.
302.
consent
and contract of the parties, and in this view it has some- peculiarities in its
nature, character, operation, and extent of obligation, different from what
belongs to ordinary contracts." 1
In a work
of this nature, it is not necessary to give a detailed sketch of the
legislation on divorce in the different American States. In what we have to
say, we follow mainly Prest. Woolsey’s admirably clear resum6. The State where
the marriage law was most strict before the civil war, was South Carolina, in
which it is stated that no case of divorce ever came before the courts, and no
divorce was ever granted by the legislature, nor was ever even a legal
separation granted by law. In New York State, the law greatly resembles the
English legislation : divorce is permitted for adultery, and separation for
specific acts, the great differences being that if one of the partners is found
guilty of adultery, a re-marriage is not permitted during the lifetime of the
innocent member, and that husband and wife are put on precisely the same
footing as to criminal conduct as a ground of divorce.
The
majority of the States, however, permit divorce for a great variety of causes,
and present a looseness of procedure which has increased the facility for a
legal separation on trivial grounds to an alarming extent. In most of the
States, adultery, malicious desertion under various conditions, imprisonment
for crime, neglect to provide for a wife’s maintenance, cruelty and habitual
drunkenness, are held as grounds of divorce, and in a few the membership of a
religious society which regards marriage to be unlawful. But beyond these, in
certain States 2 divorce is left to the discretion of the court; and
1 Conjl. of Laws, 108.
2 Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, Rhode Island
and Connecticut,
(Woolsey,
pp. 204, 205.)
in
Connecticut a statute allows divorce for “any such misconduct as permanently
destroys the happiness of the petitioner, and defeats the purpose of the
conjugal relation.” This particular clause in the statute was repealed in
1878, with very good results in the following year, there being 316 divorces
against 401 of the previous year. The effects, however, since that date have
not been remarkable.
It is in
the above State, and Indiana, that divorce law#' have been most loose. A year’s
residence in the lattei"' ■qualified a person to
petition for divorce ; the case could be tried thirty days after notices had
been published in a newspaper of the county; the defendant was often ignorant
of the proceedings, and both parties were freed "by the divorce from the
marriage contract.
The
liberty of re-marriage varies exceedingly in the different States, the greater
number however putting no •restriction on the union of divorced persons.
The result
of this license of divorce in the average number of divorces to the marriages
is an instructive fact. Thus from i860 to 1867, in Vermont, out of 15,710
marriages there were 730 divorces, or 1 to 2I‘5 ; in Massachusetts, from 1861
to 1866, 1 to 444; in Ohio, from 1865 to 1866, 1 to 26; and in Connecticut,
from i860 'to 1867, 1 to 1140; and in 1864, there was one divorce in that State
to nearly every ten marriages.1 We have not the figures for Indiana.
In Prussia, the ratio for non-Catholics in 1855 was 1 to 29; in Belgium in 1874,
1 to 272;
in France, from 1871 to 1874, 1 to 152.2
It will be
seen from this brief sketch, that the Christian doctrine of divorce, as we
understand it, has seldom in the world’s history been accepted in its pure
form. Christi-
1 Woolsey, pp. 221, 222.
2 Naquet, Le Divorce.
\
anity has
strengthened marriage in every age. But on one side, has been too much
asceticism, or too much strictness with the marriage-tie, and on the other, too
much looseness of the bond.
The
present drift is the opposite to that of the Middle Ages, and towards an
excessive license in divorce. There can be little question that the extreme
difficulties thrown about separation, such as the English law presents, or such
as have been offered in South Carolina, have been unwholesome. They bring about
great hardships and injustices in the marriage relation, and tempt to concubinage.
The latter is said to have been very common in South Carolina under the old law
1 English society among the higher classes is reported as much more
contaminated with this relation than is American society under freer divorce
laws. Catholic countries under the strict canon law do not present certainly
nearly so happy a condition in regard to marriage, as do Protestant countries,
where much latitude is allowed.
On the
other hand, the conviction is growing among the most thoughtful persons in the
United States, that if a license in divorce increases, such as has been allowed
in a few of the States, the utmost peril threatens the most important interests
of society. There is danger of marriage losing all its sacredness ; of its
being taken up and dropped like concubinage, and the children of these unhappy
connections floating about, uncared for, on the currents of society. There is
nothing as yet in American society of the old Roman license of morals in regard
to marriage and divorce, and there could not be where Christianity had the
faintest influence ; but there are dangers ominous for this relation which are
arousing general anxiety. Public opinion in such States as Indiana and
Connecticut, 1 See Bishop, On Divorce.
is
strongly running towards greater strictness, and some changes in legislation
have been made in this direction.
Perhaps
the most striking modern instance of the effect1 of utter freedom of
divorce, and liberty of re-marriage, is given in the habits and life of the
foreign poor in a city like New York. Here th,e Irish or German peasant, being
removed from the restraints of home and priesthood, applies to his “ civil
contract" a freedom of action which he would not use in any other
contract. As the wife grows older and less attractive, she is thrown aside for
some more pleasing companion; the husband migrates to distant parts of the
country and disappears, and the unhappy woman and children are left on the
world to struggle as they best may. Or again, the wife abandons the husband,
and he is compelled to leave the children in neglect; or marrying again, to
place them under that relation, often so cruel among the poor, of the
step-mother. It is not strange that one of the prolific causes of the
extraordinary crime and misery among children in New York is the looseness of
the marriage tie.1
Of course,
in a more cultivated class, many causes will soften the effects of free
divorce. But in the long course of years, the influence upon family life and
the future of children, of weakening the marriage bond, even among persons of
education, will be parallel to what we see of its effects on the poor in
American cities. When among modern races marriage is even less than a civil
contract, to be broken not merely by “ mutual consent,” but by the whim or
fancy of either party, when it can be assumed and abandoned as easily as any
relation of feeling or imagination, then will the sacredness have departed
from many of our homes. Human selfishness and passion
1 See The Dangerous Classes of Neiv York,
p. 41. By the Author.
will take
the place of duty. Children will be left to uncertain guidance; the greatest
security in modern life undermined, and one of our purest wells of happiness
defiled. When this shall have occurred in the modern world a physical
degeneracy will commence which will be contemporaneous with the moral, and such
races will lose power and virtue, until, as in the Roman empire, more vigorous
peoples take their places.
It is true
that under a theory of free divorce a very happy marriage in favourable
circumstances may occur. But so a happy concubinage is sometimes known. The
question is, How will society generally tend if there is unlimited license of
separation and re-marriage ? Human selfishness and masculine caprice and
passion seem best cured by throwing a peculiar sacredness and earnestness'
about marriage, so that it be not lightly entered upon, and be loyally carried
through. The home must be made secure and stable ; children must not be left to
uncertain care; and each partner must feel constrained to govern fancy or
selfishness with a view to the loyalty of the relation.
Notwithstanding
the facts we have mentioned, on the whole, especially in the Middle States, it
may be said that the marriage condition is happier and more often founded on
affection, and that concubinage is less known there than anywhere else in the
civilized world. Woman nearly occupies, in America, the position which
Christianity seems to assign her—of the moral leader and inspirer of society
and the equal of man in personal rights, with the liberty of nearly all
possible development of her capacities.
In a State
like New York the strictness of the English law is tempered by the freedom easily
enjoyed by dissatisfied partners in other States. Marriage, among the
intelligent
classes, is highly reverenced, and not easily broken. Only grave causes are
usually held in society to justify divorce, and yet there is no absolute yoke
in the relation. The conscious freedom enjoyed, and the sacredness attached to
the bond, have combined under New York law to make marriages unusually stable
and often peculiarly happy. There is still too much license of divorce, owing
to the legislation of other States ; and the partner who has separated for
trivial causes often takes the liberty of re-marriage to another too readily.
The Christian ideal (if we understand it correctly) is not yet reached ; yet it
is approached.
As society
everywhere advances in morality and refinement and intelligence, it will more
and more draw near 'the model which Christ and His apostles have sketched of
marriage, to the casta connubia of which Lucretius speaks. Equal chastity will
be expected from man and woman ; the body will be as “ the temple of God ” ;
two natures will tend to be one in a relation formed by the Creator and
esteemed beyond all other relations,—a bond only to be broken for extreme
causes, so sacred that, if dissolved for light reasons, it is still in
conscience held binding.
Legislation,
as it advances, will tend in this direction to solidify and firmly establish
marriage, to make quick divorces difficult, to throw the burden and penalty of
the violation of the bond on the guilty one, to protect the children, and to
give the dissatisfied or disagreeing partners time and opportunity for
reconciliation ; and yet it will not force an unfortunate woman or man, bound
to a brutal or unfaithful partner, for ever to be in bondage to a relation
which has no foundation of affection or respect. The laws of the future, like
the Christian doctrine of marriage, will draw a via media between the
strictness of the Catholic canon-law
and the
license of Protestant practice and law in regard to marriage and divorce.
In regard
to concubinage, Christianity works everywhere to extirpate it. It has
continually tended through all modern history to do away with illicit
connections between the sexes. In this matter the Church, at certain periods of
its history, has been fearfully inconsistent with the teachings of the Master.
At present, however, it .leads the morality of the world on this subject. To
the Faith preached in Galilee, Roman law owed its first tinge of humanity in
regard to the children of these unfortunate connections. As we have shown in an
earlier chapter, Constantine, under the influence of the new ideas in the
world, legitimated illegitimate children per subsequens ma- trimonium, by a
subsequent marriage, his object being, as the code states, to break up this
permitted habit of semimatrimony.1 Justinian continued and
confirmed this humane legislation ; and, under the Popes, it was preserved by
two rescripts of Pope Alexander, in the Decretals2 of Gregory (1172
A.D. and 1180). This legislation was imitated in Scotland and in most of
Central Europe. Similar provisions protecting the unhappy children of unlawful
connections, have been engrafted in the legislation of most of, the States of
the American Union, and in some States even a formal declaration of the father,3
affirming a subsequent marriage, is sufficient to legitimate the children, if
it be filed in court and recorded.
Humane
progress in the matter of divorce and concubinage has been more influenced by
the teachings of Galilee than by any other one cause in history. Yet it is
evident that civilized society has not at all in general
1 Licita
consuetudo semi-matrimonii. (Cod. Lib. 6,'tit. 57.)
2 Dec., iv. 17, 1.
8 Schouler.
reached
the ideal of purity and of marriage presented by the great Teacher. As mankind
becomes better and happier it continually approaches that ideal; and the
perfection of humanity will be almost attained when the Christian conception of
marriage is realized by man and by woman.
DEGRADATION
OF WOMAN.
It would
seem at first thought that one terrible social evil existed which Christianity
had not only not mitigated, but scarcely even touched—the prostitution of
women. The class of human beings who live by selling that which is above all
price is still the most hopeless and irredeemable under modern civilization.
Christ Himself had evidently felt a profound compassion for these unfortunate
and guilty persons ; and this example in all ages has led His followers to
special efforts to improve and save these victims of their own folly and
poverty and man’s passions. But as society has become more and more permeated
with the Christian sentiment and sense of obligation of purity, these persons,
who persistently and openly violated it, have become more and more sunken by
contrast. Their own sense of degradation is the measure of the prevailing
standard of society. When the Greek wives and maidens were as they were in the
time of Socrates, the hetairae might well be the leaders of society. And when
Roman married life had reached the low stage of the period of the early empire,
legislation to prevent'high-born matrons from becoming prostitutes would be
natural.1 One of the safeguards of modern society is in the perhaps
exaggerated sentiment of contempt and condemnation against those who
1 Tacitus
(Ann. 2. 83).
315
are lewd
for hire. But this protection around the virtuous seems to still more shut out
the vicious from the sacred circle of purity. Society generally is purified,
marriage is more sacred, woman is in a higher position of respect and
influence, but the class of female offenders against sexual virtue is even
lower than in antiquity.
But even
with this class some great steps in advance have been made. There are no longer
those, except in non-Christian lands, who sacrifice virtue and purity as an
offering to base ideals of superstition, and become prostitutes at the shrine
of a deity. There are no longer large classes of persons, like those under the
Roman Empire, who as slaves held their virtue at the will of another, or were
compelled as libidinous actors to live for the lusts of men. Neither religion
nor law nor social custom compels the “ lost women ” to remain as they* are.
They have no unchangeable profession any further than their own weakness of
will fixes it. They are the victims of their own idleness or folly or bad
habits.
On the
other hand, all the best influences of society are seeking to reclaim them and
to diminish this source of so many calamities. Christianity has, as it were,
only begun its century-long struggle with this tremendous social evil. If the
student reads carefully Plato’s Laws,1 he will find there a curious
passage, already partially quoted in this work, where the philosopher of love
regards the terrible unnatural lusts of men in Greece at that day with somewhat
of the hopelessness that a fervent Christian philosopher of this century might
feel in regard to this vice among women.
Plato
believes that certain great moral forces or ideals will, in a far distant
future, purify society of these morbid passions; but to him this result is as
far away as, for
1 Nomoij
ix.
instance,
universal peace is now to the Christian. The modern student has seen society
almost cleansed of these impurities, under the influence of the new ideal
before the world. So, after many ages, it will be under Christianity with
woman’s vice and impurity.
The first
great step has been made under the new Faith. Woman’s fall could not happen
without man’s temptation. The duty of masculine purity (though only partially
recognized by Christians) is most clearly taught by Christ As we have said
before, He was not alone in preaching this doctrine. The stoical moralists had
taught it. But in every form He and His apostles seek to impress this obligation
on the human conscience. A certain number of His followers in every age are so
inspired by His spirit, that they endeavour “ to become pure even as He is
pure.’’ This number will continually increase, and their opinion and practice
will more and more influence society. As man becomes pure one great source of
temptation will be diminished to women who are idle or frivolous or desperate.
When the conviction spreads through every community, that in this offence, man
sins with the woman ; and, though the moral evil be not to him as to her, yet
that he, as she, holds a temple sacred to the Holy Spirit, and equally with her
has soiled and profaned it ; and that he, as she, has separated himself from
his ideal and Lord, and must answer in his own soul, not only for the injury he
has brought upon himself, but for that ruin he has aided to bring upon
another,—then will an enormous dyke as it were be formed against the spread of
prostitution.
Another
great power restraining its increase will be the Christian and moral influences
which are now thrown more and more around the childhood of the working and
poorer classes. Public women of this kind are not generally, as is supposed,
the victims of deception and wrong
by men.
They are usually poor girls who have grown up without good influences, and not
in habits of regular work or industry; they fall early into ways of idleness,
among bad company, and are ready to earn pleasures and luxuries by unnatural
means. It is this great class of untaught and neglected poor children who
mainly supply the class of prostitutes. Of course there are other elements, but
these form the immense majority. Now to this class, Christianity, under modern
methods, offers at once its peculiar influences. It holds before these children
a sublime ideal of purity; it teaches each one her immense value in the
universe; it trains the little ones to habits of industry and daily work ; it
inculcates purity of person and heart, and prepares each character for the
tough struggle of life, and takes the child almost out of the class of persons
who are exposed to this great vice.
A
remarkable instance is given of the effect of such influences on many thousands
of very poor children, during a space of twenty-five years, in the charitable
work of an association—'the Children’s Aid Society in New York.1
From the careful reports of this charity, it appears that but very few children
among the many thousands who go forth from the industrial schools of this
society, ever fall into criminal courses, but become honest and industrious
working women.
Now it is
quite conceivable that such influences could be vastly extended, and everywhere
the children of the poor brought under this moral discipline and training, so
that one great source of this evil should be much dried up.
Then, as
Christianity prevails in the world, marriage will be held in higher and higher
esteem, and all irregular connections be discouraged, and legislation which
inter-
1 See Dangerous Classes of New York, by the
Author.
feres with
early marriage be discountenanced. Moreover, the morality of the Gospel works
against selfish display, luxury and extravagance, which now under modern habits
so much prevent marriage. Where self-control, sobriety and economy are the
rule, there early and natural connections between the sexes will be more the
custom. To the young man, next to religion, the strongest safeguard against
vice is a chivalric ideal of woman, and certainly the influence of this faith
has always been to give her this exalted position.
The
specific Christian influences will be more and more to exalt marriage, to make
it the perfect example of all human relations, to lead the young to sacrifice
self-indulgence for it, and above all, to present an ideal of purity, for both
man and woman, in the life and teachings of the great Founder of the Faith,
which will raise both sexes above the reach of unlawful passions or unnatural
indulgences. This will not be as in the past an ideal of an unnatural and
impossible asceticism, but simply of purity and self-control. It is entirely
possible that all society may become as a few, inspired with this religion, are
now. We cannot say that Christianity has as yet made any vast change in regard
to this vice. But we can say that it has begun changes. We can see that it has
purified society, that it is redeeming many thousands of youth from this evil,
and that it has implanted a power of resistance and a sense of purity almost
unknown before. We see clearly that it only needs time to perfect its workings
and to greatly diminish, if not extirpate, one of the monster evils of
humanity.
INTERNATIONAL
LAW.—ARBITRATION.
There is evidently one field in which the great
moral forces of history have had little effect, and where Christianity itself
at first sight seems a failure; we mean the public relations between nations.
War still remains the most fearful curse upon mankind; it still desolates thousands
of homes, making innumerable orphans and widows, destroying in a day the
results of long and patient labour, and laying up in taxation and the support
of armies immense burdens upon the labouring classes. Nations are in the same
relations to one another in regard to questions of right or property in which,
the barons of the fourteenth century were to each other. As then a dispute
throughout Europe upon the title to real estate was settled by duel, and as
private gentlemen and individual cities in any difference with their neighbours
resorted at once to “private war,” declared under due formalities, so now
between peoples, disputes in regard to territory or on questions of right and
honour are supposed to have but one court of decision—the arbitrament of
armies. Leaving out of view the wars where great principles are involved, like
the war for the independence of Hungary, the Franco- Austrian struggle for the
freedom of Italy, the American Civil War and others, there are still numerous,
either useless or unjust contests, such as those of the United States
320
with the
Indian tribes, of Great Britain with inferior races like the Chinese, Zulus,
and Afghans, sufficient to show that Christianity has barely touched
international relations among the most highly civilized communities. It is estimated
by De Card that recent wars alone in Europe have cost the people fifty
milliards (50,000,000,000) of francs. The present peace establishment of Europe
embraces over 2,000,000 men, with a liability of 4,000,000 more to be called
out, and a constant expense to the people of ^600,000,000 per annum. Every
country of Continental Europe is eaten up by the taxation necessary on account
of the hostile position of peoples who have substantially the same interests.
To the
Christian Church, international law, or the customs and rules of conduct
between nations, owes little; but to the moral and religious principles with
which Christianity has been slowly impregnating mankind, it has a deep
obligation and will be more and more indebted.
It must be
remembered that international law, as a body, is a creation of the times since
Christianity was a living force in public affairs. It is true that many of its
rules and principles are derived from the Roman law, but the modern spirit
which has especially characterized it since Grotius will be seen to be
essentially influenced by the new Faith.
Among
ancient peoples, the Greeks appear to have had no body of international law
which they recognised as binding them to other nations. The stranger to them
was an enemy and a “barbarian.” There were indeed customs often acknowledged
between their own different tribes and States which rested on principles of
justice and humanity. But even among themselves such actions were permitted, as
the slaughter of prisoners in cold blood, the execution of generals after
misfortune in
war, the
infliction of perpetual slavery on captives, the' absolute annihilation of
hostile cities, the violation of women and murder of children after victory,
the useless punishment of hostages and violence to ambassadors, and bloody
personal revenge on enemies,1 and similar barbarisms.
The Romans
possessed the germs of international law in their “Fecial rules” (jurafecialia)
or religious customs, ■recognized by the
various Italian states in their early history, in regard to declaring war and
other duties between States. It was something that a band of priests .could
restrain warriors and that war could not be made without legal forms. The Roman
Jus Gentium arose later, and was not the law of nations in the modern sense,
nor does it appear that the Romans believed in a code or collection of customs
and laws between nations which would, for instance, restrain Rome itself if it
were not Roman law. No members of a foreign and independent nation not in
alliance with Rome had any rights which the Roman tribunals could enforce. Even
Justinian’s code, in a well known passage,3 asserted that a people
not in alliance with Rome could keep what it could take from the Romans, and
that the latter had an equal right towards the other. In other words, the
natufal relation of nations to one another was that of hostility.
The Jus
Gentium was gradually extracted from the codes and customs of the several
provinces and from the Roman law, being the common element in both, or that
part which rested on principles of equity or<fairness. It was naturally a
more liberal code than the civil law, and finally entered into and partly
absorbed Roman law itself. As Ciccro
1 Ward, Laws of Nations, vol. i. p. 178.
2 Dig., Lib. xlix. 15, 3.
says, “
the civil law was not always the law of nations, but the law of nations must
always be the civil law.” 1
The
Stoical jurists, and after them the codifiers of Justinian’s code, assumed
that this common element in the law of nations was the jus naturale, or natural
law, so that the definition of the law of nations by Gaius’ and Justinian’s
code would not be a bad statement now. “ What natural reason has determined
among all men, that among all is constituted and called the law of nations.” 2
But in practice the Romans scarcely recognised any law of nations binding great
and weak powers, Rome and the barbarians. There is but little trace in their
writings or public action of a belief in a code of rules and customs obligatory
on the mutual conduct of Rome and independent nations.
“Against a
public enemy there is always authority,”3 was an ancient maxim. “
Whatever I have done in regard to enemies of the State, the law of war
defends,” * is an axiom of the Roman general, according to Livy. Cicero,5
indeed, in a very eloquent passage describes a universal law, for all times and
nations, one and eternal, governing all; but his grand rhetoric did not picture
anything which existed, or was likely to exist, in the Roman world.
Ward {Laws
of Nations) says very justly that the theory of the classic nations in regard
to international relations
1 . . . quod
civile, non idem continuo gentium ; quod autem gentium idem civile esse debet.
{De Offic., 3, 17.)
2 Quod vero
naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes peraeque
custoditur, vocaturque Jus gentium, quasi quo jure omnes gentus utuntur. {Just.,
lib. 1, tit. 2. Gains, lib. 2, tit. 10.)
3 Ad versus hostem, seterna auctoritas.
(Tab. Duod., and Cic. de Offic.)
4 Quidquid in hostibus feci, jus belli
defendit. (Liv., xxvi. 30.)
6 Nequeerit alia lex Romae, alia Athenis, alia nunc,
alia post hac ; sed et omnes gentes et omni tempore una lex et scmpiterna et
immu- tabilis, etc. {De Rep., 1. iii. c. 22.)
was, that
men were bound to no duties to one another without some express contract,
Foreigners could anywhere be seized, imprisoned, enslaved or killed, without
any breach of human or Divine laws.
Even
Justinian’s code seems to allow that a prisoner of war may rightly be made a
slave.1
In the
Middle Ages, from the fall of the Roman empire to the eleventh century, there
may be said to have been no international law, or only a confusion of customs,
some of which had been influenced by principles of equity, while others rested
on barbarism. The Italian States, which were especially under the influence of
commerce, in the twelfth century, were among the first to frame treaties in
regard to the liberty of the seas and the right of prize in the time of peace.
The early commercial codes of the north of Europe, in the Mediterranean, and of
Europeans in the East, contained many features of modern international law.
Piracy, however, was still allowed in the time of war. The first, check to “
private war" on the sea was made by privateering, near the beginning of
the eleventh century, as we shall hereafter detail.
One of the
first appeals of one nation to the others, as if they formed one commonwealth,
was in the twelfth century ; and in the thirteenth century we find the good
king, St. Louis of France, chosen arbitrator between Henry III. of England and
his barons. In 1356 Edward III. made an appeal to “all Christendom” against
John of France, as if a certain bond united all European peoples. Yet so little
progress had international right made, that in the reign of St. Louis, we are
told by his biographer that if two kings were at war and one of them died, the
ambassadors who were sent reciprocally remained prisoners and
1 Et liber homo noster ab eis captus, servus fit et
eorum. (Dig.,
lib. xlix. tit. 15, 3.)
slaves.1
The barbarities of the Middle Ages in warfare were equal to those of the worst
of the Roman times. The Normans are said by historians to have put their
prisoners to death under terrible tortures ; some were suspended over slow
fires and hung by their feet or thumbs; some had their brains crushed by tight
ligatures ; some were thrown into dungeons with serpents. Female prisoners were
exposed to the most brutal treatment. The Scotch, in their invasion of England
under David I., murdered the sick and the aged in their beds, infants on the
breasts of the mother, and priests at the altar. The Italians in their invasion
of Sicily at the close of the twelfth century were equally cruel, burying
prisoners alive, burning priests and throwing them into the sea. Of the many
wars between the French and English, an old author describing their effects
says, “Churches are despoiled; men everywhere murthered or wounded, others put
to death or tortured ; matrons ravished ; maydes forcibly drawn out of their
parent’s arms to be deflowered ; towns daily taken, daily spoiled, daily
defaced ; the riches of the inhabitants carried whither the conquerors thinke
good ; houses and villages round about set on fire ; no kind of cruelty is left
unpractised.”*
Nor were
wanting in the Middle Ages prominent individual instances of similar
barbarism. The natural son of Frederick II. in 1264, in his war with the Pope,
punished with mutilation and death all priests taken prisoners. Prisoners were
not uncommonly either mutilated or killed. The old Roman custom or law,3
that an enemy who had
1 Suivant la
coutume alors usitfe en Payennie comme en Chretientd que quand deux Princes
estaient en guerre, si l’un d’eux venoit k mourir, les Ambassadeurs qui
s’estoient envoyds reciproquement, demeuroient prisonniers et esclaves. (Joinville,
Vie de St. Louis!)
s Quoted by
Ward, in Laws of Nations.
3 Verum in pace qui pervenerunt ad alteros,
si bellum subito exar-
come to
another country, even in time of peace, could, if war broke out, be enslaved,
existed in Europe in the Middle Ages ; and the enslavement of prisoners did not
cease till the middle of the seventeenth century; the treaties in that century
generally stipulating that prisoners should not be sent by their captors to the
galleys.
Among the
individual instances of cruelty, it is related by the chroniclers that Rufus,
son of William the Conqueror, cut off the hands and feet of the Welsh
prisoners taken by him. The Emperor Barbarossa is said to have delivered all
the prisoners taken in Milan to the executioner or to have shot them off from
military engines. These instances of cruelty in that age could be multiplied
without limit. Poisoned weapons and missiles were used even as late as the
fifteenth century. In the same century it was a public custom to hang prisoners
taken in a siege; and it appears to have been a recognised law of war that a
relieving force, entering a fortified place after the siege was commenced, was
liable to the severest punishments.
Officers
who had fought gallantly and were beaten in the open field, were often, after
capture, executed by the victor. Ambassadors were frequently killed on their
missions of peace. In fact, it may be said that from the time of Caesar till
the fifteenth century there was very little progress in the laws of war.
Christianity had not so touched the peoples of Europe as even to soften superficially
the barbarism of ancient times.
The only
redeeming features were an indirect result of Christianity—the compassion and
courtesy introduced by chivalry and the ransoming of prisoners among the
knights. But these were humanities which were ex-
sisset,
eorum servi efficiuntur, apud quos jam hostes suo facto depre- henduntnr.
{Dig., xlix. 15, 12.)
ercised
only among a class. They did not reach the common soldier, or benefit the
peasant and labourer. Fearful acts of atrocity against peasants and citizens by
the kings and generals of the Middle Ages are often reported.
The first
great change was in the treatment of prisoners. Suarez, in the sixteenth
century, states that the old custom of the Roman law of nations, of making
slaves of prisoners, had been changed in the Church, and was no longer observed
among Christians.1 An old English historian, Sir Thomas Smith (1570
A.D.) thus states the reform:— “ Howbeit since our Realme hath received
the Christian religion, which maketh us all brethren in Christ, conservos
(fellow-servants), men beganne to have conscience to hold in captivitie and
such extra-bondage, him whom they must acknowledge to be their brother ; that
is, who looketh in Christ and by Christ to have equal portion with them in the
gospel and salvation.” 3
Ayala
writing in the sixteenth century says, that in the wars of Christians, the
enslavement of prisoners is not permitted, nor perpetual imprisonment, and that
all such wars are only civil wars, because all are “ brethren in Christ.” 3
It was
pot, however, till the treaty of Munster (1648) that it became the general
custom of European nations to release all prisoners at the end of the war,
without ransom. This important step in humane progress, it should be
1 Sic enim Jus Gentium de servitute
captivorum in bello justo, in Ecclesia mutatum est, et inter Christianos, id
non servatur. (De legibus. Suarez.) Ward, vol. ii. p. 27.
2 Commonwealth of England, previously cited.
3 Et in prima
receptum est ut in bellis Christianorum servitus non sit. Haec enim bella non
plus quam civilia sint quia omnes in Christi fratres, etc. (Lib. iii.-ix.,
De Jure et Bellicis officiis, 1597.) See also p. 54, ibid., and Alberici
Gentilis, De Jure Belli, Oxford, 1877.
noted, is
coincident with the revival of pure Christianity in England and many portions
of the Continent. Previous to this treaty, in 1630 we find a distinct allusion
to the slavery of prisoners of war in the treaty of Madrid between Spain and
England (Art. xxviii.). “ Prisoners taken in war on both sides, although
condemned to the galleys, shall be set at liberty and dismissed upon payment of
their expenses by those who are not in the galleys, and upon payment of their
ransom by those who had formerly agreed to it.”
Many of
the non-Christian nations held that no faith was to be kept with those not of
their own belief. Even the Koran taught this.1 The Mohammedan powers
in the north of Africa enslaved all shipwrecked persons and prisoners, and
tortured their captives. Only direct treaties with European powers3
secured the abolition of these barbarities.
The Turks
in the sixteenth century treated even ambassadors with inhumanity, though
European customs had become gradually humane towards these officials, and
resident ambassadors were permitted to dwell with safety in the country of a
rival or enemy. The Spaniards imitated the Turks in putting prisoners to death
or sending them to the galleys ; even in the declaration that no faith was to
be kept with heretics. ,
It was not
till 1828, that Turkey and Persia agreed to exchange prisoners according to the
custom of Christian nations.3
One of the
earliest expositions of international duties was made about 1506 A.D. by Prior
Honor^ Bonnor, in a
1 Hedaya, ix. 3.
2 Treaty with Algiers in 1686, and with
Tripoli and Tunis. Ward, vol. ii. p. 331.
3 Manning’s Laws of Nations, p. 162.
work
called “L’arbre des Batailles.”1 This writer shows strongly the
influence of his professed faith, in his recommendations : he teaches that
battles should be avoided on holy days; that those dying in unjust wars do not
go to heaven, and claims the exemption of Churchmen, pilgrims, the sick and
infirm from the duties and evils of war. He even permits the students of
belligerent powers to visit the universities of one another during the
struggle.
The early
writers on international law seem to have been in advance of the practice of
the Church in respect to wars with non-Christian nations. The author quoted
above says : “ By what right can we make war against Sarassins or other
infidels ? I will prove that we cannot do it lawfully for their being infidels
. . . Moreover we should not and cannot, according to the Holy Scriptures,
oblige infidels to embrace the holy faith and baptism, but must leave them with
the free will which God has given them.”3 Ayala makes a similar
humane protest (lib. 1-28).
A striking
instance of the influence of Christianity in the barbarous period of Europe, is
contained in Alcuin’s letter to Charlemagne, wherein he reminds him to show
mercy to prisoners, even as God will show mercy to him.3
Grotius.—The
great reforms in modern international law, due especially to the spirit of
Christianity, began in great part with the eminent Dutch publicist, Grotius,
early in the seventeenth century. He thus states the motives which prompted him
to his great work:
“For I
saw, prevailing through the Christian world, a license in
1 L’arbre des Batailles, 1506, Lyon.
: Ibid.,
quoted by Digby, 3,153 (Mor. Cath.).
3 Memor
sit pietas vestra captivorum, etc. {Al. Ep. 90).
making
war, of which even barbarians would have been ashamed ; recourse being had to
arms for slight reason or no reason, and when arms were onc^taken up, all
reverence for divine and human law was thrown away, just as if men were
thenceforth authorized to commit all crime without restraint.” 1
The Law of
Nature, on which, as is well known, he especially bases his Law of Nations, he
ascribes to God, and speaks of express laws of God as “restraining passion,”
and touches the key-note of modern humane progress in these words :
“ The
Sacred History doth not a little provoke us to mutual love by teaching that we
are all of us born of the same first parents.”2
The
reforms of the laws of war in modern times have been especially in the
direction of limiting, so far as possible, its evil effects to the combatants,
of allowing no damage which did not conduce to the purpose of the war, and of
abolishing the dictum of barbarism, that if two nations are at war, all the
citizens of each must be also enemies. The last principle still lingers in the
writings of many publicists, but Grotius was too much imbued with the Religion
of Love to be willing to recognise it. Of war, some of his opinions lire still
worth quoting and remembering.
“ We
Christians are especially taught to expose our own lives to the greatest perils
that can be, to preserve the lives and procure the everlasting welfare of
others, in imitation of our great Lord and Master.
. . . How
much more reason have we to forbear the prosecution of our just rights when
they cannot be obtained without the effusion of so much blood, and the
destruction of so many men’s lives and estates, besides other mischiefs which
war usually brings with it.” “ When we consider that by the Hebrew Law, he who
had slain a man even
1 De Jure Belli, etc., Hugo Grotius
(preliminary statement). Evart’s trans. 1782.
2 Preface.
without
intending it, was obliged to fly ; that God forbade His temple to be built by
David, who is related to have carried on private wars, because he had shed much
blood; that even among the ancient Greeks, those who had stained their hands
with manslaughter, even without fault, had need of expiation, how can any one
fail to see, especially among Christians, what an unhappy and disastrous thing
and how strenuously to be avoided, is a war, even when not unjust” (p. 283).
"
Good faith,” which was at that day so generally violated in the relations of
nations, is thus urged, on both secular and religious grounds :
“ And,
therefore, it is especially the office of kings to cherish good faith, first
for the sake of conscience, and then for the sake of good opinion, by which the
authority of kingdoms stands. Let them be certain, therefore, that they who
instil into them acts of deceit, are themselves the deceivers they would make
them. Doctrines cannot long work well which make men unfit for society with
man, and we may add, hateful to God” (c. 25, t. 11).
His views
of privateering have anticipated the reforms of this century, and are evidently
guided by the Christian theory of life.
“ But even
if justice, strictly speaking, be not violated, there may be an offence against
loving our neighbour, especially in a Christian aspect, as if it appears that
such privateering will not hurt the general body of the enemy, or their king,
or the guilty portion of them, but the innocent ; and it will inflict upon them
calamities which it would be cruel to inflict even on those who are personally
indebted to us. And if besides this, such a privateering is not likely to
conduce either to the termination of the war, or to any notable damage of the
enemy’s public power, then it must be considered unworthy of a right-minded
man, and especially a Christian, to make a gain in this way out of the
unhappiness of the times” (c. 18, t. 14).
He opposes
from religious grounds that rule of the Law of Nations, derived from Roman Law,
that prisoners should be slaves. .
“ But even
among Christians, it is universally agreed that being at war among themselves,
they that are taken prisoners are not made
slaves, so
as to sell them, or to enforce them to servile offices, or to impose upon them
such things as they usually do in slavery. . . . And this at least (though but
a small matter), hath the Christian religion brought to perfection, which
Socrates attempted to have done among the Greeks but could not. . . . That such
as are taken in war, are kept in safe custody till their ransom be paid ” (c.
3, t. 7, 8).
. . . “
But in our days, not only among Christians, but even among Mohammedans, this
right of captivity without the time of war, is worn out of use. The necessity
being taken away by virtue of that connection or affinity, wherein nature hath
joined us, which is now reacknowledged to be between all mankind ” (c. 3, 9,
19).
In harmony
with his faith, he exhorts humanity towards women, clerks, farmers, merchants,
and to all in battle who cry quarter, or offer to yield. He quotes the lines
“ Quique
suos cives quod signa adversa tulerunt Non crfedat fecisse nefas !
And
declares “ cives ” to mean not neighbours of the same town or country, but
citizens of the same world (3, n, 16), as if he anticipated the modern doctrine
of international law, that governments may be enemies, and yet their citizens
not hostile.
“All
duels,” he adds, "and trials by combatants, seeing that they are of no
use, either to the decision of right or the ending of a war, but merely for
ostentation of strength, are not only repugnant to our Christian profession,
but to the laws of humane society” (c. 3, 15, 14). “No useless damage is to be
done, and therefore what some divines have observed and taught, I must needs
assent unto, that it is the duty of such commanders as would be thought
Christians (as far as in them lies) to intercede for, and hinder the sacking
and pillaging of towns and cities, especially of such things in them as add but
little to the conquest being taken away, so that such acts Christian clemency
and justice itself doth abhor. Surely there is a greater tie and obligation
among Christians than there ever was anciently among the Greeks.” ^
The great
Christian publicist urges also to spare the property of those who have in no
way offended as the
authors of
the war, “ for the rules of charity are of larger extent than those of justice
” (3, 14, 4).
The
violation of women, so common after the assault of fortified places, he
condemns as contrary to the laws of war. On the latest conquest of Christianity
and humane principle in the field of international relations,
Arbitration,
the Dutch publicist of the seventeenth century is in harmony with the most
advanced views of the nineteenth century. He says,—
“For if,
both Jews and Christians have thought fit to appoint arbitrators among
themselves to determine all controversies to the, intent that brothers should
not go to law with unbelievers, how much more reason is there that such
arbitrators or judges should be chosen by us to prevent mischief far greater
than going to law, namely: spoil, rapine, murther, yea and sometimes
desolation, which are the unhappy concomitants of cruel war.” “ And indeed, it
is very unfit for princes who profess themselves to be followers of Christ, to
rush into arms one against another with so much bitterness, seeing that there
are other means found out to compromise their quarrels” (p. 463). “And for this
as for many other reasons, it will be very convenient, nay necessary, that
constant diets and conventions of Christian princes should be held where, by
the prudence and moderation of such as are not interested, all controversies
may be composed; yea, and that some expedient may be found, to force both
parties to accept of peace upon equal and just terms.”
And the
great publicist closes his immortal work with these memorable words :
“A safe
and honoured peace is not too dearly bought if it may be had by foregoing as
well the offending as the charges and damages of war, especially to us
Christians, to whom our great Lord and Master hath bequeathed Peace as His last
legacy.” “ God, who alone can do it, instil these things into the hearts of
those who manage the affairs of Christendom! ”
We have
dwelt thus at length on the views of Grotius, because they have affected the
relations of nations more, probably, than the writings of any publicist before
or since
his time,
and because they are so distinctly the fruit of Christian forces in the world.
Right over
Heathen Territory.—One of the curses of the world has been the supposed right
of nominally Christian peoples to take possession of heathen territory, and
despoil non-Christian tribes. The Church has always supported this right. The
famous bull of Pope Alexander VI. (1493) gave up in effect all the lands in
North and South America, 100 leagues west of the line of the Azores, to the
empire of Spain ; and this supposed right was the source of endless wars and
oppression, and the slaughter and slavery of thousands of Indians.
Queen
Elizabeth gave a similar title to Sir Humphrey Gilbert over certain “ remote
heathen and barbarous lands” in North America.' Though the Church was false to
its Master in the spirit of these claims, the great writers on international
law, imbued with His spirit, were nearer the truth. Grotius objects to any
power or claim of the Christian Church over remote and heathen peoples.
Bonnor, a
still earlier writer on this topic, declares, as we have seen, that war cannot
lawfully be made by Christian powers against Saracens, merely on account of
their faith.1 Victoria3 (about 1557 A.D.) says that the
Pope has no temporal authority over the barbarous Indians or other infidels,
and that Christian princes have no right, merely from the authority of the
Pope, to coerce barbarians or to punish them.3 Ayala holds the same
views, and Alberici Gentilis.
1 Earbre
des batailles, c. 35.
“ Papa
nullum potestatem temporalem habet in barbaros Indos, neque in alios infideles.
(Relectio de Ind., 2, 6.)
3 Ptincipes Christiani non possunt etiam
auctoritate papae coercere barbaros, etc.
Puffendorf
advocated equally liberal principles.
It cannot
be said that the Spirit of the Great Teacher has as yet much affected modern
international law on this important topic. Still a beginning has been made in
teaching universal justice as obligatory from Christian to heathen, and from a
great power to a weak.
Progress
in Modern International Law.—Progress in international law we shall now proceed
to test by the humane changes, both in practice, custom and law, shown in the
public settlements, codes, treaties and acts of nations of the nineteenth
century, and in the views of eminent publicists. The high-water mark of humane
practice and theory in public law in this century is probably best shown in two
documents—the Code of Instructions issued by the Government of the United
States during the great Civil War, to their officers and soldiers, compiled by
Prof. Lieber, and the proposed Code for a Law of Nations, compiled by Prof.
Bluntschli, who has himself borne so distinguished a part in the practical application
of these Christian and humane principles in the arbitration settlement of
Geneva between Great Britain and the United States. From these two sources we
shall attempt to ascertain what the Christian system has already accomplished
in public law and custom, and what it proposes to accomplish in the future.
Privateering.—Apart
from these, we will first examine, however, the changes made in “ Private
War" on the seas, or Privateering. Under the combined influences of the
religious spirit and the mercantile habits, Private War on land, especially in
Germany, as we have seen, was put an end to, and Courts of Arbitration (A
ustrage) in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries decided between the incessant
contests and disputes of separate cities, counties and
provinces,
until at length Law took the place of Force. Private War or piracy, however,
still lingered on the sea, and individual merchants and different sea-ports
were obliged to associate together to defend themselves from incessant robbery
and plundering by corsairs.
The first
great check to this was caused in the end of the fourteenth century, by the
issuing of letters of marque or reprisal by various princes, authorizing
certain individuals to plunder on the high seas in time of peace. Privateering
was thus originally in the interest of public order. The first law in the
history of France authorizing privateering appeared in 1400, and distinctly
characterized it as a means of preventing Private War, where individuals took
vengeance in their own hands.1
In the
same century similar authorizations were issued by the Low Countries, England
and various powers.
An English
Act of Parliament (1414) required privateers to bring their prizes to an
English port, and to make declaration of capture to the justices of the peace,
under penalty of confiscation of the prize and the captor.
During the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, privateering was often well regulated, and,
owing to the comparative unimportance of commerce then, did not attain to so
great and injurious a development as in the succeeding centuries. During the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the commerce of both neutral and
belligerent powers suffered immensely from this species of robbery. The
Christian spirit (as the words of Grotius show) was always opposed to it.
Isolated efforts were made to abolish it. Thus in 1675, Holland and Sweden make
a treaty, agreeing not to
1 Aucun . .
. k ses propres despens pour porter guerre k nos ennemis ce sera par le congd
et consuitement de nostre dit amiral ou son lieutenant. L’Ordonnance sur le
faict de I’amirandd (Hautefeuille, vol. ii. p. 340).
issue
letters of marque, but this does not appear to have been a permanent agreement.
In her wars with Turkey between 1767-74, Russia did not employ privateers. In
the eighteenth century, privateering had become an organized piracy, and almost
every treaty attempted, but in vain, to restrain it. In that century an
American, who though often called an unbeliever, was filled with the truest
spirit of Christianity, has the credit of bringing about one of the first
important treaties which abolished it.
“It is for
the interest of humanity in general,” says Franklin in a public despatch to the
British Commissioner in 1783, “that the occasions of war and the inducements to
it, should be diminished. If rapine is abolished, one of the encouragements of
war is taken away, and peace therefore more likely to continue and be lasting.
The practice of robbing merchants on the high seas, a remnant of the ancient
piracy, though it may be accidentally beneficial to public persons, is far from
being profitable to all engaged in it, or to the nation that authorizes it.”1
And again,
“ The
United States though better situated than any other nation to profit by
privateering, are, so far as in them lies, endeavouring to abolish the practice
by offering in all their treaties with other powers, an article engaging
solemnly that in case of a future war, no privateer shall be commissioned on
either side, and that merchant ships shall pursue their voyages, unmolested.”2
Through
Franklin’s influence, the treaty between Prussia and the United States in 1785,
contained the well-known clause in which each power gave up the right of commissioning
privateers against the other, in case of war. This provision however was not
revived in the renewal of the treaty in 1799.
So well
entrenched was this practice, that a distinguished
1 Letter to Mr. Oswald, British
Commissioner (Franklin's Writings, vol. ii. p. 485 ; ix. pp. 41, 267).
2 Letter of Franklin, 1785.
Z
French
publicist (Hautefeuille) even in this century ventured to say, “The opinion
generally adopted on the utility of privateering against an enemy, and
especially, the object not avowed but real, the ruin of neutral nations, will
always prevent a certain nation from consenting to the abolition of a practice,
upon which it founds its maritime greatness.”1 This publicist might
have lived to see “a certain nation” taking part in the congress which
abolished it. Still it is to be admitted that the general policy of Great
Britain up to this century has been adverse to humane progress in maritime law,
with reference to privateering, blockade, and the law of contraband. Her course
has certainly tended to make war “ bellum omnium contra omnes ” (a war of all
against all) instead of limiting it, under the modern and more reasonable view.
The great
reform in international law, as limiting the effects of war, dates from the
Congress of Paris, 1856, wherein all the great Powers of Europe, together with
Turkey and, later, forty other States, agreed to the abolition of privateering,
and to the rules which protected neutral commerce,2 and confined
wars as far as practicable to belligerents. Unfortunately for the fame of the
United States as a pioneer in humane progress, it will be remembered that her
government refused to accept the rule abolishing privateering, unless there
were accompanied with it a stipulation of the inviolability of private property
on the sea, excepting only contraband of war. This last is a reform which, as
is the case with the partial protection of private property on land, requires
the slow action of
1 Les Droits
des nations neutres, vol. ii. p. 340.
2 That the neutral flag covers an enemy’s
goods, and neutral goods are not seizable among an enemy’s goods—contraband of
war in both cases being excepted ; and that a blockade, to be real, must be
effective.
Christianized
opinion. Whether the American government were sincere in urging it at that
time, is at least open to question. At this time, there can be no doubt that
the American people are heartily in favour of it. The mercantile community of
Continental Europe, especially in Germany, urged this reform in the years 1859
and i860, with much enthusiasm. It was presented and voted on favourably in
many legislatures. There is little doubt that a future year, not far distant,
will see its general adoption. It rests on the reasonable idea, that war as a
terrible and barbarous Court of Arbitrament, should do no needless damage, but
only what furthers the decision and determines the final issue.
The United
States during the war of the rebellion offered to accede to the Declaration of
Paris, without the condition it had before demanded. The proposed separate
conventions, however, on this subject fell through. No letters of marque were
issued by the American government during the civil war, though authorized by
Congress.
The German
and French governments in the war of 1876, held to their agreement and employed
no privateers. Prof. Bluntschli in his proposed code (No. 670), declares it to
be an article of modern international law, that privateering is abolished.
Inviolability
of private maritime property.—The inviolability of private property on the sea
was admitted in the treaty to which we have already referred—that of 1785
between Prussia and the United States: and was recognised in treaties of the
South American States, in 1851 and 1856. In the wars of Great Britain and
France with China, the right of maritime capture was suspended.1 In March
1865, the Emperor of the French made public
restoration of such private vessels, belonging to Mexican citizens, as 1
Field’s Code, p. 530.
had been
condemned by prize courts, and the proceeds of which had not been finally
adjudicated upon. European governments have often at the close of wars,
restored captured ships and formed mixed commissions to ascertain the damages
incurred. In 1861, a treaty was framed between France and Peru, which exempted
all private property from capture.1 The same principle was admitted
by Prussia, Italy and Austria in the war of 1866 : in 1868, the parliament of
Germany passed a resolution, inviting the chancellor to obtain the
acknowledgment of the safety of private property on the sea, during war; no
public acknowledgment however was obtained. In the Franco-German war of 1870,
King William in his proclamation of 18th July, declares that French merchant
ships can neither be brought in nor captured by the Federal marine. This
advanced measure however was not responded to by the French government, so
that before the close of the war, the German military authorities believed
themselves obliged to suspend this rule. The French Government of National
Defence however (28th Oct. 1870) expressed the hope that the progress of ideas
would in this matter ultimately soften the evils of war.3
In July,
1870, the Secretary of State of the United States publicly gave utterance to
the expectation, that the people would soon have the satisfaction of seeing the
principle universally recognised of the abolition of maritime prizes.
The
objections made to this reform, even by so enlightened a publicist as Dana,
seem of little weight. Modern wars are of so concentrated and terrible a
character, that the damage done to individual property on the sea, has little
influence on the issue. It is merely a useless damage, which modern humanity
condemns, even toward an enemy.
1 Field’s Code, art. 846. 2
Bluntschli, 665 n.
These two
great reforms then—the abolition of privateering and the inviolability of
private property on the sea—may be considered as almost won by the humane
influences working in the world under Christianity. The principle which lies at
the base of this and similar reforms, is one which will be more and more
recognised by all those truly feeling the modern teachings of humanity : the
principle that war is between states and not individuals. War, like the
“judicial duel” of the Middle Ages, is a process, terrible and barbarous
indeed, whereby justice is sought between two contestants. The citizens of each
state are only considered as enemies, when they take a personal part in the
struggle, or discharge public duties.1 It is true that many eminent
publicists, American and English, do not admit this principle. According to Sir
J. Nicholl, “ There could be no such thing as a war for arms and a peace for
commerce.” Twiss, in his “ Law of Nations,” says with more antithesis than
truth, “ because private war is inconsistent with public peace, it follows that
public war is equally inconsistent with private peace ” ; Vattel (book III. c.
5) declares all the citizens of belligerent nations, enemies, even the women
and children; and Kent states that all citizens of belligerents are in
hostility with one another.
Modern
practice however under the influence of “ the enthusiasm of humanity" is
more and more conforming itself to the humane principle. Even as far back as
the French Revolution, Portalis, minister of the Republic, uttered these
remarkable words at the opening of the Council of Prizes: “ Between two or more
belligerent nations, the individuals of which those nations are composed are
only enemies by accident; they are not so as men; they are not so even as
citizens ; they are so
1 Bluntschli, Nos. 530, 532, etc.
only as
soldiers.”1 In the war. of 1870, King William of Germany proclaimed:
“I make war against French soldiers not against French citizens/’ assuring the
citizens of protection to their property, so long as they did not indulge in
acts of hostility against the German troops.
The New
Codes.—The American Instructions and Prof. Bluntschli’s Code, forbid putting
human beings to death in war, without object or utility, or the wounding, torturing,
maltreating or enslaving a prisoner, or violating or assailing women.2 Both
demand the protection of the religion, the language, the intellectual culture
and honour of the vanquished.3 When one recalls the bloody wars of
the past, whereby one form of religion was to be forced on a people dissenting,
the advance in modern international customs is made clear to the most
doubting. Both of these codes forbid all carnage and destruction which does not
tend to the re-establishment of justice—the object of war. Even the killing of
an armed enemy uselessly is forbidden.4 Under the general principle
of which we have spoken, the plundering of property in an enemy’s country5
is absolutely forbidden by the more advanced rules of modern international law,
excepting it be the fortune of the belligerent state itself, the arms and equipment
of the conquered soldiers, and articles contraband of war. There is still also
left in question the plundering of the property of citizens in a place taken
by assault, and the right of maritime prizes ; but both these barbarous
privileges of war may be said to be passing away. All public buildings for
scientific, aesthetic or philanthropic
1 Bluntschli, No. 531.
2 Amer. Instr.,
16, 23, 42. Bluntschli, No. 574.
3 Amer. Instr.,
37. Bluntschli, No. 579.
4 Amer. Instr.,
68. Bluntschli, No. 579.
6 Ibid., No. 657.
purposes
are required to be respected in an enemy’s country; and it is no longer
according to international usage1 to carry off works of art from a
conquered country or to sell them to defray the expenses of the war. It is true
that many of the reforms spoken of above have been only carried out in the
practice of one or two nations, or are merely proposals of eminent publicists.
Still the whole body of international law is merely the expression of the moral
ideas and principles of leading nations with regard to their relations, without
any fixed authority but custom, and no basis but justice or the highest
utility. The theories of eminent writers resting on the strictest morality, and
above all, the practice of any one nation, must profoundly influence all
nations.
One of the
terrible abuses of war is in " reprisals.’ Humanity and religion have as
yet scarcely influenced these. The American Instructions contain indeed
excellent sentiments on this subject, and they were not violated by the United
States during the civil war. “ Civilized nations/’ says Art. 27, “acknowledge
in retaliations the sternest feature of war. A reckless enemy often leaves to
his opponent no other means of securing himself against the repetition of
barbarous outrage. Retaliation will therefore never be resorted to as a
measure of mere revenge, but only as a means of protection and retribution, and
moreover cautiously and unavoidably ; that is to say, retaliation shall only
be resorted to after careful enquiry into the real occurrence and the character
of the misdeeds that may demand retribution. Unjust or inconsiderate
retaliation removes the belligerents farther and farther from the mitigating
rules of a regular war, and by rapid steps leads them to the internecine wars
of savages.” (Art. 28.)
Prof.
Bluntschli is equally humane in his view of this 1 Bluntschli, No.
650. Amer. Instr., 36.
terrible
measure.1 The recent European conventions have however been able in
no degree to mitigate the law of reprisals, and they remain the great cruelty
of war.
Three
recommendations are now made from various quarters, as to changes in
international customs which will tend to prevent collisions and limit war. They
are first, that the right of blockade be limited to naval arsenals and places
defended by armed forces. This would leave trade in food or similar articles
with small and undefended ports, open and undisturbed. Another is that the
definition of “ contraband ” should be restricted to articles intended directly
for war, such as guns and ammunition. This again would render trade freer, and
preserve non-combatants from much annoyance and suffering. A third is, that
the right of search be restricted so as only to touch contraband articles, and
impede efforts to break a blockade. All these are in the line of modern
reforms.
The
Wounded.—Nothing disgraced the humanity of the past, like the neglect and
cruelty practised towards the wounded in war. Under modern law, the ambulances
and military hospitals for the wounded are held to be neutral property, and are
respected and protected by the belligerents. In 1864, .a convention was held
at Geneva for the amelioration of the fate of the wounded during military
campaigns ; and this compassionate effort led the series of international
movements, one of the latest fruits of the Christian spirit, designed to
alleviate the evils of war. An agreement was signed and adopted by the Swiss
Confederation, the United States of America, and nearly all the Great Powers
of Europe, having for its object to neutralize everything employed in the care of
the wounded. This agreement was adopted by Austria after the war of
1866, and by Russia in 1867. In a conference,
held at
1 Bluntschli, No. 502, etc.
Geneva, in
1868 of the principal European States, this humane agreement was extended to
the care of the wounded on the sea. The duty of both belligerents to provide,
so far as is practicable, even for wounded enemies, is now a recognised feature
of international law, and may be considered as the first public effort in the
history of mankind to carry out one of the foundation rules of Christianity, “
Love your enemies.”
The care
of the wounded in the American civil war, and the Franco-German war, by private
associations of philanthropic persons working in combination with the governments,
is one of the latest practical fruits of religion, and has relieved an untold
amount of human misery.
The
Convention of St. Petersburg in 1868, entered into on the proposal of Russia,
bound the leading European Powers to greater humanity. It limited the objects
of war “ to weaken the military forces of the enemy: ” that for this purpose,
“it is sufficient to disable the greatest possible number of men ; that this
object would be exceeded by the employment of arms which uselessly aggravate
the sufferings of disabled men or render their death inevitable; that the
employment of such arms would therefore be contrary to the laws of humanity.”
The Great Powers accordingly renounced the employment of projectiles, explosive
or charged with inflammable substances, below a given weight.
The drift
of all international policy in regard to neutral powers has been in the
peaceful direction, and therefore in the channels which religion would suggest.
War is as much as possible to be limited in its evils. As we have already said,
the abolition of privateering will lessen to an immense extent the curses of
war to those who are engaged in peaceful occupations. The customary notice now
given to merchant vessels, allowing them several weeks to depart
after the
declaration of war, is a reform in a similar direction. The Rules of Paris
(1856) have settled the dispute of ages in favour of neutral powers. A free
ship carries a free cargo, and a free cargo cannot be seized on an enemy’s
ship. Blockade can no longer annoy a whole world of peaceful persons, any
farther than it is a real blockade.
The
British Government, among others, have been ready to acknowledge that the
progress of civilization has brought about stricter obligation in regard to
neutral supplies to belligerents,1 and the duty of limiting war to
the smallest extent possible.
Arbitration.—The
highest result of the Christian spirit, as seen in public affairs in this
century, is the disposition to settle disputes and prevent war, by arbitration.
The great reform of the Austrage in the Middle Ages was the beginning of modern
civilization, or the era in which law and courts took the place of arms between
individuals and opposing cities. It is by no means improbable that the
arbitration of the nineteenth century is also the beginning of a higher
Christian civilisation, when international law and international courts shall
take the place of war and force in the settlement of disputes between nations-
As it may be supposed, settlement of public disputes by arbitration is not
entirely a modern discovery. While the instincts of right and justice existed,
there must always have been a possibility of such a settlement. Among old
instances, is that of Henry II. of England between the States of Castile and
Navarre—a decision contained in twenty-eight articles ;2 and
another according to the latest proposals of international jurists, between the
Emperor
1 Despatch of Earl Granville to the
Prussian Government, Sept. 15 th, 1870.
2 Rymer’s Fcedera, p. 48.
Frederick
and certain cities of Lombardy (1158 A.D.). The question was as to the justice
of his claims to be the successor of Augustus and Charlemagne, and the
arbitration was made by four professors of the School of Bologna.1
Even as far back as the sixteenth century, different kings of European States
are found determining difficulties by this reasonable mode. In one instance
(1546), the Kings of France and England settled a dispute in regard to a large
sum of money by a reference of the matter to four learned jurisconsults, an
instance of a practice to become common, of referring matters of international
law to private students of the science. Subjects more difficult to settle than
differences about money were referred in that century to arbiters. The King of
Spain, and Switzerland, decided a dispute in regard to the boundaries of
Franche Comte by arbitration.2 Even the claims of a sovereign power
were referred to a foreign decision ; as when the Archduke of Austria and the
Duke of Wiirtemberg, each claiming a certain county (Mont- beliard), laid the
litigation before the Parliament of Grenoble.3
It is to
the credit of both Great Britain and the United States, that they resorted to
arbitration in one of their first treaties. After the Independence of the
American Colonies, difficulties arose between them and the mother country as to
the north-eastern boundary of the Union. By the Treaty of 1794, the dispute was
to be finally decided by Commissioners chosen in the following manner: one by
the King of Great Britain, another by the President of the United States with
the advice and consent of the Senate, and the third—in case of disagree-
1 Wheaton.
2 UArbitrage
International, De Card, p. 19.
3 Ibid.
ment
between the two—to be chosen by the above Commissioners. Two other
Commissioners were appointed to determine indemnities due the subjects of each
power, for damages. In this treaty is undoubtedly indicated that greatest
practical exemplification in modern times of humane principles—the settlement
by the Geneva Arbitration.
Mediation.—The
famous Conference of Paris (1856), as we have said, originated or confirmed
some of the important reforms of modern international law. It discussed
another subject of the deepest importance to the future of humanity—the
prevention of war, by the mediation and collective decision and arbitration of
the Great Powers of Europe. Article eighth required if there arose between the
Sublime Porte and one or more of the signatory Powers, a disagreement which
threatened their peaceful relations, that these powers before resorting to force
should apply to the other contracting powers for their mediation.
The
discussion on this advanced and reasonable proposition showed that the
representatives of the Great Powers of Europe were by no means peculiarly
favourable to such proposals. The results of the last few years have proved
that even this mild suggestion, and the wishes expressed by the
plenipotentiaries, that “ All states among whom disagreements arose, would,
before appealing to arms, have recourse to the good offices of a friendly Power,”
were far beyond the old barbaric habits of Europe, and produced little
practical effect. Still they indicate the ideal which has arisen before the
thoughtful minds of the age,—the constitution by the Great Powers of Europe of
a kind of combined Court of Mediation and Arbitration, which should prevent war
and even enforce its decisions in the interest of general peace.
In only
two cases has the mediation of the great Euro
pean
Powers since 1856 brought about peace : one in the case of Luxembourg between
France and Prussia in 1867 —a mediation on the part of England which only
delayed a few years the terrible war that afterwards broke out. The other in
1869, the case of Candia between Turkey and Greece—-a settlement by the Great
Powers which was by no means in the permanent interest of either peace or
justice.
No
mediation was able to prevent the terrible conflict of 1870.
If we
refer back to European history in this century we shall find a number of
instances, wherein the reasonable settlement of differences between nations by
arbitration has been successfully attempted.
During a
war of France with the Moors, certain English merchant vessels were captured by
the French on the coast of Portendik, it was asserted without sufficient notice
of the blockade. The claims of the English merchants injured were referred by
the French and English cabinets to the King of Prussia, and on November 9th,
1843, a decision was given, that a fine should be paid to the English merchants
injured by the French government:—a fine fixed afterwards at 4,770 francs by a
mixed commission. A war was thus avoided and justice done, to the satisfaction
of all parties.
The case
of the Armstrong, wherein an American ship was destroyed in a neutral harbour
(Fayal) by an English vessel of war, was a delicate one, involving a claim on a
neutral power for injuries sustained within its limits, by a foreign power. The
claim for damages on Portugal by the United States was referred by both powers
for settlement to the President of the French Republic. The arbiter decided
(Nov. 30th, 1852) against the United States; the decision was quietly accepted
and war averted.
In 1862, a
case of arbitration occurred, where national pride might easily have led to
violent measures. The officers of a British ship, La Forte, insulted a
Brazilian sentinel and were thrown into prison, but soon afterwards released on
the demand of the British vice-consul. The English Cabinet demanded reparation
from the Brazilian authorities, and the dispute was referred to the King of the
Belgians, as arbiter. He decided in favour of Brazil, and the decision was
accepted.1 A difference occurred in 1821 between Chili and the
United States which aroused much excitement, and nearly brought on a war
between the two countries. The Chilian vice-admiral had violated the rule of
international law which protects private property on land, especially that of a
neutral : he ordered the seizure in the territory of Peru of considerable sums
of money, the fruit of the sale of merchandise brought in by an American
merchantship, the brig Macedonian. The United States government addressed a
note to the government of Chili, demanding the restitution of the moneys
seized. The ministry of Chili refused to accede to the demand. Popular feeling
in the United States was in favour of war to enforce the claim. The dispute
however was at length submitted to arbitration, and that wise monarch, Leopold
I., King of the Belgians, became again the arbiter. His decision was not
rendered till May, 1863, and was fully in favour of the United States. Great
waste of property and loss of life were saved, and both parties remained in
amicable relations. An arbitration between the governments of Peru and Japan in
1875, is interesting as one of the first instances in which a non-Christian
power accepted this method of settlement. The case was that of the Maria Luz, a
Peruvian vessel arrested in the port
1 De Card, p. 59.
of
Kanagawa by the Japanese authorities, and was decided by the arbiter, the
Emperor of Russia, in favour of Japan.
Disputes
as to Territory.—Disputes however in regard to claims on territory are thought
to be of a more vital nature, and not so easily settled by umpires. The
discussion between Great Britain and the United States in regard to rights of
territory on Puget’s Sound was one of this nature, and endangered the relations
of the two countries during a considerable period. A treaty however was signed
on June 1st, 1863, whereby the question was referred to two arbiters, one being
named by each government, who had power to name a third, if they disagreed.
They were not even obliged to choose the third, so fair and just were their
views, and their decision, rendered September, 1867, was received by both
parties without protest.
The
similar dispute in regard to the north-western boundary with Great Britain had
seemed to the American government so unreasonable, that it had declined arbitration
six times in regard to it. The case however was finally referred for
arbitration to the Emperor of Germany, and was decided in favour of the United
States, October, 1872 ; this decision closing a century-long dispute on
boundaries.
A
difference occurred also between Great Britain and Portugal, relative to the
rights of each government to the island of Balama, on the western coast of
Africa. The matter was referred in 1869 to the President of the United States
as arbiter : his decision was in favour of Portugal, and was received by
England without opposition.
The
Alabama.—The great affair of the Alabama and of the injuries inflicted by the
rebel cruisers is too fresh to need much recapitulation. The American people
felt itself profoundly injured and wounded in the civil war, by the tacit
permission given by the British government for the
manning
and fitting out of the rebel cruisers, and the connivance of numbers of the
English people in this violation of neutrality. The injuries inflicted by these
vessels, and especially by the Alabama, upon American commerce, were enormous.
Indirectly the American commercial marine was almost annihilated by them. So
bitter was the resentment throughout the Union against what seemed a flagrant
violation of the rules of justice and fair dealing on the part of the British
government, that popular feeling was entirely ready for war, and only the
prudence of the American authorities, already sufficiently burdened by the
immense civil struggle, restrained the passions of the people.
The
correspondence with Earl Russell of so cool a diplomat as Mr. Adams shows the
degree to which feelings on each side were aroused. The British minister, after
endeavouring to justify the action of his government towards the rebel
cruisers, went so far in his despatch of Aug. 2nd, 1865, as to declare that the
British government, having fulfilled all legal obligations, would never consent
to refer the contest to arbitration.
Nor did
the close of the struggle and the success of the Union diminish the bitterness
of feeling against the British Government throughout the North. The ministry,
however, of both Powers appear not to have given up all hopes of ultimately
settling the difficulty by a recourse to measures of justice and right reason.
The American ambassador, Reverdy Johnson, submitted a proposition for
arbitration to the British government, which was readily accepted. But he had
accompanied or preceded it by public utterances, so far from expressing the
real opinions of the American people on the gravity of their wrongs, that they
created an extreme opposition to the proposal in the United States. The
reference to arbitration was rejected by the American Senate by 54 votes to 1.
The
President, in communicating this decision to the American minister, declared
the conditions of the proposal unsatisfactory, but affirmed his readiness at
the proper time to meet this question on a friendly footing. The dispute seemed
thus as far from settlement as ever.
It is
fortunate that in each country there is a large body of persons somewhat guided
by Christian principles, whose opinions exercise considerable influence on
public men. Under any popular excitement, the voice of reason and religion is
not heard ; but as soon as this dies away, the statesmen are more or less
governed by the Christian belief of the nation.
It was not
till January, 1871, that an offer of arbitration was again made—this time by
the British Government.
* The
offer was accepted, and a mixed commission was formed of five Englishmen and
five Americans, to frame a tribunal of arbitrat’ion. This tribunal (May 8) was
comprised of five members, to be chosen respectively by the President of the
United States, the Queen of England, the King of Italy, the President of the
Swiss Confederation, and the Emperor of Brazil. The Commission were to meet at
Geneva. It is not necessary to describe the treaty in detail.
The Treaty
of Washington was ratified on May 8th, 1871, by the American Senate by a large
majority, and approved by the British Parliament, though with many objections.
Earl Grey said justly of this treaty in a public banquet, that it would
exercise an incalculable influence on the future of the world in procuring for
it the first of earthly blessings—peace.
The
Commission met December 15th, 1871, at Geneva, and on the 14th September, 1872,
rendered its decision, condemning England to pay to the United States the sum
of £15,000,000, as indemnity for the direct injuries done
A A
to its
commerce, by three of the Confederate cruisers. The British Commissioner alone
refused to sign the sentence.
The
English Government, after some objections to the interpretation of the rules,
accepted the decision, and paid the indemnity.
The Geneva
Arbitration of 1872 may be fairly held as one of the great steps in modern
progress towards right reason in the settlement of international difficulties.
It is true that its influence for the time is somewhat diminished by the
disgraceful delays and disputes in regard to the distribution of the indemnity
among claimants in the United States. Then the settlement, since, of the
fishery question with Great Britain by an arbitration which seemed to the
American people unfair and unjust to their ” interests, has for the time
weakened the power of this method of settlement in the United States, as did
the results of the Geneva arbitration in England. But these are only passing
objections. The two leading commercial powers of the world, in a time of great
bitterness of popular feeling, and when one side felt itself deeply injured,
under circumstances which in all past history would have been thought to
justify war, have deliberately controlled passion and submitted their
differences to the most impartial earthly arbiters. This is one of the first
prominent instances in history of the influence of Christianity on the
relations of nations.
The sketch
we have given of different cases of arbitration is a list of the “victories of
peace.” It is well completed by the most momentous of all—the Geneva
settlement.
In some
future and better age, when Christianity no longer touches only the surface of
society but has imbued whole races of men and affected the relations of governments,
it will not be battles which constitute history or
the record
of fields of blood which makes a nation’s glory, but the historian will delight
to chronicle these first gleams of a higher civilization, when reason was
taking the place of passion, and law of force, and Christianity of hatred and
revenge in the relation of one nation to another.
The
question is often put, whether arbitration can ever become universal, or
whether the principles of Christianity can ever imbue whole peoples as they
have inspired individuals.
Looking at
what this Religion has done with a few individuals, we may judge of the far
future with mankind, and, from a few traces now in international laws and
customs, we may fairly infer what it may accomplish after ages of influence
upon nations and governments.
We have
beheld it redeeming the lot of the prisoner of war from one exposed to massacre
and slavery to that of the captive humanely treated under modern international
customs ; we have seen it ministering to the wants of the wounded and
protecting all that belongs to their care even in the army of an enemy. We have
found it prohibiting even the killing of an unarmed enemy, forbidding all useless
destruction of life and property, all injury of women or defenceless persons,
all objectless wasting of fields and fruits. We have seen it doing away with
piracy and privateering, with the plunder of philanthropic and scientific
buildings, with all private booty, and even urging the protection of private
property on the sea.
What but
the influence of the “ Religion of Love,” direct or indirect, has done so much
to limit the evils of war, and to confine them to the belligerents ?
It is true
war is still the gigantic evil of history—the one great travesty of the faith which
leading nations profess. Yet the spirit of this Faith has won its greatest
triumph in
finally introducing arbitration between disputing nations.
There can
hardly be a doubt that in the distant future arbitration in some form will be
the great method of settling international differences. For the coming few
centuries it will probably only be applicable to exceptional cases, when
national pride and passion are not too much aroused. But the increasing power
of the religious sentiment and of right reason among men, and it may be the
growing influence of the labouring classes, who suffer most from war, will
force cabinets more and more to this mode of settlement.
If we look
at the progress in the slow abolition of “ Private War ” in Europe, we shall
conclude that in some form the civilized world will go through a similar change
and development, and rise out of the comparatively low moral condition of the
nineteenth century, as Europe rose out of the barbarism of the thirteenth. The
probable course of development will be first in the Great Powers of the world
agreeing beforehand when a given treaty is framed, that any difference in
relation to that particular treaty shall be determined by arbitration. The
postal treaties of the United States with foreign powers contain a clause of
this character. In 1853 the American senate adopted a resolution designed to
accomplish this humane purpose, to the effect that the President should insert
in all future treaties an article binding the contracting parties to submit all
differences between them to impartial arbiters. In December, 1873, a
resolution even more extended, by Senator Sumner, was presented in the senate
requiring the government to recommend the adoption of arbitration in its relations
with other nations. The greater part of the European treaties of commerce and
the international postal treaties contain provisions relating to arbitration,
in case of dis
agreement
as to the treaties. As we shall show later, the arbitration clause has been
recommended to the attention of ministers by the votes of the Belgian, Dutch,
and Swedish chambers. The habit of arbitration will thus be introduced in
international relations. And in all great legal reforms habits have a
marvellous power. At first it could only be employed in comparatively
unimportant disputes, but gradually it would come into play in more vital
matters.
The next
great step in the application of. right reason to international affairs will be
the formation of international codes or rules of law, which will affect the
opinion and the practice of the civilized world. We have already seen the great
influence of Grotius in softening the severities of war, and binding different
peoples in more merciful relations. It is a matter deeply to be regretted that
American and British publicists since his time have done so little to express
Christian and humane ideals in their treatises on international law. In a
science which rests so much on opinion and the principles of equity, each
author might have advanced it almost as Grotius did, by urging all practicable
principles of Christianity. The new Codes of which we have spoken are both
great steps in advance, and must influence all future relations of nations.
Another project of an international code by an American publicist, D. D. Field,
has attracted much attention, from its just proposals. It will be a long period
before these merciful essays towards a form of law which shall govern all the
civilized world will be accepted. Yet they make a foundation for the better future.
The opinion of the world already has an immense power over all nations. And
these careful embodiments of its humane feelings and ideas must add to this
power.
Courts of
Arbitration.—But the final step towards the
“
Universal Peace ” so long dreamed of by moralists, will be the formation of
international courts of arbitration, vested with the powers of courts by all
the great nations. It is true that the times are not ripe for this as yet, and
may not be for many centuries. In 1873, Mr. Richard presented a motion to the
British Parliament, only indicating an approach towards such a reform, to the
effect that the Queen be humbly requested to instruct her Minister of Foreign
Affairs to enter into communication with foreign powers, having for his object
to ameliorate international law, and to institute a system of permanent and
general international arbitration.
Mr.
Gladstone and other orators expressed many doubts of the project: but the
motion passed (July 9th) after much discussion, and on the nth the Queen
replied to it in conciliatory words which guardedly expressed much sympathy in
the project, without committing the government to fixed promises.
In the
Italian Parliament, Sig. Mancini presented (24th August, 1873) a somewhat
similar motion to Mr. Richard’s, except that he confined arbitration more
particularly to disputes on commercial interests or similar subjects, and he
would introduce into all treaties a clause referring disputes on them to
arbiters, and pursue the previous policy of Italy in rendering uniform and
obligatory, the rules of “ private international law.” This moderate position
was well received in Italy.
Other
States followed this example. The Lower Chamber of the Kingdom of Holland
(Nov. 27th, 1874) passed a motion of a similar character, and urging
arbitration for all international difficulties. The Belgian House of
Representatives adopted a similar resolution unanimously in favour of
arbitration (Feb. 17th, 1875). The Swedish Second Chamber voted by a large
majority an address to
the king,
praying for efforts towards a permanent tribunal of arbitration between
nations.
It will
thus be seen that many public bodies in Europe and America have seriously
considered this benevolent project. It is well known that eminent individuals
in advance of their age, have long urged it as the greatest reform needed among
nations. Grotius, as we have shown, contemplated it as a possibility. Leibnitz,
William Penn, Bentham and many others argued for it ; Kant’s project for a
universal peace through arbitration, and the similar views of the Abbe de St.
Pierre and of Rousseau, are too well known to need recapitulation.
These
humane purposes and projects took a definite form in the International
Conference of Brussels in 1874, called especially at the request of the Russian
government. The invitation to this Conference contains words worth citing.
“ The more
that solidarity,1' says Prince Gortschakoff, “ becomes developed
which tends in these times to bring together and to unite nations as one
family, the more their military organisation tends to give to their wars the
character of conflicts between armed nations, the more necessary does it become
to determine with greater precision the laws and usages admissible in a state
of war, in order to limit the consequences and diminish the calamities
attendant upon it, so far as may be possible or desirable.”1
The
fifty-six articles which were especially to be considered by the Conference
embraced most of the points so thoroughly treated in the American Instructions
and the Bluntschli Code. The Conference does not seem to have produced much
effect, perhaps partly from the want of sympathy in its objects by the British
government,2 and partly because the Great Powers have not reached
the
1 Despatch of Prince Gortschakoff, March
4th, 1874.
2 Despatch of Lord Derby to Lord Loftus,
June 20th, 1875.
point of
moral advance in which these reforms seem indispensable.
The
formation of an “ Institute for the Codification and Improvement of
International Law” in Europe and the United States, which has already urged the
most advanced reforms through eminent authorities, is another evidence of the
power of Christian opinion on this great subject.
The main
objections to the formation of a permanent Court of Arbitration with executive
powers furnished by each nation, are undoubtedly the fear that such an
authority would threaten the independence of single States, and that the
execution of its decisions would only create new wars, instead of abolishing
old. But it would not be difficult to form a judicial authority with limited
powers, which would only have the right to decide and act upon definite questions,
such as do not affect the independence of a State. Each nation would yield up
certain of its rights to a power of which it was a part, in the interest of
general peace. Of course, great care would be necessary to prevent the Court
from becoming corrupt or an agent itself of tyranny and injustice. These
objects, though formidable, do not seem insurmountable. Almost as great were
overcome in constituting the Federal Court of the United States. The interest
of all nations is especially in peace. And many temporary annoyances might be
endured, in a certain yielding of powers, for the sake of so great a blessing.
The enormous expense of large standing armies would be in part saved, as each
power would need only to contribute its quota to the executive forces of the
International Court. Even questions which are supposed to affect the honour or
independence of a State, would often come before such a Court, not for
executive decision but for its opinion. And an opinion from such an authority
would have an incalculable effect on any civilized power. Even the mere
stopping,
before the rush to arms, to hear an impartial judgment on the quarrel would
exert a profound influence on the coming belligerents. The voice of reason and
religion would thus have a chance to be heard.
The full
Christianization of international law awaits the slow action of christianized
public opinion. But much may be done, as much as has been done, to humanize the
relations of nations, to soften the asperities of war, to lessen its causes and
finally to prevent it. If the Christian Church throughout the world were
finally aroused to its duties in this matter, and were aware how far behind the
precepts of the Master His nominal followers are, there would long ago have
been a public opinion in Europe and America which would have rendered any war
difficult if not impossible.
Peace
among all men and all nations is the ideal presented by Christ. And by one
class of means or other, when at length His teachings have thoroughly permeated
mankind, this ideal will be attained.
Outside of
the nominally Christian nations, there is no international law. The .Turks
appear to have had little idea of it till instructed by European nations. The
Koran’s teachings tended in the very opposite direction, and made war the
natural condition towards non-Mohammedan races, and treachery justifiable
towards an “infidel.” The Mohammedan peoples in the north of Africa lived in a
constant state of hostility with all foreigners. The Chinese, with all their
advancement in arts and sciences, seem never to have thought of any code of
humanity and justice towards foreign nations.
The
Japanese have indeed recently made efforts to introduce the international law
known to the Christian nations, to their own people ; and one proposed code1
at least has been translated.
1 D. D.
Field’s.
No
Buddhist, so far as we are aware, has written on this topic, nor does a
Buddhistic code of laws and customs between different peoples exist.
Nor, as we
have shown, does international law owe much to Greek culture or to Roman law.
The first general tinge of humanity in the world’s relations, mercy to the
wounded and helpless, the softening the rugged face of war, the binding
different nations in a certain bond (feeble though it be) of brotherhood, the
disposition to refer injuries to arbitration rather than violence—these are the
Gesta Christi. And when at length Cicero’s dream1 shall be realized,
and there no longer be one law at Athens and another at Rome, but one universal
law for all nations and times, simple, eternal and immutable, “ the ruler and
deity of all men,”—even the law of humanity and justice, then will the great
law-giver and embodiment of it be the “ Son of Man,’' whose words shall then
guide and inspire nations, as now individuals.
1 Fragm. de Rep., lib. iii. 22.
Slavery, as we have previously shown, had mainly disappeared
in Europe at the close of the Middle Ages. The peculiar influence of the
Christian religion in teaching the brotherhood of man, and the priceless value
of each human being, had everywhere undermined it; the formation of free
communes in the large towns had given it a deadly blow. One effect of the
crusades had been to break up classes and loosen the bonds of slavery, and thus
under various forces, but most of all the moral, slavery had given place to
serfdom, and serfdom itself had in many countries almost passed away.
In the
fifteenth century there was still a trade in Mohammedan captives among the
Italian states, and here and there in such countries as Greece, the enslavement
of whites, and slaves were occasionally held in various civilized states.
International custom recognised also the right of enslaving prisoners of war.
But slavery, under the power of strong moral forces, was virtually
disappearing, when two momentous events occurred which overbore the moral power
working in European society, and let loose a swarm of curses on the world such
as mankind had scarce ever known. One was the first voyaging to a populated and
barbarous coast where human beings were a familiar article of traffic; and the
other, the discovery of a new world,
363
where
mines of glittering wealth were open, provided labour could be imported to work
them.
The
introduction of negro slaves into Europe in the fifteenth century would have
been of little account, had America never been discovered. They would have been
merely ornaments of wealthy houses, but as labourers would have been speedily
vanquished in the struggle with the peasantry of Europe. In the West Indies and
America, however, they entered into competition with a weak race already
disappearing—the native Indians; and they became tools of a powerful and covetous
people, who used them to extract sudden wealth from the ground or the mine.
Hence arose the most dreadful curse which has perhaps ever afflicted
humanity—the African slave trade. Almost all other human ills have their
mitigating features. War is a struggle where heroism and courage and effort may
come into play, where men stake all on a last effort, and expect wounds and
death if defeat come. Even women and children may take with resignation that
which follows the misfortune of those nearest them, and which belongs to the
chances of war. Captivity, too, may not always be to them worse than their
former condition.
The vices
of men bring with them a certain degree of pleasure, and their penalties are in
part self-inflicted. Disease and pestilence and earthquake seem to convey
calamities as if from upper powers, and are borne by multitudes of men in
common. They appear unavoidable' and necessary.
But when
one thinks that during four hundred years, men and womerfand children were torn
from all whom they knew, and sold on the coast of Africa to foreign traders ;
that they were chained between low decks so that there was not even room to
rise, and thus in filth and disease
and
loneliness, the dead often chained to the living, made that horrible “ middle
passage,” each morning the corpses being thrown into the sea, the living when
temporarily- released, plunging into the ocean as the least of sufferings, or
the sick dying from heart-ache and home-sickness ; that during all these
hundred years the sighs and groans and prayers of these wretched creatures rose
to heaven ; and when they reached the New World, they were consigned to only a
less degree of misery in the mines, or under the lash in the cane and
rice-fields; that many millions were thus treated, and out of three and a
quarter millions of negroes, according to an impartial historian,1
thus imported to various colonies in a century by Great Britain,
250,000 were thrown into the sea on the passage—one
may well feel that this is the great crime of history, the one before which all
others pale in enormity and wickedness. It would seem at first sight as if such
gigantic injustices and cruelties could not possibly happen where Christianity
had the slightest influence. As Montesquieu, with his characteristic irony, says
“ Negroes could not be human beings, for if they were, the whole of Christendom
would have united in a league to put down the African slave trade.”
Worse
still, the guilt of this great crime rests on the Christian Church as an
organized body. It is true that many Popes thundered against slavery, and
Church Councils proclaimed emancipation ; but it is no less true that one
fatal error of the Church stimulated the traffic in negroes and upheld
slavery—the belief that the conversion of the stolen black would outweigh the
sin of man-stealing or slavery. It is not true, though often repeated, that one
of the most devoted followers of the Church and one of the most humane of men,
Las Casas, first introduced negro
1 Bancroft.
slavery
into the New World. The importation had begun before his time under Charles V.
He did indeed recommend the first large importation, in order to relieve his
beloved Indians; but he lived bitterly to repent his mistake. His Church,
however, supported by all its influence both the royal grants for purchasing
negroes, and all the subsequent policy by which slavery was planted and perpetuated
in Spanish America. The dark stain of African slave trade and of human bondage
on a new continent is for ever on the garments of the Roman Catholic Church. It
is a singular travesty on the “ Religion of Love ” that the Spanish government
during two centuries concluded more than ten treaties in “the name of the most
Holy Trinity” (el nombre del Santissima Trinidad), which authorized the sale of
more than 500,000 human beings, and received from it a tax of over fifty
million livres.
Nor does
the Protestant Church escape. The first ship which sailed from England in 1562,
under Sir John Hawkins, on the diabolical errand of buying human beings in
Africa, and selling them in the West Indies, bore in a similar travesty the
sacred name of Jesus. Henceforth for about a century and a half, a Protestant
power—Great Britain—led in that most shameless traffic, —the plundering one
continent of human beings to sell them as slaves in another. During all these
years various English monarchs encouraged this trade. Elizabeth herself, the
pillar of the Protestant Church, knighted Hawkins for his successes, and his
crest became a manacled negro. Bishops and clergy favoured it; Parliament
supported it by repeated resolutions and acts ; the judges approved it, and
even so distinguished a jurist as Lord Eldon had the presumption to say (in
1807) in parliament, “ It (the slave trade) has been sanctioned by parliament,
where sat juris
consults
the most wise, theologians the most enlightened, statesmen the most eminent.”
It is true
that the Protestant Church, as a Church, is not so guilty in the encouragement
of the traffic as the Catholic, but on the other hand, its followers had less
excuse. They did not profess to believe that “the end justified the means.”
They knew they were sinning against both God and man in their horrible trade.
The Slave
Trade.—The first considerable cargo of slaves seems to have been brought in
1444, under Prince Henry of Portugal, by a Portuguese captain, from the coast
of Guinea to the country near Lagos ; they numbered 235. Other cargoes were
brought, but the trade began to fall off, and would have undoubtedly ended but
for the discovery of America. It is not known who was the person in whose mind
the diabolical inspiration was first suggested, to supplant the weak race of
the Indians in Hispaniola and on the main land by the vigorous African slaves.
Charles V. had granted licenses for this trade to various persons before, in
part at the suggestion of Las Casas, he granted a monopoly to Gov. de Bresa in
1517, to import 4,000 negroes during eight years into the Spanish colonies;
this was renewed with a smaller number in 1523, but in 1542 the monopoly
covered 23,000 slaves, and in 1542 2,000 were imported annually into Hispaniola
alone. In 1551 licenses were offered for sale, in Spain, giving authority to
import 17,000 negro slaves. Slaves were first carried to St. Domingo in 1510,
and to Cuba in 1521. Many treaties were made by the Spanish government with
different companies to authorize this odious traffic; and, so far had the idea
of a common humanity died out, that one Spanish treaty with a Portuguese
Company of Guinea in 1700, stipulated to furnish
“ 10,000
tons1 of negroes,” and another between Great Britain and Spain
stipulated to import 4,800 “ Indian pieces ” (piezas de Indias), as if they
were pieces of merchandise. This was the notorious provision in the celebrated
Treaty of Utrecht, which gave Great Britain as one of the prizes of a
successful war, a monopoly in the slave trade for thirty years from 1713 to
1743 ; and during this period the British government agreed to import 144,000
negroes of both sexes into Spanish America at 33 J piastres per head.3
As we have
said, the British slave trade began under Queen Elizabeth. In 1662,'Charles II.
granted an exclusive right to Queen Catharine and others to carry on the
trade, they stipulating to supply the West India islands with 3,000 negroes annually.
In 1695, the House of Commons resolved that “for the better supply of the
plantations, all the subjects of Great Britain should have liberty to trade
with Africa for negroes with such limits as Parliament -should prescribe.”
Certain statutes of William declared that “the trade was highly beneficial and
advantageous to the kingdom, and to the plantations and colonies thereunto
belonging,” and opened it to all. In 1708 the House of Commons declared by the
report of a Committee, that “the trade was important and ought to be free and
open to all the Queen’s subjects trading to Great Britain.” In 1729 the House
of Commons resolved
1 Dies mil toneladas de negros.
2 “ First then to p'rocure by this means a
mutual and reciprocal advantage to the subjects and sovereigns of both crowns,
onr British
Majesty
does offer and undertake for the persons whom she shall name and appoint, that
they shall oblige and charge themselves with the West Indies of America,
belonging to his Catholic majesty, in the said thirty years, . . . viz.,
144,000 negroes, Piezas de Indias, in each of the said thirty years, etc.”
(Assiento Treaty between Great Britain and Spain, 1713.—Coll. of Treaties, 3,
375).
that the
trade in slaves should be open to all, and that it ought not to be taxed for
the support of the forts on the African coast which protected it, and that an
appropriation ought to be made for the maintenance of such forts. Still other
statutes under George II. (1749) declared the slave trade very advantageous to
Great Britain, and necessary for the supplying the plantations and colonies
with a sufficient number of negroes at reasonable rates. In a well- known case
referred to the judges, Lord Chief Justice Holt and eight other judges showed
how far the poison of the system had worked to neutralize Christianity, by
declaring in a decision negroes to be merchandise. Previously to this, Charles
II. had offered special inducements to emigrants to settle in the West Indies;
among them, lands which should be cultivated by negroes. And not only did the
British government seek in every way to encourage this iniquity, but it checked
any beginnings of virtuous action in the colonies directed against the evil.
Various acts of the American colonies protesting against the importation of slaves,
or bills proposed for this purpose, were rejected by the British
government—two in the year 1774 alone. It is but just to say, however, that the
people of many of the colonies became soon as eager for forced labour, or for
the gains in this bloody traffic, as the people of the mother country itself.
The treaty
of Utrecht (1713) showed the utmost point to which this un-Christian spirit
reached, and is probably the most disgraceful treaty (in so far as it touched
the slave trade) in human annals. The English policy henceforth turned about
this trade as a pivot.
Between
Christmas, 1752, and the same day, 1762, it is estimated that 71,115 slaves
were imported into Jamaica alone. Bancroft, the highest authority, estimates,
as we stated before, that for one century previous to 1776,
B B
3,250,000 negroes were torn from Africa by Great
Britain alone, and exported to the English, Spanish, and French colonies, of
whom 250,000 perished in the Atlantic. Helps,1 also a careful
writer, estimates that from 1519 to 1807 between five and six millions of
negroes were carried from Africa by various European powers to the New World,
and sold as slaves. In one year alone (1768) he states the importation to have
been 97,000.
So
gigantic a crime under the full light of modern Christianity is one of the most
discouraging facts in history. The very foundation elements of Christ’s
teachings would forbid the least approach to the trade. The maxim “to love
one’s neighbour as one’s self,” must have belonged to another age and religion,
when an English Bishop could sign the Treaty of Utrecht.2
The
colonies, whether as more influenced by simple Christianity, or for other
reasons, early (as we have said) protested against the slave trade. The great
founder of Georgia, Oglethorpe, even went so far as to testify that they
prohibited slavery in that colony, “because it is against the Gospel as well as
against the fundamental law of England.” “ We refused as trustees to make a law
permitting such a horrid crime ” (Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 227). Within two
years, however, the inhabitants petitioned for slaves.
There seem
strong reasons to believe that slavery was encouraged in the British colonies,
in order to make them more dependent on Great Britain. It is certain that
before they became independent, in 1776, some 300,000 negro slaves had been
introduced into them. So perverted was
1 Span.
Conq., vol. iv. p. 371.
"
John, Bishop of Bristol. It seems appropriate that the central slave market in
the time of the Norman conquest should continue to be the centre of the African
slave trade.
public
opinion in England at this time, that a “ Society for Propagating the Gospel in
Foreign Lands,” which had sent missionaries to the coast of Guinea to convert
the negroes, was found to have owned plantations of slaves in the Barbadoes,
and had not even thought it worth while to give Christian instruction to these
victims of tyranny. That sect which has in many matters represented more purely
than any other the principles of Christ, the Quakers, began their noble series
of protests in Germantown (Pa.) in the latter part of the seventeenth century.
They made a public declaration that,
“ Though
the negroes are black, we cannot conceive there is more liberty to have them
slaves, than it is to have other white ones. There is a saying that we should
do to all men like as we will be done by ourselves, making no difference of
what generation, descent, or colour they are. . . . Ah! do consider well this
thing if you would be done at this manner, and if done according to
Christianity. . . . Truly we cannot do so, except you should inform us better
thereof, namely, that Christians have liberty to practise these things. Pray
what thing in the world can be done worse towards us than if men should rob or
steal us away, and sell us as slaves to strange countries, separating husbands
from their wives and children,” etc.1
The poet
Whittier3 has well said,
“ It was
not the rigour of her northern winter, nor the unfriendly soil of
Massachusetts, which discouraged the introduction of slavery during the first
half-century of her existence as a colony. It was the recognition of the
brotherhood of man in sin, suffering, and redemption ; the awful
responsibilities and eternal destinies of humanity; her hatred of wrong and
tyranny, and her stern sense of justice which led her to impose upon the
African slave trade the terrible penalty of the Mosaic code.”
As early
as 1675 the devoted missionary, John Eliot, presented a memorial to the
government of Massachusetts
1 Moore’s History of Slavery in Mass., p.
76.
a Whittier,
quoted in Wilson's History of the Slave Power, vol. i. p 7.
against
selling captive Indians into slavery, on the ground that “it prolonged the war,
hindered the enlargement of Christ’s kingdom, and that the selling of souls is
a dangerous merchandise.” In 1688, the “ Friends ” of Pennsylvania protested
publicly against slavery. In 1701 a petition against slavery was presented to
the representatives of Boston, and in 1703 an attempt was made to hinder the
odious traffic by imposing a duty of £4 on every slave introduced into
Massachusetts. In 1716 the Quakers of New England sent a public letter to the
Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, with the following question:— “ Whether it be
agreeable to truth for the Friends to purchase slaves and keep them for a term
of life.” In 1729 the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting showed the action of
Christian conscience by protesting publicly against buying slaves. At the same
time Elihu Coleman wrote a pamphlet against slavery as “anti-Christian, and
very much opposed to both grace and nature.” During the latter part of the
eighteenth century devoted members of the Quaker body laboured against slavery
and strove to awaken Christians to the sin of slave-holding. Among these should
be especially mentioned Benezet and John Woolman, in Pennsylvania. The great
divines, Wesley and Whitefield, also preached against the slave trade. Among
the Congregational divines, Dr. Hopkins of Rhode Island particularly
distinguished himself by his efforts to break up slavery and the slave trade,
until, in 1774, Rhode Island gave up the wicked traffic, and in 1784 abolished
slavery. The Society of Friends was however the only religious body in America
which, as a whole, forbade the holding of slaves. In 1773, Dr. Rush, one of the
great opponents of slavery in Philadelphia, said very justly, “ Future ages,
when they read the accounts of the slave trade, if they do not regard them as
fabulous, will be at a
loss which
to condemn most, our folly or our guilt in abetting this direct violation of
nature and religion.”1
The
earlier abolition societies in America in the eighteenth century all protested
against this abuse on religious grounds, and the writings of the anti-slavery
reformers of that day are full of their objections to the system, based on
similar motives. “Nearly all,” says the historian3 of the slave
power, “ who engaged in the formation of anti-slavery societies were members of
Christian Churches, and were taking an active part in the religious and
missionary and philanthropic enterprizes of the day.”
One of the
celebrated protests against selling slaves came from Dr. Gordon in
Massachusetts, in 1776. “If God,” he says “hath made of one blood all races of
men, I can see no reason why a black rather than a white man should be a
slave.” 3
In 1774
the Quakers of Pennsylvania excluded from membership all who bought, sold, or
kept negro slaves. So strong was the impression that the Christian religion
freed a slave, that, as we stated previously, the Virginia assembly in 1667 was
obliged to pass a resolution declaring that the act of baptism did not
emancipate : this was renewed in 1705.4
Slave
Trade in Great Britain.—In Great Britain, the earliest opposition to the slave
trade and
to slavery arose among religious men and was impelled by Christian motives.
Among the prominent opponents of this abuse may be mentioned Baxter, Bishop
Warburton, Paley, John Wesley, Bishop Porteous, Whitefield, and others. It is
1 Quoted in Wilson, vol. i. p. 13.
2 Wilson, vol. i. p. 230.
3 Moore’s History of Slavery, p. 178.
4 Anderson’s History of Col. Church, vol.
ii. p. 552; vol. iii. p. 227.
unfortunately
true, however, that Whitefield subsequently permitted the introduction of
slavery into Georgia. The first petition presented to Parliament against the
slave trade (in x776) was based on religious grounds : “that the slave trade is
contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man.” Previously to this, the
Quakers, through George Fox, had made the following protest against the slave
trade in the Barbadoes : “And therefore consider seriously of this, and do you
for them and to them, as you would willingly have them or any others do unto
you, were you in the like slavish condition, and bring them to know the Lord
Christ.” Again, in 1783, the Quakers presented to the House of Commons a like
petition against the slave trade: “Your petitioners regret, that a nation
professing the Christian faith should so far counteract the principles of
humanity and justice as by the cruel treatment of this oppressed race, to fill
their minds with prejudice against the mild and beneficent doctrines of the
Gospel.” A certain portion of English society was becoming gradually permeated
with the opinion that both slavery and the slave trade were contrary to the
principles of the Christian religion. The writings of those earnest men who did
more than any others to abolish these terrible evils, are full of religious
expression and feeling in regard to these wrongs. Clarkson and Sharpe and
Wilberforce always urge Christian motives against slavery. “ If,” says
Clarkson, “ we oppress the stranger as I have shown, and if by a knowledge of
his heart we find he is a person of the same passions and feelings as
ourselves, we are certainly breaking by the prosecution of the slave-trade that
fundamental rule of Christianity which says, we shall not do that unto another
which we wish should not be done to ourselves.”1
The slave
trade had brought to Great Britain, during the 1 Clarkson’s History,
p. 246.
two
centuries and more of its continuance, hundreds of millions of its ill-gotten
wealth. It had been protected, as we have seen, by the most powerful interests.
The struggle against it was commenced by a small band of Christian
men who waged their war on this powerful system of injustice almost solely from
motives of humanity and religion. Sixty years after the Treaty of Utrecht was
signed, Wilberforce began (i773) to write against the slave trade. Clarkson
followed in 1780. The struggle was long, bitter and severe. It was not till 1806-7
that the final victory was gained, and the slave trade was abolished in the
British empire. The Congress of Vienna followed in 1815, by engaging the
European powers “to use especial efforts to abolish the traffic reproved by the
laws of religion and nature.”
The United
States had included their judgment on the slave trade in their constitution,
but adjourned the final abolition till 1807. The example of Great Britain was
followed by nearly all the civilized Powers,1 and it is noted as an
evidence of the advance of opinion that the slave trade has been condemned by
three European congresses, a papal bull, twenty-six treaties and more than two
hundred conventions with African sovereigns. England, as if feeling the
enormity of her previous policy, has been indefatigable in her efforts to make
the only redress possible, by breaking up the present traffic. She has made
treaties, maintained cruisers on the coast of Africa, established consulates
and commissions, and her officials have carried on an immense correspondence,
organizing meetings, missions, voyages and protests without number, having for
their sole object the breaking up of this detestable trade. There is certainly
no public policy recorded
1 Denmark even preceded her and abolished
the slave trade in 1794, so far as it touched Danish ports, and in her colonies
after 1804.
in history
of a higher and more disinterested nature or having more the stamp of true
Christianity. Despite these .efforts and those of other civilized powers, the
traffic continued, and it is believed that as late as 1849, 50,000 slaves were
imported into Brazil alone.
Many
countries have even made slave trading piracy for their own citizens, but it is
not as yet held piracy by international law; though no doubt in another
generation, the public opinion of the world will thus stamp it.1
Slavery in
the British Colonies.—The struggle in England against West India slavery was
like that against the slave trade, throughout caused and urged on by motives of
Christian philanthropy. It cannot be said that the English people or
government had any material interest or profit in the abolition of slavery in
their colonies. The whole proceeding seems an act of justice and humanity, and
bears the stamp of religious influence. The writings and speeches of the
reformers, the arguments presented to the people, the mottoes of the
anti-slavery societies, the feelings expressed by the people, all prove that
this great reform proceeded from religious and humane feelings, was caused by
Christianity and urged especially from Christian motives. Colquhoun,2 who
writes with anything but a favourable ■spirit to revealed
religion, confesses that “a
religious delirium and morbid sentimentalism dictated this measure ”
(emancipation).
Under
religious influences many ameliorating features had been introduced into the
colonial slavery about the years 1823 and 1826. But the conscience of England
had
1 In full and just acknowledgment of the
interests and principles of Christian philanthropy for the entire rooting out
of this criminal trade, slave trading shall be punished like piracy. (Resolve
of German Confederation, June 19th, 1845.)
2 Reman Civil Law, vol. i. p. 420.
come to
the conclusion, that the only right course with this evil was to utterly
abolish it.
After a
long struggle of the most embittered nature, in which the great statesmen of
England sided in Parliament with the representatives of the religious sentiment
of the nation, slavery was abolished (1833) throughout the British colonies at
an immediate cost to the nation of £20,000,000 ($ 100,000,000) paid to the
planters, and an estimated loss to the latter of ^40,000,000 ($200,000,000) in
the value of the slaves and the depreciated price of the lands.
This may
certainly be looked upon as one of the greatest triumphs of Religion. The
example of England was followed in 1846 by Sweden, in 1849 by Denmark,
Uruguay, Wallachia and Tunis; in 1848 by France, and in 1855 by Portugal. A
strong effort was made in 1880 in the Spanish Cortes to abolish the evil in
Cuba, which it is believed will succeed. Slavery is also mainly done away with
in Brazil—a law for gradual emancipation having been passed in 1871.
Slavery in
the United States.—The opposition to this unjust system in both the Northern
and Southern States, began very early from religious motives. Dr. Sewall, who
is so prominent in the early history of Massachusetts in his opposition to both
the traffic in slaves and the holding of them, draws his arguments especially
from Christian doctrines. The Quakers opposed and at length entirely renounced
slavery from religious grounds. Emancipation took place in the Northern States
however from a combination of causes—the influence of climate, the competition
of free labour, and the little profit of the system, as well as from
conscientious motives. In the South, where at first there had been a deep moral
opposition to the system, gradually, through its profitable returns, the pride
of class which it nourished and the political power it conferred,
there came
to be a strong conviction and even passion in its favour. As time went on the
minds of thoughtful and otherwise good men in the Southern States, became completely
perverted and led astray on this great moral evil. Such sophisms as excused the
horrors of the slave trade to the early Spanish traders, blinded the intellects
of great numbers who on all other matters were just and humane. The religious
influences of American slavery were supposed to outweigh all the injustice of
the system. Then the evils of freedom were believed by many to be greater than
all those which fell to these ignorant creatures from bondage. They were said
to be like children, unable to guide or support themselves without their
masters. Moreover, there was the apparent practical difficulty of what to do
with millions of slaves when they were emancipated ; and the fear, bred of
ignorance, that when freed, they would massacre their former masters, and
commit the most savage atrocities. Emancipation was thus believed to
mean,—poverty to the masters, perhaps servile war, and certainly the
introduction of a vast element of ignorance, unassimilable by society, into the
American body politic ; and beyond this, the entire political humiliation of
the South in the councils of the nation. Every practical inducement and
interested motive seemed to work against emancipation at the South. The
reformer who should advocate it apparently preached utter ruin to himself and
his associates; he threatened the very existence of civil order; he consigned
his bondsmen to unknown evils ; he humbled and weakened politically that
community which had become to him more than his nation—his State. The property
which he would attack had come finally to hold a value of over two thousand
millions of dollars. And he did all this, when his false religious advisers
urged upon him that slavery was right, Christian and benevolent to the black.
Let none
of us who have never been in these circumstances and have not felt these
temptations, say too confidently that we could have kept the mind clear and
have deliberately chosen the path of right and justice though it led to ruin
and humiliation.'
On the
other hand, at the North, many circumstances combined to blind the eyes of just
and God-fearing men. Thousands believed that their fathers had entered into a
political compact which for ever forbade them from abolishing slavery in the
Slave States by the power of the Federal government. Their hands were tied by
solemn engagements. Under their view of the constitution, they did not hold
themselves responsible for this system of injustice, where it was under State
power. They could only bring about emancipation by breaking this compact, or by
civil war. Jesuitical sophisms had also perverted the judgment of many. The
negroes were under a Christian system of instruction ; they were better off
than as heathen in Africa; emancipation would mean the chaos of society at the
South, and perhaps servile war. Moreover this enormous property-interest in the
Southern States was connected by a thousand ties to the wealth and prosperity
of the North. The greed of gain, even from this unjust source, stupefied the
conscience of a large part of the religious community of the Free States.
Again, as so often in history, the organized Church, in many of its branches,
became arrayed against true Christianity. Many of the nominally religious
bodies of the country became proslavery, and therefore false to the teachings
of Christ.
The
opinion of the Presbyterian Synod in the United States is given as early as
1787, in favour of universal liberty and of constant preparation by the masters
for emancipation, by providing education for the slaves, and by granting them a
small property of their own, and finally
they “
recommended it to all their people to use the most prudent measures, consistent
with the interests and the state of civil society in the countries where they
live, to procure eventually the final abolition of slavery in America.”1
Again this
advice is repeated in 1815 ; and in 1818, the General Assembly venture to say
that slavery is a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of
human nature; " utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires
us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and totally irreconcilable with the
spirit and principles of Christ.”3 They then adopted a declaration,
which was repeatedly reaffirmed by subsequent assemblies, that “ it is
manifestly the duty of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day,
to use their honest, earnest and unwearied endeavours, as speedily as possible,
to efface this blot on our fyioly religion, and obtain the complete abolition
of slavery throughout Christendom.”3
The
Congregationalists, Unitarians and other sects were in their early history even
more opposed to slavery, both in their formal resolutions and in their
practical action. The Methodist Episcopal Church, in an early conference (1780)
plainly condemned the system of human bondage ; but, as with many of the sects
in the United States, the corrupting influences of the system gradually
penetrated the Church and weakened its moral force. In 1800, the Annual
Conference was directed to draw up an address for the gradual emancipation of
the slaves, to such legislatures as had passed no laws on this subject. By a
subsequent action, however, this and other similar paragraphs were struck out,
and the following words were added (1804):
1 Digest of
Records of the General Assembly of the Presb. Church,
P- 338.
! Ibid., p.
342. 3 Ibid., p. 342.
“ Let all
our preachers, from time to time as occasion serves, admonish and exhort all
slaves to render due respect and obedience to the commands and interests of
their respective masters.”1
It is from
1830 to 1850 that the so-called “ Church of Christ" in the United States
was, in many of its branches, especially false to His principles as regards
justice and benevolence to our fellow-men. This was true not only of the public
action of many religious bodies, but of the private views and arguments of
individual leaders of the Church in all sects, both Roman Catholic and
Protestant Many sophistical arguments were put forth by Northern religious men
to prove the right of slavery; and the Churches were exceedingly timid in
hearing or pleading the cause of the oppressed. A distinguished Presbyterian
divine, Dr. Albert Barnes, said in a well known address, “ There is no power
out of the Church that could sustain slavery an hour if it were not sustained
in it.”2
Even the
Quakers, in this hour of trial, were often found inconsistent with the
doctrines their predecessors had so consistently taught, and gave little
encouragement to movements for emancipation.3 It is stated that
only certain small sects, such as the Free Will Baptists and Old School
Covenanters, were always and consistently opposed to slavery.4
Individual Churches, however, in all sects were true to the spirit of their
Master—especially among Con- gregationalists and Unitarians.
In the
meantime, the profound principles of Christianity were working on such minds as
Garrison’s, Lovejoy’s, Phillips’, Johnson’s and others, and producing in them
the intense conviction, that the slave was a brother, that
1 Bowen’s
Methodist Episcopal Church and Slavery, p. 24. 8 Johnson’s Garrison,
p. 248.
1 Ibid. 4 Ibid.
for him
Christ had lived and died, and we were bound to do to him as we would have
others do to us in like condition, and that no compact or constitution could
hold which permitted such an atrocious injustice as American slavery. It is
true that subsequently the false position of a large part of the American
Church on this question forced many of the early abolitionists to an apparent
opposition to religion ; it was only however an asserting of the real character
of Christianity against those who had falsified it.
Garrison
at an early period said, “ Emancipation must be the work of Christianity and
the Church. They must achieve the elevation of the blacks and place them on the
equality of the Gospels.” 1 And again in an impassioned passage, the
great emancipator exclaims, “ I call upon the spirits of the just made perfect
in heaven, upon all who have experienced the love of God in their souls here below,
upon the Christian converts in India and the isles of the sea, to sustain one
in the assertion, that there is power enough in the religion of Jesus Christ to
melt down the most stubborn prejudices, to overthrow the highest wall of
partition, to break the strongest caste, to improve and elevate the most
degraded and to equalize all its recipients.”3
No one who
knew anything of the anti-slavery reformers in the United States, will doubt
that their career was begun and carried on under the purest influence of
Christ’s truths. It was these and similar men and women who founded, in 1833,
the American Anti-Slavery Society.
But beyond
them was a great host of religious men and women in all sects, who felt the
deepest opposition to slavery from humane and religious grounds. They conscientiously
believed their hands tied by a political compact ; they did not hold
themselves responsible for the existence of slavery in the Southern States ;
but they were
1 Johnson,
p. 68. 2 Ibid., p. 106. Words spoken in 1832.
unalterably
opposed to its extension or to any increase of its- power. From this great
body, the prayer for emancipation went up by night and day ; they scattered
innumerable documents, and furnished speakers and arguments against the system
; they did their utmost to hem the slave power within fixed boundaries ; they
poured free labour over the new territories, and from them were organized the
great party which started, with all the enthusiasm of a moral reform, its
triumphant opposition to the extension of the slave power and finally to its
very existence.1
The
natural effect and tendency of slavery at the South tended more and more to
awaken the Northern conscience. The increasing cruelty of the masters; the laws
against instruction of the negroes ; the breeding of slaves for the market, and
the separation of families; the violence and arrogance of the slaveholders, and
beyond all other things, the pursuing of fugitive bondmen on free territory,
aroused each day a deeper hostility to this organized injustice among even the
most cautious of the citizens of the Free States. When slaves were sold under
the shadow of the
1 In an
interesting sketch of the struggle which prevented Illinois in 1823 from
becoming a Slave State, the Life of Gov. Coles, the biographer (Mr. Washburne),
says, “ the press teemed with publications on the subject. The stump-orators
were invoked, and the pulpit thundered anathemas against the introduction of
slavery. The religious community coupled freedom and Christianity together,
which was one of the most powerful levers used in the contest.” At one meeting
of the Friends of Freedom in St. Clair county, more than thirty preachers of
the Gospel attended and opposed the introduction of slavery into the State.*
“ It may
be said to the eternal honour of the clergy of Illinois at that day, that they
were almost without exception opposed to the Convention (which favoured the
making it a Slave State), and that they exerted great influence in securing the
rejection of the Convention proposition at the polls” (p. 171).
* Sketch
of Gov. Coles-, p. 136.
Capitol of
the United States, and when government troops conducted a chained runaway
through Boston to his master, the most conservative felt that no American
citizen could escape a certain responsibility for the existence of slavery ;
and a deep and burning indignation was kindled in many minds that such a shame
and tyranny could exist under the republic.
In all
great reforms and changes, there are many forces that bring about the final
result. The wrath of man as well as the love of God, mingle often in the
ultimate abolition of human ills. It was the anti-slavery feeling, begotten of
Christianity, which prepared the minds of the great intelligent masses of the
Free States for their final struggle with the slave power. And no reasonable objector
should belittle this motive, because these very men were held back from
forcible opposition to slavery by a loyal conviction of their obligations under
the constitution. They saw that to strike directly at the slave power meant
revolution and civil war. Considering the probable fearful nature of such a
conflict and the uncertainty of its issue, they do not deserve reproach that
they waited for the other side to give the first blow.
And then,
beginning the difficult struggle with a large element of the population in
sympathy with the slave- masters, it may be excused that these doubting ones
were attracted by other cries, than those of anti-slavery. The government, too,
kept its old traditions, and still feared to avow, what was the great impelling
power of the Northern uprising—its hostility to slavery. American statesmen
in their proclamations and public despatches, even made light of the objects of
the struggle, and seldom professed the moral enthusiasm which fired the
thousands of individuals who pressed forward to the ranks. But those who knew
the people at this time, knew that in every
company
and regiment enlisting for the war, there were men animated with an
unquenchable enthusiasm for liberty and hatred of slavery. They loved the Union
indeed, but they loved it as the ideal of liberty for all men of all races. A
moral fervour burned through all classes of men at the North. The first
regiments came from the most antislavery districts of the most religious
communities. Many of the leaders were avowed abolitionists. The popular songs
breathed the spirit of emancipation. A thousand pulpits pleaded the cause of
the negro and denounced slavery. The feeling had stamped itself deep into the
heart of the Northern people, that slavery, as a great wrong and injustice,
would injure the white and the whole country equally with the negro, and was
against the laws of Providence.
Innumerable
other feelings and motives mingled in the spirit which opened and sustained the
war: love of the Union, pugnacity, the hostility of a free-labour class to a
slaveholding class, political sympathy and a careful weighing of the chances of
the future if a slaveholding republic were allowed unlimited sway side by side
with a free republic. But deeper than all these, among the religious bodies,
and in every class, was an intense moral opposition to slavery, and a
determination now that hands were unbound as to the compacts of the
constitution, to get rid of it once and for ever.
The mere
pecuniary and commercial interest of the Free States was undoubtedly to leave
the status quo, to enjoy the indirect profits of slave-labour, and not suddenly
to destroy two thousand millions worth of apparent property in a portion of the
republic. The moral forces, as well as enlightened policy, prevailed.
It is true
that emancipation was at length declared as a “ war-measure.” But the way was
prepared for it by
C C,
the moral
opposition to slavery as a wrong and injustice.
The whole
population of the Free States had been educated by events as to the real
character of the system, and conscience and religious sentiment had been enlightened
by what seemed the revelation of Providence itself. In such vast social reforms
as the abolition of American slavery, many influences must combine with the
purely moral and religious. Christianity acts merely as stimulating the
conscience, increasing human sympathy, and awakening the mind to the horror and
injustice of such an oppression of a fellow-man. It does not show the way to
revolution, though indirectly it does often “bring a sword into the world.” But
it works upon the most tremendous motive-power in human affairs—the conscience
and sympathy, and under it, convulsions must come ; until finally men approach
in institutions and laws its divine principles.
Without
the passion and rashness of the South, it is difficult to see how emancipation
would have come for centuries. There might have been two republics indeed, but
one would have been slaveholding. Still ultimately in the far future, after
untold horrors, and convulsions and wars, freedom' would have dawned on the
American continent also, for “ where the Spirit of Christ is, there is
liberty.”
MODERN
SERFDOM.
The history of serfdom and emancipation in the Middle Ages
virtually includes the similar history in modern times.
This relic
of a barbarous period reached down to a more civilized era. The oppression and
exactions of serfdom in every country of Europe, except Norway and Sweden, have
weighed down and degraded the labouring class, crippled their producing power,
and in many states, prepared the way for the outbreaks which accompanied or
followed the French Revolution. The ignorance and degradation of a large part
of the European peasantry in this century are due most of all to serfdom. Even
as late as 1750 (it is stated by careful writers)1 more than
one-half of the German people were in the state of serfdom. The profound moral
and religious forces which gradually change such a system of injustice as this,
are not easily recognised. The most powerful influences working to the
overthrow of serfdom were the silent.
Throughout
the eighteenth century, the press in Europe became imbued with humane and
religious ideas, and thundered incessantly against this ancient injustice.
The
philosophers, who often, while deriding religion,
1
Sugenheim. Zimmerman.
387
showed the
purest Christian spirit, constantly protested against this wrong. Men’s minds
became everywhere stamped with the ideas of equality of rights for all, and of
humanity toward the weak. The incredible burdens and exactions of serfdom in
France, Germany, Italy, Spain and other countries; were felt to be violations
of Christian and humane obligations. Here and there prominent acts of
emancipation by individual masters betray the deep impulses at work.
Thus a
certain Count Rantzan in Holstein, in 1766, published a pamphlet, giving his
own experience in freeing his serfs, which was afterwards circulated as a
document of emancipation in Russia, and is believed to have had much effect
there. This owner of serfs gives a powerful picture of the hopelessness,
degradation and ir- religion of his bondmen ; how they had no heart in their
labours, no courage and no hope ; and how they even became indifferent to the
strongest impulses of human nature, and did not care for marriage or to leave
descendants who should inherit such misery. “This condition (of serfdom),”
says the Count, “ naturally extinguished all moral good in them ; one observed
in them a beastly coldbloodedness towards God and religion.1
In various
countries, the sovereigns were sufficiently in advance of their times to press
emancipation on an unwilling nobility and gentry; in others, the storms of
revolution swept away the last relics of feudal oppression. But in almost all,
the ideas and principles derived from religion had prepared men’s minds for
removing the heavy burdens on the poor.
One of the
earliest royal ordinances against serfdom in modern times was from Frederick I.
of Prussia (1702), doing away with it on the royal domains ; this, however, 1
Sugenheim, p. 517.
was
withdrawn in 1711. Frederick II. attempted to renew the injunction in 1719,
especially on the royal territory in Prussian Pomerania. These efforts were
followed by those of Frederick the Great (1763), but they all failed, though
the oppression was much softened in the Polish provinces.
In France,
an edict of Louis XVI. proclaims (1779) that, “ considering that a great number
of our subjects are still servilely attached to the soil, and regarded as
making part of it,1 they shall be free on the royal domain.” Yet,
nothing but the explosion of the revolution broke up the exactions and burdens
of ages, and freed France from this injustice. Previous to this, in North Italy
the princes had abolished these ancient oppressions of the people, Victor
Amadeus of Savoy having abolished forced labour in 1729, and removed all
similar burdens in Sardinia in 1761. In Germany, it was in this century before
the various oppressions of serfdom were done away with. As usual, the
revolutions bore in their train emancipation from feudalism. The outbreak of
1830 was followed by freedom to the poor peasant in Hanover (1831), in Saxony
and Bavaria (1832), and Wiirtemburg (1836). The Revolution of 1848 was followed
by entire liberty in Prussia (1850) from feudal burdens, though serfdom had
been abolished forty years before; and by the utter doing away with forced
labour and service among the peasants by the Magyar nobility (1849) in Hungary.
In Austria, the Imperial house had done much for the serfs through different
reigns, but serfdom was not ended in Gallicia till 1782; and all traces of
feudalism were not swept away till this century.
This abuse
in some of its forms survived in Denmark till 1835, and in Switzerland till
1846.
1
Sugenheim.
In Russia,
as is well known, serfdom survived till 1861. It is probable that in this
latter country, and in Hungary, the religious impulse had less share in
emancipation than it has had in the rest of Europe. Still both countries felt
the current of the age, which has been strongly directed by the ideals
presented in the Gospels. The conception of man as a “a brother in Christ,” and
one for whom He has died, always tends to shake down tyranny and undermine
injustice. As Religion spreads abroad the ideas of human brotherhood, equality
before God, responsibility to Him and liberty, the ancient systems of injustice
are brought to the ground, and Freedom and Justice begin to rule and prevail.
' THE DUEL.
The progress which has been made in Christianized opinion in
regard to this custom, may be best measured by the views of one of the most
acute philosophical writers on law in modern times; an author, too, who
considered all these subjects (so far as his training permitted), unin- '
fluenced by Christian traditions. Bentham, in his “ Principles of Penal Law” ;
says of the duel: “ It entirely effaces the stain which an insult imprints upon
honour.” He then praises courage, justly, as one of the highest qualities of
the citizen, and regards it as especially tested by this mode of trial,
“ In the
state of neglect,” he adds, “ in which the laws till the present time have left
the honour of the citizens, he who endures an insult,without having recourse to
the satisfaction which public opinion prescribed to him, by thus acting
exhibits himself as reduced to a state of humiliating dependence, and exposed
to receive an indefinite series of affronts; he exhibits himself as devoid of
the sentiment of courage which produces general security, and, indeed, as void
of sensibility to reputation,—sensibility, protection of all the virtues and
safeguard against all the vices.”
Or again,
“ Duelling
is a preservative of politeness and peace—the fear of
1 Eenthatris
Works, vol. i. p. 380. There is reason to think from a letter of Bentham to
the Duke of Wellington, that he modified these views in later life.
being
obliged to give or receive a challenge, destroys a quarrel in the germ.”
“If the
legislator had always applied a proper system of satisfaction for offences,
there would have been no duelling, which has been and is still but a supplement
to the insufficiency of the laws.”
The
Christian system, it need not be said in reply, differs in toto from the modern
theory of “ honour,” as it does from the spirit which supports war. It requires
the believer indeed to scrupulously regard the opinion of the just and
honourable, and to avoid even the appearance of evil; but its standard is not
reputation, even that of the highest and most civilized persons, but character,
and character continually tested by Christ. Its “ sensibility ” is constantly
called out, not towards a public opinion which ever changes, but towards the
supposed approval of the purest moral character which history has known. Ben-
tham’s argument at this late day hardly seems worth replying to. A devout
Christian of his time would have said : “ We hope through the gradual
influences of the Christian religion and right reason, to change the public
opinion of all civilized states, so that the politeness and peace of which you
speak will be the national outflow of improved morals and manners, and not the
effect of fear or prudence; so that affronts will not be so often offered, or
will not be so much felt, or will be punished by law and public reprobation. We
hold that courage may be tested in far more sensible and useful ways than in
personal combat; and that the duel settles nothing, and cannot affect in one
way or the other the reputation assailed. We hold that a nobler courage may be
shown by refusing a challenge than accepting it; and that the Christian has a
higher standard to measure himself by than a changing public opinion, inherited
from barbaric times, which often approves selfish and base actions. We trust to
change
both
opinion and law, so that duelling will become considered as a relic of
barbarism, as it is known to be contrary to the spirit of the Christian
religion.”
The
struggle, however, between the spirit of this Faith and this custom has been an
exceedingly slow and doubtful one for the past three centuries. In this
matter, the Church has been indeed more consistent with the teachings of the
Master than in any other. The Church as well as Christianity has nearly always
opposed the duel of revenge, or that fought on account of wounded honour.
The
Council of Toledo (1477) made a solemn declaration that Christian burial
should be refused to duellists. Pope Julius II. (1509) issued a bull,
prohibiting the duel on pain of excommunication, and Leo X. (1519) threatened
the same punishment to all witnesses, seconds, or abettors of the offence. Pius
V. extended the prohibition to all Christendom. The celebrated Council of Trent
gave forth no uncertain sound on this custom. All duellists were threatened
with excommunication and loss of Christian burial, and the duel was called “ an
invention of the devil to ruin the soul, by the bloody death of the body.”
Gregory XIII. (1582) also issued a bull, threatening terrible spiritual
penalties on all duellists, and Clement V. extended the punishment to all
seconds and abettors ; and as late as 1752, Benedict XIV. proclaims a refusal
of Christian burial even to those who died away from the field of contest, but
through the effects of the duel.
The
Protestant and Catholic Church has each been equally opposed to it during all
their history. The books of religious instruction, and the volumes of sermons,
in all Christian countries, are full of arguments and appeals against the
practice. And yet it was late in this century before Christian influences produced
much effect.
The “ duel
of honour ” is to be distinguished from the
“judicial
duel” of the Middle Ages. It is an off-shoot of chivalry, and especially made
its appearance in France in the sixteenth century in the reign of Francis I. It
represented the exaggerated sensitiveness of a class to any slight affecting
its reputation, which was an especial feature of chivalry and feudalism.
Reversing the rule of the Roman law,1 the modern gentleman felt the
light blow of a stick or the hand on the face as a greater insult than a stroke
by a deadly weapon, because the peasants and villains alone fought with sticks
and fists, and with uncovered faces. The lie was the highest insult, because
this was the common reproach or accusation made against the slave, the villain,
or the peasant.
The duel
became the badge or sign of a class : and the chivalric habit of a barbaric age
of fighting in the cause of the weak or for any wound, of honour or the most
trifling reason, became transferred to a more enlightened time,' and was the
mode of showing membership in an undefined body, of restraining rudeness and
satisfying enmity. It is the “survival” of barbarism in a civilized age.
So rife
did the practice become in France, that during the eighteen years of the reign
of Henry IV., four thousand French gentlemen are said to have perished in the
duel, and this good-natured king is reported to have granted
14,000 pardons -to those who' had offended
against the law in this matter. From his reign to 1757, no less than twelve
royal ordinances and eight acts were published against duelling, and yet as
late as the minority of Louis XIV. three hundred of the first nobles of France
perished by this practice.
Duels were
almost equally common in England and Ireland. In the reign of George III. there
were, according
1 Ictus
fustium infamiam non importat. (De his qui infamia, etc.)
to
Gilchrist, one hundred and seventy-two duels, in which one-fifth of the
combatants were killed, and one-half received wounds ; only eighteen of these
were tried (though the statute books are full of laws against the practice), of
whom six were acquitted, seven were found guilty of manslaughter, three of
murder, two were executed, and eight sentenced to imprisonment Every state in
Europe has legislated against duelling, and in many armies, an officer is
cashiered who takes part in a duel. “Courts of Honour” have been formed in
various countries to take jurisdiction of offences against honour. Yet duelling
still continues in France, and to a limited degree in Germany. Even. so
celebrated a general and old a soldier as the Duke of Wellington, after all his
victories, felt it necessary to fight a duel as late as 1829; and a duel
between Englishmen in England was fought as late as 1845, while one occurred in
England between Frenchmen in 1852.1
As late as
1841, an address was presented to the House of Lords, in relation to a
particular duel, and protesting against this barbaric custom, and obviously
under the impression that public feeling among the higher classes was very much
in its favour.
“If
society]’ saY the petitioners, “is to be preserved, it
must be christianized. Your lordships have acknowledged this great truth by
your exertions to preserve the Christian principle in education.
. . . But
it would be mockery to hold forth the Decalogue with one hand, and with the
other, a Charter of legitimacy to that spurious offspring of human vice and
folly, which, involving as it does a direct transgression not of one only but
almost every law in the Decalogue, virtually annuls it. ... We call upon your
lordships therefore in the name of God and man ... to accompany your verdict
with
1 It is
reported that in the same year a trial occurred in England for slander, between
two English Naval Officers, which would have been settled earlier by duel.
the
fearless and unqualified expression of your united abhorrence of the unhallowed
system of duelling.”1
A duel
occurred in England in 1843, which gave rise to the “Anti-duelling
Association,” and was followed by an order of the Queen through the War-office
in 1844. This order3 has perhaps broken up duelling in the British
army, though previous experience shows that such orders are successful only
when they are the voice of public opinion. By this regulation, an officer
engaging in a duel is cashiered and his second punished. In the third article,
approbation is expressed of
“The
conduct of those who having had the misfortune to give offence to or injure or
insult others, shall frankly explain, apologize, or offer redress for the same,
or who, having received offence, shall cordially accept frank explanation or
apology for the same ; . . . and lastly, all officers and soldiers are
acquitted of disgrace or disadvantage, who, being willing to make or accept
such redress, refuse to accept challenges,” etc.
This
certainly is at length the voice of Christianity speaking through governmental
regulation and military law.
In the
United States, the duel has been so common, that a modern English historian of
duelling, Dr. Millingen,3 writing in 1841, says, with suitable
modesty, he is confident from the progress already made, that within half a
century, duels will become as rare in the United States as in Great Britain, if
not rarer. In its early history, the Republic lost the greatest statesman jt
has ever possessed —Alexander Hamilton—in a duel with a worthless adventurer
who was determined4 to murder him, and when
1 The
Times, Feb. nth, 1841.
* 2
Quoted in Steinmetz’s Romance of Duelling, vol. ii. p. 366.
3 History of Duelling, vol. i. p. 179.
4 Bentham, on hearing from Burr’s lips the
account of this duel, said, “ it was nothing less than murder.” See Bentham's
Works, vol. xi.
Hamilton,
disapproving the practice, fired into the air. The feeling throughout the
country at this useless sacrifice, aided much in breaking up the practice in
the Free States. The savage influence of the slave system kept it up for many
years, especially in Washington, where the members from Free and Slave States
met in bitter discussion. It was, however, a Southern statesman—Gen. Pinckney,
of South Carolina—who, after Hamilton’s death, addressed in 1804 a celebrated
memorial against duelling to the Senate and House of Assembly of South
Carolina.
“ Your
memorialists,” he says, “ are deeply impressed with grief at the prevalence of
the custom of duelling, which trampling on all laws, human and divine, sweeps
off many useful citizens, leaving the families a prey to sorrow, and often to
poverty and vice. That this custom originated in dark and barbarous ages, when
a regular and impartial administration of justice was unknown and unpractised,
etc. That restraining personal resentments by giving the attribute of vengeance
to the laws, was the greatest victory obtained by civilization over barbarism,
but the custom of duelling is too well calculated to defeat the beneficent
effects of that triumph, and to weaken the effect of all laws, etc. That the
pretence of those who would excuse this custom on the ground that it polishes
society and prevents assassination, is wholly unfounded; . . . a custom, which
though in direct hostility of the principles of Christianity, prevails only in
Christian Europe and America.”
Again
still later (in 1838) it was a Southerner, Henry Clay, who in a debate on a
bill to prohibit duelling in the District of Columbia, said, as the last word
in the debate, “When public opinion is renovated and chastened by religion,
reason and humanity, the practice of duelling will be at once discountenanced.”
This bill,
it should be remarked, passed with only a single vote in the negative. So in
every State, strict laws were passed against duelling, and provisions against
it included in the constitution of many even of the Slave States. The rules and
regulations governing the United
States
army strictly forbade it. But all this was of no avail. Public opinion even in
the North for a long time upheld it; and in the South, the influence of slavery
and the society based upon it, preserved the custom till within a very few
years. The gradual permeation of the people by Christian ideas and by right
reason, has finally utterly done away with duelling in the Free States; while
the same causes with the destruction of a slave oligarchy at the South, have
gradually uprooted it there. It is not found in practice that the abolition of
duelling, as was so freely predicted, has increased assassination or cases of
bodily attacks; nor does it make language in political debates more personal or
violent. Politeness of manner through the Union is even more common than in the
times when challenges were so customary. Political debates are no more abusive,
and on the whole, less so, than under the duelling regime. Instances of
personal violence and murderous conflict are more rare in all the States. The
press, often vituperative enough, is not as bad as it was when a scandalous
article brought after it a challenge. The whole country has been much softened
by religion and the progress of civilization. Courage has been sufficiently
tested in the awful ordeal of civil war. Public opinion has been elevated and
Christianized. Laws express the higher feeling on this subject, and are
executed. The duel, as will be in some distant day with war, is simply regarded
as a relic of a barbarous age, and will soon utterly pass out of use or
observance;
PRISON REFORM
AND CHARITIES.
It
is certainly one of the marked steps in humane progress among civilized
nations, that the convict and prisoner for crime or transgression is no longer
merely left to his punishment, or treated with brutality and unnecessary
cruelty. There is scarcely a trace in the ancient world of any important
attempt to reform the offender against human law or to render his confinement
less miserable. It was seldom remembered that many offenders are only technical
violators of human legislation, and that many others are led into crime by the
entire neglect of their education by the community.
Prison
reform began under Christian influences, as we have previously shown, during
the reign of the first (nominally) Christian Emperor of Rome. Constantine’s
legislation (320 A.D.) thus provides for improvement in. the treatment of
convicts. Those accused of crimes are to be examined with promptness and not to
be detained in confinement, while those arrested are to be confined in a humane
manner. The cells are to be furnished with means for air and light. Persons
under accusation are not to be put in jails or scourged, but are to be placed
under “ military arrest ” and in a prison open to the light.1
In 340 a
law forbade the mingling of sexes in prison.3
1 Cod.
Theod,, lit. ix. tit. 4. 2
Ibid., tit. 1.
399
The
Emperor Honorius charged the judges to visit the prisons every Sunday, to see
that the prisoners received sufficient nourishment and to take care that proper
humanity be shown the convicts by the jailers.1
In 549 the
Council of Clermont orders the prisons to be visited every Sunday by the
archdeacon or some other church official, to provide for the wants of the
prisoners.
The great
reform of European prisons commenced by Howard, is most clearly a fruit of the
teachings of the “ Friend of man.” Every line of the private journals of this
devoted philanthropist, his dying words and prayers, show the religious
inspiration which prompted his efforts. “ Do Thou, O Lord! ” says this friend
of the unfortunate, a little before his death, “visit the prisoners and
captives and manifest Thy strength in my weakness. Help, Almighty God! for in
Thee do I put my trust, for Thou art my rock.”2
A
biographer says of him : "The mid-day sun is not more evidently the cause
of light and warmth and fruitfulness, than that Christian love which animated,
induced and constrained Howard to consecrate himself entirely to God’s service,
and to sacrifice life rather than that fellow-men should suffer whom he might
assist and relieve.”8
The great
reforms of this century in the treatment of convicts and prisoners; the
individual moral influences, the stimulus introduced of hope and a kind of
moral probation within prison walls, the grading and separation of prisoners,
the introduction of schools, libraries and the services of religion to those
under the sentence of the law,
1 Cod. Theod., lib. xi. tit. 27.
2 Life 0/ Howard (Field’s), p. 4.
s Ibid., p.
65.
the
gradual avoidance of degrading and useless penalties the employment of more
humane and conscientious prison officers, the use of reformatoiy as well as
deterrent measures in the treatment of offenders, in fine, the best features
of the “ Irish ” prison system—all these are the clear and natural fruits of
Christian teachings. We know of no similar influence among those sentenced by
law or of similar effects under any other religious system. To the modern
believer as well as to the ancient, Christ still goes down among the weary and
heavy-laden, the prisoner and captive, and attempts to lift the heavy burdens,
and the true follower seeks to walk in His footsteps. The great conventions of
prison reformers and those who would elevate and improve the lot of convicts
and prisoners, held in all civilized countries, are only another appropriate
expression of human sympathy under the inspiration of the “Teacher of
Galilee.”
The
immense reforms in the prison system of the United States are a striking
feature of the times. We read in American colonial history that a preacher in
the principal Philadelphia prison was obliged to be supported by a cannon with
a lighted match at hand ; that the Connecticut prisoners were kept in one
place1 in underground cells dripping with moisture, where the light
of day never penetrated, and where vice and riot prevailed ; that in the
leading city, New York, old and young, male and female, sane and insane,
innocent and criminal, were confined in jails together; that drunkenness,
debauchery, profanity and rioting ruled in these places, so that all prisons
and jails became schools of crime. Neither hope nor religion ever entered these
abodes of misery.
It was the
Christian spirit that inspired the first great effort in the United States to
save the youthful criminal,
1 The
Simsbury mine.
D D
in
founding in 1824 the first American Reformatory—the •New York House of Refuge.
The same inspiration has gradually lightened the fate of the prisoner and
sought to reform him, until, in 1874, the following were some of the practical
fruits of this great influence among the reformatories of the United States.
There
were, in 1874, in twenty States and one Territory, thirty-four reformatories
for youthful criminals ; they owned in the aggregate 6,153 acres of land; the
total estimated value of buildings and land, with the personal property, was
$7,826,480; the average number of inmates was 8,924, and the whole number
received since their opening was 91,402, of whom 77,678 were boys and 13,724
girls; the whole number of persons engaged in this work was 771, and the total
annual cost for maintenance was $1,358,885, or $152, (about £30) for each
inmate. Three-fourths of the inmates, or nearly seventy thousand, are reported
as permanently reformed. These figures, however, are to be received with great
caution, as there is no accurate tabulating^ the results.
Educational
Charities.—It may be urged that the sympathy with the prisoner is indeed
humane, and a mark of progress in compassionate feeling, but that it does not
necessarily advance mankind or prevent crime in the future. In all countries,
and especially in the United States, have arisen, however, movements of
Christian philanthropy directly inspired by the “Friend of man,” having for
their objects to root out criminality and pauperism in the germ and prevent the
formation of criminal classes. We allude to the educational charities for
children, especially in the large cities like New York. This is a feature of
moral advancement unknown to antiquity and scarcely heard of except where
Christian teaching has reached.
These
charities take the homeless and unfortunate victim of poverty or vice—the child
: they provide him shelter and protection while cultivating his self-help; they
find him labour, give him education, put him under the best habits of
civilization, throw around him religious influences, and at length place him in
a compassionate family on a farm where he can work in the ground.
If a girl,
devoted women of the fortunate classes seek to lead her to better things. The
habits in which she has lived are met by influences of industry, order and
purity; she is improved day by day, until at length she too is transplanted to
a good home.
The
agencies through which these influences are conveyed, the lodging-house,
industrial school, emigration plan, and the like are skilfully contrived to
elevate the class through natural means. It is not surprising that after
twenty-five years1 of these charities the prison statistics of New
York should show distinct and encouraging evidences of the diminution of
juvenile crime and vagrancy against many local evils and obstacles, and that
fifty thousand children are reported as rescued from the vice and misery of New
York and turned into self-supporting and industrious farmers and housekeepers.
These and
similar movements throughout England and the United States are a plain, and
natural fruit of Christianity. They are inspired by Him who bore the burdens
of men and was especially the Friend of the poor. There seems no reason why,
under the same impulse, they should not increase and become one of the great
curative movements of society to remedy its most threatening evils.
It is
almost a common place to say that all the varied and blessed institutions of
charity throughout Christendom, all the asylums, hospitals and reformatories,
the provisions 1 See The Dangerous Classes of New York, by the
Author.
for the
lame, blind and deaf, for the idiot and insane, for the sick of every possible
disease, for the widow and orphan and homeless, for the aged and infirm, are
only blossoms and fruit of the life and teachings and death of the great
Benefactor. They are the true victories of Christ —the Gesta Christi
To these
must be added a more humble but not less significant expression of sympathy in
modern society, the efforts to care for the dumb animals, those patient instruments
of man’s convenience; to alleviate their inevitable sufferings, to restrain the
tyranny of their masters, and to prevent any unnecessary pain.
Many
societies have been formed in the United States and other countries to prevent
cruelty to animals and to check any useless suffering in scientific operations
with them. There is little doubt that these compassionate efforts, which find
their strongest support among women, have made the lot of dumb brutes much more
endurable in many civilized countries.
They are
not, however, peculiar to the followers of Christianity. The Buddhists have
often been equally merciful, and in some Oriental countries great sympathy for
animals seems consistent with great indifference to human suffering.1,
Humanization
of Punishments.—One remarkable advance in humanity, due to religious forces,
should not be passed over—the gradual mitigation of severe and " afflictive
” punishments to those sentenced by the law, and the doing away with degrading
penalties, We do not regard the Christian system as necessarily opposed to the
death punishment in all cases, but as aiming to limit it to only
1 See passage quoted, Chapter XXXVI. page
447, of a traveller’s experience in India.
the most
extreme instances of crime. Nor are the Christian teachings responsible for any
of the false sentiment of the modern world towards those guilty of crime. The
teachings of Christ and the apostles evidently do not look upon death as the
greatest of evils; nor do they discourage severe penalties on wrong-doers.
There is no direct instruction in regard to the death penalty any more than on
a thousand similar topics. The inference from the teachings might fairly be,
that so valuable a thing as human life, with the tremendous destinies of the
soul, must be very carefully and reverently dealt with, not sacrificed except
for the very highest interests of the community, and that humanity towards even
the most guilty must guide human actions. It is certainly possible that under
these principles the punishment by death will gradually pass away, as have the
strappado and the rack.
The
natural effect of these teachings, however, from the beginning was against any
degrading penalties. Even the laws of Constantine show this, where they forbid
any marring of the beauty and dignity of the human face made in the Divine
image.1
They
equally oppose any penalty which brutalizes the offender or the spectator. .
The criminal may deserve severe pains and punishment, but this Faith would encourage
no penalty which in its nature makes him worse, or which in its natural effect
degrades the on-lookers and society in general. It does not object to the
offender suffering pain and loss, but this must be of a nature to reform him
and benefit others. The penalty must not be useless, or degrading, or crushing,
or brutalizing to the world. The prison administration is to be guided by love
and severity combined.
1 Cod.
Theod., lib ix. tit. 40; I, 2.
The
progress in this matter has been remarkable in the modern ages. In the
Classical and Middle Age periods, such punishments as crucifixion, exposure to
wild beasts, burying alive, impaling, tearing to pieces, and breaking on the
wheel were common.
In the
Middle Ages, the powers of human invention were continually employed in
devising instruments and machines for the production of pain.
Screws
were invented for compressing the thumbs; straight boots of iron for enclosing
the legs, between which and the flesh wedges were driven by mallets; racks of
various and hideous forms, capable of occasioning the most exquisite agony,
were constantly devised. We have already described the strappadox
(p. 181) ; another agonising punishment was “ picketing,” where the offender
was suspended so that the weight of his body was supported by a spike on which
he was made to stand with one foot ;z and still another was the use
of the “wooden horse,”3 a narrow ledge or board on which the
criminal was made to sit astride with weights fastened to his legs. Ducking or
half drowning was often employed even for trivial offences.
Bentham
relates4 that a description of the various methods of inflicting
torture and punishment which had been in use in the Austrian dominions, was
ordered by the Empress Maria Theresa to be drawn up, this investigation being
made with a view to ameliorate the existing laws. A large folio volume was
accordingly put forth, containing engravings of the instruments of torture, and
all the methods of execution. The book was only exposed for sale a few days
when the prime minister, Prince Kaunitz,
1 See Benthanis Works, vol. i, p. 413.
2 Ibid. 3
Ibid.
4 Vol. i.
p. 413.
ordered it
to be suppressed, for fear that it would inspire a horror of the laws.
In
England, high treason was punished by dragging at the horse’s tail, through the
streets, from the prison to the place of execution; or by plucking out and
burning the entrails, while the patient was yet alive; or by hanging by the
neck so as not to destroy life; also by beheading, quartering, and the exposure
of the fragments of the body in such places as the king should direct. Under
the progress of the humane sentiment, this has all been changed to beheading
and hanging.
Even in
this century most frightful punishments were inflicted in the British West
Indies on negroes breaking the laws—punishments as savage as anything in the
bloody history of the past. In the time of George III., public whipping for
dog-stealing was common in England, and the common law enforced the slitting of
nostrils and cutting of ears for many offences. In the reign of Henry VIII.,
the mere drawing blood in the palace in a quarrel was punished by the loss of
the right hand; and in that of Elizabeth, “ the export of sheep ” brought after
it the loss .of the left hand. Branding and whipping have been common in all
countries.
Within
fifty years, men have been hanged in England for shee’p-stealing and stealing
in a house ; and in the early history of the United States, many offences, like
forgery, stealing, and horse-stealing brought the death penalty after them.
In
Massachusetts, under the early legislation after the Revolution^ ten different
crimes were punished with death, among them being burglary; blasphemy was
punished with pillory and .stripes till the year 1829 ; branding was
employed'for several offences. In Pennsylvania, in 1776, twenty crimes were
liable to the death penalty, among
them such
offences as witchcraft and counterfeiting. In Virginia and Kentucky,
twenty-seven offences were punished by death or maiming; among them perjury,
the destroying or concealing of a will, the obtaining of money or goods on
false pretences, horse-stealing, and the like. In New York, on several
occasions in the eighteenth century, negroes were burned alive for extreme
crimes, and the tread-mill was in use as late as 1822.
The public
whipping-post now only survives in some of the old Slave States in America, and
will soon be ranked with the pillory or the strappado. Whipping as a penalty is
still inflicted by law in England for very brutal offences, such as
wife-beating and the like. The humane opinion, however, of the United States is
opposed to it, on the ground that it brutalizes and degrades not only the
criminal, but his associates. A result of this and other causes is, that in no
other country are brutal crimes so rare. The tread-mill, also, is mainly
abolished there. Whipping is still sometimes employed by prison officials on
refractory criminals, and other severe prison penalties are used (often too
freely), but public opinion is adverse to their frequent employment. All public
degrading penalties, such as the stocks, the pillory, branding and the like,
have mainly passed away in the United States. In some of the old Slave States
gangs of negro prisoners are still employed on public works ; but, in general,
punishment is private and reformatory.
Among
other merciful reforms, executions are made private, and are only inflicted
where murder is clearly proved and of an aggravated character. They are
destined evidently to be less and less common.
Imprisonment
for Debt.—One of the frightful abuses of the past was imprisonment for debt. It
is perfectly just that a person should be punished, who wrongfully and
knowingly
defrauds another of his property. But so large a proportion of debts are
incurred with the best of motives, accident and misfortune so often cause
inability to pay, and the degradation of the debtor to the level of the
criminal and pauper has so bad an influence on a large class, that
Christianized and humane sentiment is opposed to imprisonment as a punishment
for non-payment; while the modern experience is that the severe punishment does
not necessarily tend to make the community more honest or the recovery of debts
easier.
The
accounts transmitted of the treatment of debtors in England and America in the
past century, are harrowing. Thus it is said that in the eighteenth century,
four thousand unhappy individuals were committed to prison every year for
misfortune and poverty, and treated like criminals and outcasts. “ One
indiscreet compact could doom a wretch to a life-long confinement;”1
a small debt exposed the unhappy person to perpetual imprisonment. Oglethorpe
succeeded in 1728, with the help of parliament, in delivering from jails great
multitudes of these unhappy creatures.
In the
United States, even as late as 1829, it was estimated that there were as many
as 3,000 of these unfortunate persons confined in the prisons of Massachusetts
;
10,000 in New York ; 7,000 in Pennsylvania; 3,000
in Maryland, and a like proportion in other States. In many of these debtors’
prisons no provision was made for sickness, or even for ordinary cleanliness
or comfort. There was often no separation of sexes; and these victims of
misfortune were confined with robbers, vagrants and murderers.
Between
1821 and 1845, imprisonment for debt in the
various
United States was abolished, except in cases where fraud was reasonably
suspected.
The bloody
era of the past, when man under the forms of law could inflict such useless
torture and pain on the offender, is over. The humanity of Christ enters the prison,
and fills it with hope and the sentiment of human brotherhood; it excludes
bloody and useless and degrading penalties; it aims at reform as well as
punishment ; it seeks to do away with the gallows by the power of the school
and the religious teacher.
The
Sunday.—It is not enough considered by students of progress, how great a gift
to the labouring classes and to the whole world is the Christian Sunday. It has
become so great a necessity to the civilized world, that the wonder is how the
non-Christian races or classic peoples were able to do without such a day.
Plato says
somewhere that leisure is necessary to the acquisition of virtue, and that
therefore no working man can acquire it. Plutarch calls it one of the most
beautiful and happy inventions of Lycurgus, that he obtained for the citizens
the greatest leisure by forbidding them to occupy themselves with any mercenary
work.2
Christianity
early obtained for the working classes of the Roman empire this great blessing,
and not through the Greek method, of creating a class of helpless helots, but
by the institution of the Lord’s Day.
Under the
prodigious impulse of the leading races of modern times toward production and
the acquiring of material wealth, there would have come, without some such day,
an absolute breaking down of the physical power, a wearing out of the brain,
and a corresponding moral
1 Code, iii. 411, 11.
2 Lyc., 24.
degeneracy.
In fact the Christian Sabbath may be said to have saved the modern European and
Anglo-American races. Had the greed for money never known an enforced rest; had
the wheels of the factory, the hum of the market and din of business sounded
through the streets seven days as now through six, and no customary day called
away thoughts to things not bought or sold and to principles unseen and
eternal, the modern people might have run down to the lowest point of
materialism.
The Lord’s
Day is the greatest external gift of the Christian religion to the working
classes. The labourer is insured his rest. His production is apparently cut
short one-seventh, but as in the limiting the hours of a day’s labour, he is
found to effect more in the year, owing to the refreshment and rest given, and
his moral value is increased. Where the Sunday is made a social and religious
day (as in New England) without excessive strictness, the working man or woman
returns to the task, revived, and morally as well as physically strengthened.
A
religious Sunday is the best safeguard against the vice of the labouring class,
intemperance.
In the chapters
on Roman Law, we have shown what a step in humanity was the enforced rest of
the Sunday to Roman slaves, after the empire became nominally Christian.
The
Anglo-Saxon law under Christian influences, was equally regardful of the rest
of the Sunday to the British slave and serf. In all countries under the nominal
teachings of Jesus, that day has relaxed the muscles of toil, wiped away the
sweat of incessant labour, and restored the worker to his family, reminding him
that he is something beside an instrument of gain, and that he has other wants
than those of earth.
The
business and professional man of modern days owes fully as much to this blessed
day. It is a festival of
humanity;
it reminds the fortunate of their duties to the unfortunate; it calls away the
mind from things material to the truths which belong to all times. It compels
the scheming brain to rest. It is the day above all to remember Him who has
brought such unmingled blessings to humanity.
If the
world by any madness or degeneracy should ever renounce its faith in the
supernatural, it would be compelled to renew the Sabbath under some other
name, so indispensable is it for human progress.
We may
surely count the Christian Sunday as one of the most blessed institutions
conferred on the race by this faith.
CO-OPERATION
AND PAUPERISM.
Christianity, as we have frequently said, only touches
indirectly on the distribution of the profits of labour. It inculcates constant
benevolence, unselfishness, and continual imparting of wealth to the necessities
of others; it discourages excessive accumulation, and teaches especial sympathy
with the poor and labouring classes. There is an ideal taught by it in regard
to property, which, like its ideal in respect to war, mankind has not yet
reached. Property is evidently to be held for the good of others, and not for
selfish enjoyment or the aggrandizement of a family. The employers of labour
are to be guided by the golden rule, and to hold each one employed as a “
brother in the Lord.” The modes in which this benevolent principle is to be
expressed to the world will be various. Without doubt, “ co-operation is
precisely in the direction of the Christian law.
It tends
to reduce the selfishness of trade and competition, it diminishes the deceit
and falsehood which belong to some branches of business, it makes the buyer and
seller one in interest and brotherly feeling, and it plants among men the seeds
of brotherhood which Christ teaches. Its obvious influence is to bring into one
body the labourers and capitalists of the world, making them
413
feel that
their interests are the same, and their rights equally to be respected.
This does
not, however, include as a corollary that individual property shall come to an
end. It may indeed tend to limit its accumulation, but the more probable
tendency of the Christian principle will be in the future towards a careful
distribution of wealth for the good of others, in promoting science, art,
charities, and education, and in curing the inevitable ills of humanity.
Comiperce,
production, and trade as they are now conducted, cannot be considered the final
and completed condition of mankind.
Selfishness
and dishonesty are too much its features to be consistent with the Christian
ideal. In all probability some form of co-operation will be the final and
Christian form in which production and distribution will develop themselves,
where the interests of customer and dealer, of manufacturer and workman, of
capitalist and labourer, are correlative, and Christian and just principles govern
all.
Communism.—There
Is no doubt in many of the aspirations and aims of communism, a certain marked
sympathy or harmony with the ideals of Christianity.
What is
best in it has come from the teachings of Galilee. The sense of human
brotherhood between rich and poor, the sympathy with the unhappy labouring
masses of the world, the duty of allowing every human being the highest
possible use of his faculties, the aversion to the deceit and fraud so often
characterising commerce, and the opposition to the selfishness of competition,
the horror of war of the Socialists, the aspect of property as a fund for the
good of all—all these are plainly reflections from that light which shone
eighteen centuries ago, from the hills of Judea.
Some of
the Socialistic writers feel this; thus Proudhorv
says, “
Love thy neighbour as thyself, and society will be perfect; love thy neighbour,
and all distinctions of prince and shepherd, of rich and poor, of learned and
ignorant disappear, all the contrarieties of human interests vanish; love thy
neighbour, and happiness with labour, without any anxiety for the future will
fill thy days.”1
Mario2
also says, “ The heathenish principle is, grant to the few enjoyment at the
expense of the many; Christian principle demands a moral regard for those
natural conditions which ensure general prosperity with a view to effect the
highest possible happiness for all in due proportion.”
Christianity
of course recommends no definite system for applying its humane principles, and
therefore has no sympathy with Socialism in its plans for grouping human
beings, or the power it would give to the State, or its hostility to property
as such, or its methods of dividing the returns from labour, or its
phalansteries or communities; indeed the Christian view of marriage and the
family is directly opposed to that of many (though not all) Socialists.
The point
of view however of both is somewhat similar, and some of the objects identical.
The
Christian, like the Socialist, feels that this depression and abject poverty
and dependence of great masses of human beings is not the ideal of humanity ;
that the fearful inequalities of human condition, the immense wealth of the few
and the bitter penury or daily anxiety of the many, the intense selfishness of
competition and the frauds or deceits of trade, the greed for money and
struggle for the prizes of life, do not belong to the kingdom of God on earth,
promised by the Master, or to any human condition
1 Syst. des
Consid. Kcon., vol. i. p. 329.
2 Quoted by Kaufmann, Socialism, p. 158,
which the
Friend of man might reasonably think a reward of his desires and his struggles.
The Christian holds the key to the final solution of all these problems. How
and by what various means it shall be applied he cannot fully say; the method
must be the result of careful scientific study of all the conditions.
Socialism
as interfering with individual development, or producing a monotony of life, or
destroying the identity of the family, has no sympathy from Christianity.
Insurance.—The
greatest practical benevolent discovery of modern life, and one destined yet to
produce enormous effects in diminishing poverty and relieving misfortune— the
application of insurance to human ills—is not directly a fruit of Christianity,
and yet no doubt in the stimulus given to the benevolent feelings by this
Faith, is to be found its indirect source. Insurance is the application of the
savings of the fortunate to the assistance of the unfortunate, and yet not
necessarily through benevolent motives. This ingenious device takes advantage
of a self- regarding impulse to promote the good of all. Its application more
and more to relieve the misfortunes of the labouring classes through government
annuities, private life insurance provisions against accident, sickness, calamity
and old age made by savings in time of health and prosperity and guaranteed by
the whole community, will be one of the greatest blessings of modern society,
and will undoubtedly be stimulated, if not caused by the influence of Christ
in the world. We do not dwell on this important topic because it is not a
feature of progress directly produced by the Christian religion, though under
its influence; yet we regard it as the mode in which as civilization advances
wealth will be especially distributed.
It is not
an unlikely eventuality that in a distant future all men and women can be
guarded against the inevitable
calamities
and losses of life, and thus preserved from sinking into the lowest depths of
misery, by a wise system of insurance by society or government—the insured
contributing a fixed annual payment during health and strength (itself a
preservative from pauperism), and the State taking charge of the funds, and
appropriating from taxation enough to fill out the necessary annuity. It will
be a kind of Christian communism, but not of a nature to produce dependence,
because the ultimate enjoyment of the insurance would depend on savings made
during health and prosperity; but it would be a poor law, or taxation of the
fortunate for the benefit of the unfortunate, yet in a mode to promote
self-respect and human brotherhood. Like the distribution of the surplus of the
rich now made by taxation for schools, it would not be an appropriation of
wealth which would embitter the rich or pauperize the poor.
Perhaps
the best form of insurance, as in harmony with Christianity, would be voluntary
annuity-associations, made from benevolent motives by the fortunate, and where
the surplus needed over the annual premiums to form comfortable annuities, was
contributed by the charitable.
As we have
often argued in this work, the influence of the great Master is directly to
lessen one of the greatest of human ills—Pauperism.
The
self-control, sobriety, temperance and moderation He teaches, tend to a certain
control over circumstances. The good-will He encourages, brings sympathy and
help from others. The great sources of poverty are idleness, intemperance and
vice.
The
Christian, other things being equal, is less likely to be very poor, and a
pauper he cannot easily be,—that is he cannot have that spirit of dependence,
idleness and dishonesty, which are the essentials of pauperism. If by
E E
misfortune
he come to the lowest depths of human ills, he bears as a greater One hath
taught him to bear, and does not become degraded in spirit. Having a sense of
his great dignity as a child of God, and one for whom Christ hath lived and
died, he is less likely to become a parasite on society. And ever being in the
mental habit of looking forward to the judgment of another life, he will be
the more apt to provide for the ills of this; so under Christianity society
tends, as has often been seen on the rugged soil and under the harsh climate of
New England, to throw off pauperism and eliminate poverty. Many villages are
known in that region, apparently so little favoured otherwise by Providence,
where not a pauper and scarcely an abjectly poor person can be found for miles
around ;—the causes of this good fortune being mainly moral.
It is not
claimed that Religion alone in future ages can remove pauperism from the world,
but the Christian belief will tend towards a more just distribution of
property; it will promote temperance and good morals ; it will stimulate
co-operation between labourers and between labour and capital; it will
encourage many forms of insurance, and above all elevate and train the
character, so that the human being, though unfortunate, cannot be degraded, and
thus under the influence of Christ on the world, the labouring classes will be
less likely to fall into extreme poverty, and if they do will be more readily
assisted, or will not sink morally.
The Church
in past history, especially in Europe, has so often been on the side of power
and of the oppressor; it apparently now feels so little sympathy there in the
great movements of social reform, that the labourer and the overburdened
worker may well be pardoned if he do not behold at all in Christ His true form,
that of the Friend of the poor and heavy-laden ; but gradually as light
spreads, even
the
working classes of Europe will see that no influence in human history has ever
done so much to remove’the heavy burdens on labouring people, to produce such
equitable distribution of wealth, to lessen the ills of poverty, and give
dignity to the humble toiler, and everywhere to promote human brotherhood, as
the doctrine and life of the Teacher of Galilee.
Cabet, a
socialistic writer, well says :
“ If
Christianity had been interpreted and applied in the spirit of Jesus Christ, if
it had been well known and faithfully practised by the numerous portions of
Christians who are animated by a sincere piety, and who have only need to know
truth well to follow it, this Christi ■ anity, its morals,
its philosophy, its precepts would have sufficed and would still suffice to
establish a perfect society and political organization, to deliver humanity
from the evil which weighs it down, and to assure, the happiness of the human
race on the earth.”1
1 Le vrai
Christianisme. Preface.
The progress of mankind under the Christian ideal has been
continually towards greater unity of races and nations. The Greek and Roman
contempt for the foreigner has passed away; the Middle Age distrust and
hostility to the stranger and “ far-comer " has mainly vanished, except
among non-Christian races. Different nations are approaching one another in
feeling, ideas, habits and interests. There still remain, however, the relics
of a more barbaric past in the separation made between different peoples or
provinces by taxes and tariff duties. Yet even here there is progress. It is
only about 900 years since a London merchant, trading with York, Chester or
Bristol, paid duties and taxes as he does now with New York and Havre, and it
was only in ion A.D. that a law was passed establishing free trade between
London and other English towns.1
On the
European continent, the Rhine for centuries was crossed with incessant lines of
tariff at every border of a petty province, and freedom of commerce was only
1 The men
of London are to be safe and free over all England, and in all sea-ports, from
toll, transit-duty and tonnage and all other duties (Hen. I. 2,4). “ If any one
takes toll or custom from the citizens of London, the citizens may take as much
from the burg with damages ” (Hen. I. 2, 9).
secured by
armed leagues of cities ; in like manner, every large river was impeded by
revenue exactions. In Germany, the baron or rural prince descended from his
mountain castle and levied what taxes he chose on the passing merchant. The
value of an estate in Germany in the Middle Ages was publicly measured by its
nearness to any point where various roads met, and thus the opportunities for
vexatious tariffs and plunderings were the greatest.
In France,
as we have seen, the old savage feeling towards the stranger, which lingers in
legislation still, showed itself during hundreds of years, in the odious droit
d’aubaine. It was only in the close of the last century, as we stated before,
that this right was abolished, and it is only in this century that the last disabilities
of the stranger have been removed in French legislation. This relic of the
Middle Ages still exists under the Common Law of England, and under the
statutes of many American States, which impose disabilities on the right of
aliens to hold real estate.
The savage
“ wrecker’s right ” or droit de naufrage, is a similar remain of the old
savagery which prevailed, as we have shown, throughout Europe for many
centuries. The unfortunate crew and passengers of wrecked vessels could be
imprisoned and enslaved, and their property reverted to the lord of the coast
or to the crown. It is only in modern times that this barbarism has been
completely done away with.
Free
Trade.—Christianity, as such, has nothing to say as to fiscal systems and
financial or economical theories. It only increases human sympathy and
struggles against human selfishness. But the great ideas which have been at the
basis of modern political economy—the principles that the interests of all
nations are really one ; that the losses of one are the losses of all, and the
gains of one become finally the gains of the whole; that selfish obstructions
to
trade and
intercourse re-act at last against the power which places them, so that the
most liberal will end by being the most prosperous—these conceptions have
received their greatest impulse from the teachings of Religion. One of the
earliest statements of the effect of the Christian belief on freedom of trade
is put forth in 1553, by Edward VI. king of England, in a letter1
carried by two navigators, Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor, starting
on a voyage to discover Cathaye.
The letter
sets forth the disposition to cultivate the love and friendship of his kind,
implanted in man by the Almighty, and the consequent duty to maintain and augment
this desire, and “ to show good affection to those who come from farre
countries.” . . .
“ And if
it be right and equity to show such humanitie to all men, doubtlesse the same
might chiefly to be showed to merchants, who, wandering about the world, search
both the land and the sea, to carry such good and profitable things as are
found in their countries to remote regions and kingdoms, and again to bring
from the same such things as they find there commodious for their own countries
. . . for the God of Heaven and Earth, greatly providing for mankind, would not
that things should be found in one region, to the end that all should have need
of another, that by this means, friendship might be established among all men,
and every one seeke to gratifye all.”
As liberal
ideas have, century after century, more and more taken possession of men’s
minds, there has been an increasing readiness for unrestrained intercourse and
unshackled trade. The prosperity of large countries with varied
productions—like the United States or Germany— where perfect internal free
trade prevails through all interests and communities, suggests the feasibility
of larger unions of different countries and races, and foretokens the more
complete and grander union of all nations in the distant future, when the
productions of one shall be open to all,
1 Quoted by
Ward, Laws of Nations, vol. ii., p. 332.
and all
men shall buy and sell wherever it seemeth them good, without obstruction of
tax or tariff—a day in which wealth shall be more evenly distributed among all
human beings, than thus far history has known.
In this
matter, fortunately, the selfish impulse which is struggled against by
Christianity, is found on the broad scale and in a long period to be the
injurious one. It will become more and more evident that for countries like
Southern Germany to tax the manufacturers of North Germany is only a little
less unprofitable than taxing the manufacturers of Belgium; and for Illinois to
obstruct the entrance of the products of Massachusetts is a proceeding of the
same kind as shutting out the manufactures of England. So extended and
complicated are the connections of nations, that the true effects of
selfishness are finally made more apparent than they are in narrow and personal
relations. As civilization advances the Free Trade Powers will be more
prosperous, and will confirm, by their success, the worth of the principle of
humanity as a prudential maxim. The interests of one will be seen to be the
interests of all.
Some of
the old economical ideas of the past have been already removed by the progress
of right reason and sentiments of justice, and fruitful causes of dissensions
and wars taken away. Thus the exclusive possession by a nation of gold mines,
or a rich colony, is no longer considered a loss to other nations; and the flow
of the precious metals to the markets of one power is no longer regarded as
necessarily an injury to the exporting power. A great calamity of one people is
now known not to be a blessing to any other.
The
tendency of the new ideas in political economy is clearly towards a greater
unity of. all states and nations.
In the
meantime, the Christian influence, as in regard
to war,
will be towards a compromise between the ideal of Christianity and the
necessities of the times—a compromise ever approaching unchecked intercourse
and unlimited trade, looking towards the time when all human beings shall be
acknowledged to be of one blood and one family.
Another
expression of the new humanity may be found in the charitable aid and sympathy,
extended by one country to another in cases of public calamity. This century
has been peculiarly rich in such expressions of a common compassion. They are
the legitimate fruits of the Faith from Judaea. The aid given by the United
States to the sufferers from the Irish famine, to the victims of floods in
France and Hungary, to the wounded in France and Germany in the Franco-German
War, to the struggle for Hungarian Independence, and similar gifts by the
British people to sufferers from fire and accident and pestilence in America,
and all other countries, as well as to those striving for liberty, are familiar
instances of the new expressions of sympathy which now binds all nations
together.
No such
expressions of common feeling among independent nations were known to the
classic world, or are witnessed now outside of professed Christianity.
With this
advance in international sympathy may be considered the higher principles which
govern the relations of civilized with inferior races. The old notion for which
the Church is so much responsible, that a Christian nation discovering a
barbarous land has absolute power over the property and persons of the pagan
barbarians, has nearly passed away. The effort of every great nation, or at
least the ideal of their conduct, towards barbarous and
inferior
races is to elevate and civilize them. We say this, acknowledging how wofully
inconsistent the conduct of individuals and nations has often been towards
weaker or more savage peoples. The dealings of the Americans with the Indians,
the wars of the English with the Chinese, Afghans, Zulus, and others seem to
show no advance in the Christian sentiment of compassion towards the weak or
justice to the inferior. Yet all who are familiar with the United States know
that the most persistent and honest efforts are made now to civilize and
improve these tribes; and though individuals entirely forget their compassion
and religion in dealing with these unfortunate savages, yet the best classes
and the government are honestly trying to atone for the sins of the past, and
to do the best for this decaying people.
The
British people also in the past few years have so far governed the instincts of
pugnacity and pride, as to abandon an unjust campaign against an inferior race (the
Zulus), even after a defeat; and to retreat from the country of another weaker
people (the Afghans), which they had conquered, merely because the
Christianized conscience of the nation regarded the war as useless or unjust.
These are surely considerable victories for the Christian principle, and could
not have happened even a century ago.
Then the
efforts of the English to civilize such tribes as the Fijis,1 are a
new feature in history.
Such
public measures as the attempts to force opium on China, and some features in
the administration of India, are, we admit, miserable exceptions to this
influence of the Christian faith on the relations of nations with inferior
powers. But, on the whole, it must be admitted that there has been great
progress in this matter; and that the 1 See Miss Cumming’s book on
the Fijis.
tendency
is more and more for the powerful races to be guided in their dealings with
inferior by humane and Christian principles. We are far enough in this from the
Christian ideal, but we are approaching it.
As
particular evidence of this new spirit of compassion we may also mention the
treatment by the American government of those whom they considered “ rebels,”
at the close of the Civil War in 1865.
The
struggle had been one of extraordinary intensity and bitterness. A million of
lives are believed to have been sacrificed on both sides. The President of the
Union had been assassinated. According to the precedents of history, the
victorious party and the central government would have been justified in
executing the leaders of the rebellion and confiscating their property. Many
persons advised this course. But the American people, in some directions, are
singularly imbued with the compassion of the Christian teachings. The voice of
religion and sound wisdom prevailed over the cries of revenge and passion ; and
not a life was taken or a dollar confiscated by j udicial process after the
close of the war, for complicity in the rebellion. On the contrary, in a few
years the “ rebels ” were restored to equal rights with all other citizens of
the Union.
The very
large sums spent and the devotion of thousands of lives by nearly all
Christian countries to the work of teaching and improving distant and often
savage peoples, is also an expression of the higher humanity and brotherhood,
now a fixed part of the moral habits of leading nations. It is impossible to
imagine a Greek or Roman society even thinking of such an object. The only
thing parallel to it, is the efforts of the Buddhist priests to proselytize
distant tribes.
Popular
Education.—The great movements for popular
education
are stimulated by the same principles of humanity. The child of the poorest is
equal to the richest in the new fraternity, and should have the same essential
opportunities. In all countries even faintly touched by the Christian spirit of
equality and brotherhood, there are widespread efforts to educate the masses.
Schools
are open to all. The rich are forced to give of their abundance for the
education of the poor. Not only are common schools open to every class, but
higher schools and colleges of learning are provided for the masses. Even laws
are passed compelling attendance: and provisions are made by individual
charity for those who are poor and ill-clad.
This is
one of the most remarkable fruits of this Religion in modern times. It is a
forcible distribution of wealth to confer the highest possible blessings on the
needy. It is a confession by society that the most ignorant, degraded and
destitute person is a brother of the most fortunate, and must have every fair
opportunity to exert his powers.
If one
could imagine the proposition made to the archai of Athens to tax the rich in
order that the helots might learn to read the Greek classics; or a measure
before the Roman senate to set apart a new revenue for providing teachers for
the plebs and the slaves, one can rightly measure the progress of the Christian
sentiment of equality in these eighteen centuries.
And as one
of the marked fruits of Christianity, a seed of good almost unknown to the
classic times—we may mention the societies of lovers of men and of God, which
exist now in all civilized countries. These associations may often be bigoted
or worldly, still on the whole they attempt to teach men to love one another,
to be just and temperate and pure and unselfish. No moralist can re-
gard them
with indifference. They must exert a profound influence on the whole morality
of the modern world, and nothing of a popular nature like them was known before
the Christian era—though there did exist under the Roman empire, certain “
clubs ” of a private char-: acter, which were partly benevolent in their
offices, and perhaps formed a basis for the later Christian Churches.1
Asa more
intangible result, but not less real, of this great moral power in the world,
we should not omit the new Hope given to mankind. When one considers how vast a
proportion of the human race are exposed to inevitable sorrows and
disappointments, how many are crushed by poverty and oppression, what
multitudes never rise to any condition of prosperity, and how all must go
through pain, sickness and the shadow of death, it will be understood what an
immense happiness such a faith as the Christian has spread among the poor, the
oppressed, the sorrowful and unfortunate, and all the weary and heavy laden,
for eighteen centuries.
It has
made the world a much brighter place to multitudes of people, has wiped away
tears without number, has consoled the lot of countless slaves and captives,
has upheld unnumbered widows, orphans and grief-laden, and has thrown a light
and hope over millions of death-beds. These results may be alleged by the
objector to be imaginary, yet they are none the less real. In counting the
fruits of this Faith, we may fairly reckon the happiness scattered in the
modern world as compared with the ancient.
Among the
somewhat intangible ‘fruit, should not be forgotten the greater number of lives
in modern times inspired and more or less pervaded by moral ideas and purposes,
by purity and truth and universal good-will.
1 See
Boissier, De Rossi, and Le Blant, previously cited.
The few in
all ages have felt moral impulses, but how many thousands exist now in every
small community whose lives are conscientiously guided by these ideals and who
often try to live up to them. This is a result which cannot always be measured
in figures, but it none the less continually works upon the customs, laws and
institutions of modern society, and has been the source of all the best
reforms.
All these
are pre-eminently the Gesta Christi: for such lives are inspired by and
modelled after Christ.
Liberal
Government.—Christianity in itself teaches nothing in regard to any particular
form of government. Christ appears to have inculcated submission to the then
existing government of Rome—one of the most despotic of tyrannies. He probably
saw that the best reform of political institutions lay in the reform of
individual character. He scattered seed which eventually must ripen in a harvest
of equal rights to all. Where men should do to one another as they would have
others do to them ; where the poorest and lowest was regarded as the child of
God and friend of Christ, for whom He lived and to save whom He died, there
after the course of ages could be no tyranny or political injustice, or
inequality of rights, or legal oppression. All persons and classes would
eventually, as a matter of equal right, have a share in the government. Such
principles lead ultimately, as to a logical conclusion, to each individual man
or woman having a part, though perhaps not an equal part, in making the laws,
choosing the rulers, and otherwise administering the affairs which relate to
the welfare of all. What the form is by which this should be effected is a
matter of indifference to Christian teachings. These merely demand equal
rights, equal protection and an equal use of their faculties for all. But under
their influence, the tendency of the world is
plainly
towards bestowing political rights on the masses ; towards parliamentary and
democratic institutions. The races or peoples, which profess to be governed
most directly by the words of Christ, the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo- Americans, and
Northern Germans, are those most inclined to free institutions. The freedom
they have gained in religion, and the habit of listening to the reported words
of Christ rather than to ecclesiastical teachers, have led them towards freedom
in government, and a respect for the rights of all.
We do not
mention these peoples as necessarily embodying or following all Christ’s principles
more than the Romanic or Keltic races, but as applying them especially to
political rights.
A
sceptical writer, distinguished for his eloquence and learning—Renan—has said
that “the Gospels are the Democratic Book par excellence.”1
Great
respect for the individual, equal justice to all, and a deep sense of humanity
and equity—these are the natural fruits of the teaching of Jesus, and these
lead to democracy. Undoubtedly, modern liberal institutions are an indirect
effect of the religion first taught in Galilee. They seem nowhere to have
flourished outside of Christianity, though the sense of humanity and love of
liberty belong to the whole race. No moral instincts and no other religion have
ever given such a stimulus to liberty and such a, sanction to justice for all.
But it need not be said that this Faith is equally opposed to tyranny by the
people as to tyranny by the king; and objects to license, disorder and aimless
revolution, as it does to despotism.
Its
influences, have, as it were, only begun, in the political field. Under it,
women are without doubt destined to take continually more part in the
government of all civilized 1 Le Livre De'mocratique par excellence.
{M. Aur., p. 634.)
countries,
and the working classes will be more and more relieved of inequalities pressing
upon them.
We cannot
at present foresee all the consequences to result from these changes, certain
to come. They will no doubt produce reactions and many difficulties. But they
are in the line of human progress under the stimulus of this religion ; and
their final result we cannot question.
Diminution
of Pestilences.—The reduced mortality from pestilence in modern times, and
certain moral facts connected with these ravages, at first struck the mind of
the writer as evidences of a sanitary progress in human history due to the
influences of a pure religion.
The
fearful ravages of various diseases throughout the world, both in the classic
period and in the Middle Ages, are hardly credible to modern ears. Taking a
single century and one disease (the so called “ Black Death ”), we find from
Hecker, that during the fourteenth century it raged from China to Iceland and
Greenland, almost depopulating vast countries, the highways being covered with
corpses in Syria and Armenia ; the ships on the Mediterranean floating without
sailors and steersmen ; in Europe two queens, and many bishops and
distinguished persons perishing; in Germany alone, a million and a quarter, or
more than half of the population, dying ; and in England, hardly one-tenth of
the inhabitants escaping, and 50,000 corpses being buried in London alone. The
total destruction was estimated in Europe and Asia, at 23,840,000.1
In every
century, similar though not so destructive pestilences are mentioned. They
arose from the non- Christian countries in almost all cases, and were
stimulated in every country by intemperate and immoral habits.
1 Hecker,
p. 85.
They found
their appropriate nidi, in which to ripen their seeds, in those wicked and
heathenish centres of nominally Christian cities, which form in all ages
exceptions to the rule and influence of Christianity.
They have
gradually diminished in power in modern times, though the non-Christian lands
still form their source and centre. The most moral and religious populations are
in all Christian countries the most exempt from them.
Still, the
increasing control over these ravaging pestilences, the diminution of the
mortality from them, the narrower sweep of their power in Christian countries,
seem to be due more to the Advance of science and civilization, than to the
direct influence of Christianity. The increased skill in the treatment of
disease, the more careful system of separation and exclusion of infected cases,
the cleaner and more wholesome habits of modern life, the greater comfort
enjoyed and the more wide-spread morality and self-control of the poorer
classes, are undoubtedly the special causes of the diminution of the fatal
ravages of pestilence in modern, as compared with ancient, times. The last
cause, however, is one indirectly due to Christianity ; so that we can at
least say that a pure religion is one of many causes of the comparative freedom
of the modern Christian peoples from very deadly plagues ; and in like manner
of the lower death-rate and longer average of life, peculiar to the experience
of modern civilized races.
INTEMPERANCE.
At
first thought it will seem remarkable that the vice of intemperance under
alcoholic stimulus has grown with civilization. The modern European and
American leading peoples are certainly more under this terrible curse than were
the oldest races known to us, the Egyptians, Hindoos, Persians, Assyrians, and
Jews, or the Classic nations. The reasons are to be found partly in the fact
that nearly all ancient civilization, and almost all these great peoples, found
their central seats in mild or warm climates. Intemperance is a vice
especially of northern races, and under cold climates. Then as arts and
sciences have advanced, new stimulants have continually been discovered or invented
; and above all, the complex work of modern society demands a greater variety
of nerve stimulus, and the wear of the brain naturally seeks some real or
supposed counter-agency in narcotics and alcoholic stimuli. The human family
seems utterly unable to do without some of these stimulants, whether contained
in tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, opium, or the manifold substitutes known to
barbarous tribes.
The
leaders of modern civilization have been the northern races, and climate and
transmitted habits have made them peculiarly sensitive to all these various
forms of stimulant. Under those influences, and the demands for excessive
433 F p
brain-work
peculiar to modern conditions, or the exhaustion from muscular labour in
confined air, the temptation to the over-use of these stimuli for all classes
in modern times has been very powerful. The chill and dampness of northern
climates, the inherited German and Keltic habits of conviviality, the want of
comparatively innocent alcoholic stimulants, the over-work of brain in one
class and the wear of muscles in crowded factories in another, acting with
ignorance and inherited weakness of will, are the causes of the astounding
intemperance among such peoples as the Swedes, Scotch, English, and Northern
Americans, compared with the moderation of such nations as the Hindoos, Jews,
and Romans. No language can exaggerate the evils of this fearful curse in
modern times, especially on the labouring classes of the countries we have
named. Only war surpasses it in the harvest of misery and poverty and crime it
sows for the families of the poor. It desolates homes, breaks the hearts of
women, turns out children worse than orphans on a cold world and thus makes
them criminals, impoverishes the labourer, sows quarrels, violence, disturbance,
and murders, fills prisons and almshouses and hospitals, and is the prolific
cause of idiocy, insanity, disease, and moral and physical degeneration. It
would be safe to say that in all northern countries, more than half of all the
offences against person and property, are caused directly or indirectly by
excessive use of alcoholic drinks. The amount spent by the labouring classes on
them would alone prevent pauperism in all Christian countries. Thus Dr. Lees
estimates that the English working classes spend every year the enormous sum of
£350,ooo,ooo for liquors alone. In i860, the value of the distilled and
fermented liquors in the United States was estimated at $740,000,000. In
1869-70, one person in every thirty is said by Dr. Beard, to have been arrested
for
drunkenness in Liverpool, and one in thirty-eight in Manchester. The number
arrested every year in New York alone for offences caused by drunkenness, is
some 45,ooo.
It was
reported by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labour in 1879 and 1880,
after careful investigation, that eighty-four per cent, of all the crimes of
the State which came before the courts, came directly or indirectly from the
abuse of alcoholic stimulants. The Prison Commissioners of the same State
report that for the year 1880, ninety out of every hundred persons committed to
the prisons, were intemperate ; and that the cost of protecting the State from
this army of criminals during the year was $1,971,198.
It is
estimated by a careful investigator (Judge Aldrich), that the American people
spend annually some $600,000,000 on intoxicating drinks.
There
needs no amplification of figures showing the fearful curses coming from
Intemperance.
Does
Christianity work against it ? Has it made progress in that direction in the
past, and is it likely to make more in the future ?
There can
be little doubt to any familiar with social customs in civilized countries,
that among all classes there has been a great change in the direction of
Temperance during the past hundred years.
This is
largely due to the grand ascetic movement in favour of entire abstinence from
alcoholic drinks, which, beginning in the United States under the influence of
religion, has spread over Sweden, Great Britain, and America, and influenced
thousands who have never taken the vow of abstinence. Movements in the United
States against the extreme use of alcoholic drinks began very early.
Thus in
the Massachusetts Bay records, as far back as 1646, we find a law, that,
“forasmuch as drunkenness is a vice to be abhorred of all nations, especially
of those who hold and profess the gospel of Christ Jesus, and seeing any strict
law against the sin will not prevail, unless the cause be taken away,”1
it is enacted that no wine under a quarter-cask shall be sold except by paid
licence, and severe penalties are threatened to any one selling drink at
unseasonable hours, or guilty of drunkenness.
In 1651, a
law is recorded in Easthampton, Long Island, checking the sale of ardent
spirits. Many similar laws are found in American colonial history, influenced
by the fervent Puritan spirit. In 1760 the various religious societies
protested against the use of alcoholic beverages at funerals ; and the Friends
early abolished the practice. In 1777 the first Congress at Philadelphia,
influenced by the religious sentiment of the country, passed a resolution
against distilling grain for liquors, and against excessive drinking. In 1788
an act was passed by the New York Legislature, regulating the sale of liquors,
and controlling the taverns. In 1789 the first Temperance Society is said to
have been formed at Litchfield, Connecticut, by the active members of the
church. In 1797 the Quarterly Methodist Episcopal Conference of Virginia passed
a series of resolves, pledging their honour as Christians, not only to abandon
entirely the use of ardent spirits themselves, except as medicine, but also to
use their influence to induce others to do the same. The Pennsylvania Synod
even recommended their pastors to preach against “ the sin of intemperance.”
The National American Temperance Society was formed in 1826 in Boston. Still,
with all these efforts, habits of intemperance prevailed in this country to an
alarming extent. Even as late as 1836, a distinguished divine of Andover is 1
Quoted by F. W. Bird. Papers of Amer. Soc. Ass., p. 98, 1881.
reported
to have stated publicly that he knew over forty ministers who were either
drunkards, or addicted to habits of hard drinking. The “Temperance” movement,
however, grew into the “Total Abstinence” movement about 1833 ; the churches of
the country everywhere struggled against the ruinous vice, and the discussion
of the subject, especially by pastors and lecturers, roused the conscience of
the entire nation. Great numbers of drunkards were reclaimed, and, more
important still, the young were, started with a horror of this excess, and the
convivial habits of society entirely changed. Whereas formerly few families of
the fortunate classes were to be found without an intemperate member, in latter
years it is an exception to hear of such instances. The ascetic movement has
reached all classes. In no country of the world are there so many families of
comfortable circumstances who never have wine or liquors on their tables, or
so many hard-working operatives who never touch these stimulants. What is
called the Total Abstinence movement, which is a kind of ascetic off-shoot of
Christianity, has scattered untold blessings in this country, and should ever
be remembered with profound gratitude. Like most ascetic efforts, it is not
destined to be permanent ; but it was needed and will be needed. There are
signs already of its yielding, especially under foreign influence in the United
States, to a Temperance based on rational self-control; and the aid to this will
be all the civilizing influences of society. For the man under the fatal
spell-of this appetite, the only possibility of regaining self-control is by
entire abstinence ; and the best of all reformatory influences is the power of
Christianity. The shock which the dread of retribution threatened by this
belief gives, will awaken from vice, and then the transforming power of Love,
spoken of by Plato, for a “ divine Person ” will fill the soul with such an
enthusiasm, as to
raise it
above the power of these base appetites, and permanently reform the nature.
The writer
in these statements does not speak of theories, but of facts, which he has
often seen exemplified in most striking life-histories.1 The best of
all safeguards against intemperance is the Christian Faith.
The power
of Religion in checking this vice is seen now in tens of thousands of families
throughout the land, and in the higher standard of temperance spread abroad
among the whole people.
Many of
the States have adopted prohibitory laws, preventing all public sale of
liquors, and others, strict license laws. .
It is true
that with all this there is a fearful amount of intemperance in the United
States, especially in the large cities among the foreign poor and their
descendants. But here Christian philanthropy is discovering very ingenious
means of diminishing its growth. A great deal of intemperance arises from
idleness, from want of education, from lack of virtuous amusement and proper
sociability, from contact with bad example, and from want of hope and the
consciousness of social degradation. The religious bodies in the cities have
sought to meet these wants by opening coffee and club rooms for working people
; by providing virtuous amusements, and above all by opening “ industrial
schools ” for the children of the poor. It is found by long practical
experience that the daughters of habitual drunkards being brought under the
daily influences of order, industry and purity in these schools, having better
food, coming in contact with superior and refined women, and hearing lessons of
morality daily, hardly ever grow up in the way of their parents, but become
naturally sober and decent women.2
1 See The
Dangerous Classes of New York. s
Ibid.
It may
fairly be said that a considerable diminution in intemperate habits has been
caused in the United States by the influence, direct and indirect, of the
religious principle. Social habits are much improved, and great numbers of the
poor have been rescued from the control of this vice. It needs only the same
influences, continued in manifold forms, to eradicate the vice from thousands
of families. We have beheld the beginnings of this renovating power in American
social life, and we can logically argue to its future wide influence as time
goes on. In Europe, also, there has been, in the countries most given to
intoxication and extreme habits of drinking, a very marked improvement in the
past few years. The reform in favour of abstinence in Sweden has been
especially impelled by religious considerations and by the religious teachers.
It has already accomplished untold good in that country.1
The
various Temperance and Total Abstinence movements in England and Scotland have
received their great impulse from a like source. They have not only affected
great numbers of the common people, but their reflex power has worked upon the
middle and wealthiest classes, and produced or aided a general reform in the
convivial habits of society. In the higher English society there is not nearly
the amount of drunkenness which prevailed a century since.
The great
diminution in the consumption of spirits by the British working classes for the
past few years, as shown by the revenue returns, is another evidence of increasing
sobriety.
We do not
doubt the mingling of many other influences in bringing about a greater
sobriety through all classes in the British Islands. In some respects the
progress of the arts and sciences works against a low habit like this ;
1 See Norse
Folk, by the Author.
more
nourishing food, purer water, higher amusements, and a better social tone, all
tend to diminish its power. But the direct and indirect influence of religion
is the most powerful obstacle to the spread of such a vice, and to this is
largely due the improvement sometimes among persons who themselves may. be
indifferent to the Christian Faith.
It is not
claimed of course that the Christian Religion has done all that lay in it
towards removing intemperance from the world. It has only begun its workings.
Men have not received its teachings as they will yet receive them. But the
essential influence of this Faith is to raise the man above a low appetite, to
strengthen his selfcontrol, and reform his whole nature. Where Christianity
had full power, there could be no drunkenness. From the results accomplished in
a few centuries, all can judge what will be the effects after long periods of
time.
PERSECUTION.
The most disgraceful feature in the history of the Christian
Church is its persecution of opposing or differing beliefs. There is nothing
whatever in the words of Christ or the teachings of the Apostles to countenance
this practice. On the contrary, it is opposed to the very essence of the
Christian system ; and John, in defining God as Love, would for ever put an end
to such travesties of faith in Him as would lead men to hate and persecute. The
evil tendency arose, however, very early from the idea, born of ignorance and
bigotry, that a change of opinion produced by force would be for the advantage
of the new Faith, and for the good of the believer thus compelled, and that men
were guilty who held incorrect beliefs. These ideas were early engrafted in
Roman law,—an evil feature which was derived from the influence of the Church.
Justinian’s legislation against Arians and other heretics bears a stamp of
ecclesiastical bigotry scarce known to Roman legislation. The Emperor
Theodosius reached the acme of bigotry when he threatened death as the legal
punishment of heretics, with the words that “no place must be left them where
they could do injury even to the elements themselves 1 and where he
declares that with apostates even penitence does not obliterate their
1 Quoniam his nihil relinquendum loci est, in quo ipsis
etiam dementis fiat injuria {Cod. i.-v. Leg. 3, etc.).
441
crime.1
But nothing in all history has been so stupid and useless and cruel as the
persecution from the earliest ages, by nominal Christians, of a most useful
class of persons, united to them by many ties—the Jews.
The
legislation against this unfortunate race began as far back as the time of
Justinian. They were persecuted and pillaged incessantly ; they were forced to
pay immense sums to remain under the protection of the common law, and many
were farmed out to particular men for purposes of extortion. The' code of the
Visigoths early showed the bigoted influences of ecclesiasticism, and under it
the Jews were forbidden to testify in courts of justice, and were spoken of as
“ beasts ” in law, and their property as belonging to the noblemen on whose
lands they chanced to be. In Germany they were long considered the serfs of the
Emperor ; in England they were frequently held in common servitude. In France
the whole body at times was banished, and many were put to death with tortures.
It was even decreed that communication with Jewish women should be punished as
with beasts, and both parties burned alive.
The
persecutions of the Moors by the Christians of Spain; of heretics and
Protestants under the Inquisition ; of Protestants by Catholics, and Catholics
by Protestants; of the Puritans by the Church of England, and of Baptists and
Quakers by Puritans, are all too well known to need relating. The history of
the Christian Church has been a history of opposition to her Master in the
matter of hate and persecution of opposing beliefs. The vestures of the
historical Church are stained deep with the blood of the innocent, shed for
ideas which they believed true. Individuals in every age, inspired with the
spirit of the Teacher of Love, have urged the hatefulness
1 Nec flagitium eorum obliterabitur
prenitentia.
of
persecution, the tolerance of differing opinions, and the difference between
character and mere intellectual belief. Though uttering only the common-places
of Christian teaching, they were derided or not listened to, and the religious
world went on violating the first principles of the Gospel.
In each
century more and more individuals became imbued with Christian truths, and
believed and urged that man was responsible to God alone for his religious
opinions; that character rather than belief was the test, and that any injury
done to a human being for his religious ideas or practices (so long as they did
not conflict with common morals), was a violation of the principles of Christ’s
doctrine, and a wrong and injustice. These protests arose, too, from those
nominally outside of Christianity who had felt its influence though denying
the name, and thus the current of opinion moved gradually against the practice
of religious persecution. Thus the celebrated John Robinson, father of Puritanism
in New England, says,
“ It is no
property of religion to compel to religion what ought to be taken up freely;
that no man is forced by Christians against his will, seeing that he that wants
faith and devotion is unserviceable to God, and that God not being contentious,
would not be worshipped of the unwilling . . . and lastly, considering that
neither God is pleased with unwilling worshippers, nor Christian societies
bettered, nor the persons themselves.”1
Grotius 3
is equally in advance of his times :
“ But they
that persecute others for no other cause but because they either teach or
profess the Christian religion, are most unreasonable. For certainly our
Christian doctrine considered in its sincerity
' Works,
vol. i. p. 40.
2 Right of Wiir and Peace, book ii. c. 20.
(Evart’s translation,
1782).
without
any commixture, contains nothing prejudicial to humane society, nay that doth
not rather advance it; it shall speak for itself and its enemies shall confess
no less.”
In the
United States, where both practice and legislation are much under the influence
of Christian motives, all persecution for religious opinion, or withdrawing of
civil rights on account of belief, or interference in any way with religious
worship or practices (where not conflicting with common morals), has passed
entirely out, not only of use, but even from the thought of men.
Persecution
is passing away also in Europe, though surviving here and there in
disabilities of Jews (as in regard to the marriage of Christians and Jews in
Hungary), or violence against Jews (as in Russia), or legislation against
Catholics (as in Germany), or proceedings against heretics or schismatics. ■
The day is
not far distant in which the charity of Christ will be embodied in all the
legislation, practice, and opinion of the civilized nations, and all men shall
be free to think, worship, and practice (within reasonable restraints) as to
them may seem good. Then at length will the Church of Christ be like its Head.
It
is a grand and consoling thought, harmonious with reason and the utterances of
inspired men, that there is in human history a “continuity” of Divine
revelations. That is, that the Spirit of God has not merely manifested itself
to one race in a remote corner of the world during a few years, but that He has
been struggling with human souls during all ages and among all races. Certain
individuals have especially received these inspirations, and have so grasped
certain moral and spiritual truths, or have led such pure and unselfish lives,
as to profoundly affect the humane and moral progress of whole races of men.
Indeed the continuance and relative advance of great nations have often depended
on the degree to which they followed the instructions and truths taught by
their great religious leaders. Under this aspect, God is an ever- acting force in human history, and men and
women in the most widely scattered countries and among races given up to
superstition or degrading practices, have opened their souls to this Divine
light. The light which they in turn have given to the world, has not been
indeed like the pure radiance shining forth from the “ Son of Man ” in Judaea,
1 We object
strongly to the invidious implication of the term “ Heathen ” peoples, as
though such races were all wild tribes, given up to idolatrous and barbarous
practices. Some of the heathen peoples have grasped a great deal of Divine
truth.
445
but it has
contained rays of the heavenly light, and, though obscured by mists of
superstition and the clouds of human ignorance, it has yet guided many a weary
soul in the dark ways of the world.
Paul
evidently had these truths in mind, when he declares that “ the invisible
things of Him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that
are made, even His everlasting power and Divinity ” (Rom. i. 20); and again, “
For when Gentiles which have no law, do by nature the things of the law, these,
having no law, are a law unto themselves, in that they show the work of the law
written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their
thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them" (Rom. xii. 14,
15); or, wjien on Mars’ Hill, he said to the apparently superstitious
worshippers of an “ unknown God,” “ Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I
unto you ” (Acts xvii. 1-23). Peter too expressed a like thought in ■the words “
Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons : but in every
nation, he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him”
(Acts x. 34, 35)-
In
comparing humane progress under peoples nominally Christian and those non-Christian,
it is but just to take among the latter, nations who have reached a high state
of organization and the most complete civilization which we find outside of
Christianity. In this view we shall choose the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the
Arabs. Our comparison, under the limits of this work, must of necessity be very
brief, and only touch on points familiar to students.
The
Hindoos are admitted by historians to have attained to a very high intellectual
and moral advancement. The ancient books of their faith contain scattered
through them moral and spiritual truths which in power and depth
equal many
of the doctrines of Christianity. Their sages and poets frequently saw the
truths of the Unity and Spirituality of God, of a superintending Providence, of
man’s sin and his want of forgiveness, of the need of an “ Angel Messiah ” or
Incarnation of Divinity, of immortality, of judgment to come, of human
brotherhood and equality before God, and all the duties to God and man that
spring from these doctrines.
But with
all these truths, were included soon so many falsehoods, so many superstitions,
vagaries, bloody, cruel and licentious ideas and practices, and the want of any
one simple and pure life and doctrine like those of Jesus, that the people very early fell into debasing
practices which checked progress. Mr. Mill, in his History of India, justly
says,
“ If those
qualities which render a man amiable, respectable and useful as a human being;
if wisdom, beneficence and self-command are celebrated as the chief
recommendations to the favour of the Almighty; if the production of happiness
is steadily and constantly represented as the most acceptable worship to the
Creator, no other proof is requisite that they who framed and they who
understood this religion, have arrived at high and refined notions of an
All-Perfect Being” (vol. i. p. 263).
The
corruptions of the early Brahmanic faith show that such an idea of Deity had
long passed away among the masses in India. The deification of licentiousness
and cruelty in the Hindoo faith has degraded the people, and no doubt tended to
produce the singular indifference to human suffering, noticed by travellers,1
and the licentious-
1 We have
again and again witnessed along the great pilgrim-routes of India, harrowing
illustrations of this sad truth ; we have seen poor creatures smitten with
disease, lying on the road-side, passed by hundreds of their co-religionists
with no more concern than if they were dying dogs; we have seen the poor
parched sufferers with folded hands and pleading voice crave a drop of water to
moisten their lips, but all in vain.” (Vaughan’s Trident, Crescent and Cross,
p. 31.)
ness of
many classes. The two great causes, however, of the want of progress in India,
as compared with Europe, are the existence of caste and the position of woman.
Caste is
not improbably a result of conquest, but it has been strengthened instead of
weakened by the religion of the Hindoos. The laws of Manu (supposed to date
back at least to the fifth century before Christ) speak -of caste (book i. 8)
as a law of nature and of Divine appointment, as much as the creation of
different animals.
“ Since
the Brahman sprang from the most excellent part, since he has the priority
arising from primogeniture, and since he possesses the Veda, he is by right
lord of this whole creation ” (i. 93).
Even the
Rig-veda, as quoted by Williams (“Indian Wisdom”) makes the Brahman to issue
from the mouth of Vishnu, the kingly soldier from his arms, the husbandman
from his thighs, and the servile Sudra to come from his feet. It is obvious
that a people whose religion stamps such social divisions on their
organization, cannot advance under modern conditions. All observers agree that
caste in India makes anything like modern European progress impossible. The
first effort of Christianity on individual Hindoos is of course to abolish
caste ideas and prejudices. Such immovable divisions of class are opposed to
the foundation principles of Christ’s doctrine.
But even
more than caste, has the position of woman in India retarded her progress. The
oldest religious documents and many of the older laws appear to have recognised
a higher influence and position for woman than do the modern. Still, even the
laws of Manu assign her a very inferior rank. The wife is permitted to be sold
or beaten; she is spoken of as having 110 will of her own and as unfit for
independence.1 A husband must constantly
1 Williams’
Indian Wisdom, p. 529.
be revered
as a god by a virtuous wife. No sacrifice is allowed to women apart from their
husbands ; no religious rites, no fasting.1 Even the Bhajavad - Gita
represents woman as entering heaven along with the lowest caste.3
Mill3 quotes from an ancient Hindoo writing—the Hito- padesa, or “
Book of Friendly Advice,”—
“In
infancy, the father should guard her; in youth, her husband; and in old age,
her children; for at no time is a woman fit to be trusted with liberty.” “
Infidelity, violence, deceit, envy, extravagance, a total want of good
qualities, with impurity, are the innate faults of women.”
According
to this author, she could not under the old code give evidence; she could not
share in the paternal property; she was by system deprived of education ; as a
wife she was held unworthy to eat with her husband. The latter could dismiss
her on the smallest pretexts, but no violence or desertion or sale could
absolve woman, from obligation to her lord.4 “ Day and night,” say
the laws of Manu, “ must woman be held by her protector in a state of
dependence.”5 “ By a girl or a young woman, or by a woman advanced
in years, nothing must be done even in her own dwelling according to her own
mere pleasure.”6 Nor is the modern position of woman in India
superior to that assigned to her in ancient law and custom.
“No Hindoo
woman,” says Williams, “has in theory any independence. It is not merely that
she is not her own mistress; she is not her own property, and never under any
circumstances can be. She belongs to her father first, who gives her away to
her husband, to whom she belongs for ever. She is not considered capable of so
high a form of religion as man, and she does not mix freely in society.”7
1 Manu, v. 155. 2 Williams, p. 145.
3 Hist, of
India, p. 295. 4 Mill,
vol. i. p. 297.
5 Manu,
quoted by Mill. 6
Ibid.
7 Indian
Wisdom, p. 435.
G G
“ Home1 is so
shut in by the close shutters of caste that healthy ventilation is impossible.
The fresh air of heaven and the light of God’s day have no free entrance.
Weakly children are brought up by ignorant, superstitious, narrow-minded
mothers in a vitiated atmosphere. Hence, in my opinion, the present
deteriorated character and condition of a large majority of the people of
India.”
A Hindoo
convert to Christianity thus describes his feelings in regard to marriage:
“ Escaping
the maladies of superstition and standing under the light of true religion with
feelings of love and refinement in my heart, 1 shudder at and clearly see the
defects in the system we have considered. The very thought of marrying a
person whose joys and sorrows I am to participate in, who is to become one with
me, without knowing her character and seeing her face at all, makes me shudder.
. . . In
Bengal, with many, the affection between husband and wife is rather compulsory
than heart-felt. True love does rarely grace the connubial life of the Hindoo.
The children do not know what innocent social comforts are. Vice with its
thousand branches twines round their lives. Faithlessness to the married
relation, discord between and separation of two who are strictly required to
be one, are the defective features of Hindoo families in general.”2
We have
purposely refrained from quoting to any large extent from the views of
missionaries, who may be supposed on this subject to be prejudiced. But even
Sir Henry Maine, who regards these matters from a peculiarly philosophical
standpoint, attributes in a passage we have already quoted (p. 35), the lack of
progress of this great branch of the Aryan family, as compared with the European,
to the different position they gave to woman. Whence the European sentiment and
practice are mainly derived, we have already seen.
The cruel
practices once habitual in India, and now not
1 Indian Wisdom, p. 137.
2 Gangooly’s Life and Religion of the
Hindoos, p. 53.
wholly1
abolished by the influence of a Christian people, are painful evidences of the
want of humane progress. Self-immolation, human sacrifices, the burning of
widows, the exposure of the sick and feeble, and like practices could not
possibly exist where Christianity had the slightest power.
Buddhism.—One
faith has existed in India as a reform of Brahmanism, and has extended to
China, Japan, and other countries, which in the life of its founder and the
truths he taught, showed a peculiar Divine inspiration that brought it in some
respects very near to Christianity. Undoubtedly in the original form of this
religion are seen the workings of the Divine Spirit on a most pure and exalted
human soul. Indeed the truths taught by Gautama- Buddha seem to be fore-gleams
of those taught by Christ.2 Never has compassion
been more Divinely illustrated in a human life ; nowhere are self-sacrifice,
human brotherhood, universal benevolence and sympathy, and purity of heart and
life more directly taught than in the words transmitted of Sakya Muni. The
Buddhist legends might well teach that all nature budded into spring and a
thrill of joy reached every animated being, that the blind saw and the dumb
spake, that prisoners were set free and the flames of hell extinguished, and a
mighty sound of music* arose from heaven and earth,3 when a human
soul so pure and holy and thus filled with an almost infinite compassion, began
its life in the body.
1 Ball speaks of sacrifices of children
practised in India as late as 1861, and as not wholly broken up in 1879.
[JungleLife, etc., p. 608.)
2 See Alabaster’s Wheel of the Law, and
numberless Lives of Buddha. Also The Angel Messiah, by E. von Bunsen, 1880; and
Beal’s Romant. Hist, of S&kya Budda, from the Chinese Sanscrit, 1875 ; and
Catena of Buddh. Script., from the Chinese, 1871.
3 Alabaster’s Wheel, etc.
Nor has
this life been a failure. The humanity, courtesy, mercy and brotherhood
exhibited by countless multitudes of Asiatics, are without doubt largely the
fruit of these teachings.1
But the
soul of the saintly Hindoo seemed not sufficiently open to the Divine
influences, or his mind was too much under the power of Indian mythology, so
that the final aim and consummation of his belief lacked the simplicity and
reality of Christianity. He could not offer a great hope to mankind, but only a
cessation of the eternal changes of metempsychosis, and the quietude of
Nirvana, where no desire or pain or pleasure or sin should ever invade the
eternal repose. It has to some of his followers been the repose of annihilation
; to others the peace of blessed absorption into Deity and of loss of
personality; to others the eternal rest of the heavy-laden in the bosom of God.
The vagueness of the hope, the lack of sublime simplicity in the teachings, the
want of an overpowering faith in the “ Heavenly Father,” and a certain absence
of consciousness of perfect union with the Infinite Spirit, will perhaps
account for the failure of Buddhism in promoting the progress of Asia as
compared with Christianity in Europe. The Divine Spirit was moving in the self-
sacrificing Indian prince and in many- of his intuitions and the trifths taught
by him ; but not as in Christ. His truth early gathered around it gross
superstitions; it .degenerated into senseless idolatry; it developed useless
asceticism and ecclesiasticism ; it was accompanied with the most mechanical
routine service, instead of a free moral and spiritual life. Buddhism has not
seemed capable of urging on a steady moral and humane progress as Chris-
1 See Miss
Bird’s description of the remarkable kindness and good nature of the Japanese,
the effects of a faith they had given up,— Buddhism.
tianity
has done. It was evidently not fit for all stages of human growth. Yet the
student of moral development must ever be grateful, that so high a type of
human Faith has sustained such countless millions of the human race during so
many centuries. Back of all its idolatry, superstition and wild fancies, many a
simple believer must have seen a noble form, bearing the burdens of mankind,
most “like unto the Son of man,” and through him, he has been led to worship, “
ignorantly ” it may be, the Infinite Father, and to work “righteousness,” so
far as human weakness permitted, and “hath been accepted with. Him ”1
through His infinite mercy.
Some
forms, too, of practical charity have sprung up under it—such as shelters for
travellers, hospitals for the sick, foundling asylums, and similar charities.
It is probable that the first hospitals in the world’s history for diseased
men and animals were founded by the Indian Buddhists. But these have not been
continued to any great extent.
Buddhism
entered China when two systems held sway ; one of a philosophic transcendental
Rationalism, Taoism,3 and the other of a most exalted philanthropy,
which neither denied nor affirmed supernatural facts, Confucianism.
In China,
Buddhism besides exerting its higher influence, supplied in its corrupt form a
gross superstition as a satisfaction to the religious wants of man’s nature.
The truths of Confucius, though in many respects elevated and filled with the
sense of human brotherhood, not being connected with pure Religion, failed to
stimulate to an ever-moving progress. They cultivated good will, and filial
pity, and public duty, and outward propriety; but they did not offer
inducements so powerful, or such personal affection for a supernatural Teacher,
or the sense of God and Immortality,
1 Acts x.
34, 35. 2 See Johnson's Oriental Religions—China.
sufficient
to overcome human selfishness. They gave a great and ingenious race enough to
satisfy present needs, and with the superstition of Buddhism, to leave it in
one fixed condition. We find in consequence in China, abuses which belonged to
Europe before Christianity had attained to much influence. Infanticide, despite
the denials of certain authorities, is undoubtedly fearfully prevalent in
certain districts ; children are sold as slaves ;1 even a wife is
sometimes sold; slavery is common and torture is still in use. Confucius
taught blood-revenge :
“
Recompense injury with justice,” he said, “ and kindness with kindness.”3
“ He who recompenses injury with kindness is a man who is careful of his
person.” “ With the slayer of his father, a man may not live under the same
heaven; against the slayer of his brother, a man must never have to go home to
fetch a weapon; with the slayer of his friend, a man may not live in the same
state.”3
From such
teachings may have arisen the long continuance of “ feuds ” in China.
The
alleged insincerity of the Chinese is thought to be due to certain instructions
of this great teacher, where he permits truth to be waived.4
There is
no such teaching of humanity by Confucius as to affect the relations of China
with other countries ; there is no especial respect for foreigners, and other
races are looked at as barbarians. The peculiar isolation of China, as regards
other countries, is no doubt partly due to this defect in this great teacher’s
instructions. Woman is undoubtedly in an inferior position in China.
“ Man is
the representative of heaven,” says this philosopher, “ and is the supreme over
all things. Woman yields obedience to the instruction of man and helps to carry
out his principles. On this account, she can determine nothing of herself, and
is subject to the rule of the three obediences : when young she must obey her
father and elder brother; when married, her husband; when her husband is old,
she must obey her son.” 1
The
position of woman in China is evidently one of the causes of the sluggish
condition of that country during so many centuries. Woman has apparently little
important part there, either socially, politically or morally; though she has
figured somewhat in Chinese literature.
And yet
for the assistance of its moral progress, there has been no deification of vice
in the Chinese religion, nor human sacrifice, and a most pure and elevated
literature.
It is to
be admitted, however, when all things are said, that we know but little about
the permanent and profound influences affecting the Chinese people. It would
seem that this benevolent and monotonous type of society, without enthusiasm
and with many secret vices, with no element in it of great and heroic progress
and suited to a certain condition of immovability for countless centuries, may
be a type of the future of the civilized world, should a philanthropic
Rationalism take the place of the Christian Religion.
Confucius
might well be the saint of modern Agnosticism.
It may be
justly urged, however, that the followers of both Gautama-Buddha and of
Confucius have never fully lived up to the principles and teachings of their
masters. But on the other hand it may be fairly replied, that there was not in
themselves and their doctrines sufficient of the life-giving impulse, or of
Divine power, to overcome the selfishness and indifference of men ; so that as
ages go byand
civilization advances, those religious or moral beliefs no longer greatly
influence their believers and are poorly adapted to the new conditions of the
world. A lamentable instance of the failure of Buddhism 1 seems to
be afforded by the present condition of Japan. Travellers picture the Japanese
as people without religion and without hope. A current and favourite proverb
is, that “ the worst thing you can wish a man is, to live again.” As the old
faith has died out there is nothing left but its unconscious effects and the
habits taught by it, to stem the tide of selfishness; and the people seem given
up, say very candid observers, to “ licentiousness and untruthfulness,” while a
deep shade of melancholy settles over all. The great doctrine of Sakya Muni
that the “ End of Righteousness is Rest,” has degenerated into the dogma that
the “ End of Righteousness is Nothingness,” and a night of unbelief and
hopelessness has fallen over a whole race.
The Arabs.—The
Arabs, whom we have chosen also for comparison with European peoples, were in a
high condition of civilization when Europe was in barbarism. The Spanish Arabs
of the tenth and eleventh centuries, drawing their inspiration perhaps from an
older civilization, were as much superior intellectually to the French,
Germans, and English of that age, as are these peoples now to Afghans or Turks.
In the arts and sciences and many of the best fruits of civilization, in
refinement and intellect, the Mohammedans of the Middle Ages, both of Europe
and Asia, far exceeded the Christian nations. They followed, too, a faith
which contained one great Divine truth, the existence of one infinite and
spiritual Creator, to whom all men were responsible. They abhorred idol
worship, and no doubt often came in contact with nominal Christians, who were
farther removed than themselves from the
spiritual worship taught in the Bible. But the sensuality encouraged by their
faith ; the cruelty and bigotry taught by it; the fatalism implied in it; the
permission given in it to polygamy, divorce and slavery, proved that it was
not the religion of the future, not the religion of humanity, and must come to
an end. In fact, the many false and evil elements in Mohammedanism have made it
one of the curses of mankind. It has spread abroad the spirit of cruelty and
lust, and under it are found the unnatural vices, 1 and the
oppression of subject races, and the degradation of women, which belonged to
Europe before the era of Christianity. Its teachings of the doctrine of
fatalism are an insurmountable obstacle to all advance, whether in
civilization or morals. Man becomes the mere sport and implement of an
irresistible destiny. It has in it no element of permanent social and moral
progress. The science and intellect of some of the races which embraced it
could not save it. It so lacks the Christian respect for the individual, and
the Christian benevolence, that it never suits itself to liberal government or
to advanced civilization. The splendour of Spanish and Asiatic Arab art and
architecture is only seen in ruins; the science which once led the world in
investigation only remains in words which have become histories, and in
discoveries which have preceded modern research! while the barbaric tribes
whom
The
difference has not been evidently in vigour of race, or in intellect, or
acquired science and learning, or in language. The Turkish conquest is, of
course, one reason of the change; but the great cause has lain in those
peculiar and subtle influences which Christianity has gradually instilled into
European races.
On the other hand, Mohammedanism could not rise above its source. It illustrated or exaggerated everywhere the vices of its leader. It left behind it, whether in Spain, Sicily, Egypt, or Bagdad, anarchy, corruption, and horrible social evils. Still it is but just to note that certain Mohammedans, who have probably come under the influence of the purer Persian faith and of Buddhism, as well as of the “ Soofi ” mysticism, have attained to a religion as elevated and earnest, though not so humane and practical, as Christianity itself. The Divine Spirit apparently inspired such a preacher as Ghazzali.
With Mohammedan races, slavery largely prevails; polygamy is permitted; divorce is comparatively free. In Arabia and on the African coast, blood revenge and feud still exist. In Turkey, unnatural vice is common ; woman is in a most degraded position; divorces are almost daily ; and cruelty of the most horrible description towards prisoners or those conquered is well known. In Arabia, a favourite proverb is “The threshold weeps four days when a girl is born. Another Arabic proverb- teaches that “ to send women beforehand to the other world is a benefit,” and that “ the best son-in-law is the grave.” Wife-beating seems taught in the Koran, as it is the custom in Mohammedan countries, and wife murder is not uncommon in Syria. The modern testimony as to the effect of Mohammedanism on the Arabs of Syria is overwhelming; we have space for but few quotations. Says a convert,
“ How few of the hundreds of thousands of women in Syria know how to read ! How few are the schools ever established for teaching women. Any one who denies the degradation and ignorance of Syrian women, would deny the existence of the noonday sun. Do not men shun even allusion to women, and if obliged to speak of them, do they not accompany the remark with ’ajellak Allah, as if they were speaking of a brute beast or filthy object ? Are they not treated among us very much as among barbarians ?”
An article
from Le Liban, an official journal of Daud Pasha, Governor of Mount Lebanon,
printed in 1867, says,
“ So in
former times, the man was the absolute tyrant of the family. The wife was the
slave, never to be seen by others. And if in conversation it became necessary
to mention her name, it would be by saying this was done by my wife, ’ajellak
Allah! But now there is a change, and woman is no longer regarded
as worthy of contempt and abuse; and the progress being made in the
emancipation and elevation
of woman is one of the noblest and best proofs of the real progress of Lebanon
in the paths of morality and civilization."
“In
Algiers,” Seguin says, “the Mohammedan invariably buys his wife; he pays a
price for her to her family.”
“ When an
Arab woman marries, she is sure only that she will be a slave ; but who can
tell how many domestic tortures she will have to endure? ”
The conception of God in the Koran is not of a father, but of an inscrutable despot. “Verily,” says this book, “there is none in the heavens and on earth but shall approach the God of mercy as a slave,” and the duty is laid upon the faithful of being the agents of God’s wrath on those who believe not.The two great Christian ideas at the base of modern progress—the fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man—are wanting in Islam. The Christian ideas at the basis of modern international law are unknown to Mohammedanism. War is the ordinance of God, and public faith need not be kept with infidels or aliens.
It should
be noted, however, that Mohammedanism encouraged kindness to the poor. Alms
are "a loan to God ”; they “ deliver from hell and secure Paradise.” The
first lunatic asylums are said to owe their origin to this Faith. It taught
also great kindness to animals, and admitted them to a future state of
existence.
We should not forget also that Mohammed attempted to reform his times by suppressing infanticide, inculcating temperance, and prohibiting gambling and divination.
It can
hardly be urged that climate alone has caused all these differences between the
non-Christian and the Christian peoples. The Christian religion, looked at
materially, is a product of a warm climate. Some of its purest and noblest
disciples, who still profoundly influence the world, were natives or residents
under almost a tropical sun. Its great conquests indeed have been won among northern
races ; but with them it had especial obstacles, owing to the northern
predisposition to intemperance and the greater struggle for existence necessary
in colder climates. On the other hand, two of these faiths, the system of
Confucius and the religion of Mohammed, cover many regions where the climates
are severe and cold. The great standard-bearers of Mohammedanism—the
Turks—were a northern and vigorous race, and the Arabs have none of the habits
of a tropical people ; indeed the latter are closely allied to the founders of
Christianity—the Jews.
A tropical
climate undoubtedly tends to degrade the position of woman, in relaxing her
energy and exposing her purity. But this evil is no greater than the tendency
of a northern climate to stimulate intemperance. Christianity is adapted to
restrain and remove both evils. It may be true that for this Faith some races
are more fitted
Buddhism
and Brahmanism have substantially failed of a great moral progress in India,
China, and Japan; they are proved not to be the absolute religions.
Confucianism has produced no great progress in China ; and Mohammedanism has
utterly failed everywhere except with certain barbarous tribes in Africa.
It would
not perhaps be reasonable to argue from the imperfect fruits of these
religions, that they were failures. It might fairly be alleged that they had
not yet existed during sufficient time. But we can urge that, from their very
nature and structure, they are not fitted for all phases of human development.
They are not universal and absolute religions, and adapted to bring about the
highest humane and moral progress.
Were the
world thoroughly and consistently Buddhistic or Confucian, it would be anything
but a world fitted for the highest conditions of human advancement, or for the
ideals of the mind. It could not long live up even to its own principles, as it
would lack the life-giving power afforded by Christianity.
OBJECTIONS.
RESUMfi OF REFORMS BEGUN. THE FUTURE OF MANKIND UNDER CHRISTIANITY.
The points necessary at the close of our investigation to
consider, are : whether, supposing the Christian system to prevail and to
thoroughly imbue individuals and society in all directions, this would form the
highest type of character and the final and perfect development of mankind ;
whether if all the world were Christian, it would be the world of our ideals.
It is
often and naturally objected1 that the Christian character of the
future will be deficient in the courageous and manly principles, and will not
have been tried in the fiery furnace of discipline of the past—namely War.
But it
should be remembered that the natural conditions of the world, the struggle
with the great forces of nature, will always cultivate physical courage; and
the eternal necessity in human society of defending the weak, rebuking wrong,
standing by the unpopular cause, and even incurring shame and loss for the
truth, will always train moral courage. Even if csons hence, society should
approach its complete development, the inevitable accidents and chances of life
would continually call for the highest kind of courage. Even now in modern
wars, there is little demand for savage pugnacity or a bloody revengeful temper,
but
As
civilization advances the moral courage will be more and more demanded ; and
physical nerve and resolution will be gained, without exciting the violent
passions, by struggles with nature. The unconquerable determination to overcome
difficulties, the contempt of death, the scorn of cowardice as worse than
death, the heroism which could throw away life like a straw for victory—which
have been the crowning gains and glories of war in the past—might easily be
shown by men in a world which had grown beyond war in their struggles with
nature, with the tremendous forces around them, and amid the inevitable
accidents and chances of life.
The
Christian ideal has always been far in advance of past ages; it is still beyond
our present condition. Men can only make a compromise between it and the
necessary demands of the times. But the compromise continually approaches,
century by century, the original ideal. It would be difficult now (though not
impossible) for an individual to conform his life to these higher principles
and survive in the struggle for existence. As each century passes it becomes
easier. It would be in this age apparently impossible for a nation to conform
to these principles, and survive. But in each century the nations approach them
more nearly.- As society advances, the Christian type of character will become
more suited to the surrounding conditions, and there is no reason to fear,
that man under this moulding, will be shaped in any weak or unmanly form.
All that a
barbarous and bloody past gave of vigour and courage, will be given by a future
of peace and humanity under the unavoidable dangers and chances of life.
A similar
objection is that the Christian type of character would in its unselfishness
unfit men for the struggle for existence, and that the followers of this
morality and Religion would be over-reached by the “ children of this world,”
and finally worsted in the contest. But the Christian teachings do not require
to love others more than self, but as ourselves. And the highest Christian
benevolence teaches that the selfishness of others must sometimes be resisted
for their sake, even more than our own. It is true that as society and trade
are constituted now, a complete living after the Christian ideal is difficult,
but with each generation, a greater harmony arises between the conditions and
this type of character. Even now it is not certain that a society completely
governed by the Christian morality might not exist successfully amid the
selfish and jarring interests of the world. It is easily conceivable that the
world might advance with all its present progress, and yet all societies be
inspired by these elevated principles. There is nothing in the Christian ideal
which unfits a man for the utmost activity and vigour; and if this activity
regard the rights of others and consult their interests, it will not be the
less likely to attain its objects. At all events, with each advancing century,
this type of character will be more fit for its conditions and surroundings.
It has often been urged in these pages that the teachings of the great Master were in no way inconsistent either with modern advance in rational accumulation of wealth or in institutions of political liberty, though objections urging this have often been made against this moral system.
The type
of character moulded by this system is essentially the self-controlled, the
earnest, the one careful of the claims of others and responsible to a higher
Power. Such a character under modern conditions must be industrious and saving
and laborious. Idleness, dependence, selfindulgence or extravagance would
equally be inconsistent with its ideals. It is true that the teachings of Jesus
set themselves against an excessive pursuit of wealth, and to His immediate
disciples, enforced communism of goods. But, considering Oriental metaphors and
the peculiar conditions which surrounded our Lord, it may be doubted if He
urged for all men anything more than a greater distribution of property than
had ever been known. The Apostles apparently thus interpreted His words. There
is in His teachings, an ideal in regard to property which is far in advance of
the social progress of mankind. A future, in which, after all reasonable tastes
and wants of every kind had been satisfied, accumulation was entirely devoted
to the public good, would not be one with which political economy has reason to
quarrel or which would discourage industry. It would offer to labour the
highest reward which the most benevolent nature could seek. Nothing like dependence
or idleness is a legitimate fruit of Christianity. The monasticism of history
has not come from Christ, nor is that charity which degrades the sufferer in
helping him and which sows other evils in curing the nearest, His teaching. The
drift of all His words is to seek one’s happiness in the ultimate highest
happiness of all; to love others as one’s self, and God above all. The true
Christian cannot knowingly do a man good in a way which will injure him ultimately,
or will injure society.
The
peculiarity of Christ’s teachings, as has often been said, in regard to
political matters, was that He left them entirely on one side, but threw in a
principle into human
society
which was destined in after ages to overthrow or modify all existing
institutions and governments. The value attached by Him to the individual, has
affected all modern political systems and is destined to do so more and more.
The bond of humanity He taught is already connecting persons under various forms
of government, and is certain hereafter to reform governments and the relations
of nations.
It is true
that the early Apostles, under the peculiar conditions of the Roman empire at
the time, taught a submission to authority which cannot be a universal duty.
But the essential character exemplified by Christ contained no elements which
form the instrument or the victim of tyranny. A man trained to live in the
great Task-master’s eye, looking at all men as equal before God, holding
beliefs which no human authority could give or take away, determined to render
to all their dues, and habitually looking beyond human ranks and distinctions,
could not in the nature of things be long a supporter of despotism whether in
church or state. The Christian is essentially a believer in individual liberty
whatever be the form of government; the tendency of the Christian system is to
permit all men to enjoy the utmost development of their faculties, and to
oppose unlimited authority. The highest development of a controlled liberty
to every man and every woman, is the natural fruit of the teachings of Jesus.
As a
collateral evidence of the truth of this position, it may fairly be urged that
those races and peoples whose members attempt (though only partially) to guide
their lives by His direct teachings, and who, however imperfectly, seek, or
profess to seek, to model themselves on Him, are those who have most developed
free institutions.
The
opposition in the past of the nominal expression of
Christianity—the
Church—to Science is indeed one of the apparent objections to this system which
has had most weight.
It is
undoubtedly true that a false theory of inspiration and a false interpretation
of the scriptures, together with the spirit of bigotry, have thrown the religious
bodies often in contest with science. But the teachings of the Master are not
responsible for this. There is nothing in them which is opposed to the freest
investigation and most thorough research. On the other hand, the humility and
love of truth taught by Him, are favourable to the pursuit of truth and would
tend to make the scholar more thorough and earnest.
The faith
in Supernaturalism cannot be urged as opposed to Science, for the believer
holds also to a system of laws in a sphere higher than that which science
searches out, and to him also there is a “ continuity ” in the universe. The
victories of science are won in a domain which faith scarcely touches ; and
from all that appears, a most devout believer in the supernatural might lead
the researches of modern investigation in nature. To him indeed there would
be an intelligent Power behind nature, and a light shining through the mystery
of the universe, but all known laws of existence could be as closely and
impartially followed out, as by the most sceptical materialist Many of the
great investigators of nature in all ages have been religious.
An
objection of greater weight to the Christian system is that, if of supernatural
origin, or if the ultimate system of morals, it has been extraordinarily slow
in imbuing the world with its principles and that some of the most terrible
evils of society still survive. The reply has often been made to this
objection, and to the philosophic mind would seem a not unsatisfactory one,
that with regard to all
agencies,
whether physical or moral, shaping this world, long periods of time seem
necessary. Whatever be the theory of the universe, immense time appears
indispen- sible for the working out of any of the great forces. It is no more
inconsistent with supernatural Power to be during a thousand centuries slowly
remoulding through natural influences the moral world, than during a like
period to be gradually remoulding matter under the laws of Evolution, or to be
laying the foundation for future kingdoms of life during uncounted centuries
under the natural forces.
All that
we need to show is, that here is a moral Force producing certain definite
though small results during a certain period of time ; and of a nature adapted
to produce indefinite similar results in unlimited time. If these two
premises be allowed of the Christian system, we can pronounce it safely the
ultimate system of morals.
The first
of these, it has been the object of this volume to demonstrate. We have
endeavoured to show what in a few centuries the Christian System has brought
about; what changes it, in harmony with other influences working secondarily,
has effected, what sufferings mitigated, what evils removed, what abuses
reformed, and what new bonds of sympathy and humanity it has joined. -
Before
showing what it is adapted to accomplish, we must point incidentally to certain
obstacles, outside of itself, which have obstructed its progress in the past.
It will be
remembered that this Religion and morality have never acquired a full control
over mankind. The great historical blunder of the Church—the early union with
the State—lessened and crippled the moral influence of Christianity in Europe.
The too speedy and superficial conversion of the masses in Europe, left a
wide-spread paganization, especially of the peasantry. The influence
of state
churches, of wealthy hierarchies, of political priests, and all the corruption
and bigotiy of the Church in the Middle Ages, tended to counteract the true
working of the Faith. No doubt in modern days, the worldliness of the Church
has equally interfered with the legitimate influence of this system. Even among
its followers, the effects and inherited tendencies of ages of barbarism and
unrestrained selfishness, still survive in mental habits and social customs.
War is a relic of unchristian times, and is in many forms utterly opposed to
the Religion of Love. Yet the power of this kind of co-operation and the evil
passions engendered affect the minds of all believers, and but few have escaped
as yet its influences.
So as regards the more selfish competition of trade, the teachings of Christ, even with His nominal followers, have reached but a few. Then, when we consider the relations of bodies of men, we find that in all governmental connections, these instructions have had but the feeblest influence, and that this century only has seen the first important application of Christian principles to international relations. We may therefore fairly say that Christianity has merely begun its workings in the world, and many hundred centuries must pass before it will show any important part of its true influence.
Evolution.—But
what Christianity is adapted to effect may be best seen from examining the laws
which seem to govern all human development. In the struggle for existence,
that individual or that race of men is the most sure to survive, which is the
most fitted for its conditions, physical, mental, and moral. And as every
faculty and power develops, and the relations of human beings with one another
become more complicated, that race will lead the world which is most in harmony
with the most advanced and refined
conditions. The elements which especially govern the relations of men to one
another in their highest associations, are sympathy, justice, the love of
others’ happiness, the control of selfish tendencies, and the aiming at universal
good.
In lower
relations, we see in the history of the past, that such races as violated
habitually ordinary morals, and were greedy of wealth, indifferent to injustice,
tyrannical to the weak, corrupted by pleasure, weakened by unnatural passions,
oppressive to the masses, or eager for mere conquest and unjust glory, finally
were overthrown and perished. Their victors or survivors who took their places
at first were perhaps little better than their predecessors, but they had
gained the victory by some moral advantage, and this, acted upon by favouring
circumstances, transmitted and increased by heredity, continually advanced
these races.
The races
with lower moral development went to the wall, and those with higher, grew in
moral power. Still this was not a steady moral advance, as many of the circumstances
were not favourable to it; and temporarily a victory in the struggle for
existence was often given to a race lower in the moral scale. But on the whole
and in a long period, vice weakens the physical power of a nation; injustice
raises'up enemies internal or external; excessive luxury saps vigour;
selfishness repels allies ; and in one form or other, a low moral standard as
compared with the prevailing, weakens its resisting power, and causes it
finally to succumb. As we rise to higher relations, we can see that as man
develops and society advances, the races in which there is the highest
development of sympathy, of benevolence, of sexual purity, of truth and
justice, will tend to be the strongest in body, the most closely united, the
most prosperous, the most free, the
In the struggle
for existence, a perfected race like this will be as much beyond the races
which history has known, as the Aryan races now are beyond the African. It will
tend to supplant them. It will win the fruits of nature first. It will absorb
from them. It will resist destructive influences better. If driven to physical
contest, it would conquer them; it would inevitably lead all other races.
Though opposed to war, and living habitually in benevolence, such a people in
the defence of rights would be almost irresistible. But its final triumphs
would be like those of civilization—gentle, profound, and full of blessing to
all others. Men would follow such a nation, as they have followed prophets and
saviours. It would be the centre of the higher life of the world.
The
currents of Evolution plainly set towards such an end. The struggle for
existence, heredity, and the survival of the fittest, must give the final
triumph in the life of men to the races of high morality; to such qualities as
sympathy, unselfish benevolence, purity, justice and truth.
These are
alone suited to the highest development of society, and the most complete and
perfect working of each individual with every other. Selfishness, vice,
injustice, violence, hate, and lust, tend to weaken, to destroy, to
disorganize, and finally to cause defeat in the struggle.
A profound
and acute writer, a Positivist, Mr. Fiske, has somewhere said that the drift of
society under Natural Selection and the other forces of Evolution is “towards
weakening the power of selfishness, and strengthening the power of sympathy.”
If it be
objected that this theory leaves out of view one of the great and solemn facts
of life—the drift toward evil or inherited and accumulated tendency to
depravity— the reply is that with the race we have imagined, Inheritance may
eventually be turned toward good. After hundreds of generations of human
beings, guided by such principles as we have indicated, and inspired by the
Divine Spirit, the immense power of heredity reduplicating any tendencies
physical or moral would be accumulated in favour of benevolence, purity and
truth, and would open the mind to spiritual and moral truth, even from infancy.
No human knowledge can measure the results when at length under Divine
influences that mysterious tendency towards evil which has so tormented earnest
thinkers— that principle of heredity, reduplicating in its power at every new
generation—shall be turned towards good, and the first unconscious impulses be
in the direction of unselfishness and of religion. Then the “ gemmules ” which
may have descended for a thousand generations, whether containing physical
forces or influencing moral tendencies, will be preponderatingly those which
make the body pure and self-controlled, and draw the soul towards goodness and
God.
It need
not be said that' Christianity is adapted to form such a race as we have
described above. Its tendency is to remove all the destructive agencies. It
teaches the brotherhood of man and the priceless value of each human being, and
therefore undermines serfdom and slavery, which have overthrown so many
commonwealths, and steadily elevates the masses who make the strength of a
state. It urges universal love and justice, and therefore leads men to aid one
another in every possible way, to assist by wise charity, to remove unjust
burdens, to take off the trammels on trade and intercourse, to pass just laws
and abolish ancient abuses. Under its teachings of “ doing to others as we
would have others do to us,” and “ loving our neighbours as ourselves,”
sympathy and unselfish benevolence are the controlling elements in this higher
condition. It opposes and must finally do away with War—perhaps the greatest curse on mankind. In defending
marriage and presenting the highest ideal of purity as a religious obligation,
it strengthens physical power and diminishes the great offence of women, and
will at length remove it. It binds families together, and tends thus to
preserve the greatest physical vigour. It teaches temperance and moderation,
and by religious motives resists the fatal appetite of modern days—that for
extreme alcoholic stimulus.
In
presenting the dignity of man it tends to root out the degraded character of
Pauperism ; and by teaching that benevolence must ever regard the highest welfare
of the recipient, it prevents indiscriminate alms-giving. Trade under it will
be governed by honest and unselfish principles. Under the guiding words of the
Master, a new principle of the distribution of wealth will prevail in the
completed society of the future. Men will hold riches for all. The surplus
beyond reasonable wants and desires will be continually
distributed in means of education, of wise charity, and of public improvement.
Possibly the laws themselves will forbid accumulation beyond a fixed amount; or
all such matters will be left to a Christianized public opinion. Vice, lust,
violence, cruelty, neglect of offspring, robbery, thievery and all the
practices which disorganize a community will be resisted by the most powerful
motives which can work on the human mind. That which especially ensures the
future of a race—its physical and moral care for its young—is especially
encouraged by this Faith. Under it sympathy and unselfish benevolence are
stimulated to their utmost. It offers all the conditions which Evolution
requires to form the perfect race or society.
But it
does more than present a system of ultimate morals. It throws in a Force which
Evolution does not reckon upon, and which hastens on all the currents for good,
working in human life. It offers the love for an unequalled character, for a
divine Person who embodies all abstract morality : it throws about Him and His
teachings, the halo and mystery of a Religion : it presents to the individual
struggling for a higher morality, hopes and fears which take hold of all that
is grand and awful in the universe. It even makes morality only the blossom and
fruit of the love it would implant for this transcendent Being and of the faith
in unseen and eternal realities. In loving the highest excellence as
personified in Christ, the
man unconsciously loves the happiness of all created beings, and is planted in
the highest morality.
We have
thus attempted to show in this volume, what improvements in human condition,
and what assistance to humane and moral progress have originated in a comparatively
brief period, from Christianity. We have inferred from these changes which it
has caused during a few
A Being
who can lead for all future ages, the moral and humane progress of humanity,
may well claim a respect for His words which no other being can demand. The “
Son of man ” may well be the “ Son of God : ” the Gesta Christi may become the
Gesta Dei, and He reveal not only Life but Immortality to man.
APPENDIX.
ANCIENT
HUNGARIAN LEGISLATION.
The
ancient laws of St. Stephen, King of Hungary, who reigned about iooo a.d., bear out all that has been said of
the humane progress urged by Christianity in other ancient codes of Europe.
Manumission
of slaves is encouraged, and if made by will, no one is allowed to break it;
and if only promised by a master, his widow must carry out the purpose of her
husband pro redemptione aninuz, for the salvation of her soul (n, 17). No free
man is permitted under any pretext to be enslaved (11, 20).
Piety and
compassion and the Christian virtues are urged by the king, as if he were a
pastor rather than a ruler, especially on the ground that “ the Lord of virtues
is the King of kings ” (Nain Dominus virtutum ipse est Rex Regum, 11-10).
The
religious principle of equality is seen in the law that the property of a
peasant should be divided equally among sons and daughters (rn, 29), and
respect for woman in the entire power given to the widow over her property (11,
24).
The
barbaric element, not yet modified by religion, is found in these laws, in the
compensation affixed to the murder of a wife. The nobleman escapes with the
payment of fifty bullocks and a penance of fasting; the soldier with ten
bullocks and a fast, and the ignoble with five bullocks and a like penance (11,
14).
This
legislation is so soon after the introduction of Christianity, that the idea
of the dower has a barbaric tinge, as a compensation to the wife for what she
has endured in marriage. Dotem dicimus, quae uxori propter ejus deflorationem,
et concubitum, de bonis mariti datur (1, 90).
The dower
had not yet received its new character under religion. It was only the coarse
Morgengabe.
(See
Corpus Juris Hungaritz Budse, 1779. Sancti Steph. -Reg. Dec. about 1000 a.d.)
The
remarkably free position of woman in Hungarian history, and her legal
independence now, is no doubt due to these early influences of the Christian
Religion. It certainly did not come from Roman Law or the Teutonic codes and
customs.