Volume I—A To Elba (continued 32)

C. Merivale, Four lectures on some Epochs of Early Church History, pages 130-136.

"When the surging tides of barbarian invasion swept over Europe, the Christian organization was almost the only institution of the past which survived the flood. It remained as a visible monument of what had been, and, by so remaining, was of itself an antithesis to the present. The chief town of the Roman province, whatever its status under barbarian rule, was still the bishop's see. The limits of the old 'province,' though the boundary of a new kingdom might bisect them, were still the limits of his diocese. The bishop's tribunal was the only tribunal in which the laws of the Empire could be pleaded in their integrity. The bishop's dress was the ancient robe of a Roman magistrate. The ancient Roman language which was used in the Church services was a standing protest against the growing degeneracy of the 'vulgar tongue.' … As the forces of the Empire became less and less, the forces of the Church became more and more. The Churches preserved that which had been from the first the secret of Imperial strength. For underneath the Empire which changed and passed, beneath the shifting pageantry of Emperors who moved across the stage and were seen no more, was the abiding empire of law and administration,—which changed only as the deep sea changes beneath the windswept waves. That inner empire was continued in the Christian Churches. In the years of transition from the ancient to the modern world, when all civilized society seemed to be disintegrated, the confederation of the Christian Churches, by the very fact of its existence upon the old imperial lines, was not only the most powerful, but the only powerful organization in the civilized world. It was so vast, and so powerful, that it seemed to be, and there were few to question its being, the visible realization of that Kingdom of God which our Lord Himself had preached."

E. Hatch; The Organization of the Christian Churches, pages 160-178.

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CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 347-412. The Syrian Churches.

"St. Chrysostom was born there A. D. 347; and it was in his time that Antioch, with its hundred thousand Christians, became the leading Church in Asia, especially in the Arian controversy [see ARIANISM], for Arianism was very prevalent there. But all this lies outside our period. The so-called 'School of Antioch' has its origin just before … our period [311, Wiltsch]. Dorotheus, … and the martyr Lucian may be regarded as its founders. In contrast to the allegorising mysticism of the School of Alexandria, it was distinguished by a more sober and critical interpretation of Scripture. It looked to grammar and history for its principles of exegesis. But we must not suppose that there was at Antioch an educational establishment like the Catechetical School at Alexandria, which, by a succession of great teachers, kept up a traditional mode of exegesis and instruction. It was rather an intellectual tendency which, beginning with Lucian and Dorotheus, developed in a definite direction in Antioch and other Syrian Churches. … These notices of the Churches of Jerusalem, Cæsarea in Palestine, and Antioch must suffice as representative of the Syrian Churches. The number of these Churches was considerable even in the second century, and by the beginning of the fourth was very large indeed, as is seen by the number of bishops who attend local Councils."

A. Plummer, The Church of the Early Fathers, chapter 3.

"It has often astonished me that no one has ever translated the letters of St. Jerome. The letters of St. Augustine have been translated, and are in many parts very entertaining reading, but they are nothing in point of living interest when compared with St. Jerome's. These letters illustrate life about the year 400 as nothing else can. They show us, for instance, what education then was, what clerical life consisted in; they tell us of modes and fashions, and they teach us how vigorous and constant was the communication at that same period between the most distant parts of the Roman empire. We are apt to think of the fifth century as a time when there was very little travel, and when most certainly the East and West—Ireland, England, Gaul and Palestine—were much more widely and completely separated than now, when steam has practically annihilated time and space. And yet such an idea is very mistaken. There was a most lively intercourse existing between these regions, a constant Church correspondence kept up between them, and the most intense and vivid interest maintained by the Gallic and Syrian churches in the minutest details of their respective histories. Mark now how this happened. St. Jerome at Bethlehem was the centre of this intercourse. His position in the Christian world in the beginning of the fifth century can only be compared to, but was not at all equalled by, that of John Calvin at the time of the Reformation. Men from the most distant parts consulted him. Bishops of highest renown for sanctity and learning, like St. Augustine, and Exuperius of Toulouse in southern France, deferred to his authority. The keen interest he took in the churches of Gaul, and the intimate knowledge he possessed of the most petty local details and religious gossip therein, can only be understood by one who has studied his very abusive treatise against Vigilantius or his correspondence with Exuperius. … But how, it may be asked, was this correspondence carried on when there was no postal system? Here it was that the organization of monasticism supplied a want. Jerome's letters tell us the very name of his postman. He was a monk named Sysinnius. He was perpetually on the road between Marseilles and Bethlehem. Again and again does Jerome mention his coming and his going. His appearance must indeed have been the great excitement of life at Bethlehem. Travelling probably via Sardinia, Rome, Greece, and the islands of the Adriatic, he gathered up all kinds of clerical news on the way—a piece of conduct on his part which seems to have had its usual results. As a tale-bearer, he not only revealed secrets, but also separated chief friends, and this monk Sysinnius with his gossips seems to have been the original cause of the celebrated quarrel between Augustine and Jerome."

G. T. Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, pages 170-172.

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800. The Frankish Church to the Empire of Charlemagne.

"The baptism of Chlodovech [Clovis—see FRANKS: A. D. 481- 511] was followed by the wholesale conversion of the Franks. No compulsion was used to bring the heathen into the Church. As a heathen, Chlodovech had treated the Church with forbearance; he was equally tolerant to heathenism when he was a Christian. But his example worked, and thousands of noble Franks crowded to the water of regeneration. Gregory of Tours reckons the Franks as Christians after the baptism of their king, which took place at Christmas, A. D. 496. His conversion made no alteration in the policy and conduct of Chlodovech; he remained the same mixture of cunning and audacity, of cruelty and sensuality, that he was before. … But, though his baptism was to him of no moral import, its consequences were wide spreading. When Gregory of Tours compares the conversion of Chlodovech with that of Constantine the Great, he was fully in the right. … And the baptism of Chlodovech declared to the world that the new blood being poured into the veins of the old and expiring civilization, had been quickened by the same elements, and would unite with the old in the new development. … That many of those who were baptized carried with them into their new Christianity their old heathen superstitions as well as their barbarism is certain; and the times were not those in which the growth of the great Christian graces was encouraged; the germs, however, of a new life were laid."

S. Baring-Gould, The Church in Germany, chapter 3.

"The details of the history of the Merovingian period of Frankish history are extraordinarily complicated; happily, it is not at all necessary for our purpose to follow them. … In the earlier years after the conquest, all ranks of the clergy were filled by Gallo-Romans. The Franks were the dominant race, and were Christian, but they were new converts from a rude heathenism, and it would take some generations to raise up a 'native ministry' among them. Not only the literature of the (Western) Church, but all its services, and, still more, the conversational intercourse of all civilized and Christian people, was in Latin. Besides, the Franks were warriors, a conquering caste, a separate nation; and to lay down the battle-axe and spear, and enter into the peaceful ranks of the Romano-Gallic Church, would have seemed to them like changing their nationality for that of the more highly cultured, perhaps, but, in their eyes, subject race. The Frank kings did not ignore the value of education. Clovis is said to have established a Palatine school, and encouraged his young men to qualify themselves for the positions which his conquests had opened out to them. {459} His grandsons, we have seen, prided themselves on their Latin culture. After a while, Franks aspired to the magnificent positions which the great sees of the Church offered to their ambition; and we find men with Teutonic names, and no doubt of Teutonic race, among the bishops. … For a still longer period, few Franks entered into the lower ranks of the Church. Not only did the priesthood offer little temptation to them, but also the policy of the kings and nobles opposed the diminution of their military strength, by refusing leave to their Franks to enter into holy orders or into the monasteries. The cultured families of the cities would afford an ample supply of men for the clergy, and promising youths of a lower class seem already not infrequently to have been educated for the service of the Church. It was only in the later period, when some approach had been made to a fusion of the races, that we find Franks entering into the lower ranks of the Church, and simultaneously we find Gallo-Romans in the ranks of the armies. … Monks wielded a powerful spiritual influence. But the name of not a single priest appears in the history of the times as exercising any influence or authority. … Under the gradual secularization of the Church in the Merovingian period, the monasteries had the greatest share in keeping alive a remnant of vital religion among the people; and in the gradual decay of learning and art, the monastic institution was the ark in which the ancient civilization survived the deluge of barbarism, and emerged at length to spread itself over the modern world."

E. L. Cutts, Charlemagne, chapters 5 and 7.

"Two Anglo-Saxon monks, St. Wilfrid, bishop of York, and St. Willibrord undertook the conversion of the savage fishermen of Friesland and Holland at the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth century; they were followed by another Englishman, the most renowned of all these missionaries, Winfrith, whose name was changed to Boniface, perhaps by the Pope, in recognition of his active and beneficent apostleship. When Gregory II. appointed him bishop of Germany (723), he went through Bavaria and established there the dioceses of Frisingen, Passau, and Ratisbon. When Pope Zacharias bestowed the rank of metropolitan upon the Church of Mainz in 748, he entrusted its direction to St. Boniface, who from that time was primate, as it were, of all Germany, under the authority of the Holy See. St. Boniface was assassinated by the Pagans of Friesland in 755."

V. Duruy, History of the Middle Ages, book 3, chapter 8.

"Boniface, whose original name was Winfrid, was of a noble Devonshire family (A. D. 680), educated at the monastery of Nutcelle, in Hampshire, and at the age of thirty-five years had obtained a high reputation for learning and ability, when (in A. D. 716), seized with the prevalent missionary enthusiasm, he abandoned his prospects at home, and set out with two companions to labour among the Frisians. … Winfrid was refused permission by the Duke to preach in his dominions, and he returned home to England. In the following spring he went to Rome, where he remained for some months, and then, with a general authorization from the pope to preach the gospel in Central Europe, he crossed the Alps, passed through Bavaria into Thuringia, where he began his work. While here the death of Radbod, A. D. 719, and the conquest of Frisia by Charles Martel, opened up new prospects for the evangelization of that country, and Boniface went thither and laboured for three years among the missionaries, under Willibrord of Utrecht. Then, following in the track of the victorious forces of Charles Martel, he plunged into the wilds of Hessia, converted two of its chiefs whose example was followed by multitudes of the Hessians and Saxons, and a monastery arose at Amöneburg as the head-quarters of the mission. The Bishop of Rome being informed of this success, summoned Boniface to Rome, A. D. 723, and consecrated him a regionary bishop, with a general jurisdiction over all whom he should win from paganism into the Christian fold, requiring from him at the same time the oath which was usually required of bishops within the patriarchate of Rome, of obedience to the see. … Boniface was not only a zealous missionary, an earnest preacher, a learned scholar, but he was a statesman and an able administrator. He not only spread the Gospel among the heathen, but he organized the Church among the newly converted nations of Germany; he regulated the disorder which existed in the Frankish Church, and established the relations between Church and State on a settled basis. The mediæval analysts tell us that Boniface crowned Pepin king, and modern writers have usually reproduced the statement. 'Rettberg, and the able writer of the biography of Boniface in Herzog (Real Ecyk, s. v.), argue satisfactorily from Boniface's letters that he took no part in Pepin's coronation.' When Boniface withdrew from the active supervision of the Frankish Churches, it is probable that his place was to some extent supplied in the councils of the mayor and in the synods of the Church by Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, a man whose character and influence in the history of the Frank Church have hardly hitherto been appreciated."

E. L. Cutts, Charlemagne, chapter 12.

"Both Karlmann and Pippin tried to reform certain abuses that had crept into the Church. Two councils, convoked by Karlmann, the one in Germany (742), the other in the following year at Lestines (near Charleroi, in Belgium), drew up decrees which abolished superstitious rites and certain Pagan ceremonies, still remaining in force; they also authorized grants of Church lands by the 'Prince' for military purposes on condition of a payment of an annual rent to the Church; they reformed the ecclesiastical life, forbade the priests to hunt or to ride through the woods with dogs, falcons, or sparrow-hawks; and, finally, made all priests subordinate to their diocesan bishops, to whom they were obliged to give account each year of their faith and their ministry—all of which were necessary provisions for the organization of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and for the regulation of church government. Similar measures were taken by the Council of Soissons, convoked by Pippin in 744. In 747, Karlmann renounced the world and retired to the celebrated Italian monastery of Monte Cassino. As he left he entrusted his children to the care of their uncle, Pippin, who robbed them of their inheritance and ruled alone over the whole Frankish Empire. … Charlemagne enlarged and completed the work which had only been begun by Charles Martel and Pippin. … The Middle Ages acknowledged two Masters, the Pope and the Emperor, and these two powers came, the one from Rome, and the other from Austrasian France. … The mayors of Austrasia, Pippin of Heristal, and Charles Martel, rebuilt the Frankish monarchy and prepared the way for the empire of Charlemagne; … the Roman pontiffs … gathered around them all the churches of the West, and placed themselves at the head of the great Catholic society, over which one day Gregory VII. and Innocent III. should claim to have sole dominion."

V. Duruy, History of the Middle Ages, pages 119-122, 108.

See MAYORS OF THE PALACE; FRANKS: A. D. 768-814; and PAPACY: A. D. 755-774, and 774.

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The coronation of Charlemagne at Rome by Pope Leo III. (see ROMAN EMPIRE, A. D. 800) gave the Western Church the place in the state it had held under the earlier Roman emperors. The character of so great a man, the very books he read and all that fed the vigorous ideal element in so powerful a spirit are worthy of interest; for this at least he sought to accomplish—to give order to a tumultuous and barbarian world, and to establish learning, and purify the church: "While at table, he liked to hear a recital or a reading, and it was histories and the great deeds of past times which were usually read to him. He took great pleasure, also, in the works of St. Augustine, and especially in that whose title is 'De Civitate Dei.' … He practiced the Christian religion in all its purity and with great fervour, whose principles had been taught him from his infancy. … He diligently attended … church in the evening and morning, and even at night, to assist at the offices and at the holy sacrifice, as much as his health permitted him.' He watched with care that nothing should be done but with the greatest propriety, constantly ordering the guardians of the church not to allow anything to be brought there or left there inconsistent with or unworthy of the sanctity of the place. … He was always ready to help the poor, and it was not only in his own country, or within his own dominions that he dispensed those gratuitous liberalities which the Greeks call 'alms,' but beyond the seas—in Syria, in Egypt, in Africa, at Jerusalem, at Alexandria, at Carthage, everywhere where he learned that Christians were living in poverty—he pitied their misery and loved to send them money. If he sought with so much care the friendship of foreign sovereigns, it was, above all, to procure for the Christians living under their rule help and relief. Of all the holy places, he had, above all, a great veneration for the Church of the Apostle St. Peter at Rome."

Eginhard, Life of Charlemagne.

"The religious side of Charles' character is of the greatest interest in the study of his remarkable character as a whole and his religious policy led to the most important and durable results of his reign. He inherited an ecclesiastical policy from his father; the policy of regulating and strengthening the influence of the Church in his dominions as the chief agent of civilization, and a great means of binding the various elements of the empire into one; the policy of accepting the Bishop of Rome as the head of Western Christianity, with patriarchal authority over all its Churches."

E. L. Cutts, Charlemagne, chapter 23.

The following is a noteworthy passage from Charlemagne's Capitulary of 787: "It is our wish that you may be what it behoves the soldiers of the church to be;—religious in heart, learned in discourse, pure in act, eloquent in speech; so that all who approach your house in order to invoke the Divine Master, or to behold the excellence of the religious life, may be edified in beholding you, and instructed in hearing you discourse or chant, and may return home rendering thanks to God most High. Fail not, as thou regardest our favour, to send a copy of this letter to all thy suffragans and to all the monasteries; and let no monk go beyond his monastery to administer justice or to enter the assemblies and the voting-places. Adieu."

J. B. Mullinger, The Schools of Charles the Great.

CHRISTIANITY: 5th-7th Centuries. The Nestorian, Monophysite and Monothelite Controversies.

See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE, and MONOTHELITE.

CHRISTIANITY: 5th-9th Centuries. The Irish Church and its missions.

The story of the conversion of Ireland by St. Patrick, and of the missionary labors of the Church which he founded, is briefly told elsewhere.

See IRELAND: 5TH-8TH CENTURIES.

"The early Church worked her way, in the literal sense of the word, 'underground,' under camp and palace, under senate and forum. But turn where we will in these Celtic missions, we notice how different were the features that marked them now. In Dalaradia St. Patrick obtains the site of his earliest church from the chieftain of the country, Dichu. At Tara, he obtains from King Laoghaire a reluctant toleration of his ministry. In Connaught he addresses himself first to the chieftains of Tirawley, and in Munster baptizes Angus, the king, at Cashel, the seat of the kings. What he did in Ireland reproduces itself in the Celtic missions of Wales and Scotland, and we cannot but take note of the important influence of Welsh and Pictish chiefs. … The people may not have adopted the actual profession of Christianity, which was all perhaps that in the first instance they adopted from any clear or intelligent appreciation of its superiority to their former religion. But to obtain from the people even an actual profession of Christianity was an important step to ultimate success. It secured toleration at least for Christian institutions. It enabled the missionaries to plant in every tribe their churches, schools, and monasteries, and to establish among the half pagan inhabitants of the country societies of holy men, whose devotion, usefulness, and piety soon produced an effect on the most barbarous and savage hearts.'"

G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Celts, chapter 11.

"The Medieval Church of the West found in the seventh century an immense task before it to fulfil. … The missionaries who addressed themselves to the enormous task of the conversion of Germany may be conveniently divided into three groups—the British, the Frankish, and, entering somewhat later into an honourable rivalry with these, the Anglo-Saxon. A word or two upon each of these groups. The British—they include Irish and Scotch—could no longer find a field for the exercise of their ministry in England, now that there the Roman rule and discipline, to which they were so little disposed to submit, had everywhere won the day. Their own religious houses were full to overflowing. At home there was little for them to do, while yet that divine hunger and thirst for the winning of souls, which had so possessed the heart of St. Patrick, lived on in theirs. To these so minded, pagan Germany offered a welcome field of labour, and one in which there was ample room for all. {461} Then there were the Frankish missionaries, who enjoyed the support of the Frankish kings, which sometimes served them in good stead; while at other times this protection was very far from a recommendation in their eyes who were easily persuaded to see in these missionaries the emissaries of a foe. Add to these the Anglo-Saxons; these last, mindful of the source from which they had received their own Christianity, making it a point to attach their converts to Rome, even as they were themselves bound to her by the closest ties. The language which these spoke—a language which as yet can have diverged very little from the Low German of Frisia, must have given to them many facilities which the Frankish missionaries possessed in a far slighter degree, the British not at all; and this may help to account for a success on their parts far greater than attended the labours of the others. To them too it was mainly due that the battle of the Creeds, which had been fought and lost by the Celtic missionaries in England, and was presently renewed in Germany, had finally the same issues there as in England. … At the same time, there were differences in the intensity and obstinacy of resistance to the message of truth, which would be offered by different tribes. There was ground, which at an early day had been won for the Gospel, but which in the storms and confusion of the two preceding centuries had been lost again; the whole line, that is, of the Danube and the Rhine, regions fair and prosperous once, but in every sense wildernesses now. In these we may note a readier acceptance of the message than found place in lands which in earlier times that message had never reached; as though obscure reminiscences and traditions of the past, not wholly extinct, had helped to set forward the present work."

R C. Trench, Lectures on Medieval Church History, lecture 5.

"From Ireland came Gallus, Fridolin, Kilian, Trutbert and Levin. … The order in which these men succeeded one another cannot always be established, from the uncertainty of the accounts. … We know thus much, that of all those above-mentioned, Gallus was the first, for his labours in Helvetia (Switzerland) were continued from the preceding into the period of which we are now treating. On the other hand, it is uncertain as to Fridolin whether he had not completed his work before Gallus, in the sixth century, for in the opinion of some he closed his career in the time of Clodoveus I., but, according to others, he is said to have lived under Clodoveus II., or at another period. His labours extended over the lands on the Moselle, in the Vosges Mountains, over Helvetia, Rhætia and Nigra Silva (the Black Forest). He built the monastery of Sekkinga on the Rhine. Trutbert was a contemporary and at the same time a countryman of Gallus. His sphere of action is said to have been Brisgovia (Breisgau) and the Black Forest. Almost half a century later Kilian proclaimed the gospel in Franconia and Wirtzburg, with two assistants, Colonatus and Totnanus. In the latter place they converted duke Gozbert, and were put to death there in 688. After the above mentioned missionaries from Ireland, in the seventh century, had built churches and monasteries in the southern Germany, the missionaries from Britain repaired with a similar purpose, to the northern countries. … Men from other nations, as Willericus, bishop of Brema, preached in Transalbingia at the beginning of the ninth century. Almost all the missionaries from the kingdom of the Franks selected southern Germany as their sphere of action: Emmeran, about 649, Ratisbona, Rudbert, about 696, Bajoaria (Bavaria), Corbinian the country around Frisinga, Otbert the Breisgau and Black Forest, and Pirminius the Breisgau, Bajoaria, Franconia, Helvetia, and Alsatis."

J. E. T. Wiltsch, Handbook of the Geography and Statistics of the Church, volume 1, pages 365-367.

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 553-800. The Western Church. Rise of the Papacy.

"Though kindly treated, the Church of Rome did not make any progress under the Ostrogoths. But when their power had been broken (553), and Rome had been placed again under the authority of the Emperor of Constantinople [see ROME: A. D. 535-553], the very remoteness of her new master insured to the Church a more prosperous future. The invasion of the Lombards drove a great many refugees into her territory, and the Roman population showed a slight return of its old energy in its double hatred toward them, as barbarians and as Arians. … It was at this favorable point in the state of affairs, though critical in some respects, that Gregory the Great made his appearance (590-604). He was a descendant of the noble Anicia family, and added to his advantages of birth and position the advantages of a well-endowed body and mind. He was prefect of Rome when less than thirty years old, but after holding this office a few months he abandoned the honors and cares of worldly things for the retirement of the cloister. His reputation did not allow him to remain in the obscurity of that life. Toward 579 he was sent to Constantinople by Pope Pelagius II. as secretary or papal nuncio, and he rendered distinguished services to the Holy See in its relations with the Empire and in its struggles against the Lombards. In 590 the clergy, the senate, and the people raised him with one accord to the sovereign pontificate, to succeed Pelagius. As it was still necessary for every election to be confirmed by the Emperor at Constantinople, Gregory wrote to him to beg him not to sanction this one; but the letter was intercepted and soon orders arrived from Maurice ratifying the election. Gregory hid himself, but he was discovered and led back to Rome. When once Pope, though against his will, he used his power to strengthen the papacy, to propagate Christianity, and to improve the discipline and organization of the Church. … Strengthened thus by his own efforts, he undertook the propagation of Christianity and orthodoxy both within and without the limits of the old Roman Empire. Within those limits there were still some who clung to paganism, in Sicily, Sardinia, and even at the very gates of Rome, at Terracina, and doubtless also in Gaul, as there is a constitution of Childebert still extant dated 554, and entitled: 'For the abolition of the remains of idolatry.' There were Arians very near to Rome—namely, the Lombards; but through the intervention of Theudalinda, their queen, Gregory succeeded in having Adelwald, the heir to the throne, brought up in the Catholic faith; as early as 587 the Visigoths in Spain, under Reccared, were converted. … The Roman Empire had perished, and the barbarians had built upon its ruins many slight structures that were soon overthrown. {462} Not even had the Franks, who were destined to be perpetuated as a nation, as yet succeeded in founding a social state of any strength; their lack of experience led them from one attempt to another, all equally vain; even the attempt of Charlemagne met with no more permanent success. In the midst of these successive failures one institution alone, developing slowly and steadily through the centuries, following out the spirit of its principles, continued to grow and gain in power, in extent and in unity. … The Pope had now become, in truth, the ruler of Christendom. He was, however, still a subject of the Greek Emperor; but a rupture was inevitable, as his authority, on the one hand, was growing day by day, and the emperor's on the contrary, was declining."

V. Duruy, History of the Middle Ages, pages 114-115, 108-109, 117.

"The real power which advanced the credit of the Roman see during these ages was the reaction against the Byzantine despotism over the Eastern Church; and this is the explanation of the fact that although the new map of Europe had been marked out, in outline at least, by the year 500, the Roman see clung to the eastern connection until the first half of the eighth century. … In the political or diplomatic struggle between the Church and the Emperors, in which the Emperors endeavored to make the Church subservient to the imperial policy, or to adjust the situation to the necessities of the empire, and the Church strove to retain its autonomy as a witness to the faith and a legislator in the affairs of religion, the Bishop of Rome became, so to speak, the constitutional head of the opposition; and the East was willing to exalt his authority, as a counterpoise to that of the Emperor, to any extent short of acknowledging that the primacy implied a supremacy."

J. H. Egar, Christendom: Ecclesiastical and Political, from Constantine to the Reformation, page 99.

"The election system was only used for one degree of the ecclesiastical dignitaries, for the bishopric. The lower dignitaries were chosen by the bishop. They were divided into two categories of orders—the higher and the lower orders. There were three higher orders, namely, the priests, the deacons, and the sub-deacons, and four lower orders, the acolytes, the door-keepers, the exorcists, and the readers. The latter orders were not regarded as an integral part of the clergy, as their members were the servants of the others. As regards the territorial divisions, the bishop governed the diocese, which at a much later date was divided into parishes, whose spiritual welfare was in the hands of the parish priest or curate (curio). The parishes, taken together, constituted the diocese; the united dioceses, or suffragan bishoprics, constituted the ecclesiastical province, at whose head stood the metropolitan or archbishop. When a provincial council was held, it met in the metropolis and was presided over by the metropolitan. Above the metropolitans were the Patriarchs, in the East, and the Primates in the West, bishops who held the great capitals or the apostolic sees, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, Jerusalem, Cesarea in Cappadocia, Carthage in Africa, and Heraclius in Thrace; among them Rome ranked higher by one degree, and from this supreme position exercised a supreme authority acknowledged by all the Church."

V. Duruy, History of the Middle Ages, pages 109-110.

"The divergence of the two Churches, Eastern and Western, was greater in reality than it appears to be from a superficial view. It was based on essential variations in the character and disposition of the people in the East and in the West, on the nature of their civilization, and on the different, almost antagonistic, development of the Christian idea in one Church and in the other. … The Eastern Church rejoiced in its direct affiliation with apostolic times, in its careful preservation of traditions, and was convinced of its especial right to be considered the true heir and successor of Christ. … The letter of the law superseded the spirit; religion stiffened into formalism; piety consisted in strict observance of ceremonial rites; external holiness replaced sincere and heartfelt devotion. … Throughout the West the tendency was in a contrary direction—towards the practical application of the religious idea. The effete, worn-out civilization of the past was there renovated by contact and admixture with young and vigorous races, and gained new strength and vitality in the struggle for existence. The Church, freed from control, became independent and self-asserting; the responsibility of government, the preservation of social order, devolved upon it, and it rose proudly to the task."

A. F. Heard, The Russian Church and Russian Dissent, pages 6-10.

"On the overthrow of the Western Empire, and the demonstration, rendered manifest to all, that with the complete triumph of the new world of secular polities a new spiritual development, a new phase of Divine guidance, was opening, the conscience of the believers was aroused to a sense of the sinfulness of their cowardly inactivity. 'Go ye into all nations, and baptize them,' had been the last words of their blessed Master. … It is to this new or revived missionary spirit which distinguished the sixth century, of which I would place Pope Gregory the First, or the Great, as the central figure, that I desire now to introduce you. Remember that the Empire, which had represented the unity of mankind, had become disintegrated and broken into fragments. Men were no longer Romans, but Goths and Sueves, Burgundians and Vandals, and beyond them Huns, Avars, Franks, and Lombards, some with a slight tincture of Christian teaching, but most with none. … Let but the Gospel be proclaimed to all, and leave the issue in God's hands! Such was the contrast between the age of Leo and the age of Gregory! … The conversion of Clovis and the Franks is, I suppose, the earliest instance of a Christian mission carried out on a national scale by the common action of the Church represented by the Pope and See of Rome. It becomes accordingly a great historical event, deserving the earnest consideration not of Churchmen only, but of all political enquirers."

C. Merivale, Four Lectures on some Epochs of Early Church History, pages 172-177.

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"Christianity thus renewed its ardor for proselytism, and Gregory contributed to its success most wisely by enjoining precepts of moderation upon his missionaries, and by the skillful manner in which he made the transition to Catholicism easy to the pagans; he wrote to Augustine: 'Be careful not to destroy the pagan temples; it is only necessary to destroy the idols, then to sprinkle the edifice with holy water, and to build altars and place relics there. If the temples are well built, it is a wise and useful thing for them to pass from the worship of demons to the worship of the true God; for while the nation sees its old places of worship still standing, it will be the more ready to go there, by force of habit, to worship the true God.' In the interior Gregory succeeded in arranging the different degrees of power in the Church, and in forcing the recognition of the supreme power of the Holy See. We find him granting the title of Vicar of Gaul to the bishop of Arles, and corresponding with Augustine, archbishop of Canterbury, in regard to Great Britain, with the archbishop of Seville in regard to Spain, with the archbishop of Thessalonica in regard to Greece, and, finally, sending legates 'a latere' to Constantinople. In his Pastoral, which he wrote on the occasion of his election, and which became an established precedent in the West, he prescribed to the bishops their several duties, following the decisions of many councils. He strengthened the hierarchy by preventing the encroachments of the bishops upon one another: 'I have given to you the spiritual direction of Britain,' he wrote to the ambitious Augustine, 'and not that of the Gauls.' He rearranged the monasteries, made discipline the object of his vigilant care, reformed Church music, and substituted the chant that bears his name for the Ambrosian chant, 'which resembled,' according to a contemporary, 'the far-off noise of a chariot rumbling over pebbles.' Rome, victorious again with the help of Gregory the Great, continued to push her conquests to distant countries after his death."

V. Duruy, History of the Middle Ages, page 116.

See, CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800, and ROME: A. D. 590-640.

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 597-800. The English Church.

"It seems right to add a word of caution against the common confusion between the British Church and the English Church. They were quite distinct, and had very little to do with one another. To cite the British bishops at the Councils of Arles and Rimini as evidence of the antiquity of the English Church is preposterous. There was then no England; and the ancestors of English Churchmen were heathen tribes on the continent. The history of the Church of England begins with the episcopate of Archbishop Theodore (A. D. 668), or at the very earliest with the landing of Augustine (A. D. 597). By that time the British Church had been almost destroyed by the heathen English. … Bede tells us that down to his day the Britons still treated English Christians as pagans."

A. Plummer, The Church of the Early Fathers, chapter 8.

"About the year 580, in the pontificate of Pelagius, Gregory occupied the rank of a deacon among the Roman clergy. He was early noted for his zeal and piety; coming into large possessions, as an off-shoot of an ancient and noble family, he had expended his wealth in the foundation of no less than seven monasteries, and had become himself the abbot of one of them, St. Andrew's, at Rome. Devoted as he was from the first to all the good works to which the religious profession might best apply itself, his attention was more particularly turned to the cause of Christian missions by casually remarking a troop of young slaves exhibited for sale in the Roman market. Struck with the beauty or fresh complexion of these strangers, he asked whether they were Christians or Pagans. They were Pagans, it was replied. How sad, he exclaimed, that such fair countenances should lie under the power of demons. 'Whence came they?'—'From Anglia.'—'Truly they are Angels. What is the name of their country?'—'Deira.'—'Truly they are subject to the wrath of God: ira Dei. And their king?'—'Is named Ælla.'—'Let them learn to sing Allelujah.' Britain had lately fallen under the sway of the heathen Angles. Throughout the eastern section of the island, the faith of Christ, which had been established there from early times, had been, it seems, utterly extirpated. The British church of Lucius and Albanus still lingered, but was chiefly confined within the ruder districts of Cornwall, Wales, and Cumbria. The reported destruction of the people with all their churches, and all their culture, begun by the Picts and Scots, and carried on by the Angles and their kindred Saxons, had made a profound impression upon Christendom. The 'Groans of the Britons' had terrified all mankind, and discouraged even the brave missionaries of Italy and Gaul. … Gregory determined to make the sacrifice himself. He prevailed on the Pope to sanction his enterprise; but the people of Rome, with whom he was a favourite, interposed, and he was constrained reluctantly to forego the peril and the blessing. But the sight he had witnessed in the market-place still retained its impression upon him. He kept the fair-haired Angles ever in view; and when, in the year 592, he was himself elevated to the popedom, he resolved to send a mission, and fling upon the obscure shores of Britain the full beams of the sun of Christendom, as they then seemed to shine so conspicuously at Rome. Augustine was the preacher chosen from among the inmates of one of Gregory's monasteries, for the arduous task thus imposed upon him. He was to be accompanied by a select band of twelve monks, together with a certain number of attendants. … There is something very remarkable in the facility with which the fierce idolaters, whose name had struck such terror into the Christian nations far and near, yielded to the persuasions of this band of peaceful evangelists."

C. Merivale, Four lectures on some Epochs of Early Church History, pages 192-198.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 597-685.

The Roman missionaries in England landed in Kent and appear to have had more influence with the petty courts of the little kingdoms than with the people. The conversion of the North of England must be credited to the Irish monastery on the island of Iona. "At the beginning of the sixth century these Irish Christians were seized with an unconquerable impulse to wander afar and preach Christianity to the heathen. In 563 Columba, with twelve confederates, left Ireland and founded a monastery on a small island off the coast of Scotland (Iona or Hy), through the influence of which the Scots and Picts of Britain became converted to Christianity, twenty-three missions among the Scots and eighteen in the country of the Picts having been established at the death of Columba (597). Under his third successor the heathen Saxons were converted; Aedan, summoned by Osward of Northumbria, having labored among them from 635 to 651 as missionary, abbot, and bishop. His successors, Finnan and Colman, worthily carried on his work, and introduced Christianity into other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms near East Anglia, Mercia, and Essex."

H. Zimmer, The Irish Element in Mediæval Culture, pages 19-21.

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"Two bands of devoted men had hitherto been employed in the conversion of England, the Roman, assisted by their converts and some teachers from France, and the Irish, who were plainly the larger body. Between the two there were the old differences as to the time of keeping Easter and the form of the clerical tonsure. … Thus, while Oswy [King of Mercia] was celebrating Easter according to the custom he had learnt at Iona, his queen Earfleda observed it according to the rule which she had learnt in Kent, and was still practising the austerities of Lent. These differences were tolerated during the Episcopate of Aidan and Finan, but when Finan died and was succeeded by Colman, the controversy" was terminated by Oswy, after much debate, with the words—"'I will hold to St. Peter, lest, when I present myself at the gates of Heaven, he should close them against me.' … Colman, with all his Irish brethren, and thirty Northumbrians who had joined the monastery, quitted Lindisfarne and sailed to Iona."

G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The English, pages 81-85.

The impartial historian to whom we owe all the early history of the English Church, thus records the memory of these devoted men as it remained in the minds of Englishmen long after their departure. It is a brief passage, one like those in the greater Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, which must stand for much we do not know. Referring to their devoted lives—"For this reason the religious habit was at that time in great veneration; so that wheresoever any clergyman or monk happened to come, he was joyfully received by all persons, as God's servant; and if they chanced to meet him upon the way, they ran to him, and bowing, were glad to be signed with his hand, or blessed with his mouth. Great attention was also paid to their exhortations; and on Sundays they flocked eagerly to the church, or the monasteries, not to feed their bodies, but to hear the word of God; and if any priest happened to come into a village, the inhabitants flocked together to hear from him the word of life; for the priests and clergymen went into the village on no other account than to preach, baptize, visit the sick, and, in few words, to take care of souls; and they were so free from worldly avarice, that none of them received lands and possessions for building monasteries, unless they were compelled to do so by the temporal authorities; which custom was for some time after observed in all the churches of the Northumbrians. But enough has now been said on this subject."

The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England; edited by J. A. Giles, book 3, chapter 26.

The English Church passed through several stages during this period. A notable one was the rise and fall of a loose monastic system which attracted men and women of the better classes, but for lack of a strict rule brought itself into disrepute. Another was the development of classical learning and the foundation of the school at Jarrow in Northumberland resulting in making England the intellectual centre of the world. Venerable Bede, who wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the English Church, was the greatest teacher of this epoch; and Alcuin, a Northumbrian by birth, and of the school at York, of the next. Invited by Charlemagne to the Frankish Court, he carried English learning to the Continent, and although he died at the time of the foundation of the Empire, left his influence in many ways on the development of European culture. A single fact of interest will suffice, to show the close connection of this early history with that of Rome and the continent—viz., to Alcuin we are largely indebted for the parent script which formed our Roman letters. (I. Taylor, The Alphabet, volume 2, page 180.) Northumbrian learning and the rich libraries of ancient and Anglo-Saxon literature were destroyed by the Danes, who, in their incursions, showed for a long time peculiar animosity to monks and monasteries. Although the service of this early Anglo-Saxon Church was partly in the vernacular, and large portions, if not all, of the Gospels had been translated, little remains to us of its early religious literature. The translations of the Gospel into Anglo-Saxon that have come down to us are to be attributed to a late period.

CHRISTIANITY: 9th Century. The Bulgarian Church.

"In the beginning of this 9th century, a sister of the reigning Bulgarian king, Bogoris, had fallen as a captive into the keeping of the Greek emperor. For thirty-eight years she lived at Constantinople, and was there instructed in the doctrines of the Christian Faith. Meanwhile, the administration passed into the hands of the empress Regent, Theodora. She was interested in a certain monk named Cupharas, who had been taken prisoner by the Bulgarians, and with a view to his redemption, she opened negotiations with Bogoris. An exchange of prisoners was finally effected. The sister of Bogoris was restored to him, while Cupharas was permitted to return to Constantinople. Before the release of the pious monk, however, he had striven, though quite unavailingly, to win the Bulgarian prince to the service of the Cross. These fruitless endeavors were supplemented by the entreaties of the king's sister, on her return from Constantinople. … At last, fear snapped the fetters which love had failed to disengage. … His baptism was celebrated at midnight with profoundest secrecy. The rite was administered by no less a personage than the patriarch Photius. He emphasized the solemnity of the occasion by presenting the neophyte with a lengthy treatise on Christianity, theoretical and practical, considered mainly in its bearings on the duties of a monarch. The emperor Michael stood sponsor by proxy, and the Bulgarian king received, as his Christian name, that of his imperial god-father. … The battle-cries of theology rang over Christendom, and the world was regaled with the spectacle of a struggle between the rival Churches for the possession of Bulgaria, a country till recently so conspicuously destitute of dogma of any kind. The Bulgarians themselves, doubtless much astonished at the uproar for their sake, and, surely, more perplexed than ever by the manners and customs of Christianity, began to waver in their adherence to the Western Church, and to exhibit symptoms of an inclination to transfer their allegiance to Constantinople. The strife went on for years. At last, A. D. 877, the Latin clergy having been dismissed from the country, Pope John VIII. solemnly expostulated, protesting against the Greek proclivities of the Bulgarians, and predicting dire results from their identity with a Church which was rarely free from heresy in one form or another. Nevertheless, the Byzantine leanings of Bulgaria did culminate in union with the Eastern Church. {465} A Greek archbishop and bishops of the same communion, settled in the country. … 'The Eastern branch' of the Slavonic languages, properly so called, 'comprehends the Russian, with various local dialects, the Bulgarian, and the Illyrian. The most ancient document of this Eastern branch is the so-called ecclesiastical Slavonic, i. e., the ancient Bulgarian, into which Cyrillus and Methodius translated the Bible in the middle of the 9th century. This is still the authorized version of the Bible for the whole Slavonic race, and to the student of the Slavonic languages it is what Gothic is to the student of German.'"

G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Slavs, pages 54-69.

CHRISTIANITY: 9th Century. Conversion of Moravia.

"In the opening years of the 9th century, Moravia stretched from the Bavarian borders to the Hungarian river Drina, and from the banks of the Danube, beyond the Carpathian mountains, to the river Stryi in Southern Poland. Into this territory Christianity had been ushered as early as A. D. 801, by Charlemagne, who, as his custom was, enforced baptism at the point of the sword, at least as far as the king was concerned. Efforts were subsequently made by the archbishops of Salzburg and Passau to fan this first feeble flicker into something like a flame. But no success attended their exertions. Paganism was overpoweringly strong, and Christianity not only weak, but rude and uncouth in type. … The story of this country, during the process of emancipation from paganism, is but a repetition of the incidents with which, in neighbouring states, we have already become familiar. Ramifications of the work of Cyril and Methodius extended into Servia. The Slavonic alphabet made way there, as in Bohemia and Moravia, for Christianity. The Servians 'enjoyed the advantage of a liturgy which was intelligible to them; and we find that, early in the 10th century, a considerable number of Slavonian priests from all the dioceses were ordained by the bishop of Nona, who was himself a Slavonian by descent.'"

G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Slavs, chapter 4.

CHRISTIANITY: 9th-10th Centuries. The Eastern Church as a missionary Church.

"If the missionary spirit is the best evidence of vitality in a church, it certainly was not wanting in the Eastern Church during the ninth and tenth centuries of our era. This period witnessed the conversion to Christianity of the principal Slavonic peoples, whereby they are both linked with Constantinople, and bound together by those associations of creed, as well as race, which form so important a factor in the European politics of the present day. The Moravians, the Bulgarians, and the Russians were now brought within the fold of the Church; and the way was prepared for that vast extension of the Greek communion by which it has spread, not only throughout the Balkan peninsula and the lands to the north of it, but wherever Russian influence is found—as far as the White Sea on the one side, and Kamtchatka on the other, and into the heart of Central Asia. The leaders in this great work were the two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, who in consequence of this, have since been known as the Apostles of the Slavonians. What Mezrop did for the Armenians, what Ulfilas did for the Goths, was accomplished for that race by Cyril in the invention of a Slavonic alphabet, which from this cause is still known by the name of the Cyrillic. The same teacher, by his translation of the Scriptures into their tongue, provided them with a literary language, thereby producing the same result which Luther's Bible subsequently effected for Germany, and Dante's Divina Commedia for Italy. It is no matter for surprise that, throughout the whole of this great branch of the human race—even amongst the Russians, who owed their Christianity to another source—the names of these two brothers should occupy the foremost place in the calendar of Saints. It is not less significant that their names are not even mentioned by the Byzantine historians."

H. F. Tozer, The Church and the Eastern Empire, chapter 7.

CHRISTIANITY: 9th-11th Centuries. The Western Church as a missionary Church.

The earlier missions of the Western Church have been described, but it is noteworthy that again and again missions to the same regions are necessary. It requires such a map as the one accompanying this article to make plain the slowness of its diffusions and the long period needed to produce even a nominally Christian Europe. "The views of Charlemagne for the conquest and conversion of the Northern heathens [see SAXONS: A. D. 772-804], were not confined to the limits, wide as they were, of Saxony. The final pacification effected at Salz, seemed to open his eyes to more extensive enterprises in prospect. Political may have combined with religious motives in inducing him to secure the peace of his new frontiers, by enlisting the tribes of Denmark under the banner of the Cross, and he conceived the idea of planting a church in the neighbourhood of Hamburg, which should become a missionary centre. This plan, though interrupted by his death, was not neglected by his son Louis le Debonnaire, or 'the Pious.' … But it is easier to propose such a plan than find one willing to carry it out. The well-known ferocity of the Northmen long deterred anyone from offering himself for such a duty. At length he received intelligence from Wala, the abbot of Corbey, near Amiens, that one of his monks was not unwilling to undertake the perilous enterprise, The intrepid volunteer was Anskar."

G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Northmen, chapter 2.

"In 822, Harold, the king of Jutland, and claimant of the crown of Denmark, came to seek the help of Louis the Pious, the son, and one of the successors, of Charlemagne. … On Harold's return to Denmark he was accompanied by Anskar, who well deserves to be called the apostle of Scandinavia. … Thus Anskar and Autbert set out in the train of Harold, and during the journey and voyage a kindly feeling sprang up between the royal and the missionary families. Harold got no cordial greeting from his proud heathen subjects when he announced to them that he had done homage to the emperor, and that he had embraced the gospel. He seems to have been very sincere and very earnest in his endeavours to induce his nobles and subjects to abandon idolatry and embrace Christianity. To expect that he was altogether judicious in these efforts would be to suppose that he had those views regarding the relation that ought to subsist between rulers and subjects, … views regarding liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment. … {466} The result was that after two years, in 828, he was compelled to abdicate the throne. … The position of Anskar, difficult as it was while Harold was on the throne, became still more difficult after his abdication. … But just at the time when the door was shut against him in Denmark, another was opened in Sweden, which promised to be wider and more effectual. … He was kindly received by the Swedish king, who gave him permission to preach, and his subjects freedom to accept and profess the gospel of Christ. As Anskar had been led to expect, so he found, many Christian captives, who had been brought from other countries,—France, Germany, Britain, Ireland,—and who, having been as sheep without a shepherd, gladly received from Anskar those consolations and exhortations which were fitted to alleviate the sorrows of their captivity. … After a year and a half's stay in Sweden, Anskar returned home, and gladdened the heart of the good emperor, and doubtless of many others, by the cheering prospect he was able to present of the acceptance of the gospel by the Swedes. He was now made nominally bishop of Hamburg, but with the special design of superintending and conducting missionary operations both in Denmark and Sweden…. Horik, king of Denmark, who had driven Harold from his throne, … had been hitherto an uncompromising enemy of the gospel. Anskar undertook the management of some political negotiations with him, and in the conduct of them made so favourable an impression on him that he refused to have any other negotiator or ambassador of the German king at his court. He treated him as a personal friend, and gave him full liberty to conduct missionary operations. These operations he conducted with his usual zeal, and by God's blessing, with much success. Many were baptized. The Christians of Germany and Holland traded more freely with the Danes than before, and the Danes resorted in larger numbers as traders to Holland and Germany; and in these and other ways a knowledge of the gospel, and some apprehension of the blessings which it brings with it, were diffused among the people. … Although the Norwegians were continually coming into contact, in the varying relations of war and peace, with the Swedes and the Danes, the French and the Germans, the English and the Irish, and although in this way some knowledge of the Christian system must have been diffused among them, yet the formal introduction of it into their country was a full century later than its introduction into Denmark and Sweden."

Thomas Smith, Mediæval Missions, pages 122-138.

"The conversions in Denmark were confined to the mainland. The islands still remained pagan, while human victims continued to be offered till the Emperor Henry I. extorted from Gorm, the first king of all Denmark, in A. D. 934, protection for the Christians throughout his realm, and the abolition of human sacrifices. In Sweden, for seventy years after Anskar's death, the nucleus of a Christian Church continued to be restricted to the neighbourhood of Birka, and the country was hardly visited by Christian missionaries."

G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Northmen, chapter 2.

"It is very remarkable that, in the whole history of the introduction of Christianity into Norway and Iceland, extending over a period of a century and a half, we meet not with the name of any noted bishop, or ecclesiastic, or missionary. There were, no doubt, ecclesiastics employed in the work, and these would appear to have been generally Englishmen; but they occupied a secondary place, almost their only province being to baptize those whom the kings compelled to submit to that ordinance. The kings were the real missionaries; and one cannot help feeling a kind of admiration for the ferocious zeal which one and another of them manifested in the undertaking,—even as the Lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely, although his wisdom was wholly misdirected. The most persistent and the most successful of these missionary kings was Olaf the Thick, who came from England in 1017, and set himself with heart and soul to the work of the demolition of heathenism, and the substitution of Christianity as the national religion."

Thomas Smith, Mediæval Missions, pages 140-141.

CHRISTIANITY: 10th Century. The Russian Church.

"In the middle of the 10th century, the widowed Princess Olga, lately released from the cares of regency, travelled from Kief to Constantinople. Whether her visit had political objects, or whether she was prompted to pay it solely, as some say, by a desire to know more of the holy faith of which only glimpses had been vouchsafed her at home, cannot be positively decided. But her sojourn in the imperial city was a turning-point in her career. Baptism was administered to her by the patriarch Polyeuctes, the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus officiating as sponsor. Polyeuctes then solemnly addressed the princess, predicting that through her instrumentality Russia should be richly blessed. 'Olga,' writes M. Mouravieff, 'now become Helena by baptism, that she might resemble both in name and deed the mother of Constantine the Great, stood meekly bowing down her head, and drinking in, as a sponge that is thirsty of moisture, the instructions of the prelate.' … Some latent impressions favourable to Christianity her youngest grandson, Vladimir, doubtless owed to her. Nevertheless when, at the death of his brother Yarapolk, for which indeed he was held responsible, he mounted the throne, no signs of a gracious character revealed themselves. He was, on the contrary, a bitter and bigoted pagan. … It seems to have occurred to many missionaries of varying types, that a chief of such mark should not be left at the mercy of his own violent passions. The spiritual well-being of Vladimir accordingly became the object of laborious journeys, of much exertion, and of redundant eloquence. … Last of all came a Greek emissary. He was neither 'a priest nor a missionary, but a philosopher.' … Like Bogoris, the wild Russian chief was greatly moved. … The following year the king laid before the elders of his council the rival pleas of these variously recommended forms of faith, and solicited their advice. The nobles mused awhile, and then counselled their master to ascertain how each religion worked at home. This, they thought, would be more practical evidence than the plausible representations of professors. On this suggestion Vladimir acted. Envoys were chosen,—presumably, for their powers of observation,—and the embassy of inquiry started. 'This public agreement,' says the historian of the Russian Church, 'explains in some degree the sudden and general acceptance of Christianity which shortly after followed in Russia. {467} It is probable that not only the chiefs, but the common people also, were expecting and ready for the change.' A report, far from encouraging, was in due time received from the ambassadors. Of the German and Roman, as well as the Jewish, religions in daily life, they spoke in very disparaging terms, while they declared the Mussulman creed, when reduced to practice, to be utterly out of the question. Disappointed in all these quarters, they now proceeded, by command, to Constantinople, or, as the Russians called it, Tzaragorod. … Singularly enough, the Russian envoys, accustomed, as we must suppose them to have been, only to the barest simplicity of life, had complained not only of the paucity of decoration in the Latin churches, but of a lack of beauty in their appointments. Thus the preparations of the patriarch were accurately fitted to their expectant frame of mind. They were led into the church of S. Sophia, gleaming with variegated marbles, and porphyries, and jasper, at that time 'the masterpiece of Christian architecture.' The building glittered with gold, and rich mosaics. The service was that of a high festival, either of St. John Chrysostom, or of the Death of the Virgin, and was conducted by the patriarch in person, clad in his most gorgeous vestments. … On their return to Vladimir, they dilated with eager delight on the wonders they had seen. The king listened gravely to their glowing account of 'the temple, like which there was none upon earth.' After sweetness, they protested, bitterness would be unbearable, so that—whatever others might do—they at all events should at once abandon heathenism. While the king hesitated, his boyers turned the scale by reminding him that if the creed of the Greeks had not indeed had much to recommend it, his pious and sagacious grandmother, Princess Olga, would not have loved and obeyed it. Her name acted like a talisman. Vladimir resolved to conform to Christianity. But still, fondly clinging to the habits of his forefathers, he cherished the idea of wooing and winning his new religion by the sword. … Under the auspices of the sovereign, the stately church of St. Basil soon arose, on the very spot recently occupied by the temple of Perun. Kief became the centre of Christian influence, whence evangelizing energies radiated in all directions. Schools and churches were built, while Michael, the first metropolitan, attended by his bishops, 'made progresses into the interior of Russia, everywhere baptizing and instructing the people.' The Greek canon law came into force, and the use of the service-book and choral music of the Greek communion became general, while, in the Slavonic Scriptures and Liturgy of Cyril and Methodius, a road was discovered which led straight to the hearts of the native population. 'Cyril and Methodius, if anyone, must be considered by anticipation as the first Christian teachers of Russia; their rude alphabet first instructed the Russian nation in letters, and, by its quaint Greek characters, still testifies in every Russian book, and on every Russian house or shop, the Greek source of the religion and literature of the empire.'"

G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Slavs, chapter 5.

"As in the first centuries it was necessary that the leaven of Christianity should gradually penetrate the entire intellectual life of the cultivated nations, before a new spiritual creation, striking its root in the forms of the Grecian and Roman culture, which Christianity appropriated, could in these forms completely unfold itself; so after the same manner it was necessary that the leaven of Christianity which … had been introduced into the masses of the untutored nations, should gradually penetrate their whole inward life, before a new and peculiar spiritual creation could spring out of it, which should go on to unfold itself through the entire period of the middle ages. And the period in which we now are must be regarded as still belonging to the epoch of transition from that old spiritual creation which flourished on the basis of Grecian and Roman culture to the new one."

A. Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, volume 3, page 456.

We leave the author's sentence incomplete, that it may express the more fully all the subsequent history of Christianity.

—————CHRISTIANITY: End—————

CHRISTINA, Queen-regent of Spain, A. D. 1833-1841.

Christina, Queen of Sweden, A. D. 1633-1654.

CHRISTINOS, The.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1833-1846.

CHRISTOPHER I., King of Denmark. A. D. 1252-1259.

Christopher II., A. D. 1319-1334.

Christopher III., King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, A. D. 1439-1448.

CHRYSE.

Vague reports of a region called Chryse (the Golden), somewhere beyond the Ganges, and of an island bearing the same name, off the mouths of the Ganges, as well as of another island called Argyre (the Silver Island), were prevalent among the early Roman geographical writers. They probably all had reference to the Malay peninsula, which Ptolemy called the Golden Chersonese.

E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 25.

CHRYSLER'S FARM, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

CHRYSOBULUM.

See GOLDEN BULL, BYZANTINE.

CHRYSOPOLlS.

Modern Scutari, opposite Constantinople; originally the port of the city of Chalcedon.

CHRYSOPOLIS, Battle of (A. D. 323).

See Rome: A. D. 305-323.

CHUMARS.

See CASTE SYSTEM OF INDIA.

CHUMASHAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CHUMASHAN FAMILY.

CHUR, The Bishopric of.

See TYROL, and SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.

CHURCH, The Armenian.

See ARMENIAN CHURCH.

CHURCH OF BOHEMIA, The Utraquist National.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1434-1457.

CHURCH IN BRAZIL, Disestablishment of the.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1889-1891.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: Origin and Establishment.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1527-1534; 1531-1563; and 1535-1539.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Six Articles.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1539.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The completed Church-reform under Edward VI.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1547-1553.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The doubtful conflict of religions.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.

{468}

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: Romanism restored by Mary.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1555-1558.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: Recovery of Protestantism under Elizabeth.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1588.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1559.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: Rise of Puritanism.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1559-1566; 1564-1565 (?).

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Despotism of Laud.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1633-1640.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: Rise of the Independents.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Root and Branch Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (MARCH-MAY).

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Westminster Assembly.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY), and 1646 (MARCH).

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Solemn League and Covenant.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Restoration. The Savoy Conference.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1661 (APRIL-JULY).

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Act of Uniformity and persecution of Nonconformists.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662-1665.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: Charles' Declaration of Indulgence, and the Test Act.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1673, and 1687.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: James' Declaration of Indulgence. Trial of the seven Bishops.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1687-1688.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: The Church and the Revolution. The Non-Jurors.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (APRIL-AUGUST).

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: A. D. 1704. Queen Anne's Bounty.

See QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: A. D. 1711-1714. The Occasional Conformity Bill and the Schism Act.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1711-1714.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND: A. D. 1833-1845. The Oxford or Tractarian Movement.

See OXFORD OR TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT.

—————CHURCH OF ENGLAND: End—————

CHURCH OF FRANCE.

See GALLICAN CHURCH.

CHURCH, The Greek or Eastern.

See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 330-1054.

CHURCH OF IRELAND, Disestablishment of the.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870.

CHURCH OF LATTER DAY SAINTS.

See MORMONISM: A. D. 1805-1830.

CHURCH OF ROME.

See PAPACY.

CHURCH, The Russian. The great schism known as Raskol.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1655-1659.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: Its birth.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1547-1557.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The First Covenant.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1557.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: Rebellion and triumph of the Lords of the Congregation.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1558-1560.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: Restoration of Episcopacy.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1572.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The First National Covenant.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1581.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The Black Acts.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1584.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: Appropriation of Church lands.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1587.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The Five Articles of Perth.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1618.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: Laud's liturgy and Jenny Geddes' stool.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1637.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The signing of the National Covenant.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1638.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The First Bishops' War.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The Second Bishops' War.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1640.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The Westminster Assembly.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY).

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The Solemn League and Covenant.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: Montrose and the Covenanters.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The restored king and restored prelacy.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1660-1666.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: Persecutions of the Covenanters.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1669-1679: 1679; 1681-1689.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The Revolution and re-establishment of the Presbyterian Church.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1688-1690.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: The Disruption. Formation of the Free Church.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1843.

—————CHURCH OF SCOTLAND: End—————

CHURUBUSCO, Battle of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1847 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

CIBALIS, Battle of (A. D. 313).

See ROME: A. D. 305-323.

CIBOLA, The Seven Cities of.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.

CICERO, and the last years of the Roman Republic.

See ROME: B. C. 69-63, to 44-42.

CILICIA.-KILIKIA.

An ancient district in the southeastern corner of Asia Minor, bordering on Syria. It was a satrapy of the Persian Empire, then a part of the kingdom of the Selucidæ, and afterwards a Roman province. The chief city of Cilicia was Tarsus, a very ancient commercial emporium, whose people were noted for mental acuteness. The Apostle Paul is to be counted among the distinguished natives of Tarsus, and a quite remarkable number of eminent teachers of philosophy were from the same birthplace.

CILICIA, Pirates of.

During the Mithridatic wars piracy was developed to alarming proportions in the eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea. Distracted by civil conflicts and occupied by foreign ones, simultaneously, the Romans, for a considerable period, gave no proper heed to the growth of this lawlessness, until they found their commerce half destroyed and Rome and Italy actually threatened with starvation by the intercepting of their supplies from abroad. The pirates flourished under the protection and encouragement of the king of Pontus, at whose instance they established their chief headquarters, their docks, arsenals and magazines, at various points on the coast of Cilicia. Hence the name Cilician came to be applied to all the pirates of the time. This era of piracy was brought to an end, at last, by Pompey, who was sent against them, B. C. 67, with extraordinary powers conferred by the law known as the Lex Gabinia. He proceeded to his undertaking with remarkable energy and ability, and his hunting down of the freebooters which he accomplished effectually within three months from the day his operations began, was really the most brilliant exploit of his life.

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 7, chapter 63.

ALSO IN: C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 1.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 3, chapter 6-7.

{469}

CILICIAN GATES.

A pass through the Taurus range of mountains, opening from Cappadocia into Cilicia, was anciently called the Pylæ Ciliciæ or Cilician Gates. The city of Tyana was situated at the entrance to the pass. Both Xenophon and Alexander, who traversed it, seem to have regarded the pass as one which no army could force if properly defended.

E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 10, section 2, and chapter 12, section 1.

CILURNUM.

A Roman city in Britain, "the extensive ruins of which, well described as a British Pompeii, are visible near the modern hamlets of Chesters."

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

CIMARRONES, The.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580, and JAMAICA: A. D. 1655-1796.

CIMBRI AND TEUTONES, The.

"For a considerable period [second century, B. C.] an 'unsettled people' had been wandering along the northern verge of the country occupied by the Celts on both sides of the Danube. They called themselves the Cimbri, that is, the Chempho, the champions, or, as their enemies translated it, the robbers; a designation, however, which to all appearance had become the name of the people even before their migration. They came from the north, and the first Celtic people with whom they came in contact were, so far as is known, the Boii, probably in Bohemia. More exact details as to the cause and the direction of their migration have not been recorded by contemporaries and cannot be supplied by conjecture. … But the hypothesis that the Cimbri, as well as the similar horde of the Teutones which afterwards joined them, belonged in the main not to the Celtic nation, to which the Romans at first assigned them, but to the Germanic, is supported by the most definite facts: viz., by the existence of two small tribes of the same name—remnants left behind to all appearance in their primitive seats—the Cimbri in the modern Denmark, the Teutones in the north-east of Germany in the neighbourhood of the Baltic, where Pytheas, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, makes mention of them thus early in connection with the amber trade; by the insertion of the Cimbri and Teutones in the list of the Germanic peoples among the Ingævones alongside of the Chauci; by the judgment of Cæsar, who first made the Romans acquainted with the distinction between the Germans and the Celts, and who includes the Cimbri, many of whom he must himself have seen, among the Germans; and lastly, by the very names of the people and the statements as to their physical appearance and habits. … On the other hand it is conceivable enough that such a horde, after having wandered perhaps for many years, and having doubtless welcomed every brother-in-arms who joined it in its movements near to or within the land of the Celts, would include a certain amount of Celtic elements. … When men afterwards began to trace the chain, of which this emigration, the first Germanic movement which touched the orbit of ancient civilization, was a link, the direct and living knowledge of it had long passed away."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 4, chapter 5.

"The name Kymri, or Cymri, still exists. It is the name that the Welsh give themselves, but I am not aware that any other people have called them by that name. These Kymri are a branch of the great Celtic people, and this resemblance of the words Kymri and Cimbri has led many modern writers to assume that the Cimbri were also a Celtic people, as many of the ancient writers name them. But these ancient writers are principally the later Greeks, who are no authority at all on such a matter. … The name Cimbri has perished in Germany, while that of the Teutones, by some strange accident, is now the name of the whole Germanic population."

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 2, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 7, chapter 9.

CIMBRI: B. C. 113-102. Battles with the Romans.

The Cimbri and the Teutones made their first appearance on the Roman horizon in the year 113 B. C. when they entered Noricum. The Noricans were an independent people, as yet, but accepted a certain protection from Rome, and the latter sent her consul, Carbo, with an army, to defend them. Carbo made an unfortunate attempt to deal treacherously with the invaders and suffered an appalling defeat. Then the migrating barbarians, instead of pressing into Italy, on the heels of the flying Romans, turned westward through Helvetia to Gaul, and occupied themselves for four years in ravaging that unhappy country. In 109 B. C., having gathered their plunder into the fortified town of Aduatuca and left it well protected, they advanced into the Roman province of Narbo, Southern Gaul, and demanded land to settle upon. The Romans resisted and were again overwhelmingly beaten. But even now the victorious host did not venture to enter Italy, and nothing is known of its movements until 105 B. C., when a third Roman army was defeated in Roman Gaul and its commander taken prisoner and slain. The affrighted Romans sent strong re-enforcements to the Rhone; but jealousy between the consul who commanded the new army and the proconsul who retained command of the old delivered both of them to destruction. They were virtually annihilated, Oct. 6, B. C. 105, at Arausio (Orange), on the left bank of the Rhone. It is said that 80,000 Roman soldiers perished on that dreadful field, besides half as many more of camp followers. "This much is certain," says Mommsen, "that only a few out of the two armies succeeded in escaping, for the Romans had fought with the river in their rear. It was a calamity which materially and morally far surpassed the day of Cannæ." In the panic which this disaster caused at Rome the constitution of the Republic was broken down. Marius, conqueror of Jugurtha, was recalled from Africa and not only re-elected to the Consulship, but invested with the office for five successive years. He took command in Gaul and found that the formidable invaders had moved off into Spain. This gave him time, fortunately, for the organizing and disciplining of his demoralized troops. When the barbarians reappeared on the Rhone, in the summer of 102 B. C., he faced them with an army worthy of earlier Roman times. They had now resolved, apparently, to force their way, at all hazards, into Italy, and had divided their increasing host, to move on Rome by two routes. The Cimbri, reinforced by the Tigorini, who had joined them, made a circuit to the Eastern Alps, while the Teutones, with Ambrones and Tougeni for confederates crossed the Rhone and attacked the defenders of the western passes. Failing to make any impression on the fortified camp of Marius the Teutones rashly passed it, marching straight for the coast road to Italy. {470} Marius cautiously followed and after some days gave battle to the barbarians, in the district of Aquæ Sextiæ, a few miles north of Massilia. The Romans that day took revenge for Arausio with awful interest. The whole barbaric horde was annihilated. "So great was the number of dead bodies that the land in the neighborhood was made fertile by them, and the people of Massilia used the bones for fencing their vineyards." Meantime the Cimbri and their fellows had reached and penetrated the Brenner pass and were in the valley of the Adige. The Roman army stationed there had given way before them, and Marius was needed to roll the invasion back. He did so, on the 30th of July B. C. 101, when the Cimbri were destroyed, at a battle fought on the Raudine Plain near Vercellæ, as completely as the Teutones had been destroyed at Aquæ Sextiæ.

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 4, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 7, chapter 9.

CIMBRIAN CHERSONESUS.

The modern Danish promontory of Jutland; believed to have been the home of the Cimbri before they migrated southwards and invaded Gaul.

CIMINIAN FOREST, The.

The mountains of Viterbo, which formed anciently the frontier of Rome towards Etruria, were then covered with a thick forest—"the 'silva Ciminia' of which Livy gives so romantic a description. It was, however, nothing but a natural division between two nations which were not connected by friendship, and wished to have little to do with each other. … This forest was by no means like the 'silva Hercynia' with which Livy compares it, but was of just such an extent that, according to his own account, the Romans only wanted a couple of hours to march through it."

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lecture 44.

CIMMERIANS, The.

"The name Cimmerians appears in the Odyssey,—the fable describes them as dwelling beyond the ocean-stream, immersed in darkness and unblessed by the rays of Helios. Of this people as existent we can render no account, for they had passed away, or lost their identity and become subject, previous to the commencement of trustworthy authorities: but they seem to have been the chief occupants of the Tauric Chersonese (Crimea) and of the territory between that peninsula and the river Tyras (Dneister) at the time when the Greeks first commenced their permanent settlements on those coasts in the seventh century B. C. The numerous localities which bore their name, even in the time of Herodotus, after they had ceased to exist as a nation,—as well as the tombs of the Cimmerian kings then shown near the Tyras,—sufficiently attest the fact; and there is reason to believe that they were—like their conquerors and successors the Scythians—a nomadic people, mare-milkers, moving about with their tents and herds, suitably to the nature of those unbroken steppes which their territory presented, and which offered little except herbage in profusion. Strabo tells us—on what authority we do not know—that they, as well as the Trêres and other Thracians, had desolated Asia Minor more than once before the time of Ardys [King of Lydia, seventh century B. C.] and even earlier than Homer."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 17.

See, also, CUMÆ.

CIMON, Career of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 477-462, to 460-449.

CIMON, Peace of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

CINCINNATI: A. D. 1788. The founding and naming of the city.

In 1787 "an offer was made to Congress by John Cleve Symmes [afterwards famous for his theory that the earth is hollow, with openings at the poles], to buy two millions of acres between the Little and the Great Miamis. Symmes was a Jerseyman of wealth, had visited the Shawanese country, had been greatly pleased with its fertility, and had come away declaring that every acre in the wildest part was worth a silver dollar. It was too, he thought, only a question of time, and a very short time, when this value would be doubled and tripled. Thousands of immigrants were pouring into this valley each year, hundreds of thousands of acres were being taken up, and the day would soon come when the rich land along the Miamis and the Ohio would be in great demand. There was therefore a mighty fortune in store for the lucky speculator who should buy land from Congress for five shillings an acre and sell it to immigrants for twenty. But … his business lagged, and though his offer to purchase was made in August, 1787, it was the 15th of May, 1788, before the contract was closed. In the meantime he put out a pamphlet and made known his terms of sale. A copy soon fell into the hands of Matthias Denman. He became interested in the scheme and purchased that section on which now stands the city of Cincinnati. One third he kept, one third he sold to Robert Patterson, and the remainder to John Filson. The conditions of the purchase from Symmes gave them two years in which to begin making clearings and building huts. But the three determined to lose no time, and at once made ready to layout a city directly opposite that spot where the waters of the Licking mingled themselves with the Ohio. Denman and Patterson were no scholars. But Filson had once been a schoolmaster, knew a little of Latin and something of history, and to him was assigned the duty of choosing a name for the town. … He determined to make one, and produced a word that was a most absurd mixture of Latin, Greek and French. He called the place Losantiville, which, being interpreted, means the city opposite the mouth of the Licking. A few weeks later the Indians scalped him."

J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, volume 1, page 516.

The name given a little later to Filson's settlement was conferred on it by General St. Clair, Governor of the Territory, in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES: A. D. 1788-1802.

ALSO IN: F. W. Miller, Cincinnati's Beginnings.

CINCINNATI: A. D. 1863. Threatened by John Morgan's Rebel Raid.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: KENTUCKY).

—————CINCINNATI: End—————

{471}

CINCINNATI, The Society of the.

"Men of the present generation who in childhood rummaged in their grandmothers' cosy garrets cannot fail to have come across scores of musty and worm-eaten pamphlets, their yellow pages crowded with italics and exclamation points, inveighing in passionate language against the wicked and dangerous Society of the Cincinnati. Just before the army [of the American Revolution] was disbanded, the officers, at the suggestion of General Knox, formed themselves [April, 1783] into a secret society, for the purpose of keeping up their friendly intercourse and cherishing the heroic memories of the struggle in which they had taken part. With the fondness for classical analogies which characterized that time, they likened themselves to Cincinnatus, who was taken from the plow to lead an army, and returned to his quiet farm so soon as his warlike duties were over. They were modern Cincinnati. A constitution and by-laws were established for the order, and Washington was unanimously chosen to be its president. Its branches in the several states were to hold meetings each Fourth of July, and there was to be a general meeting of the whole society every year in the month of May. French officers who had taken part in the war were admitted to membership, and the order was to be perpetuated by descent through the eldest male representatives of the families of the members. It was further provided that a limited membership should from time to time be granted, as a distinguished honour, to able and worthy citizens, without regard to the memories of the war. A golden American eagle attached to a blue ribbon edged with white was the sacred badge of the order; and to this emblem especial favour was shown at the French court, where the insignia of foreign states were generally, it is said, regarded with jealousy. No political purpose was to be subserved by this order of the Cincinnati, save in so far as the members pledged to one another their determination to promote and cherish the union between the states. In its main intent the society was to be a kind of masonic brotherhood, charged with the duty of aiding the widows and the orphan children of its members in time of need. Innocent as all this was, however, the news of the establishment of such a society was greeted with a howl of indignation all over the country. It was thought that its founders were inspired by a deep-laid political scheme for centralizing the government and setting up a hereditary aristocracy. … The absurdity of the situation was quickly realized by Washington, and he prevailed upon the society, in its first annual meeting of May, 1784, to abandon the principle of hereditary membership. The agitation was thus allayed, and in the presence of graver questions the much-dreaded brotherhood gradually ceased to occupy popular attention."

J. Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, chapter 3.

J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, volume 1, chapter 2.

"The hereditary succession was never abandoned. A recommendation to that effect was indeed made to the several State Societies, at the first General Meeting in Philadelphia. … But the proposition, unwillingly urged, was accepted in deprecatory terms by some, and by others it was totally rejected. … At the second General Meeting, it was resolved 'that the alterations could not take effect until they had been agreed to by all the State Societies.' They never were so agreed to, and consequently the original Institution remains in full force. Those Societies that accepted the proposed alterations unconditionally, of course perished with their own generation."

A. Johnston, Some Accounts of the Society of the Cincinnati (Pennsylvania Historical Society Memoirs, volume 6, pages 51-53).

"The claim to membership has latterly been determined not by strict primogeniture, but by a 'just elective preference, especially in the line of the first-born,' who has a moral but not an absolutely indisputable right; and membership has always been renewed by election. … Six only of the original thirteen states—Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina—are still [in 1873] represented at the General Meetings. The largest society, that of Massachusetts, consisting originally of 343 members, now [1873] numbers less than 80; that of New York, from 230 had in 1858 decreased to 73; the 268 of Pennsylvania to about 60; the 110 of New Jersey, in 1866, to 60; and the 131 of South Carolina was, in 1849, reduced to 71."

F. S. Drake, Memorials of the Society of the Cincinnati of Massachusetts, page 37.

CINCO DE MAYO, Battle of (1862).

See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.

CINE, The.

Kinsfolk of the head of the tribe, among the ancient Irish.

CINQ MARS, Conspiracy of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1641-1642.

CINQUE PORTS, The.

"Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, Hythe—this is the order in which the Cinque Ports were ranked in the times when they formed a flourishing and important confederation. Winchelsea and Rye were added to these five … soon after the Norman Conquest. … The new comers were officially known as 'the two Ancient Towns.' When therefore we wish to speak of this famous corporation with strict accuracy we say, 'The five Cinque Ports and two Ancient Towns.' The repetition of the number 'five' in this title probably never struck people so much as we might expect, since it very soon came to be merely a technical term, the French form of the word being pronounced, and very often spelt 'Synke' or 'Sinke,' just as if it was the English 'Sink.' … The difference between the Cinque Ports and the rest of the English coast towns is plainly indicated by mediæval custom, since they were generally spoken of collectively as 'The Ports.' … Most writers upon this subject … have been at pains to connect the Cinque Ports by some sort of direct descent with the five Roman stations and fortresses which, under the Comes Littoris Saxonici [see SAXON SHORE, COUNT OF], guarded the south-eastern shores of Britain."

M. Burrows, The Cinque Ports, chapters 1-3.

"Our kings have thought them [the Cinque Ports] worthy a peculiar regard; and, in order to secure them against invasions, have granted them a particular form of government. They are under a keeper, who has the title of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (an officer first appointed by William the Conqueror), who has the authority of an admiral among them, and issues out writs in his own name. The privileges anciently annexed to these ports and their dependents were [among others]: An exemption from all taxes and tolls. … A power to punish foreigners, as well as natives, for theft. … A power to raise mounds or banks in any man's land against breaches of the sea. … To convert to their own use such goods as they found floating on the sea; those thrown out of ships in a storm; and those driven ashore when no wreck or ship was to be seen. To be a guild or fraternity, and to be allowed the franchises of court-leet and court-baron. A power to assemble and keep a portmote or parliament for the Cinque Ports. {472} … Their barons to have the privilege of supporting the canopy over the king's head at his coronation. In return for these privileges the Cinque Ports were required to fit out 57 ships, each manned with 21 men and a boy, with which they were to attend the king's service for 15 days at their own expense; but if the state of affairs required their assistance any longer they were to be paid by the crown. … As the term baron occurs continually throughout all the charters of the Ports, it may not be improper to inform our readers that it is of the same import as burgess or freeman. … The representatives of the Ports in parliament are to this day styled barons." The post of Warden of the Cinque Ports, "formerly considered of so much honour and consequence, is now converted into a patent sinecure place, for life, with a salary of £4,000 a year."