A. D.

In the reign of Al-Mamoon Crete and Sicily were 823. conquered by the Moslems. A piratical fleet of ten or twenty galleys from Andalusia entered Alexandria at the solicitation of a rebellious faction. They spared neither friends nor foes; they pillaged the city, and it required the forces and the presence of the khalif AlMamoon to expel them. They ravaged the islands to the Hellespont. The fertility and riches of Crete attracted them: they invaded it with forty galleys. They entered and pillaged the country; but as they returned to their vessels, they found them in flames by the orders of their chief, who exhorted them to seize and keep the fertile land. They obeyed from necessity, the island submitted, and for 138 years their depredations harassed the eastern empire.

A youth had stolen a nun from a cloister in Sicily. 827. He was sentenced to the loss of his tongue. He fled to Africa, and exhorted the Arabs to invade his country. They landed, in number 700 horse, and 10,000 foot. They were repulsed before the walls of Syracuse, and reduced to great straits, when they received a reinforcement from Spain. The western part of the island was quickly reduced, and Palermo became the Saracenic capital. Fifty years elapsed before Syracuse submitted, 878. after a siege worthy of her old renown. The Grecian language and religion were eradicated throughout the island. From the ports of Sicily and Africa the Mohammedan fleets issued to ravage and pillage the cities and provinces of Italy.

While the Arabs were engaged in the conquest of 846. Sicily, one of their fleets entered the Tiber, and the Moslems plundered the temples of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Fortunately for the Romans, their pope died, and Leo IV., a man of the old Roman spirit, was chosen to succeed. By his care the city was fortified, and an alliance formed with Gaieta, Naples, and Salerno. Soon after, a large fleet of Saracens came from Africa, and 849. cast anchor before the Tiber. The allies of the pope

soon appeared; the engagement commenced, and a

tempest finally decided it in favour of the Christians. The Saracen fleet was utterly destroyed, and those who escaped to shore were slaughtered or reduced to slavery.

CHAP. IV.

DISSOLUTION OF THE GREAT EMPIRES OF THE EAST

AND WEST.

A. D. 814.

Empire of Charlemagne.

CHARLEMAGNE was succeeded in his dominions by his son Louis the Debonair, or good-natured. His eldest son, Pepin, had died before him, leaving an illegitimate son, Bernard, who retained the kingdom of Italy, which 817. his father had held. Rebelling against his uncle, he was sentenced to the loss of his eyes, which caused his death. Louis associated his eldest son, Lothaire, in the empire, and conferred Bavaria and Aquitaine on his two other sons; but having had a son, Charles, by his second wife, Judith of Bavaria, he was naturally anxious to provide for him also. This could only be done at the expense of Lothaire and his brothers. They rose in rebellion, and deposed their father: their discord caused his re840. storation. At his death, all his sons were in arms against each other. A bloody battle at Fontenoy, in Auxerre, forced them to come to an agreement, and the empire was, by the treaty of Verdun, divided among them.

843.

$55.

In this partition, Lothaire got Italy, Provence, and the country running along the Rhine, afterwards called Lorraine. Louis had all the German dominions eastward of the territories of Lothaire; and Charles, surnamed the Bald, had France. Pepin, their nephew, had Aquitaine, which his father had held: of this he was afterwards robbed by his uncle Charles.

Lothaire, filled with remorse for his rebellions against

his father, retired to a convent. His three sons took A. D. arms to divide their inheritance. By the treaty of 859. Orbe (in the Vaudois), Louis got the crown of the Cæsars, Italy, and Rhætia; Lothaire II., Burgundy, Alsatia, and Lorraine; Charles had Provence.

Lothaire II. dying the victim of a lawless amour, 868. without legitimate issue, his two uncles made a treaty of partition of his dominions, which was finally decided in favour of the king of Germany. Lothaire II. had 879. already divided with his brother, Louis II., the domi- 863. nions of Charles of Provence, who had died without heirs; and on the death of Louis II. Rhætia came to 875. the king of Germany; but his younger brother, the king of France, contrived to make himself master of Italy and the imperial crown.

The

The two brothers soon died. Louis the Stammerer 876. succeeded his father, Charles the Bald; but followed him to the tomb within half a year after his accession. legitimacy of his children was doubted; and in a council of Burgundian bishops, held at Geneva, the sovereignty of that country was offered to Boson, who was married to Imogene, daughter of Louis II., and he was crowned king of Burgundy by the archbishop at Lyons.

879.

Charles the Fat, the son of Louis of Germany, united 880. Italy to his German dominions; and on the death of the elder sons of Louis the Stammerer, and the minority of their brother Charles the Simple, he was made king of France, and Boson received his kingdom of him as a fief. The empire was now once more under one head; but Charles becoming deranged, he was deposed, and 888. the unity of the empire of the Franks dissolved for

ever.

The German dominions of Charles were taken possession of by Arnulf, the illegitimate son of his brother Carloman, a prince deeply imbued with the best spirit of the Carlovingians; but he died, leaving a son of only seven years. Eudes, count of Paris, which he had gallantly defended against the Normans, was chosen king of France; but on his death it came to the rightful but

A. D.

incapable heir, Charles the Simple. After the death of Boson, two kings reigned in Burgundy; his son Louis, and Rodolph, son of the powerful Count Conrad, and that kingdom was divided, never to be reunited. In Italy, Widon, duke of Spoleto, and Berenger, duke of Friuli, contended with each other for the restoration of the kingdom of the Lombards, and discord and turbulence agitated the whole country.

Such was the internal state of the empire of Charlemagne at the close of the ninth century: externally it was harassed by the Arabs, the Hungarians, and the Northmen.

The Hungarians.

Beyond the Ural mountains a tribe of Turks, it is thought, had intermixed with the Finns, the original race of Northern Asia and Europe. Pressed on from the East by other tribes set in motion by war or want, they broke up their camps, and advanced towards the West. They forced their way through the Russian tribes, penetrated the passes of Mount Krapak, and spread themselves over Pannonia, their future country. They called and still call themselves Majars: by the Europeans they were termed Turks and Hungarians. Their government had been hitherto administered by a council of Voivodes, or hereditary chiefs; they now chose a sovereign in the person of Almus, the father of Arpad.

The empire of Charlemagne had extended to Transylvania. The king of the Moravians, who dwelt in western Hungary, refused obedience to Arnulf, king of Germany, and even invaded his dominions. Unable to reduce him, Arnulf invited the aid of the Hungarians, 897. and the Moravian prince was speedily humbled. Arnulf being succeeded by his infant son Louis IV., all restraint, which gratitude or fear had laid on the Hungarians, was removed. They rushed into and wasted Bavaria, overthrew the Christians at Augsburg, swept over Swabia and Franconia, spread to the Baltic, and laid the city

of Bremen in ashes. During a period of more than thirty years Germany paid tribute to these barbarians.

The Hungarians passed the Rhine, and ravaged southern France to the Pyrenees. Italy attracted them: they encamped on the Brenta; but, dreading the strength of the country, they asked permission to retire. The king of Italy, Berenger, proudly refused, and the lives of 20,000 men were the penalty of his rashness. Pavia was soon in flames, and all Italy, to the point of Reggio, was ravaged. The Bulgarians, a Slavonic tribe, had been converted to Christianity, and they formed the north-western barrier of the eastern empire. Their resistance was overcome, and the rapid bands of the Hungarians were soon seen before the gates of Constantinople. By arts and presents they were induced to retire.

The ravages of the Hungarians extended through a period of nearly half a century (889-934). The valour of the Saxon princes, Henry the Fowler and his son Otho the Great, at length delivered Europe from them.

race.

The Northmen.

Scandinavia had been originally peopled by the Finnic In very remote ages the Goths, whose primitive seat was, probably, the great central mountain-range of Asia, had penetrated thither, and expelled the less warlike Finns. We have already seen them recross the Baltic, and eventually establish themselves in Spain and Italy. Every where they appear as conquerors. Scandinavia they were generally divided into small independent states: their land was poor; they had little agriculture and less trade to occupy them: they loved war, were bold mariners, and early began to commit depredations on each other and on strangers.

In

In this period, Gorm the Old in Denmark and Harold Fair-hair in Norway had reduced several of the independent chieftains of these countries, and established their respective monarchies. Several of the high-spirited reguli scorned to own as masters those whom they had regarded as equals; they embarked in their ships, sought