INQUIRIE PART THE THIRD. S. CHAPTER I. Defign of the whole-Limits and Extent of THE MIDDLE AGE-THREE CLASSES of Men, during that interval, confpicuous; THE BYZANTINE GREEKS; THE SARACENS or ARABIANS; and THE LATINS or FRANKS, Inhabitants of Western Europe-Each Clafs in the following Chapters confidered apart. WHE HEN THE MAGNITUDE OF THE Ch. I. and there were two imperial Cities, ROME pened, P. III. pened, which was natural; out of one Empire it became two, diftinguished by the different names of the WESTERN, and the EASTERN. THE WESTERN EMPIRE foon funk. So early as in the fifth Century*, 'ROME, once the Mistress of Nations, beheld herself at the feet of a Gothic Sovereign. THE EASTERN EMPIRE lafted many Cen * About the year of Chrift 475, Auguftulus was compelled to abdicate the Western Empire by Odoacer, King of the Heruli. As Auguftulus was the laft Roman, who poffeft the Imperial Dignity at Rome, and as the Dominion both of Rome and Italy soon after paft into the hands of Theodoric the Goth, it has been justly said, that then terminated the Roman Empire in the Weft, During these wretched times, ROME had been facked not long before by Alaric, as it was a fecond time (about the middle of the fixth Century) by Totila; after which events the Roman Name and Authority were fo far funk, that early in the feventh Century they ceased to speak Latin, even in Rome itself. See Blair's Chronology. turies longer, and, tho' often impaired Ch. I. by external Enemies, and weakened as often by internal Factions, yet ftill it retained traces of its antient Splendor, refembling in the language of Virgil fome fair, but faded flower, Cui neque fulgor adhuc, necdum fua forma receffit. VIRG. AT length, after various plunges and various escapes, it was totally annihilated in the fifteenth Century by the victorious arms of Mahomet the Great *. * See the various Hiftories of the Turkish Empire. The unfortunate Greeks, at this period, when, to resist fuch an Enemy as the Turks, they should have been firmly combined, were never fo miferably distracted. An union with the Church of Rome was at the time jected. The Greeks, who favoured it, imputed their Calamities to their Not-uniting; thofe, who opposed it, to their Uniting. Between the two Factions all was loft, and Conftantinople taken in the year 1453. pro THE P. III. THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE FALL OF THESE TWO EMPIRES (the Western or Latin in the fifth Century, the Eaftern or Grecian in the fifteenth) making a fpace of near a thousand years, conflitutes what we call THE MIDDLE AGE. DOMINION paft during this interval into the hands of rude, illiterate men; men, who conquered more by multitude, than by military skill; and who, having little or no taste either for Sciences or Arts, naturally despised those things, from which they had reaped no advantage. THIS was the age of Monkery and Legends; of Leonine Verfes*, (that is of bad Latin put into rhime ;) of Projects to decide Truth by Plough-fhares and Bat * See below, Chap. XI. toons; |