INQUI IRI E

PART THE THIR D.

S.

CHAPTER I.

Design of the whole-Limits and Extent of
THE MIDDLE AGE-THREE CLASSES
of Men, during that interval, confpi-
cuous;
THE BYZANTINE GREEKS;
THE SARACENS or ARABIANS; and
THE LATINS or FRANKS, Inhabitants
of Western Europe-Each Clafs in the
following Chapters confidered apart.

WH

HEN THE MAGNITUDE OF THE Ch. I.
ROMAN EMPIRE grew enormous,

and there were two imperial Cities, ROME
and CONSTANTINOPLE, then that hap-

pened,

P. III. pened, which was natural; out of one Empire it became two, distinguished 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 last Roman, who poffeft the Imperial Dignity at Rome, and as the Dominion both of Rome and Italy foon after paft into the hands of Theodoric the Goth, it has been juftly faid, 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 seventh 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 still it retained traces of its antient Splendor, resembling 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 such 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 projected. 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.

THE

P. III.

THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE FALL OF THESE TWO EMPIRES (the Western or Latin in the fifth Century, the Eastern or Grecian in the fifteenth) making a space 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;