lord, they were slain or expelled by the burghers, who' thereupon marched against his baronial castle in the neighborhood. If they prevailed, they compelled him to make conditions for their relief:-if they failed, he attacked them in return, demolished their fortifications, and made their insurrection the excuse for new exactions. Frequently one party or the other appealed to the mediation of other lords or of their common suzerain; and thus a community of interest began to grow up between the kings and the towns. The conventions concluded by the parties, their treaties of peace,- were the charters, stipulating for the enfranchisement, total or partial, of the towns, upon the conditions and with the reservations therein prescribed. In the twelfth century, the contest was in a great measure at an end, and the rights of the commons had come to be fixed and acknowledged. The tiers-état, the bourgeoisie, the people, had acquired weight and place in the social system, not exercising, it is true, any authority in the general gov. ernment, but constituting a class, beginning to be respected, and ready, at a proper time, to make itself felt in the affairs of Europe.

Let us now examine the part acted by the Church in laying the foundations of modern civilization, - -a part, more important, perhaps, than that of the other elements which entered into it, inasmuch as the Church, in the fifth century, was already a vigorous institution, while the municipal or democratic principle was overborne for the time by the Barbarians, the feudal system had not yet emerged from surrounding confusion, and royalty existed only in name.

At this period the Church was altogether triumphant over Paganism, and partook of the majesty of the Empire: -it was the ROMAN Church. The irruption of the Barbarians re-imposed upon it the task of conversion; and the zeal of its ministers, during the fifth and sixth centuries, after being successfully employed in converting the Barbarians, was wasted in persevering attempts to reconstruct the Em

pire by their means. But in vain; the Roman society was irrecoverably gone; and the Church itself for awhile seemed to be lapsing into barbarism; for while the Franks and Goths became priests and bishops, the bishops imitated the example of the conquerors, becoming leaders of bands, and making war, like the companions of Clovis. Meanwhile, however, the Church upheld effectually, for its own protection, the doctrine of separation between the temporal and spiritual powers; and introduced into the West the monastic order, as an asylum for the weak from the violence of the strong, and an additional barrier against the Barbarians. Then came the reign of Charlemagne, which gave the Church new vigor, and definitively established the Pope as its permanent head. On his death a relapse followed in ecclesiastical, as it did in civil affairs; and the Church endeavored strenuously, but imperfectly, to maintain its unity and purity by means of councils, which were the prevalent usage of the feudal age. But every thing tended, at that period, to the isolation of men; the clergy were infected with the same spirit; and extreme abuses, and much depravation of manners, were introduced by it, where they should least have place. This did not and could not last; better feelings, principles, and practises subsequently obtained; the Church rallied again; the necessity of order, system, organization, was more strongly felt than ever; and a genuine reformation took place throughout the Christian Church. It was a movement rendered illustrious by the talents of Gregory VII as the spiritual head of the Christian world; and signalized also by the remodelling of the monasteries, and the introduction therein of the severe rules of Saint Norbert and Saint Bernard.

What, during this period, was the Church doing for the civilization of Europe?

In the first place, it was the great instrument of the moral and intellectual, as well as the religious, improvement of mankind. It began by converting the Barbarians.

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It was the only intellectual pursuit or profession of the times All other classes of men operated upon their fellows by the impression of mere force: this employed the agency of reason, persuasion, moral considerations. The literature and science of Europe owe their developement to the clergy, who not only sustained and accelerated the intellectual movement of their age, but did it in the name of a system of doctrines and precepts, which, independently of its qualities as a rule of faith and salvation, was far superior to what the ancient world had known. In the East, intelligence is altogether religious: among the Greeks it was altogether human. The effect of the intellectual culture of the clergy upon the intellectual developement of modern Europe has been to combine the two principles, so as to give equal scope to knowledge in both temporal and spiritual relations, and thus to elevate and improve essentially its general character.

Secondly, it exercised the most salutary influence in reforming the vicious usages of the social system, and repressing the universal recurrence to force, by which society was perpetually torn and agitated. Thus it labored to bring about the enfranchisement of serfs, which it eventually accomplished; it sought to substitute mild and more rational laws in the place of the barbarous customs which then obtained. And the history of the feudal age is full of the examples of the untiring efforts of the clergy to correct the passion of rapine and war; to introduce sentiments of order, peace, and mutual good will; in a word, to counteract the violent Who has not heard of the peace of spirit of barbarism. God,' and 'the truce of God,' expedients of the clergy to abate the infuriate rage of strife, and give to the human race occasional breathing times from war?

But while the Church was so useful in these respects, standing as were alone to stem the tide of barbarism, -- in its political influences, its influences upon government and human liberty, it was undoubtedly injurious. It possessed,

and long retained, the monopoly as it were of science and philosophy. Its tendency, its effects, its legislation, had for object the establishment of power, sometimes in the form of a theocratic, sometimes of a monarchical, system. When feeble, the Church sought to shelter itself under the name and prestige of the Empire: when strong, it undertook to claim that authority as its own, and to exercise temporal, as well as spiritual, power. It was natural enough that, in such lawless times, the Church should have been glad to strengthen its hands by such means; for the very purpose of religion is restraint, restraint of the passions, the appetites, the will; and therefore, especially at that time, the Church, in its anxiety to check the licentiousness of men, could not fail to sympathize with principles of government, which impaired their liberty. Thus it happened that the Church was apt to be found on the side of despotism, and occasionally to call in its aid; and thus it came to be adverse, in some sort, to the expansion of the public liberties in Europe.

Reviewing the ground we have passed over, from the fifth to the twelfth century, it will be perceived that we are now in possession of all the elements of the European political system except royalty, which had not yet reached the decisive crisis of its full developement. But we have the dements of political system only: we have not the system itself. If we look at the aspect of things in the eighteenth century, we shall see two grand objects occupying the scene of the world, namely, a government and a people antagonist to, or at least reciprocally acting upon, each other, and together constituting a nation. Nobles, clergy, commons, all appear, displaying their own peculiar features, but each subordinate to the two primary powers in society, the government and the people. But, prior to the twelfth century, who hears of a people, a nation, a national government? We discern the germs of a nation, of a government; but not the thing itself, nor any thing which deserves the

observers, who beheld mankind grouping themselves into the little isolated associations of lord and liegemen, looked upon that as the final dissolution of society, which in truth was the first stage in a systematic reconstruction of it.

Previously, it will be remembered, men lived collectively, either stationed in towns and cities under the influence of Roman institutions, or assembled in the wandering and predatory bands of the Barbarians. By the operation of the feudal system this state of things was reversed. The population, as among the Germans, became scattered over the country in isolated habitations; and the government of society passed from the cities to the country. The lord established his residence in some elevated spot, capable of defence, where he constructed his baronial castle, and took up his abode with his wife, his children, and his domestics. Around the base of his stronghold were grouped the dwellings of his feudal vassals, and of the tenants or serfs, who cultivated the soil, In the midst of their habitatations rose the village church. And thus, in the baron with his castle, in the vassals and cultivators gathered under its wing, and in the village church with its priest, we have the original form of a purely feudal society. In order to appreciate the influence of this institution upon the civilization of Europe, let us consider it under its different aspects, as well within each separate society, as in the relations of each to others of the same description.

First, as to the interior of the baronial castle. The baron is in the full enjoyment of that sentiment of personal independence, which the Barbarians held so dear. His rights, his power, are his own exclusively and individually; his consequence does not depend upon his relation to other men, like that of a Roman senator, but is inherent in his person as the possessor of his fief, and the lord of his vassal. Hence the developement, among the feudal barons, of a spirit of power allied to cruelty, of pride degenerating into harshness, of self. reliance and contempt of danger prone to acts of violence,