rights of peace and war, of legislation, and of taxation, were of course taken from them, to be concentrated in Rome, leaving to them nothing but the powers of municipal administration; and in this state they were found by the Barbarians. In the chaos of the invasion, their condition, of course, was precarious, uncertain, shifting, like every thing around them:- - it became settled to a certain point, only with the establishment of the feudal system, into which they of necessity entered, each as part of a fief held by some one of the conquerors. Here began a series of aggressions, of acts of extortion or oppression on the part of the lord, tempted by the valuable products of the industry and skill of the burghers; and a series of struggles on the part of the towns to escape from the arbitrary power of their immediate feudal superiors. These mutual injuries finally brought on, in the eleventh century, a general state of warfare between the communes and the barons; not organized warfare of the order of barons as a body against the order of burghers as a body, but separate independent contests, oftentimes of long duration, between a single baron and a town within his fief; and such separate contests going on as it were contemporaneously in all parts of Europe.

It will be recollected that the principle of individuality, of personal independence, was characteristic of the era. The burghers saw the barons around them warring against one another, and against their suzerain, at will, and sustaining their real or fancied rights by the armed hand; and they caught the spirit of resistance from the examples of reliance upon individual energies, which everywhere met their The burghers fortified their towns; they enrolled eyes. themselves in a civic militia; they constructed their beffroi, with its watch tower and its bell to summon them to arms. Each man's dwelling, being built like a tower and flanked at the angles with turrets, was a genuine fortress. The course of things was regular enough in its irregularity. On occasion of some act of extortion practised by the agents of the

people on the other; it stood in the way of order and of freedom alike; and it was only by the coalition of the kings and people that it was first disarmed, and then overthrown.

Having traced the developement of the feudal system, the characteristic institution of the Barbarians, let us now advert to the municipal principle, saved from the wreck of the Roman institutions. Suppose a townsman of the feudal age to have risen to life in 1789, at the opening of the French Revolution, and to have heard the definition of his own rank and class in life given by Sieyes. 'Le tiers-état, c'est la nation française, moins la noblesse et la clergé.' In the first place, he would not understand what was meant by 'la nation française ;' in the second place, if the words were explained to him, the proposition would seem incredible, monstrous: —it would communicate the idea of no state of things of which he had practical knowledge. He would have no conception of such a degree of power held or claimed by the bourgeoisie. Carry him into the interior of one of the great towns of France, on the other hand, and when he saw it without fortifications, without a civic force, subject to taxation imposed and to municipal magistrates appointed from without, he would be as much astonished in view of the dependance and feebleness of the burghers, as he had previously been at the idea of their partaking of the national sovereignty. Now to comprehend the situation of things in the feudal age, we have to reverse the picture. In reference to the general affairs of the country, its government, its political organization, the burghers were nothing: -- they were not mentioned or thought of in that connexion. But enter within a town, and you would find yourself in a citadel defended by armed men, taxing themselves, electing their own magistrates, making war on their own account.

Rome, as we have already remarked, was properly speaking a municipality; and it was over municipalities like itself, exercising all the powers of sovereignty, political as well as municipal, that the Roman Empire was extended. The

rights of peace and war, of legislation, and of taxation, were of course taken from them, to be concentrated in Rome, leaving to them nothing but the powers of municipal administration; and in this state they were found by the Barbarians. In the chaos of the invasion, their condition, of course, was precarious, uncertain, shifting, like every thing around them:- it became settled to a certain point, only with the establishment of the feudal system, into which they of necessity entered, each as part of a fief held by some one of the conquerors. Here began a series of aggressions, of acts of extortion or oppression on the part of the lord, tempted by the valuable products of the industry and skill of the burghers; and a series of struggles on the part of the towns to escape from the arbitrary power of their immediate feudal superiors. These mutual injuries finally brought on, in the eleventh century, a general state of warfare between the communes and the barons; not organized warfare of the order of barons as a body against the order of burghers as a body, but separate independent contests, oftentimes of long duration, between a single baron and a town within his fief; and such separate contests going on as it were contemporaneously in all parts of Europe.

It will be recollected that the principle of individuality, of personal independence, was characteristic of the era. The burghers saw the barons around them warring against one another, and against their suzerain, at will, and sustaining their real or fancied rights by the armed hand; and they caught the spirit of resistance from the examples of reliance upon individual energies, which everywhere met their eyes. The burghers fortified their towns; they enrolled themselves in a civic militia; they constructed their beffroi, with its watch tower and its bell to summon them to arms. Each man's dwelling, being built like a tower and flanked at the angles with turrets, was a genuine fortress. The course of things was regular enough in its irregularity. On occasion of some act of extortion practised by the agents of the

towns.

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 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.

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At this period the Church was altogether triumphant over Paganism, and partook of the majesty of the Empire: 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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