IV.II. The Transition from Feudalism to Monarchy

The moral phenomena above mentioned, tending in the direction of a general principle, were partly of a subjective, partly of a speculative order. But we must now give particular attention to the practical political movements of the period. The advance which that period witnessed, presents a negative aspect in so far as it involves the termination of the sway of individual caprice and of the isolation of power. Its affirmative aspect is the rise of a supreme authority whose dominion embraces all — a political power properly so called, whose subjects enjoy an equality of rights, and in which the will of the individual is subordinated to that common interest which underlies the whole. This is the advance from Feudalism to Monarchy. The principle of feudal sovereignty is the outward force of individuals— princes, liege lords; it is a force destitute of intrinsic right. The subjects of such a Constitution are vassals of a superior prince or seigneur, to whom they have stipulated duties to perform: but whether they perform these duties or not, depends upon the seigneur’s being able to induce them so to do, by force of character or by grant of favors: — conversely, the recognition of those feudal claims themselves was extorted by violence in the first instance; and the fulfilment of the corresponding duties could be secured only by the constant exercise of the power which was the sole basis of the claims in question. The monarchical principle also implies a supreme authority, but it is an authority over persons possessing no independent power to support their individual caprice; where we have no longer caprice opposed to caprice; for the supremacy implied in monarchy is essentially a power emanating from a political body, and is pledged to the furtherance of that equitable purpose on which the constitution of a state is based. Feudal sovereignty is a polyarchy: we see nothing but Lords and Serfs; in Monarchy, on the contrary, there is one Lord and no Serf, for servitude is abrogated by it, and in it Right and Law are recognized; it is the source of real freedom. Thus in monarchy the caprice of individuals is kept under, and a common gubernatorial interest established. In the suppression of those isolated powers, as also in the resistance made to that suppression, it seems doubtful whether the desire for a lawful and equitable state of things, or the wish to indulge individual caprice, is the impelling motive. Resistance to kingly authority is entitled Liberty, and is lauded as legitimate and noble when the idea of arbitrary will is associated with that authority. But by the arbitrary will of an individual exerting itself so as to subjugate a whole body of men, a community is formed; and comparing this state of things with that in which every point is a centre of capricious violence, we find a much smaller number of points exposed to such violence. The great extent of such a sovereignty necessitates general arrangements for the purposes of organization, and those who govern in accordance with those arrangements are at the same time, in virtue of their office itself, obedient to the state: Vassals become Officers of State, whose duty it is to execute the laws by which the state is regulated. But since this monarchy is developed from feudalism, it bears in the first instance the stamp of the system from which it sprang. Individuals quit their isolated capacity and become members of Estates [or Orders of the Realm] and Corporations; the vassals are powerful only by combination as an Order; in contraposition to them the cities constitute Powers in virtue of their communal existence. Thus the authority of the sovereign inevitably ceases to be mere arbitrary sway. The consent of the Estates and Corporations is essential to its maintenance; and if the prince wishes to have that consent, he must will what is just and reasonable.

We now see a Constitution embracing various Orders, while Feudal rule knows no such Orders. We observe the transition from feudalism to monarchy taking place in three ways:

1. Sometimes the lord paramount gains a mastery over his independent vassals, by subjugating their individual power — thus making himself sole ruler.

2. Sometimes the princes free themselves from the feudal relation altogether, and become the territorial lords of certain states; or lastly

3. The lord paramount unites the particular lordships that own him as their superior, with his own particular suzerainty, in a more peaceful way, and thus becomes master of the whole.

These processes do not indeed present themselves in history in that pure and abstract form in which they are exhibited here: often we find more modes than one appearing contemporaneously; but one or the other always predominates. The cardinal consideration is that the basis and essential condition of such a political formation is to be looked for in the particular nationalities in which it had its birth. Europe presents particular nations, constituting a unity in their very nature, and having the absolute tendency to form a state. All did not succeed in attaining this political unity: we have now to consider them severally in relation to the change thus introduced.

First, as regards the Roman empire, the connection between Germany and Italy naturally results from the idea of that empire: the secular dominion united with the spiritual was to constitute one whole; but this state of things was rather the object of constant struggle than one actually attained. In Germany and Italy the transition from the feudal condition to monarchy involved the entire abrogation of the former: the vassals became independent monarchs.

Germany had always embraced a great variety of stocks: — Swabians, Bavarians, Franks, Thuringians, Saxons, Burgundians: to these must be added the Sclaves of Bohemia, Germanized Sclaves in Mecklenburg, in Brandenburg, and in a part of Saxony and Austria; so that no such combination as took place in France was possible. Italy presented a similar state of things. The Lombards had established themselves there, while the Greeks still possessed the Exarchate and Lower Italy: the Normans too established a kingdom of their own in Lower Italy, and the Saracens maintained their ground for a time in Sicily. When the rule of the house of Hohenstaufen was terminated, barbarism got the upper hand throughout Germany; the country being broken up into several sovereignties, in which a forceful despotism prevailed. It was the maxim of the electoral princes to raise only weak princes to the imperial throne; they even sold the imperial dignity to foreigners. Thus the unity of the state was virtually annulled. A number of centres of power were formed, each of which was a predatory state: the legal constitution recognized by feudalism was dissolved, and gave place to undisguised violence and plunder; and powerful princes made themselves lords of the country. After the interregnum the Count of Hapsburg was elected Emperor, and the House of Hapsburg continued to fill the imperial throne with but little interruption. These emperors were obliged to create a force of their own, as the princes would not grant them an adequate power attached to the empire. But that state of absolute anarchy was at last put an end to by associations having general aims in view. In the cities themselves we see associations of a minor order; but now confederations of cities were formed with a common interest in the suppression of predatory violence. Of this kind was the Hanseatic League in the North, the Rhenish League consisting of cities lying along the Rhine, and the Swabian League. The aim of all these confederations was resistance to the feudal lords; and even princes united with the cities, with a view to the subversion of the feudal condition and the restoration of a peaceful state of things throughout the country. What the state of society was under feudal sovereignty is evident from the notorious association formed for executing criminal justice: it was a private tribunal, which, under the name of the Vehmgericht, held secret sittings; its chief seat was the northwest of Germany. A peculiar peasant association was also formed. In Germany the peasants were bondmen; many of them took refuge in the towns, or settled down as freemen in the neighborhood of the towns (Pfahlbürger); but in Switzerland a peasant fraternity was established. The peasants of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were under imperial governors; for the Swiss governments were not the property of private possessors, but were official appointments of the Empire. These the sovereigns of the Hapsburg line wished to secure to their own house. The peasants, with club and iron-studded mace [Morgenstern], returned victorious from a contest with the haughty steel-clad nobles, armed with spear and sword, and practised in the chivalric encounters of the tournament. Another invention also tended to deprive the nobility of the ascendancy which they owed to their accoutrements — that of gunpowder. Humanity needed it, and it made its appearance forthwith. It was one of the chief instruments in freeing the world from the dominion of physical force, and placing the various orders of society on a level. With the distinction between the weapons they used, vanished also that between lords and serfs. And before gunpowder fortified places were no longer impregnable, so that strongholds and castles now lose their importance. We may indeed be led to lament the decay or the depreciation of the practical value of personal valor — the bravest, the noblest may be shot down by a cowardly wretch at safe distance in an obscure lurking-place; but, on the other hand, gunpowder has made a rational, considerate bravery — Spiritual valor — the essential to martial success. Only through this instrumentality could that superior order of valor be called forth — that valor in which the heat of personal feeling has no share; for the discharge of firearms is directed against a body of men — an abstract enemy, not individual combatants. The warrior goes to meet deadly peril calmly, sacrificing himself for the common weal; and the valor of cultivated nations is characterized by the very fact, that it does not rely on the strong arm alone, but places its confidence essentially in the intelligence, the generalship, the character of its commanders; and, as was the case among the ancients, in a firm combination and unity of spirit on the part of the forces they command.

In Italy, as already noticed, we behold the same spectacle as in Germany — the attainment of an independent position by isolated centres of power. In that country, warfare in the hands of the Condottieri became a regular business. The towns were obliged to attend to their trading concerns, and therefore employed mercenary troops, whose leaders often became feudal 403 lords; Francis Sforza even made himself Duke of Milan. In Florence, the Medici, a family of merchants, rose to power. On the other hand, the larger cities of Italy reduced under their sway several smaller ones and many feudal chiefs. A Papal territory was likewise formed. There, also, a very large number of feudal lords had made themselves independent; by degrees they all became subject to the one sovereignty of the Pope. How thoroughly equitable in the view of social morality such a subjugation was, is evident from Machiavelli’s celebrated work “The Prince.” This book has often been thrown aside in disgust, as replete with the maxims of the most revolting tyranny; but nothing worse can be urged against it than that the writer, having the profound consciousness of the necessity for the formation of a State, has here exhibited the principles on which alone states could be founded in the circumstances of the times. The chiefs who asserted an isolated independence, and the power they arrogated, must be entirely subdued; and though we cannot reconcile with our idea of Freedom, the means which he proposes as the only efficient ones, and regards as perfectly justifiable — inasmuch as they involve the most reckless violence, all kinds of deception, assassination, and so forth — we must nevertheless confess that the feudal nobility, whose power was to be subdued, were assailable in no other way, since an indomitable contempt for principle, and an utter depravity of morals, were thoroughly engrained in them.

In France we find the converse of that which occurred in Germany and Italy. For many centuries the Kings of France possessed only a very small domain, so that many of their vassals were more powerful than themselves: but it was a great advantage to the royal dignity in France, that the principle of hereditary monarchy was firmly established there. The consideration it enjoyed was increased by the circumstance that the corporations and cities had their rights and privileges confirmed by the king, and that the appeals to the supreme feudal tribunal — the Court of Peers, consisting of twelve members enjoying that dignity — became increasingly frequent. The king’s influence was extended by his affording that protection which only the throne could give. But that which essentially secured respect for royalty, even among the powerful vassals, was the increasing personal power of the sovereign. In various ways, by inheritance, by marriage, by force of arms, etc., the Kings had come into possession of many Earldoms [Grafschaften] and several Duchies. The Dukes of Normandy had, however, become Kings of England; and thus a formidable power confronted France, whose interior lay open to it by way of Normandy. Besides this there were powerful Duchies still remaining; nevertheless, the King was not a mere feudal suzerain [Lehnsherr] like the German Emperors, but had become a territorial possessor [Landesherr]: he had a number of barons and cities under him, who were subject to his immediate jurisdiction; and Louis IX succeeded in rendering appeals to the royal tribunal common throughout his kingdom. The towns attained a position of greater importance in the state. For when the king needed money, and all his usual resources — such as taxes and forced contributions of all kinds — were exhausted, he made application to the towns and entered into separate negotiations with them. It was Philip the Fair who, in the year 1302, first convoked the deputies of the towns as a Third Estate in conjunction with the clergy and the barons. All indeed that they were in the first instance concerned with was the authority of the sovereign as the power that had convoked them, and the raising of taxes as the object of their convocation; but the States nevertheless secured an importance and weight in the kingdom, and as the natural result, an influence on legislation also. A fact which is particularly remarkable is the proclamation issued by the kings of France, giving permission to the bondsmen on the crown lands to purchase their freedom at a moderate price. In the way we have indicated the kings of France very soon attained great power; while the flourishing state of the poetic art in the hands of the Troubadours, and the growth of the scholastic theology, whose especial centre was Paris, gave France a culture superior to that of the other European states, and which secured the respect of foreign nations.

England, as we have already had occasion to mention, was subjugated by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy. William introduced the feudal system into it, and divided the kingdom into fiefs, which he granted almost exclusively to his Norman followers. He himself retained considerable crown possessions; the vassals were under obligation to perform service in the field, and to aid in administering justice: the King was the guardian of all vassals under age; they could not marry without his consent. Only by degrees did the barons and the towns attain a position of importance. It was especially in the disputes and struggles for the throne that they acquired considerable weight. When the oppressive rule and fiscal exactions of the Kings became intolerable, contentions and even war ensued: the barons compelled King John to swear to Magna Charta, the basis of English liberty, i.e. more particularly of the privileges of the nobility. Among the liberties thus secured, that which concerns the administration of justice was the chief: no Englishman was to be deprived of personal freedom, property, or life without the judicial verdict of his peers. Every one, moreover, was to be entitled to the free disposition of his property. Further, the King was to impose no taxes without the consent of the archbishops, bishops, earls, and barons. The towns, also, favored by the Kings in opposition to the barons, soon elevated themselves into a Third Estate and to representation in the Commons’ House of Parliament. Yet the King was always very powerful, if he possessed strength of character: his crown estates procured for him due consideration; in later times, however, these were gradually alienated — given away — so that the King was reduced to apply for subsidies to the parliament.

We shall not pursue the minute and specifically historic details that concern the incorporation of principalities with states, or the dissensions and contests that accompanied such incor-porations. We have only to add that the kings, when by weakening the feudal constitution, they had attained a higher degree of power, began to use that power against each other in the undisguised interest of their own dominion. Thus France and England carried on wars with each other for a century. The kings were always endeavoring to make foreign conquests; the towns, which had the largest share of the burdens and expenses of such wars, were opposed to them, and in order to placate them the kings granted them important privileges.

The Popes endeavored to make the disturbed state of society to which each of these changes gave rise, an occasion for the intervention of their authority; but the interest of the growth of states was too firmly established to allow them to make their own interest of absolute authority valid against it. Princes and peoples were indifferent to papal clamor urging them to new crusades. The Emperor Louis set to work to deduce from Aristotle, the Bible, and the Roman Law a refutation of the assumptions of the Papal See; and the electors declared at the Diet held at Rense in 1338, and afterwards still more decidedly at the Imperial Diet held at Frankfort, that they would defend the liberties and hereditary rights of the Empire, and that to make the choice of a Roman Emperor or King valid, no papal confirmation was needed. So, at an earlier date, 1302, on occasion of a contest between Pope Boniface and Philip the Fair, the Assembly of the States convoked by the latter had offered opposition to the Pope. For states and communities had arrived at the consciousness of independent moral worth. — Various causes had united to weaken the papal authority: the Great Schism of the Church, which led men to doubt the Pope’s infallibility, gave occasion to the decisions of the Councils of Constance and Basle, which assumed an authority superior to that of the Pope, and therefore deposed and appointed Popes. The numerous attempts directed against the ecclesiastical system confirmed the necessity of a reformation, Arnold of Brescia, Wickliffe, and Huss met with sympathy in contending against the dogma of the papal vicegerency of Christ, and the gross abuses that disgraced the hierarchy. These attempts were, however, only partial in their scope. On the one hand the time was not yet ripe for a more comprehensive onslaught; on the other hand the assailants in question did not strike at the heart of the matter, but (especially the two latter) attacked the teaching of the Church chiefly with the weapons of erudition, and consequently failed to excite a deep interest among the people at large.

But the ecclesiastical principle had a more dangerous foe in the incipient formation of political organizations, than in the antagonists above referred to. A common object, an aim intrinsically possessed of perfect moral validity, presented itself to secularity in the formation of states; and to this aim of community the will, the desire, the caprice of the individual submitted themselves. The hardness characteristic of the self-seeking quality of “Heart,” maintaining its position of isolation — the knotty heart of oak underlying the national temperament of the Germans — was broken down and mellowed by the terrible discipline of the Middle Ages. The two iron rods which were the instruments of this discipline were the Church and serfdom. The Church drove the “Heart” [Gemüth] to desperation — made Spirit pass through the severest bondage, so that the soul was no longer its own; but it did not degrade it to Hindoo torpor, for Christianity is an intrinsically spiritual principle and, as such, has a boundless elasticity. In the same way serfdom, which made a man’s body not his own, but the property of another, dragged humanity through all the barbarism of slavery and unbridled desire, and the latter was destroyed by its own violence. It was not so much from slavery as through slavery that humanity was emancipated. For barbarism, lust, injustice constitute evil: man, bound fast in its fetters, is unfit for morality and religiousness; and it is from this intemperate and ungovernable state of volition that the discipline in question emancipated him. The Church fought the battle with the violence of rude sensuality in a temper equally wild and terroristic with that of its antagonist: it prostrated the latter by dint of the terrors of hell, and held it in perpetual subjection, in order to break down the spirit of barbarism and to tame it into repose. Theology declares that every man has this struggle to pass through, since he is by nature evil, and only by passing through a state of mental laceration arrives at the certainty of Reconciliation. But granting this, it must on the other hand be maintained, that the form of the contest is very much altered when the conditions of its commencement are different, and when that reconciliation has had an actual realization. The path of torturous discipline is in that case dispensed with (it does indeed make its appearance at a later date, but in a quite different form), for the waking up of consciousness finds man surrounded by the element of a moral state of society. The phase of negation is, indeed, a necessary element in human development, but it has now assumed the tranquil form of education, so that all the terrible characteristics of that inward struggle vanish.

Humanity has now attained the consciousness of a real internal harmonization of Spirit, and a good conscience in regard to actuality — to secular existence. The Human Spirit has come to stand on its own basis. In the self-consciousness to which man has thus advanced, there is no revolt against the Divine, but a manifestation of that better subjectivity, which recognizes the Divine in its own being; which is imbued with the Good and True, and which directs its activities to general and liberal objects bearing the stamp of rationality and beauty. Art and Science as Putting a Period to the Middle Ages

Humanity beholds its spiritual firmament restored to serenity. With that tranquil settling down of the world into political order which we have been contemplating, was conjoined an exaltation of Spirit to a nobler grade of humanity in a sphere involving more comprehensive and concrete interests than that with which political existence is concerned. The Sepulchre — that caput mortuum of Spirit — and the Ultramundane cease to absorb human attention. The principle of a specific and definite embodiment of the Infinite — that desideratum which urged the world to the Crusades, now developed itself in a quite different direction, viz. in secular existence asserting an independent ground: Spirit made its embodiment an outward one and found a congenial sphere in the secular life thus originated. The Church, however, maintained its former position, and retained the principle in question in its original form. Yet even in this case, that principle ceased to be limited to a bare outward existence [a sacred thing, the Host, e.g.]: it was transformed and elevated by Art. Art spiritualizes — animates the mere outward and material object of adoration with a form which expresses soul, sentiment, Spirit; so that piety has not a bare sensuous embodiment of the Infinite to contemplate, and does not lavish its devotion on a mere Thing, but on the higher element with which the material object is imbued — that expressive form with which Spirit has invested it. — It is one thing for the mind to have before it a mere Thing — such as the Host per se, a piece of stone or wood, or a wretched daub; — quite another thing for it to contemplate a painting, rich in thought and sentiment, or a beautiful work of sculpture, in looking at which, soul holds converse with soul and Spirit with Spirit. In the former case, Spirit is torn from its proper element, bound down to something utterly alien to it — the Sensuous, the Non-Spiritual. In the latter, on the contrary, the sensuous object is a beautiful one, and the Spiritual Form with which it is en- ’dued, gives it a soul and contains truth in itself. But on the one hand, this element of truth as thus exhibited, is manifested only in a sensuous mode, not in its appropriate form; on the other hand, while Religion normally involves independence of that which is essentially a mere outward and material object — a mere thing — that kind of religion which is now under consideration, finds no satisfaction in being brought into connection with the Beautiful: the coarsest, ugliest, poorest representations will suit its purpose equally well — perhaps better. Accordingly real masterpieces — e.g. Raphael’s Madonnas — do not enjoy distinguished veneration, or elicit a multitude of offerings: inferior pictures seem on the contrary to be especial favorites and to be made the object of the warmest devotion and the most generous liberality. Piety passes by the former for this very reason, that were it to linger in their vicinity it would feel an inward stimulus and attraction; — an excitement of a kind which cannot but be felt to be alien, where all that is desiderated is a sense of mental bondage in which self is lost — the stupor of abject dependence. — Thus Art in its very nature transcended the principle of the Church. But as the former manifests itself only under sensuous limitations [and does not present the suspicious aspect of abstract thought], it is at first regarded as a harmless and indifferent matter. The Church, therefore, continued to follow it; but as soon as the free Spirit in which Art originated, advanced to Thought and Science, a separation ensued.

For Art received a further support and experienced an elevating influence as the result of the study of antiquity (the name humaniora is very expressive, for in those works of antiquity honor is done to the Human and to the development of Humanity): through this study the West became acquainted with the true and eternal element in the activity of man. The outward occasion of this revival of science was the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Large numbers of Greeks took refuge in the West and introduced Greek literature there; and they brought with them not only the knowledge of the Greek language but also the treasures to which that knowledge was the key. Very little of Greek literature had been preserved in the convents, and an acquaintance with the language could scarcely be said to exist at all. With the Roman literature it was otherwise; in regard to that, ancient traditions still lingered: Virgil was thought to be a great magician (in Dante he appears as the guide in Hell and Purgatory). Through the influence of the Greeks, then, attention was again directed to the ancient Greek literature; the West had become capable of enjoying and appreciating it; quite other ideals and a different order of virtue from that with which mediaeval Europe was familiar were here presented; an altogether novel standard for judging of what was to be honored, commended and imitated was set up. The Greeks in their works exhibited quite other moral commands than those with which the West was acquainted; scholastic formalism had to make way for a body of speculative thought of a widely different complexion: Plato became known in the West, and in him a new human world presented itself. These novel ideas met with a principal organ of diffusion in the newly discovered Art of Printing, which, like the use of gunpowder, corresponds with modern character, and supplied the desideratum of the age in which it was invented, by tending to enable men to stand in an ideal connection with each other. So far as the study of the ancients manifested an interest in human deeds and virtues, the Church continued to tolerate it, not observing that in those alien works an altogether alien spirit was advancing to confront it.

As a third leading feature demanding our notice in determining the character of the period, might be mentioned that urging of Spirit outwards — that desire on the part of man to become acquainted with his world. The chivalrous spirit of the maritime heroes of Portugal and Spain opened a new way to the East Indies and discovered America. This progressive step also, involved no transgression of the limits of ecclesiastical principles or feeling. The aim of Columbus was by no means a merely secular one: it presented also a distinctly religious aspect; the treasures of those rich Indian lands which awaited his discovery were destined in his intention to be expended in a new Crusade, and the heathen inhabitants of the countries themselves were to be converted to Christianity. The recognition of the spherical figure of the earth led man to perceive that it offered him a definite and limited object, and navigation had been benefited by the new found instrumentality of the magnet, enabling it to be something better than mere coasting: thus technical appliances make their appearance when a need for them is experienced.

These three events — the so-called Revival of Learning, the flourishing of the Fine Arts and the discovery of America and of the passage to India by the Cape — may be compared with that blush of dawn, which after long storms first betokens the return of a bright and glorious day. This day is the day of Universality, which breaks upon the world after the long, eventful, and terrible night of the Middle Ages — a day which is distinguished by science, art and inventive impulse — that is, by the noblest and highest, and which Humanity, rendered free by Christianity and emancipated through the instrumentality of the Church, exhibits as the eternal and veritable substance of its being.