VI.

BOOK Bohemians, Vandals, Dalmatians, and Francs, by Athelstan. their successful issue, produced to him a high reputation, and gave new dignity and power to the imperial crown; but his mind soared above the praise of a barbarous conqueror. Such characters have a thousand rivals. The catalogue of men, whose successful courage or tactical management has decided fields of battle in their favour, is as extensive as time itself. Wars have every where deformed the world, and conquerors may of course every where be found. It is for those who display a cultured intellect and useful virtues; whose lives have added something to the stock of human happiness; and whose characters therefore present to us the visions of true greatness, that history must reserve its frugal panegyrics: Henry the Fowler was one of these most fortunate personages. He found his German subjects wedded to their barbarism by their agricultural and pastoral habits; and while he provided for their safety he laboured to improve both their morals and their mind. 63

He determined, for this purpose, to draw the population of Germany from their rude, unsocial, and exposed villages, into towns; into those happy approximations of society which present a barrier to the sword of war, which are the nurseries of the middle orders of men, which tame the

63 Conrad seems to have foreseen this disposition in Henry, for it is his reason for selecting the Saxon duke: "Sunt nobis, frater, copiæ exercitus congregandi atque ducendi, sunt urbes et arma cum regalibus insigniis et omne quod decus regium deposcit, præter fortunam atque mores. Fortuna, frater, cum nobilissimis moribus, Henrico cedit. Wittichind, p. 10.

64 Before this period, excepting the castles on the mountains, the seats of the nobility and convents, which happened to be surrounded with walls, there were only lonely farms and villages." Pütter's Historical Developement, vol. i. p. 114.

ferocities of the human passions, give dominion to moral sympathy, communicate cultivation and knowlege by perpetual contagion, and cause the virtues to blossom amid general emulation, by daily lessons of their necessity, their diffusion, and their fame. These towns he fortified with skilful labour. 65

To effect his purpose, he commanded, that of the men in the villages who bore arms, a ninth should be placed in towns, for whose benefit the rest should cultivate the labours of husbandry. The townsmen were to receive a third of the collected harvest; and, in return, they built barns and habitations, within the city, for the peasants. When war summoned, the burghers hastened to the defence of their country. By this institution the ravages of enemies never introduced famine, because the granaries in the cities were an ultimate supply, and warriors were always ready to fly to the field when exigency called."

To induce the people to make towns their voluntary residence, he forbad suburbs; and ordered that the country habitations should be few and mean. He ordered all solemn meetings, the festivities of marriage, and the traffic of merchandise, to be held in towns; he directed the citizens to improve themselves by useful industry, and, in peace, to learn those arts which they might practise to their benefit. 67

65 "In this respect Germany has undergone but little alteration. Most of the ancient cities, and even inconsiderable towns, are surrounded with walls, towers, &c. which give them a singular and dismal appearance. Pütter, ed. note, p. 115.

66 See the Instituta of Henry apud Goldastum, sub anno 924. I find them cited in the Aquila Saxonica, p. 24. ed. Venet. 1673. Wittichind mentions them briefly, p. 13.

67 Instituta Henrici in Aquila Sax. p. 24. The latter precept is enforced by a moral observation: " Disciplina enim et labor magnum ad virtutem afferunt momentum." Ibid.

CHAP.

II. Athelstan.

919.

BOOK

VI. Athelstan.

919.

932.

Otho mar

ries Athelstan's sis

ter.

Athelstan's

transactions with Norway.

By his regulations, by his personal diligence, and by their own beneficial experience, the Germans gradually laid aside their aversion to live in towns, and these important seminaries of human improvement perpetually increased. 69

HENRY, during his life, extended his communications to England; and in 932, by his permission, Otho sought a wife from the sisters of Athelstan.

EDITHA was residing in her brother Athelstan's court, when the ambassadors of Henry arrived to request her for his son. Athelstan received them benignly, his sister assented, and a magnificent attendance, which his chancellor, Turketul, headed70, conducted her to her royal lover. Her sister Adiva went with her, that Otho might be more honoured, and might take his choice." Editha was preferred by the too highly honoured Otho, and her sister was married to a prince near the Alps, who was one of the emperor's court.72

ATHELSTAN'S transactions with Norway were also interesting.

In the reign of Edward, and at the accession of Athelstan, Harald Harfragre was reigning the monarch of Norway. He had subdued all the little kings, who had divided it into many small states, and his victories had never been reversed.

HARALD, though a barbarian, was not merely the

68 Soest, in Westphalia, is probably one of the first cities founded by Henry. Next to this town, the most ancient are supposed to be Quedlinburg, Nordhausen, Duderstadt, Merseberg, &c. Pütter, note 117.

69 Hrosvida. Poem de Gestis Oddonis, p. 165. She calls our island, terram sat deliciosam.

70 Ingulf, p. 38.

71 Hrosvida, p. 165.

72 Ethelwerd's preface. Ingulf, 38., and Malmsb. 47. Hrosvida mourns the death of Editha with great expressions of sorrow, p. 171.

brutal soldier. The spirit of improvement, which CHAP. at this period influenced an Alfred and a Henry, Athelstan.

He

seems to have been communicated to him.
also aspired to legislate as well as to conquer.73
He endeavoured to civilise the countries he
subdued.

74

THE Wars of Harald, though inevitably productive of much individual misery, have the great excuse, that defence first compelled him into the martial field. In a general view, his conquests had a beneficial effect. They dispersed several portions of the Norwegian population into countries then uninhabited. Thus Iceland", the Orkneys76, the Shetland, and the Feroe islands", date their inhabitation in his reign, as well as Jamtia and Helsingia, provinces of Sweden.78 But his principal merit was his prohibition of piracy, and the termination of much of the bloodshed of the North, by conquering all the petty princes, and establishing a monarchy in Norway.

THE piracy of the North was a very active agent in perpetuating that barbarism and ferocity of which it was also the consequence. Like our modern slave-traffic, wherever it came it desolated; and

73 Snorre has preserved some of the laws of Harald, in his Haralld's Saga, c. vi. p. 79.

74 Post obitum Halfdani Nigri regnum ab eo relictum invasere principum multi. Snorre, Haralld's Saga, c. i. p. 75. He details the invasions, their issue, and Harald's retaliations.

75 Islandia inhabitatur primum a Norwegis diebus Haraldi Harfager. Ara Frode, c. i. p. 6. Eo tempore erat Islandia sylvis concreta, c. ii. p. 10. The Norwegian emigrants found some Christians in it, who went away on their arrival, leaving some Irish books behind. Ibid. Ara Frode was born 1060. Snorre says, he was the first of all who wrote hac in regione sermone Norwegico tam prisci quam recentioris ævi monumenta. Preface, p. 3.

76 Orkneyinga Saga, p. 3. ed. Hafniæ, 1780. 77 Snorre, Haralld's Saga, c. 20. p. 96.

78 Snorre, ibid.

II.

VI.

BOOK while it reigned, it kept down the human capacity in the bondage of the most destructive warfare, penury, and blood.

Athelstan.

THAT hour was therefore auspicious to man when the abolition of the petty kingships, the aggregation of dominion, and the rise of monarchies, created at once both the power and the desire to suppress these pirates. When Harald had stretched his sceptre over all Norway, every aggression of piracy was an attack on some of his subjects; and as he raised a contribution from their labours 79. every act of plunder upon them was a diminution of his revenues.

HARALD therefore published an edict, prohibiting piratical excursions on any part of his dominions.80 He enforced his law by a vindictive pursuit of the race he discountenanced. He prepared armaments; they fled; he chased them from his own dominions; he followed them to Shetland, to the Orkneys, and to the Hebrides; he overtook and destroyed them. 81 These exertions drove Rollo or Hrolfr from his dominions, and occasioned the Northman colonisation of Normandy.

THE life of Harald stretched into the reign of Athelstan. It is said, that Athelstan had, in his youth, visited Denmark.82 It is, however, certain, that when the Anglo-Saxon was on his throne, an intercourse, which announced high friendship,

79 It was one of his laws that Regique census fundi solverent coloni omnes, ditiores æque ac pauperes. Snorre; Haralld's Saga, p. 80. He deputed to his Iarls, whom he placed over every fylki, the power of collecting the taxation, of which they received a third to support their rank and expenditure. Ib.

80 Haralld's Saga, c. 24. p. 100.

81 Snorre, p. 98.

82 It is Wallingford who affirms this, in his Chronica, though from what more ancient authority I know not: "Descenderat enim aliquando in tempore patris sui ad Gytrum in Daciam, p. 540.