Famous Men of the Middle Ages Part 10

EGBERT

KING FROM 802-837 A.D.

I

Egbert the Saxon lived at the same time as did Harun-al-Ras.h.i.+d and Charlemagne. He was the first king who ruled all England as one kingdom. Long before his birth the people who are known to us as Britons lived there, and they gave to the island the name Britain.

But Britain was invaded by the Romans under Julius Caesar and his successors, and all that part of it which we now call England was added to the Empire of Rome. The Britons were driven into Wales and Cornwall, the western sections of the island.

The Romans kept possession of the island for nearly four hundred years. They did not leave it until 410, the year that Alaric sacked the city of Rome. At this time the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain.

Some years before this the Saxons, Angles and Jutes, German tribes, had settled near the sh.o.r.es of the North Sea. They learned much about Britain; for trading vessels, even at that early day, crossed the Channel. Among other things, the men from the north learned that Britain was crossed with good Roman roads, and dotted with houses of brick and stone; that walled cities had taken the place of tented camps, and that the country for miles round each city was green every spring with waving wheat, or white with orchard blossoms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENGIST AND HORSA LANDING IN ENGLAND]

After the Roman legions had left Britain, the Jutes, led, it is said, by two great captains named Hengist and Horsa, landed upon the southeastern coast and made a settlement.

Britain proved a pleasant place to live in, and soon the Angles and Saxons also left the North Sea sh.o.r.es and invaded the beautiful island.

The new invaders met with brave resistance. The Britons were headed by King Arthur, about whom many marvelous stories are told. His court was held at Caerleon (_car'le-on_), in North Wales, where his hundred and fifty knights banqueted at their famous "Round Table."

The British king and his knights fought with desperate heroism.

But they could not drive back the Saxons and their companions and were obliged to seek refuge in the western mountainous parts of the island, just as their forefathers had done when the Romans invaded Britain. Thus nearly all England came into the possession of the three invading tribes.

II

Arthur and his knights were devoted Christians. For the Romans had not only made good roads and built strong walls and forts in Britain, but they had also brought the Christian religion into the island. And at about the time of the Saxon invasion St. Patrick was founding churches and monasteries in Ireland, and was baptizing whole clans of the Irish at a time. It is said that he baptized 12,000 persons with his own hand. Missionaries were sent out by the Irish Church to convert the wild Picts of Scotland and at a later day the distant barbarians of Germany and Switzerland.

The Saxons, Angles, and Jutes believed in the old Norse G.o.ds, and Tiew and Woden, Thor and Friga, or Frija, were wors.h.i.+ped on the soil of Britain for more than a hundred years.

The Britons tried to convert their conquerors, but the invaders did not care to be taught religion by those whom they had conquered; so the British missionaries found the work unusually hard. Aid came to them in a singular way. At some time near the year 575 A.D., the Saxons quarreled and fought with their friends, the Angles.

They took some Angles prisoners and carried them to Rome to be sold in the great slave-market there. A monk named Gregory pa.s.sed one day through the market and saw these captives. He asked the dealer who they were. "Angles," was the answer.

"Oh," said the monk, "they would be _angels_ instead of _Angles_ if they were only Christians; for they certainly have the faces of angels."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. PATRICK BAPTIZING IRISH PRINCESSES]

Years after, when that monk was the Pope of Rome, he remembered this conversation and sent the monk Au-gus'tine to England to teach the Christian religion to the savage but angel-faced Angles. Augustine and the British missionaries converted the Anglo-Saxons two hundred years before the German Saxons were converted.

Still, though both Angles and Saxons called themselves Christians, they were seldom at peace; and for more than two hundred years they frequently fought. Various chiefs tried to make themselves kings; and at length there came to be no less than seven small kingdoms in South Britain.

In 784 Egbert claimed to be heir of the kingdom called Wess.e.x; but the people elected another man and Egbert had to flee for his life. He went to the court of Charlemagne, and was with the great king of the Franks in Rome on Christmas Day, 800, when the Pope placed the crown on Charles' head and proclaimed him emperor.

Soon after this a welcome message came to Egbert. The mind of the people in Wess.e.x had changed and they had elected him king. So bidding farewell to Charlemagne, he hurried to England.

Egbert had seen how Charlemagne had compelled the different quarreling tribes of Germany to yield allegiance to him and how after uniting his empire he had ruled it well.

Egbert did in England what Charlemagne had done in Germany. He either persuaded the various petty kingdoms of the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes to recognize him as their ruler, or forced them to do so; and thus under him all England became one united kingdom.

But Egbert did even better than this. He did much to harmonize the different tribes by his wise conciliation. The name "England"

is a memorial of this; for though Egbert himself was a Saxon, he advised that to please the Angles the country should be called An'gli-a, that is, Angleland or England, the land of the Angles, instead of Sax-on-i'a, or Saxonland.

ROLLO THE VIKING

DIED 931 A.D.

I

For more than two hundred years during the Middle Ages the Christian countries of Europe were attacked on the southwest by the Saracens of Spain, and on the northwest by the Nors.e.m.e.n, or Northmen. The Northmen were so called because they came into Middle Europe from the north. Sometimes they were called Vi'kings, or pirates, because they were adventurous sea-robbers who plundered all countries which they could reach by sea.

Their s.h.i.+ps were long and swift. In the center was placed a single mast, which carried one large sail. For the most part, however, the Nors.e.m.e.n depended on rowing, not on the wind, and sometimes there were twenty rowers in one vessel.

The Vikings were a terror to all their neighbors; but the two regions that suffered most from their attacks were the Island of Britain and that part of Charlemagne's empire in which the Franks were settled.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARAUDING EXPEDITION OF NORTHMEN]

Nearly fifty times in two hundred years the lands of the Franks were invaded. The Vikings sailed up the large rivers into the heart of the region which we now call France and captured and pillaged cities and towns. Some years after Charlemagne's death they went as far as his capital, Aix (_aks_), took the place, and stabled their horses in the cathedral which the great emperor had built.

In the year 860 they discovered Iceland and made a settlement upon its sh.o.r.es. A few years later they sailed as far as Greenland, and there established settlements which existed for about a century.

These Vikings were the first discoverers of the continent on which we live. Ancient books found in Iceland tell the story of the discovery.

It is related that a Viking s.h.i.+p was driven during a storm to a strange coast, which is thought to have been that part of America now known as Labrador.

When the captain of the s.h.i.+p returned home he told what he had seen. His tale so excited the curiosity of a young Viking prince, called Leif the Lucky, that he sailed to the newly discovered coast.

Going ash.o.r.e, he found that the country abounded in wild grapes; and so he called it Vinland, or the land of Vines. Vinland is thought to have been a part of what is now the Rhode Island coast.

The Vikings were not aware that they had found a great unknown continent. No one in the more civilized parts of Europe knew anything about their discovery; and after a while the story of the Vinland voyages seems to have been forgotten, even among the Vikings themselves.

So it is not to them that we owe the discovery of America, but to Columbus; because his discovery, though nearly five hundred years later than that of the Nors.e.m.e.n, actually made known to all Europe, for all time, the existence of the New World.

II

The Vikings had many able chieftains. One of the most famous was Rollo the Walker, so called because he was such a giant that no horse strong enough to carry him could be found, and therefore he always had to walk. However, he did on foot what few could do on horseback.

In 885 seven hundred s.h.i.+ps, commanded by Rollo and other Viking chiefs, left the harbors of Norway, sailed to the mouth of the Seine (_san_), and started up the river to capture the city of Paris.

Rollo and his men stopped on the way at Rouen (_ro-on'_), which also was on the Seine, but nearer its mouth. The citizens had heard of the giant, and when they saw the river covered by his fleet they were dismayed. However, the bishop of Rouen told them that Rollo could be as n.o.ble and generous as he was fierce; and he advised them to open their gates and trust to the mercy of the Viking chief.

This was done, and Rollo marched into Rouen and took possession of it. The bishop had given good advice, for Rollo treated the people very kindly.

Soon after capturing Rouen he left the place, sailed up the river to Paris, and joined the other Viking chiefs. And now for six long miles the beautiful Seine was covered with Viking vessels, which carried an army of thirty thousand men.