The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross, and of relics. The splendid devotion was fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the inventive genius of the Byzantine clergy;.
CONQUEST OF ITALY BY THE FRANKS
The Roman province of Gaul had been transformed into the name and monarchy of France; but, in the decay of the Merovingian line, its limits
After a long and evasive contest, the rebellion of the dukes of Aquitain was punished by the forfeiture of their province, their liberty, and their lives. By the reunion of Aquitain, France was enlarged to its present boundaries, with the additions of the Netherlands and Spain, as far as the Rhine.
The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather and father of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part of Spain,
Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the shores of the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and language are so. But a recent discovery107 has proved that these unhappy princes were the last and lawful heirs of the blood and scepter of Clovis, and younger branch, from the brother of Dagobert, of the Merovingian house.
As king of the Lombards, and patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy, 109 a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the
Their ancient kingdom was reduced to the duchy of Gascogne, to the counties of Fesenzac and Armagnac, at the foot of the Pyrenees: their race was propagated till the beginning of the sixteenth century; and after surviving their Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel the injustice, or the favors, of a third dynasty. The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather andfather of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part of Spain,.
Charlemagne was the first who united Germany under the same scepter. The name of Oriental France is preserved in the circle of
The three-and-thirty campaigns laboriously consumed in the woods and morasses of Germany would have sufficed to assert the amplitude of his title by the expulsion of the Greeks from Italy and the Saracens from Spain. Of the greater part, the title and possession were alike doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the contracted scale of their dominions.
That the prince, who was elected in the German diet, acquired, from that instant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome
At the head of a victorious army, he passed the Alps, subdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered the pope, and forever fixed the Imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany. That the prince, who was elected in the German diet, acquired, from thatinstant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome.
But that he might not legally assume the titles of emperor and Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman
A treaty of peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires, and the limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present possession. These emperors, in the election of the popes, continued to exercise the powers which had been assumed by the Gothic and Grecian princes; and the importance of this prerogative increased with the temporal estate and spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman church.
To fix in the college of cardinals the freedom and independence of
Far different was the situation of the German Caesars, who were ambitious to enslave the kingdom of Italy. During sixty years, no emperor appeared in Italy, and the name was remembered only by the ignominious sale of the last relics of sovereignty.
Seven of the most powerful feudatories were permitted to assume, with a distinguished name and rank, the exclusive privilege of choosing the
Such anarchy was the inevitable consequence of the laws and manners of Europe; and the kingdoms of France and Italy were shivered into fragments by the violence of the same tempest. But the Italian cities and the French vassals were divided and destroyed, while the union of the Germans has produced, under the name of an empire, a great system of a federative republic.
The college of princes and prelates purged themselves of a promiscuous multitude: they reduced to four representative votes the long series of
In the frequent and at last the perpetual institution of diets, a national spirit was kept alive, and the powers of a common legislature are still exercised by the three branches or colleges of the electors, the princes, and the free and Imperial cities of Germany. Seven of the most powerful feudatories were permitted to assume, witha distinguished name and rank, the exclusive privilege of choosing the.
The pride of birth and dominion, of the sword and the mitre, wisely adopted the commons as the third branch of the legislature, and, in the
The death of his competitors united the electoral college, and Charles was unanimously saluted king of the Romans, and future emperor; a title which, in the same age, was prostituted to the Caesars of Germany and Greece. From this humiliating scene, let us turn to the apparent majesty of the same Charles in the diets of the empire.
DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA AND ITS INHABITANTS
According to the tradition of the nocturnal journey, the apostle, in his personal conference with the Deity, was commanded to impose on his
Cleanliness is the key of prayer: the frequent lustration of the hands, the face, and the body, which was practiced of old by the Arabs, is solemnly enjoined by the Koran; and a permission is formally granted to supply with sand the scarcity of water. Among the theists, who reject the use of images, it has been found necessary to restrain the wanderings of the fancy, by directing the eye and the thought towards a kebla, or visible point of the horizon. The prophet was at first inclined to gratify the Jews by the choice of Jerusalem; but he soon returned to a more natural partiality; and five times every day the eyes of the nations at Astracan, at Fez, at Delhi, are devoutly turned to the holy temple of Mecca.
The voluntary102 penance of the ascetics, the torment and glory of their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured in his companions a rash vow of abstaining from flesh, and women, and sleep; and firmly declared, that he would suffer no monks in his religion.103 Yet he instituted, in each year, a fast of thirty days; and strenuously recommended the observance as a discipline which purifies the soul and subdues the body, as a salutary exercise of obedience to the will of God and his apostle. During the month of Ramadan, from the rising to the setting of the sun, the Mussulman abstains from eating, and drinking, and women, and baths, and perfumes;. In the revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadan coincides, by turns, with the winter cold and the summer heat; and the patient martyr, without assuaging his thirst with a drop of water, must expect the close of a tedious and sultry day.
The interdiction of wine, peculiar to some orders of priests or hermits, is converted by Mahomet alone into a positive and general law;104 and a considerable portion of the globe has abjured, at his command, the use of that salutary, though. The charity of the Mahometans descends to the animal creation; andthe Koran repeatedly inculcates, not as a merit, but as a strict and.
The charity of the Mahometans descends to the animal creation; and the Koran repeatedly inculcates, not as a merit, but as a strict and
In the prosecution of religious war, Mahomet might appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of the Judges, and the kings of Israel. Yet their influence in every age has exalted the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first of the true believers might aspire to march before them in this world and in the next;.
In this painful situation he supported the becoming pride of the chief of the Hashemites;. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held the bridle of her camel, were. Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; the lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from the hand of the third.
The bloody shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the emir deplored the fate of his injured kinsman;. But their adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the Mussulman empire, allowed an ample. The cause of this important difference may be found in the separation or union of the regal and sacerdotal characters.
After the reign of three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina to the valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris; the holy.
CONQUESTS BY THE ARABS
Persia;
Syria;
Egypt;
In the first year of the first caliph, his lieutenant Caled, the Sword of God, and the scourge of the infidels, advanced to the banks of the
The first, from the well- timed appearance of six thousand of the Syrian brethren, was denominated the day of succor. The day of concussion might express the disorder of one, or perhaps of both, of the contending armies. Under the first caliphs the jurisdiction of this Arabian colony extended over the southern provinces of Persia: the city has been sanctified by the tombs of the companions and martyrs; and the.
From the remote islands of the Indian Ocean a large provision of camphire25 had been imported, which is. In the days of our common ignorance, we fought with the weapons of the flesh, and my nation was superior. The male line of the Sassanides was extinct; but the female captives, the daughters of Persia, were given to the conquerors in.
After the fall of the Persian kingdom, the River Oxus divided the territories of the Saracens and of the Turks. To their industry, the prosperity of the province, the Sogdiana of the ancients, may in a great measure be ascribed;.
No sooner had Abubeker restored the unity of faith and government, than he despatched a circular letter to the Arabian tribes. “In the name of
Arabia”48 and the first arms of the Saracens were justified by the semblance of a national right. Four days was the general confined to the city by the obligation of the treaty and the urgent cares of his new conquest. In the tumult of the battle Jonas sought and found the object of his pursuit: but her resentment was.
In the prosecution of the war, their policy was not less effectual than their sword. His design was covered by the appearance of a retreat; and the camp of the Saracens was pitched about a league from Aleppo. The foremost in this painful ascent could grasp and climb the lowest part of the.
From thence, returning to his companions, he assaulted on the inside the entrance of the castle. The capital of Syria was still covered by the castle of Aazaz and the iron bridge of the Orontes.
The conquest of Egypt may be explained by the character of the victorious Saracen, one of the first of his nation, in an age when the
The efforts of the Arabs were not inadequate to the difficulty of the attempt and the value of the prize. In every attack, the sword, the banner of Amrou, glittered in the van of the Moslems. Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect knowledge from the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran.
The admiration of the Arabs for their new conquest encouraged the license of their romantic spirit. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean,138 was first attempted by the arms of the caliph Othman. Yet the favor of the prince, and the merit of his favorite, could not obliterate the guilt of his apostasy.
In the eyes of an inquisitive polytheist, it must appear worthy of the human and the divine nature. Five hundred episcopal churches were overturned by the hostile fury of the Donatists, the Vandals, and the Moors.
