insurgents to join his veteran legions, first at Langres and
afterwards at Sens.
{1412}
In a few weeks he was at the head of a strong army, had taken
the guilty town of Genabum and had given it up to fire and the
sword. A little later the capital of the Bituriges, Avaricum
(modern Bourges), suffered the same fate. Next, attempting to
reduce the Arvernian town of Gergovia, he met with a check and
was placed in a serious strait. But with the able help of his
lieutenant Labienus, who defeated a powerful combination of
the Gauls near Lutetia (modern Paris), he broke the toils,
reunited his army, which he had divided, routed Vercingetorix
in a great battle fought in the valley of the Vingeanne, and
shut him up, with 80,000 men, in the city of Alesia. The siege
of Alesia (modern Alise-Sainte-Reine, west of Dijon) which
followed, was the most extraordinary of Cæsar's military
exploits in Gaul. Holding his circumvallation of the town,
against 80,000 within its walls and thrice as many swarming
outside of it, he scattered the latter and forced the
surrender of the former. His triumph was his greatest shame.
Like a very savage, he dragged the knightly Vercingetorix in
his captive train, exhibited him at a subsequent "triumph" in
Rome, and then sent him to be put to death in the ghastly
Tullianum. The fall of Alesia practically ended the revolt;
although even the next year found some fighting to be done,
and one stronghold of the Cadurci, Uxellodunum (modern
Puy-d'Issolu, near Vayrac), held out with great obstinacy. It
was taken by tapping with a tunnel the spring which supplied
the besieged with water, and Cæsar punished the obstinacy of
the garrison by cutting off their hands. Gaul was then deemed
to be conquered and pacified, and Cæsar was prepared for the
final contest with his rivals and enemies at Rome.
Cæsar,
Gallic War.
ALSO IN:
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 4.
Napoleon III.,
History of Cæsar.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 6-7, 10, and 12 (volumes 1-2).
T. A. Dodge,
Cæsar,
chapters 4-25.
GAUL: 2d-3d Century.
Introduction of Christianity.
See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 100-312 (GAUL).
GAUL: A. D. 277.
The invaders driven back by Probus.
"The most important service which Probus [Roman Emperor, A. D.
276-282] rendered to the republic was the deliverance of Gaul,
and the recovery of seventy flourishing cities oppressed by
the barbarians of Germany, who, since the death of Aurelian,
had ravaged that great province with impunity. Among the
various multitude of those fierce invaders, we may
distinguish, with some degree of clearness, three great
armies, or rather nations, successively vanquished by the
valour of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their
morasses; a descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer
that the confederacy known by the manly appellation of 'Free'
already occupied the flat maritime country, intersected and
almost overflown by the stagnating waters of the Rhine, and
that several tribes of the Frisians and Batavians had acceded
to their alliance. He vanquished the Burgundians [and the
Lygians]. ... The deliverance of Gaul is reported to have cost
the lives of 400,000 of the invaders--a work of labour to the
Romans, and of expense to the emperor, who gave a piece of
gold for the head of every barbarian."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 12.
See, also, LYGIANS.
GAUL: A. D. 287.
Insurrection of the Bagauds.
See BAGAUDS;
also, DEDITITIUS.
GAUL: A. D. 355-361.
Julian's recovery of the province from the barbarians.
During the civil wars and religious quarrels which followed
the death of Constantine the Great--more especially in the
three years of the usurpation of Magnentius, in the west (A.
D. 350-353), Gaul was not only abandoned, for the most part,
to the barbarians of Germany, but Franks and Alemanni were
invited by Constantius to enter it. "In a little while a large
part of the north and east of Gaul were in their almost
undisputed possession. The Alamans seized upon the countries
which are now called Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks secured
for themselves Batavia and Toxandria: forty-five flourishing
cities, among them Cologne, Treves, Spires, Worms, and
Strasburg, were ravaged; and, in short, from the sources of
the Rhine to its mouth, forty miles inland, there remained no
safety for the population but in the strongly fortified
towns." In this condition of the Gallic provinces, Julian, the
young nephew of the emperor, was raised to the rank of Cæsar
and sent thither with a trifling force of men to take the
command. "During an administration of six years [A. D.
355-361] this latest Cæsar revived in Gaul the memory of the
indefatigable exploits and the vigorous rule of the first
Cæsar. Insufficient and ill-disciplined as his forces were,
and baffled and betrayed as he was by those who should have
been his aids, he drove the fierce and powerful tribes of the
Alamans, who were now the hydra of the western provinces,
beyond the Upper Rhine; the Chamaves, another warlike tribe,
he pursued into the heart of their native forests; while the
still fiercer and more warlike Franks were dislodged from
their habitations on the Meuse, to accept of conditions from
his hands. ... A part of these, called the Salians, and
destined to figure hereafter, were allowed to settle in
permanence in Toxandria, between the Meuse and the Scheld,
near the modern Tongres. ... By three successful expeditions
beyond the Rhine [he] restored to their friends a multitude of
Roman captives, recovered the broken and down-trodden lines of
the empire, humiliated many of the proud chiefs of the
Germans, and impressed a salutary awe and respect upon their
truculent followers. ... He spent the intervals of peace which
his valor procured in recuperating the wasted energies of the
inhabitants. Their dilapidated cities were repaired, the
excesses of taxation retrenched, the deficient harvests
compensated by large importations of corn from Britain, and
the resources of suspended industry stimulated into new
action. Once more, says Libanius, the Gauls ascended from the
tombs to marry, to travel, to enjoy the festivals, and to
celebrate the public games."
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 2, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 19.
GAUL: A. D. 365-367.
Expulsion of the Alemanni by Valentinian.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 365-367.
GAUL: A. D. 378.
Invasion of the Alemanni.
Their destruction by Gratian.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 378.
{1413}
GAUL: A. D. 406-409.
The breaking of the Rhine barrier.
The same year (A. D. 406) in which Radagaisus, with his motley
barbaric horde, invaded Italy and was destroyed by Stilicho, a
more fatal assault was made upon Gaul. Two armies, in which
were gathered up a vast multitude of Suevi, Vandals, Alans and
Burgundians, passed the Rhine. The Franks opposed them as
faithful allies of the Roman power, and defeated a Vandal army
in one great battle, where 20,000 of the invaders were slain;
but the Alans came opportunely to the rescue of their friends
and forced the Frank defenders of Gaul to give way. "The
victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last
day of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were
most probably frozen, they entered without opposition the
defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the
Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never
afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the
Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the
barriers which had so long separated the savage and the
civilized nations of the earth were, from that fatal moment,
levelled with the ground. ... The flourishing city of Mentz
was surprised and destroyed, and many thousand Christians were
inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long
and obstinate siege; Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay,
Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German
yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of
the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of
Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean,
the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the barbarians,
who drove before them in a promiscuous crowd the bishop, the
senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses
and altars."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 30.
GAUL: A. D. 407-411.
Reign of the usurper Constantine.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 407.
GAUL: A. D. 410-419.
Establishment of the Visigoths in the kingdom of Toulouse.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 410-419.
GAUL: A. D. 410-420.
The Franks join in the attack on Gaul.
See FRANKS: A. D. 410-420.
GAUL: 5th-8th Centuries.
Barbarities of the Frank conquest.
The conquests of the Franks in Gaul, under Clovis, began in
486 and ended with his death in 511 (see FRANKS: A. D.
481-511). "In the year 532, Theoderik, one of the sons and
successors of Chlodowig, said to those Frankish warriors whom
he commanded: 'Follow me as far as Auvergne, and I will make
you enter a country where you will take as much gold and
silver as you possibly can desire; where you can carry away in
abundance flocks, slaves, and garments.' The Franks took up
arms and once more crossing the Loire, they advanced on the
territory of the Bituriges and Arvernes. These paid with
interest for the resistance they had dared to the first
invasion. Everything amongst them was devastated; the churches
and monasteries were razed to their foundations. The young men
and women were dragged, their hands bound, after the luggage
to be sold as slaves. The inhabitants of this unfortunate
country perished in large numbers or were ruined by the
pillage. Nothing was left them of what they had possessed,
says an ancient chronicle, except the land, which the
barbarians could not carry away. Such were the neighbourly
relations kept up by the Franks with the Gallic populations
which had remained beyond their limits. Their conduct with
respect to the natives of the northern provinces was hardly
less hostile. When Hilperik, the son of Chlother, wished, in
the year 584, to send his daughter in marriage to the king of
the West Goths, or Visigoths, settled in Spain, he came to
Paris and carried away from the houses belonging to the 'fisc'
a great number of men and women, who were heaped up in
chariots to accompany and serve the bride elect. Those who
refused to depart, and wept, were put in prison: several
strangled themselves in despair. Many people of the best
families enlisted by force into this procession, made their
will, and gave their property to the churches. 'The son,' says
a contemporary, 'was separated from his father, the mother
from her daughter; they departed sobbing, and pronouncing deep
curses; so many persons in Paris were in tears that it might
be compared to the desolation of Egypt.' In their domestic
misfortunes the kings of the Franks sometimes felt remorse,
and trembled at the evil they had done. ... But this momentary
repentance soon yielded to the love of riches, the most
violent passion of the Franks. Their incursions into the south
of Gaul recommenced as soon as that country, recovered from its
terrors and defeats, no longer admitted their garrisons nor
tax collectors. Karle, to whom the fear of his arms gave the
surname of Marteau, made an inroad as far as Marseilles; he
took possession of Lyons, Arles, and Vienne, and carried off
an immense booty to the territory of the Franks. When this
same Karle, to insure his frontiers, went to fight the
Saracens in Aquitania, he put the whole country to fire and
sword; he burnt Bérgiers, Agde, and Nûnes; the arenas of the
latter city still bear traces of the fire. At death of Karle,
his two sons, Karlemann and Peppin, continued the great
enterprise of replacing the inhabitants of the south, to whom
the name of Romans was still given, under the yoke of the
Franks. ... Southern Gaul was to the sons of the Franks what
entire Gaul had been to their fathers; a country, the riches
and climate of which attracted them incessantly, and saw them
return as enemies, as soon as it did not purchase peace of
them."
A. Thierry,
Narratives of the Merovingian Era, Historical Essays, etc.,
essay 24.
GAUL: 5th-10th Centuries.
The conquerors and the conquered.
State of society under the barbarian rule.
The evolution of Feudalism.
"After the conclusion of the great struggles which took place
in the fourth and fifth centuries, whether between the German
conquerors and the last forces of the empire, or between the
nations which had occupied different portions of Gaul, until
the Franks remained sole masters of the country, two races,
two populations, which had nothing in common but religion,
appear forcibly brought together, and, as it were, face to
face with each other, in one political community. The
Gallo-Roman population presents under the same law very
different and very unequal conditions; the barbarian
population comprises, together with its own peculiar
classifications of ranks and conditions, distinct laws and
nationalities. In the first we find citizens absolutely free,
coloni, or husbandmen belonging to the lands of a proprietor,
and domestic slaves deprived of all civil rights; in the
second, we see the Frankish race divided into two tribes, each
having its own peculiar law [the law of the Salic Franks or Salic
law, and the law of the Ripuarian Franks or Ripuarian law];
the Burgundians, the Goths, and the rest of the Teutonic
races, who became subjected, either of their own accord or by
force, to, the Frankish empire, governed by other and entirely
different laws; but among them all, as well as among the
Franks, we find at least three social conditions--two degrees
of liberty, and slavery.
{1414}
Among these incongruous states of existence, the criminal law
of the dominant race established, by means of the scale of
damages for crime or personal injury, a kind of hierarchy--
the starting-point of that movement towards an assimilation
and gradual transformation, which, after the lapse of four
centuries, from the fifth to the tenth, gave rise to the
society of the feudal times. The first rank in the civil order
belonged to the man of Frankish origin, and to the Barbarian who
lived under the law of the Franks; in the second rank was
placed the Barbarian, who lived under the law of his own
country; next came the native freeman and proprietor, the
Roman possessor, and, in the same degree, the Lidus or German
colonus; after them, the Roman tributary--i. e., the native
colonus; and, last of all, the slave, without distinction of
origin. These various classes, separated on the one hand by
distance of rank, on the other by difference of laws, manners,
and language, were far from being equally distributed between
the cities and the rural districts. All that was elevated in
the Gallo-Roman population, of whatever character it might be,
was found in the cities, where its noble, rich, and
industrious families dwelt, surrounded by their domestic
slaves; and, among the people of that race, the only constant
residents in the country were the half-servile coloni and the
agricultural slaves. On the contrary, the superior class of
the German population established itself in the country, where
each family, independent and proprietary, was maintained on
its own domain by the labour of the Lidi whom it had brought
thither, or of the old race of coloni who belonged to the
soil. The only Germans who resided in the cities were a small
number of officers in the service of the Crown, and of
individuals without family and patrimony, who, in spite of
their original habits, sought a livelihood by following some
employment. The social superiority of the dominant race rooted
itself firmly in the localities inhabited by them, and passed,
as has been already remarked, from the cities to the rural
districts. By degrees, also, it came to pass that the latter
drew off from the former the upper portion of their
population, who, in order to raise themselves still higher,
and to mix with the conquerors, imitated, as far as they were
able, their mode of life. ... While Barbarism was thus
occupying or usurping all the vantage points of the social
state, and civil life in the intermediate classes was arrested
in its progress, and sinking gradually to the lowest
condition, even to that of personal servitude, an ameliorating
movement already commenced before the fall of the empire,
still continued, and declared itself more and more loudly. The
dogma of a common brotherhood in the eyes of God, and of one
sole redemption for all mankind, preached by the Church to the
faithful of every race, touched the heart and awakened the
mind in favour of the slave, and, in consequence,
enfranchisements became more frequent, or a treatment more
humane was adopted on the part of the masters, whether Gauls
or Germans by origin. The latter, moreover, had imported from
their country, where the mode of life was simple and without
luxury, usages favourable to a modified slavery. The rich
barbarian was waited upon by free persons--by the children of
his relatives, his clients and his friends; the tendency of
his national manners, different from that of the Roman,
induced him to send the slave out of his house, and to
establish him as a labourer or artisan on some portion of land
to which he then became permanently attached, and the
destination of which he followed, whether it were inherited or
sold. ... Domestic slavery made the man a chattel, a mere
piece of moveable property. The slave, settled on a spot of
land, from that time entered into the category of real
property. At the same time that this last class, which
properly bore the name of serfs, was increased at the expense
of the first, the classes of the coloni and Lidi would
naturally multiply simultaneously, by the very casualties of
ruin and adverse circumstances which, at a period of incessant
commotions, injured the condition of the freemen. ... In the
very heart of the Barbarian society, the class of small
proprietors, which had originally formed its strength and
glory, decreased, and finally became extinct by sinking into
vassalage, or a state of still more ignoble dependence, which
partook more or less of the character of actual servitude. ...
The freemen depressed towards servitude met the slave who had
reached a sort of half liberty. Thus, through the whole extent
of Gaul, was formed a vast body of agricultural labourers and
rural artisans, whose lot, though never uniform, was brought
more and more to a level of equality; and the creative wants
of society produced a new sphere of industry in the country,
while the cities remained stationary, or sank more and more
into decay. ... On every large estate where improvement
flourished, the cabins of those employed, Lidi, coloni or
slaves, grouped as necessity or convenience suggested, were
multiplied and peopled more numerously, till they assumed the
form of a hamlet. When these hamlets were situated in a
favourable position ... they continued to increase till they
became villages. ... The building of a church soon raised the
village to the rank of a parish; and, as a consequence, the
new parish took its place among the rural circonscriptions.
... Thence sprung, altogether spontaneously, under the
sanction of the intendant, joined to that of the priest, rude
outlines of a municipal organization, in which the church
became the depository of the acts which, in accordance with
the Roman law, were inscribed on the registers of the city. It
is in this way that beyond the towns, the cities, and the
boroughs, where the remains of the old social condition
lingered in an increasing state of degradation, elements of
future improvement were formed. ... This modification, already
considerably advanced in the ninth century, was completed in
the course of the tenth. At that period, the last class of the
Gallo-Frankish society disappeared--viz., that of persons
held as chattels, bought, exchanged, transferred from one
place to another, like any other kind of moveable goods. The
slave now belonged to the soil rather than to the person; his
service, hitherto arbitrary, was changed into customary dues
and regulated employment; he had a settled abode, and, in
consequence, a right of possession in the soil on which he was
dependent. This is the earliest form in which we distinctly
trace the first impress of the modern world upon the civil
state.
{1415}
The word serf henceforward took its definite meaning; it
became the generic name of a mixed condition of servitude and
freedom, in which we find blended together the states of the
colonus and Lidus--two names which occur less and less
frequently in the tenth century, till they entirely disappear.
This century, the point to which all the social efforts of the
four preceding ones which had elapsed since the Frankish
conquest had been tending, saw the intestine struggle between
the Roman and German manners brought to a conclusion by an
important revolution. The latter definitively prevailed, and
from their triumph arose the feudal system; that is to say, a
new form of the state, a new constitution of property and
domestic life, a parcelling out of the sovereignty and
jurisdiction, all the public powers transformed into demesnial
privileges, the idea of nobility devoted to the profession of
arms, and that of ignobility to industry and labour. By a
remarkable coincidence, the complete establishment of this
system is the epoch when the distinction of races terminates
in Frankish Gaul--when all the legal consequences of
diversity of origin between Barbarians and Romans, conquerors
and subjects, disappear. The law ceases to be personal, and
becomes local; the German codes and the Roman code itself are
replaced by custom; it is the territory and not the descent
which distinguishes the inhabitant of the Gallic soil;
finally, instead of national distinctions, one mixed
population appears, to which the historian is able
henceforward to give the name of French."
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France,
volume 1, chapter 1.
GAUL: A. D. 412-453.
The mixed administration, Roman and barbarian.
"A prætorian prefect still resided at Trèves; a vicar of the
seventeen Gallic provinces at Aries: each of these provinces
had its Roman duke; each of the hundred and fifteen cities of
Gaul had its count; each city its curia, or municipality. But,
collaterally with this Roman organisation, the barbarians,
assembled in their 'mallum,' of which their kings were
presidents, decided on peace and war, made laws, or
administered justice. Each division of the army had its Graf
Jarl, or Count; each subdivision its centenary, or
hundred-man; and all these fractions of the free population
had the same right of deciding by suffrage in their own
mallums, or peculiar courts, all their common affairs. In
cases of opposition between the barbarian and the Roman
jurisdiction, the overbearing arrogance of the one, and the
abject baseness of the other, soon decided the question of
supremacy. In some provinces the two powers were not
concurrent: there were no barbarians between the Loire and the
Meuse, nor between the Alps and the Rhone; but the feebleness
of the Roman government was only the more conspicuous. A few
great proprietors cultivated a part of the province with the
aid of slaves; the rest was desert, or only inhabited by
Bagaudæ, runaway slaves, who lived by robbery. Some towns
still maintained a show of opulence, but not one gave the
slightest sign of strength; not one enrolled its militia, nor
repaired its fortifications. ... Honorius wished to confer on
the cities of southern Gaul a diet, at which they might have
deliberated on public affairs: he did not even find public
spirit enough to accept the offered privilege."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 7 (volume 1).
GAUL: A. D. 451.
Attila's invasion.
See HUNS: A. D. 451.
GAUL: A. D. 453-484.
Extension of the Visigothic kingdom.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 453-484.
GAUL: A. D. 457-486.
The last Roman sovereignty.
The last definite survival of Roman sovereignty in Gaul
lingered until 486 in a district north of the Seine, between
the Marne and the Oise, which had Soissons for its capital. It
was maintained there, in the first instance, by Ægidius, a
Gallic noble whom Marjorian, one of the last of the emperors
at Rome, made Master-General of Gaul. The respect commanded by
Ægidius among the surrounding barbarians was so great that the
Salian Franks invited him to rule over them, in place of a
licentious young king, Childeric, whom they had driven into
exile. He was king of these Franks, according to Gregory of
Tours, for eight years (457-464), until he died. Childeric
then returned, was reinstated in his kingdom and became the
father of Clovis (or Chlodwig), the founder of the great Frank
monarchy. But a son of Ægidius, named Syagrius, was still the
inheritor of a kingdom, known as, the "Kingdom of Syagrius,"
embracing, as has been said, the country around Soissons,
between the Seine, the Marne and the Oise, and also including,
in the opinion of some writers, Troyes and Auxerre. The first
exploit of Clovis--the beginning of his career of
conquest--was the overthrow of this "king of the Romans," as
Syagrius was called, in a decisive battle fought at Soissons,
A. D. 486, and the incorporation of his kingdom into the Frank
dominions. Syagrius escaped to Toulouse, but was surrendered
to Clovis and put to death.
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 3, chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2.
GAUL: A. D. 474.
Invasion of Ostrogoths.
See GOTHS (OSTROGOTHS): A. D. 473-474.
GAUL: A. D. 507-509.
Expulsion of the Visigoths.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-509.
GAUL: A. D. 540.
Formal relinquishment of the country to the Franks by
Justinian.
See FRANKS: A. D. 539-553.
GAULS.
"The Gauls, properly so called, the Galatæ of the Greeks, the
Galli of the Romans, and the Gael of modern history, formed
the van of the great Celtic migration which had poured
westward at various intervals during many hundred years. ...
Having overrun the south of Gaul and penetrated into Spain,
they lost a part of the territory thus acquired, and the
restoration of the Iberian fugitives to Aquitania placed a
barrier between the Celts in Spain and their brethren whom
they had left behind them in the north. In the time of the
Romans the Galli were found established in the centre and east
of the country denominated Gaul, forming for the most part a
great confederation, at the head of which stood the Arverni.
It was the policy of the Romans to raise the Ædui into
competition with this dominant tribe. ... The Arverni, whose
name is retained in the modern appellation of Auvergne,
occupied a large district in the middle and south of Gaul, and
were surrounded by tributary or dependent clans. The Ædui lay
more to the north and east, and the centre of their
possessions is marked by the position of their capital
Bibracte, the modern Autun, situated in the highlands which
separate the waters of the Loire, the Seine and the Saone. ...
{1416}
Other Gallic tribes stretched beyond the Saone: the Sequani,
who afterwards made an attempt to usurp this coveted
preeminence (the valley of the Doubs formed the centre of the
Sequanese territory, which reached to the Jura and the Rhine);
the Helvetii and other mountain races, whose scanty pastures
extended to the sources of the Rhine; the Allobroges, who
dwelt upon the Isere and Rhone, and who were the first of
their race to meet and the first to succumb before the prowess
of the Roman legions. According to the classification both of
Cæsar and Strabo, the Turones, Pictones and Santones must be
comprised under the same general denomination."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
See, also, CELTS.
GAUL: B. C. 390-347.
Invasions of Italy.
Destruction of Rome.
See ROME: B. C. 390-347.
GAUL: B. C. 295-191.
Roman conquest of the Cisalpine tribes.
See ROME: B. C. 295-191.
GAUL: B. C. 280-279.
Invasion of Greece.
In the year 280 B. C. the Gauls, who had long before passed
from northern Italy around the Adriatic to its eastern coast,
made their first appearance in Macedonia and northern Greece.
The Macedonian throne was occupied at the time by the infamous
usurper, Ptolemy Ceraunus (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280), and
the Celtic savages did one good service to Greece by slaying
him, in the single battle that was fought. The whole open
country was abandoned to them, for a time, and they swept it,
as far southward as the valley of the Peneus, in Thessaly; but
the walled cities were safe. After ravaging the country for
some months the Gauls appear to have retired; but it was only
to return again the next year in more formidable numbers and
under a chief, Brennus, of more vigor and capability. On this
occasion the country suffered fearfully from the barbaric
swarm, but defended itself with something like the spirit of
the Greece of two centuries before. The Ætolians were
conspicuous in the struggle; the Peloponnesian states gave
little assistance. The policy of defense was much the same as
at the time of the Persian invasion, and the enemy was
confronted in force at the pass of Thermopylæ. Brennus made a
more desperate attempt to force the pass than Xerxes had done
and was beaten back with a tremendous slaughter of his Gauls.
But he found traitors, as Xerxes had done, to guide him over
the mountains, and the Greeks at Thermopylæ, surrounded by the
enemy, could only escape by sea. The Gauls marched on Delphi,
eager for the plunder of the great temple, and there they met
with some fatal disaster. Precisely what occurred is not
known. According to the Greeks, the god protected his
sanctuary, and the accounts they have left are full of
miracles and prodigies--of earthquakes, lightnings, tempests,
and disease. The only clear facts seem to be that Delphi was
successfully defended; that the Gauls retreated in disorder
and were destroyed in vast numbers before the remnant of them
got away from the country. Brennus is said to have killed
himself to escape the wrath of his people for the failure of
the expedition. One large body of the great army had separated
from the rest and gone eastward into Thrace, before the
catastrophe occurred. These subsequently passed over to Asia
and pursued there an adventurous career, leaving a historic
name in the country.
See GALATIA.
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 60.
----------GAUL: End----------
GAULS, Præfect of the.
See PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.
GAUSARAPOS, OR GUUCHIES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.
GAVELKIND, Irish.
"The Irish law of succession in landed property, known as that
of Irish gavelkind, was a logical consequence of the theory of
tribal ownership. If a member of the tribe died, his piece of
land did not descend by right to his eldest son, or even to
all his children equally. Originally, it reverted to its sole
absolute owner, the tribe, every member of which had a right
to use proportionate to his tribal status. This was
undoubtedly the essential principle of inheritance by
gavelkind."
S. Bryant,
Celtic Ireland,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
Sir H. Maine,
Early History of Institutions,
lecture 7.
GAVELKIND, Kentish.
See FEUDAL TENURES.
GAVEREN, Battle of (1453).
See GHENT: A. D. 1451-1453.
GAZA: Early history.
See PHILISTINES.
GAZA: B. C. 332.
Siege by Alexander.
In his march from Phœnicia to Egypt (see MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C.
334-330), Alexander the Great was compelled to pause for
several months and lay siege to the ancient Philistine city of
Gaza. It was defended for the Persian king by a brave eunuch
named Batis. In the course of the siege, Alexander received a
severe wound in the shoulder, which irritated his savage
temper. When the town was at length taken by storm, he gave no
quarter. Its male inhabitants were put to the sword and the
women and children sold to slavery. The eunuch Batis, being
captured alive, but wounded, was dragged by the feet at the
tail of a chariot, driven at full speed by Alexander himself.
The "greatest of conquerors" proved himself often enough, in
this way, to be the greatest of barbarians--in his age.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 93.
GAZA: B. C. 312.
Battle between Ptolemy and Demetrius.
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 315-310.
GAZA: B. C. 100.
Destruction by Alexander Jannæus.
Gaza having sided with the Egyptian king, in a war between
Alexander Jannæus, one of the Asmonean kings of the Jews, and
Ptolemy Lathyrus of Egypt and Cyprus, the former laid siege to
the city, about 100 B. C., and acquired possession of it after
several months, through treachery. He took his revenge by
massacring the inhabitants and reducing the city to ruins. It
was rebuilt not long afterwards by the Romans.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 3, chapter 9.
GAZA: A. D. 1516.
Defeat of the Mamelukes by the Turks.
See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.
----------GAZA: End----------
GAZACA.
See ECBATANA.
GAZARI, The.
See CATHARISTS.
GAZNEVIDES, OR GHAZNEVIDES.
See TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.
GEARY ACT, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1892.
GEDDES, Jenny, and her stool.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1637.
{1417}
GEDROSIANS, The.
"Close to the Indus, and beyond the bare, hot, treeless shores
of the ocean, the southern part of the plain [of eastern Iran]
consists of sandy flats, in which nothing grows but prickly
herbs and a few palms. The springs are a day's journey from
each other, and often more. This region was possessed by a
people whom Herodotus calls Sattagydæ and the companions of
Alexander of Macedonia, Gedrosians. ... Neighbours of the
Gandarians, who, as we know, dwelt on the right bank of the
Indus down to the Cabul, the Gedrosians led a wandering,
predatory life; under the Persian kings, they were united into
one satrapy with the Gandarians."
M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 7, chapter 1 (volume 5).
GEIZA II., King of Hungary, A. D. 1141-1160.
GELA, Founding of.
See SYRACUSE, FOUNDING OF.
GELASIUS II., Pope, A. D. 1118-1119.
GELEONTES.
See PHYLÆ.
GELHEIM, Battle of (1298).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
GELONI, The.
An ancient colony of Greeks intermixed with natives which
shared the country of the Budini, on the steppes between the
Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea.
G. Grote, History of Greece,
part 2, volume 3, chapter 17.
GELVES, Battle of (1510).
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1505-1510.
GEMARA, The.
See TALMUD.
GEMBLOURS, Battle of (1578).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.
GEMEINDE.--GEMEINDERATH.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.
GEMOT.
A meeting, assembly, council, moot.
See WITENAGEMOT.
GENABUM, OR CENABUM.
The principal town of the Gallic tribe called the Carnutes;
identified by most archæologists with the modern city of
Orleans, France, though some think its site was at Gien.
See GAUL, CÆSAR'S CONQUEST OF.
GENAUNI, The.
See RHÆTIANS.
GENERAL PRIVILEGE OF ARAGON.
See CORTES, THE EARLY SPANISH.
GENERALS, Execution of the Athenian.
See GREECE: B. C. 406.
GENET, "Citizen," the mission of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
GENEVA: Beginnings of the city.
See HELVETII, THE ARRESTED MIGRATION OF THE.
GENEVA: A. D. 500.
Under the Burgundians.
See BURGUNDIANS: A. D. 500.
GENEVA: 10th Century.
In the kingdom of Arles.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 843-933.
GENEVA: A. D. 1401.
Acquisition of the Genevois, or County, by the House of Savoy.
The city surrounded.
See SAVOY: 11TH-15TH CENTURIES.
GENEVA: A. D. 1504-1535.
The emancipation of the city from the Vidomme and the
Prince-Bishop.
Triumph of the Reformation.
"Geneva was nominally a free city of the Empire, but had in
reality been governed for some centuries by its own bishop,
associated with a committee of lay-assessors, and controlled
by the general body of the citizens, in whose hands the
ultimate power of taxation, and of election of the magistrates
and regulation of the police, rested. The prince-bishop did
not exercise his temporal jurisdiction directly, but through
an officer called the Vidomme (vice-dominus), whose rights had
in the 15th century become hereditary in the dukes of Savoy.
These rights appear to have been exercised without any
considerable attempt at encroachment till the beginning of the
following century, when Charles III. succeeded to the ducal
crown (1504). To his ambition the bishop, John, a weak and
willing tool of the Savoy family, to which he was nearly
allied, ceded everything; and the result was a tyrannical
attempt to destroy the liberties of the Genevese. The Assembly
of the citizens rose in arms; a bitter and sanguinary contest
ensued between the Eidgenossen [Confederates] or Patriot party
on the one side, and the Mamelukes or monarchical party on the
other side. By the help of the free Helvetian states,
particularly Berne and Friburg, the Patriots triumphed, the
friends of Savoy were banished, the Vidommate abolished, and
its powers transferred to a board of magistrates. The conduct
of the bishops in this conflict ... helped greatly, as may be
imagined, to shake the old hierarchical authority in Geneva;
and when, in 1532, Farel first made his appearance in the
city, he found a party not indisposed to join him in his eager
and zealous projects of reform. He had a hard fight for it,
however, and was at first obliged to yield, and leave the city
for a time; and it was not till August 1535 that he and Viret
and Froment succeeded in abolishing the mass, and establishing
the Protestant faith."
J. Tulloch,
Leaders of the Reformation,
pages 161-162.
ALSO IN:
J. Planta,
History of the Helvetic Confederacy,
book 2, chapter 6 (volume 2).
I. Spon,
History of the City and State of Geneva,
book 2.
See, also, SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1531-1648.
GENEVA: A. D. 1536.
The coming of Calvin.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.
GENEVA: A. D. 1536-1564.
Calvin's Ecclesiastical State.
"Humanly speaking, it was a mere accident which caused Calvin
to yield to the entreaties of his friends to remain in the
city where he was to begin his renowned efforts in the cause
of reform. Geneva had been from ancient times one of the most
flourishing imperial cities of the Burgundian territory; it
was situated on the frontiers of several countries where the
cross roads of various nationalities met. The city, which in
itself was remarkable, belonged originally to the German
empire; the language of its inhabitants was Romanic; it was
bounded on one side by Burgundy, on the other by German
Switzerland. ... Geneva was apparently in a state of
political, ecclesiastical, and moral decay. With the
puritanical strictness of Geneva, as it afterwards became,
before the mind's eye, it is difficult to picture the Geneva
of that day. An unbridled love of pleasure, a reckless
wantonness, a licentious frivolity had taken possession of
Genevan life, while the State was the plaything of intestine
and foreign feuds. ... Reformers had already appeared in the
city: Vinet, Farel, Theodore Beza; they were Frenchmen, Farel
a near neighbour of Geneva. These French Reformers are of
quite a different stamp from our Germans, who, according as
Luther or Melancthon is taken as their type, have either a
plebeian popular, or learned theological character. They are
either popular orators of great power and little polish, or
they belong to the learned circles, and keep strictly to this
character. In France they were mostly men belonging not to the
lower, but to the middle and higher ranks of society, refined
and cultivated; and in this fact lay the weakness of
Calvinism, which knew well how to rule the masses, but never
to gain their affection. ...
{1418}
His [Calvin's] greatness ... was shown in the fanatical zeal
with which he entered the city, ready to stake his life for
his cause. He began to teach, to found a school, to labour on
the structure which was the idea of his life, to introduce
reforms in doctrine, worship, the constitution and discipline
of the Church, and he preached with that powerful eloquence
only possessed by those in whom character and teaching are in
unison. The purified worship was to take place within bare,
unadorned walls; no picture of Christ, nor pomp of any kind,
was to disturb the aspirations of the soul. Life outside the
temple was also to be a service of God; games, swearing,
dancing, singing, worldly amusements, and pleasure were
regarded by him as sins, as much as real vice and crime. He
began to form little congregations, like those in the early
ages of the Church, and it need scarcely be said that even in
this worldly and pleasure-loving city the apparition of this
man, in the full vigour of life, all conviction and
determination, half prophet and half tribune, produced a
powerful impression. The number of his outward followers
increased, but they were outward followers only. Most of them
thought it would be well to make use of the bold Reformer to
oppose the bishop, and that he would find means of
establishing a new and independent Church, but they seemed to
regard freedom as libertinism. Calvin therefore regarded the
course things were taking with profound dissatisfaction. ...
So he delivered some extremely severe sermons, which half
frightened and half estranged his hearers; and at Easter,
1538, when the congregation came to partake of the Lord's
Supper, he took the unheard-of step of sending them all back
from the altar, saying, 'You are not worthy to partake of the
Lord's body; you are just what you were before; your
sentiments, your morals, and your conduct are unchanged.' This
was more than could be hazarded without peril to his life. The
effect was indescribable; his own friends disapproved of the
step. But that did not dismay him. He had barely time to flee
for his life, and he had to leave Geneva in a state of
transition--a chaos which justified a saying of his own, that
defection from one Church is not renovation by another. He was
now once more an exile. He wandered about on the frontiers of
his country, in the German cities of Strasburg, Basle, &c.,
and we several times meet with him in the religious
discussions between 1540 and 1550. ... But a time came when
they wished him back at Geneva. ... In September, 1541, he
returned and began his celebrated labours. Endowed with
supreme power, like Lycurgus at Sparta, he set to work to make
Geneva a city of the Lord--to found an ecclesiastical state in
which religion, public life, government, and the worship of
God were to be all of a piece, and an extraordinary task it
was. Calvinistic Geneva became the school of reform for
western Europe, and scattered far and wide the germs of
similar institutions. In times when Protestantism elsewhere
had become cool, this school carried on the conflict with the
mediæval Church. Calvin was implacable in his determination to
purify the worship of God of all needless adjuncts. All that
was calculated to charm and affect the senses was abolished;
spiritual worship should be independent of all earthly things,
and should consist of edification by the word, and simple
spiritual songs. All the traditional externals that Luther had
retained--altars, pictures, ceremonials, and decorations of
every kind--were dispensed with. ... Calvin next established a
system of Church discipline which controlled the individual in
every relation of life, and ruled him from the cradle to the
grave. He retained all the means by which ecclesiastical
authority enforced obedience on the faithful in the Middle
Ages--baptism, education up to confirmation, penance, penal
discipline, and excommunication. ... Calvin began his labours
late in the autumn of 1541, and he acquired and maintained
more power than was ever exercised by the most powerful popes.
He was indeed only the 'preacher of the word,' but through his
great influence he was the lawgiver, the administrator, the
dictator of the State of Geneva. There was nothing in the
commonwealth that had not been ordained by him, and this
indicates a remarkable aspect of his character. The
organization of the State of Geneva began with the ordinances
of the 2nd of January, 1542. There were four orders of
officials--pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. The
Consistory was formed of the pastors and elders. ... It was
the special duty of the Consistory, which was composed of the
clergy and twelve laymen, to see that the ordinances were duly
observed, and it was the supreme tribunal of morals. The
twelve laymen were elected for a year, by the council of two
hundred, on the nomination by the clergy. The Consistory met
every Thursday to see that everything in the church was in
order. They had the power of excommunication, but this only
consisted in exclusion from the community of the faithful, and
the loss of the privilege of partaking of the Lord's Supper.
It also decided questions relating to marriage. The deacons
had the care of the poor and of almsgiving. Calvin himself was
the soul of the whole organization. But he was a cold, stiff,
almost gloomy being, and his character produces a very
different impression from the genial warmth of Luther, who
could be cheerful and merry with his family. Half Old
Testament prophet, half Republican demagogue, Calvin could do
anything in his State, but it was by means of his personal
influence, the authority of his words, 'the majesty of his
character,' as was said by a magistrate of Geneva after his
death. He was to the last the simple minister, whose frugal
mode of life appeared to his enemies like niggardliness. After
a reign of twenty-three years, he left behind him the
possessions of a mendicant monk. ... No other reformer
established so rigid a church discipline. ... All noisy games,
games of chance, dancing, singing of profane songs, cursing
and swearing, were forbidden, and ... church-going and
Sabbath-keeping were strictly enjoined. The moral police took
account of everything. Every citizen had to be at home by nine
o'clock, under heavy penalties. Adultery, which had previously
been punished by a few days' imprisonment and a small fine,
was now punished by death. ... At a time when Europe had no
solid results of reform to show, this little State of Geneva
stood up as a great power; year by year it sent forth apostles
into the world, who preached its doctrines everywhere, and it
became the most dreaded counterpoise to Rome, when Rome no
longer had any bulwark to defend her. ... It formed a weighty
counterpoise to the desperate efforts which the ancient Church
and monarchical power were making to crush the spirit of the
Reformation.
{1419}
It was impossible to oppose Caraffa, Philip II., and the
Stuarts, with Luther's passive resistance; men were wanted who
were ready to wage war to the knife, and such was the
Calvinistic school. It everywhere accepted the challenge;
throughout all the conflicts for political and religious
liberty, up to the time of the first emigration to America, in
France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland, we recognise
the Genevan school. A little bit of the world's history was
enacted in Geneva, which forms the proudest portion of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."
L. Häusser,
The Period of the Reformation,
chapter 18.
ALSO IN:
P. Henry,
Life and Times of Calvin,
parts 2-3.
J. H. Merle D'Aubigne,
History of the Reformation in the time of Calvin,
books 9 and 11.
F. P. Guizot,
Calvin,
chapters 12-22.
L. von Ranke,
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, 16th-17th Centuries,
chapter 8.
GENEVA: A. D. 1570.
Treaty with the Duke of Savoy.
Agreement of non-molestation.
See SAVOY: A. D. 1559-1580.
GENEVA: A. D. 1602-1603.
The escalade of the Savoyards and its repulse.
Treaty of St. Julien.
Finding a pretext in some hostile manifestations which had
appeared among the Genevese during a conflict between the
French king and himself, Charles Emanuel I., duke of Savoy,
chose to consider himself at war with Geneva, and "determined
to fight out his quarrel without further notice. The night of
the 11th to the 12th of December, 1602.. is forever memorable
in the annals of Geneva. 4,000 Savoyards, aided by darkness,
attempted the escalade of its walls; an unforeseen accident
disconcerted them; the citizens exhibited the most heroic
presence of mind; the ladders by which the aggressors ascended
were shot down by a random cannon-ball; the troops outside
fell into confusion; those who had already entered the town
were either mowed down in fight or hung on the scaffold on the
morrow; thus the whole enterprise miscarried. It was in vain
that the Duke came forward with his whole host, and tried to
prevail by open force where stratagem had failed. He was
thwarted by the intervention of the French and Swiss, and
compelled by their threats to sign the Treaty of St. Julien
(July 21st, 1603), which secured the independence of the
Genevese. Charles nevertheless did not, to his last day, give
up his designs upon that city."
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 2.
GENEVA: A. D. 1798.
Forcibly united to the French Republic.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1792-1798.
GENEVA: A. D. 1814.
United with the Swiss Confederation.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.
GENEVA: A. D. 1815.
United as a canton to the Swiss Confederation, by the Congress
of Vienna.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
----------GENEVA: End----------
GENEVA CONVENTION, The.