Reacciones adversas Resumen del perfil de seguridad

June 3, 1932

SHALL we pay a visit to Europe now, my dear ? When we were there last it was in a bad way.

The collapse of Rome had meant the collapse of civilization in western Europe. In eastern Europe, except for that part of it which was under the Constantinople Government, conditions were even worse. Attila the Hun had spread fire and destruction over a good part of the

continent. But the Eastern Roman Empire, though declining, had endured, and had even shown occasional bursts of energy.

In the West things began to settle down in a new way after the shake-up which the fall of Rome gave. It took a long time to settle down. But one can just make out the new pattern as it develops.

Christianity spreads, helped sometimes by its saints and men of peace, sometimes by the sword of its warrior kings. New kingdoms rise up. In France and Belgium and part of Germany the Franks (whom you must not confuse with the French yet) formed a kingdom under a ruler named Clovis, who ruled from 481 to 511 A.C. This is called the Merovingian line, from the name of Clovis's grandfather. But these kings were soon put into the shade by an official of their own Court—the Mayor of the Palace. These mayors became all-powerful and became hereditary mayors. They were the real rulers, the so-called kings were just puppets.

It was one of these Mayors of the Palace, Charles Martel, who defeated the Saracens at the great battle of Tours in France in 732. A.C. By this victory he stopped the Saracen wave of conquest and, in Christian eyes, he saved Europe. His prestige and reputation gained greatly by this. He was looked up to as the champion

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of Christendom against the enemy. The Popes of Borne were not then on good terms with the Constantinople Emperor. So they began to look at to Charles Martel for help. His son Pepin decided to call himself king and remove the puppet who was there, and the Pope of course gladly agreed.

Pepin's son was Charlemagne. The Pope was in trouble again, and he invited Charlemagne to come to his rescue. Charles did so and drove away his enemies, and on Christmas day 800 A.C, there was a great ceremony in the Cathedral when the Pope crowned Charlemagne Roman Emperor. From that day began the Holy Roman Empire of which I wrote to you once before.

It was a strange empire and its later history is stranger still, as it vanishes gradually, like the Cheshire cat in Alice, leaving just the smile behind with no trace of body. But this was yet to come, and we need not pry into the future.

This Holy Roman Empire was not a continuation of the old Western Roman Empire. It was something different. It considered itself the Empire, the Emperor being boss over everybody else in the world—except perhaps the Pope. Between the Emperor and Pope there was for many centuries a contest as to who was the greater. But this also was to come later. What is interesting to note is that this new empire was supposed to be a revival of the old Roman Empire, when this was supreme, and Rome was said to be the mistress of the world. But to this was added a new idea,—that of Christianity and Christendom. Hence the Empire was " holy ". The Emperor was supposed to be a kind of Viceroy of God on earth, and so was the Pope. One dealt with political matters, the other with spiritual. This was the idea, at any rate, and it was from this, I suppose, that the idea of the Divine right of kings arose in Europe. The Emperor was the Defender of the Faith. You will be interested to know that the English King is still styled the Defender of the Faith.

Compare this emperor with the Khalifa or Caliph, who was styled the Commander of the

Faithful. The Khalifa was really an emperor and Pope combined, to begin with. Later, as we shall see, he became just a figurehead.

The Constantinople emperors, of course, did not at all approve of this newly-arisen " Holy Roman Empire " in the west. At the time that Charlemagne was crowned, a woman, Irene, had made herself Empress at Constantinople. She was the creature who killed her own son to become Empress, and things were in a bad way in her time. This was one of the reasons which

emboldened the Pope to break away from Constantinople by crowning Charlemagne.

Charlemagne was now the head of Western Christendom, the Viceroy of God on earth, the Emperor of a holy empire. How pompous these phrases sound ! But they serve their purpose by deluding and hypnotizing the people. By calling God and religion to its help, authority has often enough sought to fool others and increase its own power. The king and the emperor and the high priest become, for the average person, vague and shadowy beings,

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almost like the gods, far removed from ordinary life. And this mystery makes him afraid of them.

Compare the elaborate codes and etiquettes and ceremonial of courts with the equally elaborate ceremonial of worship in temple or church. There is the same bowing and scraping and

prostration—kow-towing, as the Chinese say. From childhood up we are taught this worship of authority in various forms. It .is the service of fear, not of love.

Charlemagne was the contemporary of Harunal-Rashid of Baghdad. He corresponded with him, and—note this—he actually suggested an alliance between the two to fight the Eastern Roman Empire as well as the Saracens in Spain. Nothing seems to have come of this suggestion, but even so it throws a flood of light on the working of the minds of kings and politicians. Imagine the " holy " Emperor, the head of Christendom, joining hands with the Caliph at Baghdad against a Christian Power and an Arab Power. You will remember that the Saracens of Spain had refused to recognize the Abba-side Caliphs of Baghdad. They had become independent, and Baghdad had a grievance against them. But they were too far apart for conflict. Between Constantinople and Charlemagne there was also not much love lost. Here also distance prevented any actual fighting. None the less the proposal was made for the Christian and the Arab to join together to fight another Christian and another Arab Power. The real motives at the back of kings' minds were those of gaining power and authority and wealth, but religion was often made the cloak for this. Everywhere this has been so. In India we saw Mahmud coming in the name of religion but making a good thing out of it. The cry of religion has paid often enough.

But people's ideas change from age to age, and it is very difficult for us to judge of others who lived long ago. We must remember this. Many things that seem obvious to us to-day would have been very strange to them, and their habits and ways of thinking would seem strange to us. While people talked of high ideals, and the Holy Empire, and the Viceroy of God, and the Pope who was Vicar of Christ, conditions in the West were as bad as they could well be. Soon after

Charlemagne's reign Italy and Rome were in a disgraceful condition. A disgusting lot of men and women did what they liked in Rome and made and unmade Popes.

Indeed, it was the general disorder in western Europe which had prevailed since the fall of Rome that induced many people to think that if the Empire were revived, conditions would improve. It became also a matter of prestige with many that they should have an emperor. One old writer of those days says that Charles was made emperor " lest the pagans should insult the Christians, if the name of Emperor should have ceased among the Christians ".

Charlemagne's Empire included France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, half Germany and half Italy. To the south-west of it was Spain under the Arabs; to the north-east were the Slav and other tribes; to the north the Danes and Northmen, to the southeast the Bulgarians and Serbians, and beyond them the Eastern Roman Empire under Constantinople.

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Charlemagne died in 814, and soon afterwards troubles arose for a division of the spoils of empire. His descendants, who are called the Carlovingians (Carolus, the Latin for Charles), were not up to much, as can be gathered from the titles of some of them : the Fat, the Bald, the Pious.

From the division of Charlemagne's Empire we now see Germany and France shaping

themselves. Germany is supposed to date as a nation from 843 A.C., and it is said that it was the Emperor Otto the Great, who reigned from 962 to 973, who made the Germans more or less a single people. France was already no part of Otto's Empire. In 987 Hugh Capet drove away the feeble Carlovingian kings and obtained control of France. This was not much in the way of control, as France was divided up into big areas under independent nobles, and they often fought each other. But they feared the Emperor and Pope more than each other and united to resist them.

With Hugh Capet France begins as a nation, and even in these early beginnings we can see the rivalry between France and Germany, which has endured for 1000 years, right up to our day Strange that two neighbouring countries and peoples so cultured and highly endowed as the French and the Germans should go on nursing this ancient feud from generation to generation.

But perhaps the fault is not so much theirs as that of the systems under which they have lived.

About this time Russia also comes upon the stage in history. Rurik, a man from the north, is said to have laid the foundations of the Russian State about 850 A.c. In the south-east of Europe we find the Bulgarians settling down, and indeed becoming rather aggressive; also the Serbians. The Magyars or Hungarians and the Poles also begin to form States between the Holy Roman Empire and the new Russia.

Meanwhile, from northern Europe men came down in ships to the western and southern

countries and burned and killed and looted. You have read of the Danes and other Northmen who went to England to harry and sack. These Northmen or Norsemen or Normans, as they came to be called, went to the Mediterranean, sailed up the big rivers in their ships, and wherever they went they robbed and killed and looted. There was anarchy in Italy, and Rome was in a deplorable condition. They sacked Rome, and threatened even Constantinople. These robbers and plunderers seized the north-west of France, where Normandy is, and South Italy and Sicily, and gradually settled down there and became lords and landowners, as robbers often do when they are prosperous. It was these Normans from Normandy in France that went and conquered England in 1066 A.C. under William, known as the Conqueror. So we see England also taking shape.

We have now arrived roughly at the end of the first millennium or 1000 years of the Christian era in Europe. About this time Mahmud of Ghazni was raiding India, and about this time the

Abbaside Caliphs of Baghdad were breaking up and the Seljuq Turks were reviving Islam in western Asia. Spain continued to be under the Arabs, but they were cut off completely from their 162

home-lands in Arabia, and indeed were not on good terms with the Baghdad rulers. North Africa was practically independent of Baghdad. In Egypt there was not only an independent

government, but a separate caliphate, and for some time the Egyptian Caliph ruled over North Africa also.