Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/310

 288 THE DECLINE AND FALL he instituted the Spanish march,^^^ which extended from the Pyrenees to the river Ebro ; Barcelona was the residence of the French governor ; he possessed the counties of Rousillon and Cain/oiua ; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon were Italy subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the Lombards, and patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy,^^* [A.D. 774] a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of Calabi-ia. The duchy of Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread, at the expense of the Greeks, over the modern kingdom of Naples. But Arrechis, the reigning duke, refused to be in- cluded in the slavery of his country; assumed the independent title of prince ; and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian monarchy. His defence was firm, his submission was not in- glorious, and the emperor was content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his fortresses, and the acknowledgment, on his coins, of a supreme lord. The artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of father, but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Beneventum insensibly escaped from the French Germany yokc.^^^ IV. Charlemagne was the fii'st who united Germany under the same sceptre. The name of Oriental France is pre- served in the circle of Franconia ; and the people of Hesse and Thuringia were recently incorporated with the victors by the conformity of religion and government. The Alemanni, so for- midable to the Romans, were the faithful vassals and confede- rates of the Franks ; and their country was inscribed within the modern limits of Alsace, Swahia, and Switzerland. The Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their laws and manners, were less [AD. 788] patient of a master; the repeated treasons of Tasillo justified the abolition of her hereditary dukes ; and their power was shared among the counts, who judged and guarded that impor- tant frontier. But the north of Germany, from the Rhine and [AD. 772-804] bcyond the Elbe, Avas still hostile and Pagan ; nor was it till after a war of thirty-three years that the Saxons bowed under the yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and their votaries were extirpated ; the foundation of eight bishoprics, of [osnabruck] Munstcr, Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen, Ver- 11* The governors or counts of the Spanish march revolted from Charles the Simple about the year 900 ; and a poor pittance, the Rousillon, has been recovered in 1642 by the kings of France (Longuerue, Description de la France, torn. i. p. 220-222). Yet the Rousillon contains 188,900 subjects, and annually pays 2,600,000 livTes (Nccker, Administration des Finances, torn. i. p. 278, 279); more people perhaps, and doubtless more money, than the march of Charlemagne. 11-* Schmidt, Hist, des AUemands, tom. ii. p. 200, &c. 11^ See Giannone, tom. i. p. 374, 375, and the Annals of Muratori. i