Famous Men Of The Middle Ages - free ebook by John H. (John Henry) Haaren

FAMOUS MEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES

By JOHN H. HAAREN, LL.D. District Superintendent of Schools The City of New York and A. B. POLAND, Ph.D. Superintendent of Schools Newark N. J....

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PREFACE

The study of history, like the study of a landscape, should begin with the most conspicuous features. Not until these have been fixed in memory will the lesser features fall into their appropriate places and assume their right proportions. The famous men of ancient and modern times are the mountain peaks of history. It is logical then that the study of history should begin with the biographies of these men. Not only is it logical; it is also pedagogical. Experience has proven that in order to at

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THE GODS OF THE TEUTONS

In the little volume called The Famous Men of Rome you have read about the great empire which the Romans established. Now we come to a time when the power of Rome was broken and tribes of barbarians who lived north of the Danube and the Rhine took possession of lands that had been part of the Roman Empire. These tribes were the Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks and Anglo-Saxons. From them have come the greatest nations of modern times. All except the Huns belonged to the same race and are known as Te

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THE NIBELUNGS

I The time came when the people of Western Europe learned to believe in one God and were converted to Christianity, but the old stories about the gods and Valkyries and giants and heroes, who were half gods and half men, were not forgotten. These stories were repeated from father to son for generations, and in the twelfth century a poet, whose name we do not know, wrote them in verse. He called his poem the Nï'bel-ung'en-lied (song of the Nibelungs). It is the great national poem of the Germans.

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ALARIC THE VISIGOTH

KING FROM 394-410 A.D. I Long before the beginning of the period known as the Middle Ages a tribe of barbarians called the Goths lived north of the River Danube in the country which is now known as Roumania. It was then a part of the great Roman Empire, which at that time had two capitals, Constantinople—the new city of Constantine—and Rome. The Goths had come from the shores of the Baltic Sea and settled on this Roman territory, and the Romans had not driven them back. During the reign of the R

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ATTILA THE HUN

KING FROM 434-453 A.D. I The fierce and warlike tribe, called the Huns, who had driven the Goths to seek new homes, came from Asia into Southeastern Europe and took possession of a large territory lying north of the River Danube. During the first half of the fifth century the Huns had a famous king named At'ti-la. He was only twenty-one years old when he became their king. But although he was young, he was very brave and ambitious, and he wanted to be a great and powerful king. Not far from Atti

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GENSERIC THE VANDAL

KING FROM 427-477 A.D. I The Vandals were another wild and fierce tribe that came from the shores of the Baltic and invaded central and southern Europe in the later times of the Roman Empire. In the fifth century some of these people occupied a region in the south of Spain. One of their most celebrated kings was name Gen'ser-ic. He became king in 427, when he was but twenty-one years of age. He was lame in one leg and looked as if he were a very ordinary person. Like most of the Vandals, he was

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THEODORIC THE OSTROGOTH

KING FROM 475-526 A.D. I The Ostrogoths, or East Goths, who had settled in Southern Russia, at length pushed southward and westward to the mouth of the Danube. They were continually invading countries belonging to the Romans and their warlike raids were dreaded by the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire, who lived at Constantinople. One emperor gave them land and money, and thus stopped their invasions for a time. The most famous of the Ostrogoth kings was The-od'or-ic the Great. He was the son

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CLOVIS

KING FROM 481-511 A.D. I While the power of the Roman Empire was declining there dwelt on the banks of the River Rhine a number of savage Teuton tribes called Franks. The word Frank means free , and those tribes took pride in being known as Franks or freemen. The Franks occupied the east bank of the Rhine for about two hundred years. Then many of the tribes crossed the river in search of new homes. The region west of the river was at that time called Gaul. Here the Franks established themselves

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JUSTINIAN THE GREAT

EMPEROR FROM 527-565 A.D. I In the time of Clovis the country now called Bulgaria was inhabited by Goths. One day a poor shepherd boy, about sixteen years of age, left his mountain home in that country to go to the city of Constantinople, which was many miles away. The boy had no money to pay the expenses of the journey, but he was determined to go, even though he should have to walk every step of the road and live on fruits that he could gather by the way. He was a bright, clever boy who had sp

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MOHAMMED

LIVED FROM 570-632 A.D. I A great number of people in Asia and Africa and much of those in Turkey in Europe profess the Mo-ham'me-dan religion. They are called Mohammedans, Mus'sul-mans or Moslems; and the proper name for their religion is "Islam," which means obedience, or submission. The founder of this religion was a man named Mo-ham'med, or Ma-hom'et. He was born in the year 570, in Mecca, a city of Arabia. His parents were poor people, though, it is said, they were descended from Arabian pr

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CHARLES MARTEL, 714-741 A.D. AND PEPIN, 741-768 A.D.

I After the death of Mohammed the Saracens, as Mohammedans are also called, became great warriors. They conquered many countries and established the Mohammedan religion in them. In 711 the Saracens invaded and conquered a great part of Spain and founded a powerful kingdom there, which lasted about seven hundred years. They intended to conquer the land of the Franks next, and then all Europe. They thought it would be easy to conquer the Franks, because the Frankish king at that time was a very we

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CHARLEMAGNE

KING FROM 768-814 A.D. I Pepin had two sons Charles and Carloman. After the death of their father they ruled together, but in a few years Carloman died, and then Charles became sole king. This Charles was the most famous of the kings of the Franks. He did so many great and wonderful things that he is called Charlemagne ( shar-le-main' ) which means Charles the Great. He was a great soldier. For thirty years he carried on a war against the Saxons. Finally he conquered them, and their great chief,

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HARUN-AL-RASHID

CALIPH FROM 786-809 A.D. I The most celebrated of all Mohammedan caliphs was Harun-al-Rashid, which means, in English, Aaron the Just. Harun is the hero of several of the stories of the "Arabian Nights," a famous book, which perhaps you have read. There are many curious and wonderful tales in it. When Harun was only eighteen years old he showed such courage and skill as a soldier that his father, who was then caliph, allowed him to lead an army against the enemies of the Mohammedans; and he won

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EGBERT

KING FROM 802-837 A.D. I Egbert the Saxon lived at the same time as did Harun-al-Rashid 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 Cæsar 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

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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 Norsemen, 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 ships were long and swift. In the center was place

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ALFRED THE GREAT

KING FROM 871-901 A.D. I The Danes were neighbors of the Norwegian Vikings, and like them were fond of the sea and piracy. They plundered the English coasts for more than a century; and most of northern and eastern England became for a time a Danish country with Danish kings. What saved the rest of the country to the Saxons was the courage of the great Saxon king, Alfred. Alfred was the son of Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons. He had a loving mother who brought him up with great care. Up to th

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HENRY THE FOWLER

KING FROM 919-936 A.D. I About a hundred years had passed since the death of Charlemagne, and his great empire had fallen to pieces. Seven kings ruled where he had once been sole emperor. West of the Rhine, where the Germans lived, the last descendant of Charlemagne died when he was a mere boy. The German nobles were not willing for any foreign prince to govern them, and yet they saw that they must unite to defend their country against the invasions of the barbarians called Magyars ( ma-järz' ).

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CANUTE THE GREAT

KING FROM 1014-1035 I The Danes, you remember, had the eastern and northern parts of England in the time of Alfred. Alfred's successors drove them farther and farther north, and at length the Danish kingdom in England came to an end for a time. But the Danes in Denmark did not forget that there had been such a kingdom and in the year 1013 Sweyn ( swane ), King of Denmark, invaded England and defeated the Anglo-Saxons. Ethelred, their king, fled to Normandy. Sweyn now called himself the king of E

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THE CID

Late one sunny afternoon one and twenty knights were riding along the highway in the northern part of Spain. As they were passing a deep mire they heard cries for help, and turning, saw a poor leper who was sinking in the mud. One of the knights, a handsome young man, was touched by the cries. He dismounted, rescued the poor fellow, took him upon his own horse, and thus the two rode to the inn. The other knights wondered at this. When they reached the inn where they were to stop for the night, t

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EDWARD THE CONFESSOR

KING FROM 1042-1066 I The Danish kings who followed Canute were not like him. They were cruel, unjust rulers and all the people of England hated them. So when in the year 1042 the last of them died, Edward, the son of the Saxon Ethelred, was elected king. He is known in history as Edward the Confessor. He was a man of holy life and after his death was made a saint by the Church, with the title of "the Confessor." Though born in England, he passed the greater part of his life in Normandy as an ex

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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

KING FROM 1066-1087 I On the death of Edward the Confessor the throne of England was claimed by William, Duke of Normandy. When Edward took refuge in Normandy after the Danes conquered England, he stayed at the palace of William. He was very kindly treated there, and William said that Edward had promised in gratitude that William should succeed him as king of England. One day in the year 1066 when William was hunting with a party of his courtiers in the woods near Rouen, a noble came riding rapi

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PETER THE HERMIT

ABOUT 1050-1115 I During the Middle Ages the Christians of Europe used to go to the Holy Land for the purpose of visiting the tomb of Christ and other sacred places. Those who made such a journey were called "pilgrims." Every year thousands of pilgrims—kings, nobles and people of humbler rank—went to the Holy Land. While Jerusalem was in the hands of the Arabian caliphs who reigned at Bagdad, the Christian pilgrims were generally well treated. After about 1070, when the Turks took possession of

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FREDERICK BARBAROSSA

EMPEROR FROM 1152-1190 I Frederick I was one of the most famous of German emperors. He was a tall, stalwart man of majestic appearance. He had a long red beard and so the people called him Barbarossa, or Red-Beard. He came to the throne in 1152. At that time the province of Lombardy in northern Italy was a part of the German empire. In 1158 Milan ( mï-lan' ), the chief city of Lombardy, revolted. Then over the Alps came an army of a hundred thousand German soldiers, with Frederick at their head.

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HENRY THE SECOND 1154-1189 AND HIS SONS 1189-1216

I In 1154, while Barbarossa was reigning in Germany, Henry II, one of England's greatest monarchs, came to the throne. Henry was the son of Geoffrey Plan-tag'e-net, Count of Anjou in France, and Matilda, daughter of King Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror. Count Geoffrey used to wear in his hat a sprig of the broom plant, which is called in Latin planta genista . From this he adopted the name Plantagenet, and the kings who descended from him and ruled England for more than three

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LOUIS THE NINTH

KING FROM 1226-1270 I After the time of Barbarossa and Richard Cœur de Lion lived another great Crusading king. This was a grandson of Philip II, named Louis IX, who became sovereign of France in 1226. He was then only eleven years old, so for some years his mother ruled the kingdom. A few years after he had begun to reign Louis decided to make his brother Alphonse the governor of a certain part of France. The nobles of the region refused to have Alphonse as governor and invited Henry III of Eng

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ROBERT BRUCE

KING FROM 1306-1329 The most famous king that Scotland ever had was Robert Bruce. He lived in the days when Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III were kings of England. During the reign of Edward I the king of Scotland died and thirteen men claimed the throne. Instead of fighting to decide which of them should be king they asked Edward to settle the question. When he met the Scottish nobles and the rivals, each of whom thought that next day he would be wearing the crown, Edward told them that he w

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MARCO POLO

LIVED FROM 1254-1324 I Some years before St. Louis led his last Crusade there was born in Venice a boy named Marco Polo. His father was a wealthy merchant who often went on trading journeys to distant lands. In 1271, when Marco was seventeen years old, he accompanied his father and uncle on a journey through the Holy Land, Persia and Tartary, and at length to the Empire of China—then called Ca-thay'. It took the travelers three years to reach Cathay. The emperor of Cathay was a monarch named Kub

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EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE

LIVED FROM 1330-1376 I One of the most famous warriors of the Middle Ages was Edward the Black Prince. He was so called because he wore black armor in battle. The Black Prince was the son of Edward III who reigned over England from 1327 to 1377. He won his fame as a soldier in the wars which his father carried on against France. You remember that the early kings of England, from the time of William the Conqueror, had possessions in France. Henry II, William's grandson, was the duke of Normandy a

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WILLIAM TELL AND ARNOLD VON WINKELRIED

I Far up among the Alps, in the very heart of Switzerland, are three districts, or cantons, as they are called, which are known as the Forest Cantons and are famous in the world's history. About two thousand years ago the Romans found in these cantons a hardy race of mountaineers, who, although poor, were free men and proud of their independence. They became the friends and allies of Rome, and the cantons were for many years a part of the Roman Empire, but the people always had the right to elec

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TAMERLANE

LIVED FROM 1333-1405 I Tamerlane was the son of the chief of a Mongolian tribe in Central Asia. His real name was Timour, but as he was lamed in battle when a youth he was generally called Timour the Lame, and this name was gradually changed to Tamerlane. He was born in 1333, so that he lived in the time of the English king, Edward III, when the Black Prince was winning his victories over the French. He was a descendant of a celebrated Tatar soldier, Genghis ( jen'ghis ) Khan, who conquered Pers

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HENRY V

KING FROM 1413-1422 I Of all the kings that England ever had Henry V was perhaps the greatest favorite among the people. They liked him because he was handsome and brave and, above all, because he conquered France. In his youth, Prince Hal, as the people called him, had a number of merry companions who sometimes got themselves into trouble by their pranks. Once one of them was arrested and brought before the chief justice of the kingdom. Prince Hal was not pleased because sentence was given agai

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JOAN OF ARC

LIVED FROM 1412-1431 I In the long wars between the French and English not even the Black Prince or King Henry V gained such fame as did a young French peasant girl, Joan of Arc. She was born in the little village of Domremy ( dom-re-me' ). Her father had often told her of the sad condition of France—how the country was largely in the possession of England, and how the French king did not dare to be crowned. And so the thought came to be ever in her mind, "How I pity my country!" She brooded ove

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GUTENBERG

LIVED FROM 1400-1468 I While Joan of Arc was busy rescuing France from the English, another wonderful worker was busy in Germany. This was John Gutenberg, who was born in Mainz. The Germans—and most other people—think that he was the inventor of the art of printing with movable types. And so in the cities of Dresden and Mainz his countrymen have put up statues in his memory. Gutenberg's father was a man of good family. Very likely the boy was taught to read. But the books from which he learned w

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WARWICK THE KINGMAKER

LIVED FROM 1428-1471 I The earl of Warwick, known as the "kingmaker," was the most famous man in England for many years after the death of Henry V. He lived in a great castle with two towers higher than most church spires. It is one of the handsomest dwellings in the world and is visited every year by thousands of people. The kingmaker had a guard of six hundred men. At his house in London meals were served to so many people that six fat oxen were eaten at breakfast alone. He had a hundred and t

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