The object of this history is to trace some of the changes by which classical Italy, the kernel of the Roman Empire, the center of government and law for the Western world, became that Italy of the Middle Ages, whose life was as rich in intellectual and artistic culture as it was poor in national cohesion and enduring political strength.To some other historian will belong the delight of telling worthily in the English language the story of those wonderful Italian Commonwealths, whic...

THERE is a race on Scythia’s verge extremeEastward, beyond the Tanais’ chilly stream.The Northern Bear looks on no uglier crew :Base is their garb, their bodies foul to view;Their souls are Ne'er subdued to sturdy toilOr Ceres’ arts : their sustenance is spoil.With horrid wounds they gash their brutal brows,And o'er their murdered parents bind their vows.Not e'en the Centaur-offspring of the CloudWere horsed more firmly than th...

Pope Hadrian occupied the chair of St. Peter for twenty-three years, ten months, and seventeen days, a longer period than had fallen to the lot of any of his predecessors, except the twenty-five years which tradition assigns to St. Peter himself. That part of his pontificate which still lies before us was, as far as Italy was concerned, a long and level space, not marked by any such striking events as those with which the preceding thirty years had been thickly studded, nor will it require...

This little book owes its existence to an invitation addressed to me by the Durham Ladies’ Educational Association to deliver to them a short course of historical lectures. Being allowed to choose my own subject, I naturally chose that with which I was most familiar, the epoch of the fall of the Western Empire: but in order to prevent my very familiarity with that period from leading me into diffuseness, I took the precaution of writing the lectures, and thus, I believe, was preserved from...

The century whose early years witnessed the death of Pope Gregory the Great, and the establishment of something like peaceful relations between the Empire and the Lombards in Italy, was one of a strangely mingled character. As far as Western Europe was concerned (perhaps we might say as far as the Aryan races were concerned) it was, on the whole, monotonous, uneventful, unimportant; but the changes wrought during its course in the regions of the East, the immense spiritual revolution which...

Learned men, who had become my friends through conversations which we had had together, or benefits which I had bestowed upon them, sought to persuade me to draw together into one work the various utterances which it had been my duty to make, during my tenure of office, for the explanation of different affairs. They desired me to do this, in order that future generations might recognise the painful labours which I had undergone for the public good, and the workings of my own unbribed consc...

THE four invading nations whose history has been already related left no enduring memorial of their presence in Italy. The Visigoth, the Hun, the Vandal, the Ostrogoth failed to connect their names with even a single province or a single city of the Imperial land. What these mighty nations had failed to effect, an obscure and savage horde from Pannonia successfully accomplished. Coming last of all across the ridges of the Alps, the Lombards found the venerable Mother of empires exhausted b...

I have now to record the establishment of a Teutonic kingdom in Italy, which, more than any other of the new states arising on the ruins of the Roman Empire, promised to promote the happiness of the human race, which seemed likely to draw forth all that was noblest in the manhood of the barbarian, all that was most refined in the culture of the Italian, and to weld them both into one harmonious whole; a kingdom the Arian ruler of which so wisely deferred to the feelings of his Catholic sub...

We have reached a decisive point in the history of Italy and its relations to the rest of Europe. The Visigoth dealt a mortal blow to the Roman State: the Hun and the Vandal mocked its dying agonies; the Ostrogoth tried, but tried in vain, to resuscitate its life, breathing his Teutonic energy into its outworn frame; then the Lombard came, at first a ruthless barbarian, pillaging and destroying, but gradually won over to Christianity and civilization by the unquenchable influence of the be...

"The Life of Charlemagne" by Thomas Hodgkin is a detailed biography that explores the life and reign of one of history's most significant figures, Charlemagne. Hodgkin delves into Charlemagne's rise to power, his military conquests, and his efforts to unite much of Western Europe under his rule. The book provides insights into Charlemagne's character, his relationships with the church, and his role in the Carolingian Renaissance, highlighting how his leadership shaped the future of Europe ...

In the gradual transformation of the old world of classical antiquity into the world with which the statesmen of today must deal, no man played a greater part than Charles the Great, King of the Franks and Emperor of Rome. The sharp lines of demarcation which we often draw between period and period, and which are useful as helps to memory, have not for the most part had any real existence in history, for in the world of men, as in the development of the material universe, it is true that u...

Theodoric the Goth by Thomas Hodgkin offers a masterful and engaging account of the life and legacy of one of the most remarkable rulers of the late Roman world. Known as both a conqueror and a statesman, Theodoric emerges in these pages as a unifying figure who sought to bridge the divide between Roman civilization and the Gothic peoples during the turbulent twilight of the Western Roman Empire.Hodgkin chronicles Theodoric's journey from a young Gothic prince, raised as a ...