OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 143 stoutest barons to discipline their vassals and fortify their castles. The origin of walled towns is ascribed to this calamitous period ; nor could any distance be secure against an enemy who, almost at the same instant, laid in ashes the Helvetian monastery of St. Gall, and the city of Bremen on the shores of the northern ocean. Above thirty years the Germanic empire, or kingdom, was subject to the ignominy of tribute ; and resistance was dis- armed by the menace, the serious and effectual menace, of drag- ging the women and children into captivity and of slaughtering the males above the age of ten years. I have neither power nor inclination to follow the Hungarians beyond the Rhine ; but I must observe with surprise that the southern provinces of France were blasted by the tempest, and that Spain, behind her Pyrenees, was astonished at the approach of these formidable strangers. ^- The vicinity of Italy had tempted their early inroads ; but, from ad. 900 their camp on the Brenta, they beheld with some terror the apparent strength and populousness of the new-discovered country. They requested leave to retire ; their request was proudly rejected by the Italian king ; and the lives of twenty thousand Christians paid the forfeit of his obstinacy and rashness. Among the cities of the West, the royal Pavia was conspicuous in fame and splendour ; and the pre-eminence of Rome itself was only derived from the relics of the apostles. The Hun- garians appeared ; Pavia was in flames ; forty-three churches a-d. sm were consumed ; and, after the massacre of the people, they spared about two hundred wretches who had gathered some bushels of gold and silver (a vague exaggeration) from the smok- ing ruins of their country. In these annual excursions from the Alps to the neighbourhood of Rome and Capua, the churches, that yet escaped, resounded with a fearful litany : " Oh ! save and deliver us from the arrows of the Hungarians ! " But the saints were deaf or inexorable ; and the torrent rolled forwards, till it was stopped by the extreme land of Calabria."^-^ A com- 1. iii. c. I, &c. ; 1. v. c. 8 [— c. 19], 15 [= c. 33] , in Legal, p. 485 [c. 45]. His colours are glaring, bat his chronology must be rectified by Pagi and Muratori. [For these early invasions of the Western Empire by the Hungarians see K. Diimmler, Geschichte des ostfriinkischen Reichs, ii. 437 sqq., 543 sqq. The terrible defeat of the Bavarians under Margrave Liutpold took place on July 5, 907.] ••2 The three bloody reigns of Arpad, Zoltan, and Toxus are critically illustrated by Katona (Hist. Ducum, &c. p. 107-499). His diligence has searched both natives and foreigners ; yet to the deeds of mischief, or glory, I have been able to add the destruction of Bremen (Adam Bremensis, i. 43 leg. 54]).
- ^ Muratori has considered with patriotic care the danger and resources of Modena.
The citizens besought S', Geminianus, their patron, to avert, by his intercession, the rabies, flage Hum, &c
