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328

ROMAN LEGATES AND NUNCIOS.

[CHAP. VIIL

years, lest the patriotism of the ambassadors should be weakened by too long a residence abroad. The disadvantages attending the appointment of a new and inexperienced minister were thought to be counterbalanced by the number of men conversant with foreign affairs which by this arrangement would be always congregated at Venice: nor did their recall preclude them from being again appointed. We have already alluded to their reports, or Relazioni, which in process of time became elaborate descriptions of the countries and courts to which they were accredited. The substance of some of the oldest of them is preserved in the Chronicle of Marino Sanuto.

The ambassadors of Rome were divided into two classes; if Cardinals, they bore the title of Legates, while other Papal ambassadors of high rank were called Nuncios. In the middle ages, Legates were frequent enough, while in modern times Cardinals are seldom sent in a diplomatic character. The ambassadors of Rome hold the highest place in the diplomatic body: they are now always Archbishops, mostly in partibus; a condition not indispensable in the middle of the sixteenth century, when persons who were not even clerical had the office and title of Nuncios, as Castiglione and Acciajuoli under Clement VII. The reports of some of the Roman ambassadors, like those of the Venetian, have become important historical papers.

Ambassadors had the title of Excellence at the beginning of the sixteenth century, though perhaps only by courtesy. address was Magnifico Oratore or Magnifico Signore.

The official

Charles V.

ordered that the title of ambassador should be given only to the envoys of Kings and of the Republic of Venice, and not to the agents of any vassal State.' After the Papal ambassadors, the In Italy the Imperial ambas

Venetian had the precedence. sadors naturally took the first place; next those of France, and then those of Spain. It was usual in former times for ambassadors to follow the movements of the Court to which they were accredited, whithersoever it went; and as journeys were then generally made on horseback, they had thus a good opportunity of becoming acquainted with the countries which they visited.

In the middle ages treaties were promulgated by the voice of the herald, nor was it customary to print and publish them till long after the invention of printing. The Golden Bull, however, the fundamental law of the Holy Roman Empire, forms an excep

1 Vinc. Ferdeli, Relazione on the court of Cosmo I. of Florence, 1561, ap. Reumont, Hist. Taschenb. 1841, S. 452.

CHAP. VIII.]

SYSTEMS OF MODERN WARFARE.

329

tion, which appeared at Nuremberg in Latin in 1474, and at Ulm and Strasburg in German in 1484 and 1485. The Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius, the first volume of which appeared at Rome in 1588, is one of the earliest historical works in which treaties are inserted.1

Of international law, another and very important result of the European system, we shall speak in a subsequent chapter, as its foundations were hardly laid in the period we are considering; and we will close this chapter with some account of the methods of warfare at this period.

2

. Even at the beginning of the sixteenth century the gens d'armes, or heavy cavalry, were still pretty generally regarded, at least in Western Europe, as forming the pith of armies; though in the Spanish forces the heavy cavalry were not so numerous as the light, who fought in Moorish fashion. The Burgundian gens d'armes had a great reputation. Infantry, however, were now beginning to be more employed. During the preceding century, and especially the first half of it, little or no care had been bestowed on the raising or discipline of the infantry, who were considered incompetent to resist cavalry. Yet those horsemen all cased in iron, who fought with long lances and heavy swords, could not engage except upon an open plain; a small fortification, a little stream, even a ditch, arrested them; and it was rarely that they ventured to attack an intrenched camp. Thus an engagement could not take place unless the generals on both sides were desirous of it; and in Italy, especially, there was frequently no pitched battle, scarcely even a skirmish, in the course of a war. The expeditions were confined to what were called cavalcades, or forays into the enemy's country; when the horsemen swept over the plains, destroying the crops, carrying off the cattle, and burning the houses. In short, war was thus made upon the people, and not against the enemy's army."

3

The Swiss, whose mountainous country is ill adapted to horsemen, were the first European people who organized a formidable infantry; and its effect on the Burgundian horsemen has been seen. The Swiss foot soldiers were armed with pikes of enormous length, or halberds; they had gigantic sabres, wielded with both hands, and a club armed with points of iron, called the Morgenstern, or morning-star. Such arms were necessary against the

Hist. abrégée des Traités de Paix, par Koch et Schoell, Introd. p. 15. The most complete collection of treaties is that of Dumont, Corps Universel Diplomatique.

2 Von Raumer, Gesch. Europas, B. i. S. 272 ff. 3 Sismondi, Rép. Ital. t. viii. p. 56 sq.

330

INTRODUCTION OF FIREARMS.

[CHAP. VIIL helms and cuirasses of mounted knights. Among the German peasantry, oppressed and discontented for a long series of years, it was also easy to raise soldiers, and it was in their villages that were recruited the lance-knights (Lanzknechte, whence the French lansquenets), who played so great a part in the wars of Europe during the period we are contemplating. In this respect the example of their Swiss neighbours had a great influence upon them. The German lancemen were also, as their name implies, armed with long spears. But however effective against cavalry, these troops could not contend in close combat with the short swords of the Spanish infantry.

The missile weapons used before the introduction of muskets were arrows, discharged from bows or crossbows. Hand-guns, or arquebuses, are first mentioned in 1432, when Sigismund, on his journey into Italy, had a guard of 500 men so armed. These arquebuses were so heavy as to require a rest, and were fired with a matchlock; which inconveniences long caused them to be considered inferior to the crossbow. It appears from a passage of Eneas Sylvius, that the hand-guns used in 1459 were also without locks. Muskets, or pistols, with locks were first made at Nuremberg in 1517.3 But a century elapsed before the bow was quite laid aside. Artillery (in the modern sense of the word) had come into pretty general use before the end of the fourteenth century. It seems to have been first used by the Moors in their wars with the Spaniards about 1312. In 1339 the Scots battered the walls of Stirling Castle with bombards," and the Turks are said to have used artillery with effect at the first siege of Constantinople in 1422. The use of gunpowder in mining was a Spanish invention, first adopted by Francisco Ramirez at the siege of Malaga in 1487. Pedro Navarro afterwards used mines on a more extended and scientific scale in the Italian wars of the sixteenth century, as before related.

In a military point of view, the nations of Eastern Europe presented some peculiar features. They possessed few fortresses in comparison with the Romance or Teutonic nations, and their chief military force, even down to the seventeenth century, consisted of enormous bodies of cavalry. Louis King of Hungary and

Bandini, ap. Muratori, Scripp. Rer. ib. 243; Zurita, Annales de Aragon, t. ii. Ital. t. xx. p. 41.

2 Commentarii, lib. iv. p. 105 (ed. 1614). De Murr, Beschreibung von Nürenberg, ap. Koch, Révol. de l'Eur. i. p. 244. Casiri, Biblioth. Arab. Hisp. ap. Koch,

4

p. 99.

5 Froissart, liv. i. c. 74.

• Chalcocondyles, lib. v. (p. 281 ed. Bonn.).

CHAP. VIII.]

STANDING ARMIES.

331

Poland often assembled, about the middle of the fourteenth century, an army of 40,000 or 50,000 horsemen, to the astonishment of the Italians, who in their most important wars could hardly raise 3,000. The Hungarians served like the Poles on the condition of their tenures. Athough well mounted they were badly armed, having only a long sword, a bow and arrows, and no coat of mail; for which, however, a thick jacket formed a kind of substitute. It was computed in the sixteenth century that the Polish cavalry was equal in number to that of Spain, France, and Germany combined. The Grand-Prince of Moscow could bring into the field 150,000 mounted combatants. The force of the Voyvodes of Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia was reckoned at 50,000 horsemen each, and the Szekler in Hungary at 60,000.2 Beyond were the bordering Tartar hordes, who may be said to have lived on horseback.

We have already adverted to the origin of standing armies in the reign of Charles VII. of France, and previously among the Turks; but it was long before they were kept up in any force, and only some garrisons and a few gens d'armes were retained in time of peace. The institution of standing armies, like every other division of labour, must, on the whole, be regarded as having promoted civilization, by enabling those not engaged in military service to direct their whole attention to other pursuits. This institution was one of the effects of centralization, or the establishment of the great monarchies, the progress of which we have already seen. But this centralization was not yet complete. Considerable remains of feudalism still lingered in Europe, and we shall see in the sequel its gradual extinction.

We now resume the narrative.

1

Sismondi, Rép. Ital. t. vi. p. 267.

2 Ranke, Fürsten und Völker, Vorrede.

332

ACCESSION OF POPE LEO X.

[CHAP. IX.

CHAPTER IX.

HE choice of the conclave which assembled after the obse

quies of Pope Julius II. had been performed fell on Cardinal John de' Medici, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who assumed the name of Leo X. Lorenzo, by creed a deist, had regarded the Church merely as a source for his son of lucrative emoluments, and dignities which might be crowned with the tiara. Leo, who was in his thirty-eighth year at the time of his election, was still only a deacon, and had to be ordained priest and bishop before his coronation could be performed; yet, besides some minor preferments, he enjoyed six rectories, fifteen abbacies, one priory, and one archbishopric: all of which had been procured for him, before he had completed his seventeenth year, through his father's influence with Louis XI. of France and Popes Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. Innocent, although he had solemnly promised at his election not to bestow the purple on anybody under thirty years of age, had made John a Cardinal in his thirteenth year. In the house of his father, who was surrounded by men of kindred tastes and sentiments, the youthful Cardinal had imbibed a fine taste in ancient and profane literature, but very little respect for the doctrines of the Church. Amidst an extensive collection of the rarest specimens of art and virtù, he had become a first-rate connoisseur in such subjects; while the splendour of the Medicean palace and of the fêtes and exhibitions in which Florence was unrivalled, had imbued him with that love of show and magnificence which characterized his pontificate. During his exile from Florence he had relieved the tedium of his banishment and improved his acquaintance with mankind by visiting most of the principal cities in Germany (including the Netherlands) and France. Besides his accomplishments, Leo possessed the gentlest temper, the most winning manners. It was probably to these qualities, or the reputation of them, that he owed his election; though some have ascribed it to a fistula with which he was at that time afflicted, and which seemed to promise another speedy vacancy to the Papal

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