History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3 - Henry Buckley

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Nearly every man being a soldier, the military profession, as such, had no separate existence; or, to speak more properly, the whole of Europe composed one great army, in which all other professions were merged. To this the only exception was the ecclesiastical profession; but even that was affected by the general tendency, and it was not at all uncommon to see large bodies of troops led to the field by bishops and abbots, to most of whom the arts of war were in those days perfectly familiar.350 At all events, between these two professions men were necessarily divided: the only avocations were war and theology; and if you refused to enter the church, you were bound to serve in the army. As a natural consequence, everything of real importance was altogether neglected. There were, indeed, many priests and many warriors, many sermons and many battles.351 But, on the other hand, there was neither trade, nor commerce, nor manufactures; there was no science, no literature: the useful arts were entirely unknown; and even the highest ranks of society were unacquainted, not only with the most ordinary comforts, but with the commonest decencies of civilized life.

      But so soon as gunpowder came into use, there was laid the foundation of a great change. According to the old system, a man had only to possess, what he generally inherited from his father, either a sword or a bow, and he was ready equipped for the field.352 According to the new system, new means were required, and the equipment became more costly and more difficult. First, there was the supply of gunpowder;353 then there was the possession of muskets, which were expensive weapons, and considered difficult to manage.354 Then, too, there were other contrivances to which gunpowder naturally gave rise, such as pistols, bombs, mortars, shells, mines, and the like.355 All these things, by increasing the complication of the military art, increased the necessity of discipline and practice; while, at the same time, the change that was being effected in the ordinary weapons deprived the great majority of men of the possibility of procuring them. To suit these altered circumstances, a new system was organized: and it was found advisable to train up bodies of men for the sole purpose of war, and to separate them as much as possible from those other employments in which formerly all soldiers were occasionally engaged. Thus it was that there arose standing armies; the first of which were formed in the middle of the fifteenth century,356 almost immediately after gunpowder was generally known. Thus, too, there arose the custom of employing mercenary troops; of which we find a few earlier instances, though the practice was not fully established until the latter part of the fourteenth century.357

      The importance of this movement was soon seen, by the change it effected in the classification of European society. The regular troops being, from their discipline, more serviceable against the enemy, and also more immediately under the control of the government, it naturally followed that, as their merits became understood, the old militia should fall, first into disrepute, then be neglected, and then sensibly diminish. At the same time, this diminution in the number of undisciplined soldiers deprived the country of a part of its warlike resources, and therefore made it necessary to pay more attention to the disciplined ones, and to confine them more exclusively to their military duties. Thus it was that a division was first broadly established between the soldier and the civilian; and there arose a separate military profession,358 which, consisting of a comparatively small number of the total amount of citizens, left the remainder to settle in some other pursuit.359 In this way immense bodies of men were gradually weaned from their old warlike habits; and being, as it were, forced into civil life, their energies became available for the general purposes of society, and for the cultivation of those arts of peace which had formerly been neglected. The result was, that the European mind, instead of being, as heretofore, solely occupied either with war or with theology, now struck out into a middle path, and created those great branches of knowledge to which modern civilization owes its origin. In each successive generation this tendency towards a separate organization was more marked; the utility of a division of labour became clearly recognized; and by this means knowledge itself advanced, the authority of this middle or intellectual class correspondingly increased. Each addition to its power lessened the weight of the other two classes, and checked those superstitious feelings and that love of war, on which, in an early state of society, all enthusiasm is concentrated. The evidence of the growth and diffusion of this intellectual principle is so full and decisive, that it would be possible, by combining all the branches of knowledge, to trace nearly the whole of its consecutive steps. At present, it is enough to say, that, taking a general view, this third, or intellectual, class, first displayed an independent, though still a vague, activity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; that in the sixteenth century, this activity, assuming a distinct form, showed itself in religious outbreaks; that in the seventeenth century, its energy, becoming more practical, was turned against the abuses of government, and caused a series of rebellions, from which hardly any part of Europe escaped; and finally, that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it has extended its aim to every department of public and private life, diffusing education, teaching legislators, controlling kings, and, above all, settling on a sure foundation that supremacy of Public Opinion, to which not only constitutional princes, but even the most despotic sovereigns, are now rendered strictly amenable.

      These, indeed, are vast questions; and, without some knowledge of them, no one can understand the present condition of European society, or form the least idea of its future prospects. It is, however, sufficient that the reader can now perceive the way in which so slight a matter as the invention of gunpowder diminished the warlike spirit, by diminishing the number of persons to whom the practice of war was habitual. There were, no doubt, other and collateral circumstances which tended in the same direction; but the use of gunpowder was the most effectual, because, by increasing the difficulty and expense of war, it made a separate military profession indispensable; and thus, curtailing the action of the military spirit, left an overplus, an unemployed energy, which soon found its way to the pursuits of peace, infused into them a new life, and began to control that lust of conquest, which, though natural to a barbarous people, is the great enemy of knowledge, and is the most fatal of those diseased appetites by which even civilized countries are too often afflicted.

      The second intellectual movement, by which the love of war has been lessened, is much more recent, and has not yet produced the whole of its natural effects. I allude to the discoveries made by Political Economy: a branch of knowledge with which even the wisest of the ancients had not the least acquaintance, but which possesses an importance it would be difficult to exaggerate, and is, moreover, remarkable, as being the only subject immediately connected with the art of government that has yet been raised to a science. The practical value of this noble study, though perhaps only fully known to the more advanced thinkers, is gradually becoming recognized by men of ordinary education: but even those by whom it is understood seem to have paid little attention to the way in which, by its influence, the interests of peace, and therefore of civilization, have been directly promoted.360 The manner in which this has been brought about, I will endeavour to explain, as it will furnish another argument in support of that great principle which I wish to establish.

      It is well known, that, among the different causes of war, commercial jealousy was formerly one of the most conspicuous; and there are numerous instances of quarrels respecting the promulgation of some particular tariff, or the protection of some favourite manufacture. Disputes of this kind were founded upon the very ignorant, but the very natural notion, that the advantages of commerce depend upon the balance of trade, and that whatever is gained by one country must be lost by another. It was believed that wealth is composed entirely of money; and that it is, therefore, the essential interest of every people to import few commodities and much gold. Whenever this was done, affairs were said to be in a sound and healthy state; but, if this was not done, it was declared that we were being drained of our resources, and that some other country was getting the better of us, and was enriching itself at our expense.361 For this the only remedy was to negotiate

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<p>350</p>

On these warlike ecclesiastics, compare Grose's Military Antiq. vol. i. pp. 67–8; Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. ii. pp. 26, 183, vol. iii. p. 14; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 458, vol. v. pp. 92, 402, 406; Mosheim's Eccl. History, vol. i. pp. 173, 193, 241; Crichton's Scandinavia, Edinb. 1838, vol. i. p. 220. Such opponents were the more formidable, because in those happy days it was sacrilege for a layman to lay hands on a bishop. In 1095 his Holiness the Pope caused a council to declare, ‘Quòd qui apprehenderit episcopum omnino exlex fiat.’ Matthæi Paris Historia Major, p. 18. As the context contains no limitation of this, it would follow that a man became spiritually outlawed if he, even in self-defence, took a bishop prisoner.

<p>351</p>

As Sharon Turner observes of England under the Anglo-Saxon government, ‘war and religion were the absorbing subjects of this period.’ Turner's History of England, vol. iii. p. 263. And a recent scientific historian says of Europe generally: ‘alle Künste und Kenntnisse, die sich nicht auf das edle Kriegs-, Rauf- und Raubhandwerk bezogen, waren überflüssig und schädlich. Nur etwas Theologie war vonnöthen, um die Erde mit dem Himmel zu verbinden.’ Winckler, Geschichte der Botanik, 1854, p. 56.

<p>352</p>

In 1181, Henry II. of England ordered that every man should have either a sword or bow; which he was not to sell, but leave to his heir: ‘cæteri autem omnes haberent wanbasiam, capellum ferreum, lanceam et gladium, vel arcum et sagittas: et prohibuit ne aliquis arma sua venderet vel invadiaret; sed cùm moreretur, daret illa propinquiori hæredi suo.’ Rog. de Hov. Annal. in Scriptores post Bedam, p. 348 rev. In the reign of Edward I., it was ordered that every man possessing land to the value of forty shillings should keep ‘a sword, bow and arrows, and a dagger… Those who were to keep bows and arrows might have them out of the forest.’ Grose's Military Antiquities, vol. ii. pp. 301, 302. Compare Geijer's History of the Swedes, part i. p. 94. Even late in the fifteenth century, there were at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, ‘in each from four to five thousand scholars, all grown up, carrying swords and bows, and in great part gentry.’ Sir William Hamilton on the History of Universities, in Hamilton's Philosoph. Discussions, p. 414. One of the latest attempts made to revive archery was a warrant issued by Elizabeth in 1596, and printed by Mr. Collier in the Egerton Papers, pp. 217–220, edit. Camden Soc. 1840. In the south-west of England, bows and arrows did not finally disappear from the muster-rolls till 1599; and in the meantime the musket gained ground. See Yonge's Diary, edit. Camden Soc. 1848, p. xvii.

<p>353</p>

It is stated by many writers that no gunpowder was manufactured in England until the reign of Elizabeth. Camden's Elizabeth, in Kennett's History, vol. ii. p. 388, London, 1719; Strickland's Queens of England, vol. vi. p. 223, Lond. 1843; Grose's Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 378. But Sharon Turner (History of England, vol. vi. pp. 490, 491, Lond. 1839) has shown, from an order of Richard III. in the Harleian manuscripts, that it was made in England in 1483; and Mr. Eccleston (English Antiquities, p. 182, Lond. 1847) states, that the English both made and exported it as early as 1411: compare p. 202. At all events, it long remained a costly article; and even in the reign of Charles I., I find a complaint of its dearness, ‘whereby the train-bands are much discouraged in their exercising.’ Parliament. Hist. vol. ii. p. 655. In 1686, it appears from the Clarendon Correspondence, vol. i. p. 413, that the wholesale price ranged from about 2l. 10s. to 3l. per barrel. On the expense of making it in the present century, see Liebig and Kopp's Reports on Chemistry, vol. iii. p. 325, Lond. 1852.

<p>354</p>

The muskets were such miserable machines, that, in the middle of the fifteenth century, it took a quarter of an hour to charge and fire one. Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 342. Grose (Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 146, vol. ii. pp. 292, 337) says, that the first mention of muskets in England is in 1471; and that rests for them did not become obsolete until the reign of Charles I. In the recent edition of Beckmann's History of Inventions, Lond. 1846, vol. ii. p. 535, it is strangely supposed that muskets were ‘first used at the battle of Pavia.’ Compare Daniel, Histoire de la Milice, vol. i. p. 464, with Smythe's Military Discourses, in Ellis's Original Letters, p. 53, edit. Camden Society.

<p>355</p>

Pistols are said to have been invented early in the sixteenth century. Grose's Military Antiq. vol. i. pp. 102, 146. Gunpowder was first employed in mining towns in 1487. Prescott's Hist. of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii. p. 32; Koch, Tableaux des Révolutions, vol. i. p. 243; Daniel, Histoire de la Milice Française, vol. i. p. 574. Daniel (Milice Française, vol. i. pp. 580, 581) says that bombs were not invented till 1588; and the same thing is asserted in Biographie Universelle, vol. xv. p. 248: but, according to Grose (Military Antiq. vol. i. p. 387), they are mentioned by Valturinus in 1472. On the general condition of the French artillery in the sixteenth century, see Relations des Ambassadeurs Vénitiens, vol. i. pp. 94, 476, 478, Paris, 1838, 4to: a curious and valuable publication. There is some doubt as to the exact period in which cannons were first known; but they were certainly used in war before the middle of the fourteenth century. See Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. ii. p. 63; Daniel, Histoire de la Milice, vol. i. pp. 441, 442.

<p>356</p>

Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 413; Daniel, Hist. de la Milice, vol. i. p. 210, vol. ii. pp. 491, 493; Œuvres de Turgot, vol. viii. p. 228.

<p>357</p>

The leading facts respecting the employment of mercenary troops are indicated with great judgment by Mr. Hallam, in his Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 328–337.

<p>358</p>

Grose (Military Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 310, 311) says, that until the sixteenth century, English soldiers had no professional dress, but ‘were distinguished by badges of their leaders' arms, similar to those now worn by watermen.’ It was also early in the sixteenth century that there first arose a separate military literature. Daniel, Hist. de la Milice, vol. i. p. 380: ‘Les auteurs, qui ont écrit en détail sur la discipline militaire: or ce n'est guères que sous François I, et sous l'Empereur Charles V, que les Italiens, les François, les Espagnols et les Allemans ont commencé à écrire sur ce sujet.’

<p>359</p>

The change from the time when every layman was a soldier, is very remarkable. Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. i. p. 291) says, ‘Among the civilized nations of modern Europe, it is commonly computed, that not more than the one-hundredth part of the inhabitants of any country can be employed as soldiers, without ruin to the country which pays the expense of their service.’ The same proportion is given in Sadler's Law of Population, vol. i. p. 292; and in Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, chap. iii. —Œuvres de Montesquieu, p. 130: also in Sharpe's History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 105; and in Alison's History of Europe, vol. xii. p. 318.

<p>360</p>

The pacific tendencies of political economy are touched on very briefly in Blanqui, Histoire de l'Economie Politique, vol. ii. p. 207; and in Twiss's Progress of Political Economy, p. 240.

<p>361</p>

This favourite doctrine is illustrated in a curious ‘Discourse,’ written in 1578, and printed in Stow's London, in which it is laid down, that if our exports exceed our imports, we gain by the trade; but that, if they are less, we lose. Stow's London, edit. Thoms, 1842, p. 205. Whenever this balance was disturbed, politicians were thrown into an agony of fear. In 1620, James I. said, in one of his long speeches, ‘It's strange that my Mint hath not gone this eight or nine years; but I think the fault of the want of money is the uneven balancing of trade.’ Parl. History, vol. i. p. 1179; see also the debate ‘On the Scarcity of Money,’ pp. 1194–1196. In 1620, the House of Commons, in a state of great alarm, passed a resolution, ‘That the importation of tobacco out of Spain is one reason of the scarcity of money in this kingdom.’ Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 1198. In 1627, it was actually argued in the House of Commons that the Netherlands were being weakened by their trade with the East Indies, because it carried money out of the country! Parl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 220. Half a century later, the same principle was advocated by Sir William Temple in his Letters, and also in his Observations upon the United Provinces. Temple's Works, vol. i. p. 175, vol. ii. pp. 117, 118.