A History of Germany from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
by Bayard Taylor · English · Gutenberg #36484 · 1,101,575 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A History of Germany from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: A History of Germany from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Author: Bayard Taylor
Contributor: Marie Hansen Taylor
Release date: June 21, 2011 [eBook #36484]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36484
Credits: Produced by David Garcia, Neil Wyllie, Leonard Johnson and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned
images of public domain material from the Google Print
project.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF GERMANY FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY ***
Produced by David Garcia, Neil Wyllie, Leonard Johnson and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned
images of public domain material from the Google Print
project.)
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY.
(_After a Photograph by J. C. Schaarwaechter, Photographer to the
Emperor._)]
A
HISTORY OF GERMANY
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO
THE PRESENT DAY
BY
BAYARD TAYLOR
_WITH AN ADDITIONAL CHAPTER BY_
MARIE HANSEN-TAYLOR
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1897
COPYRIGHT, 1874, 1893,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED
AT THE APPLETON PRESS, U. S. A.
PREFACE.
When I assented to the request of the publishers that I would edit a new
edition of the History of Germany, and write an additional chapter
finishing the work down to the present date, I was fully aware of both
my own shortcomings and the difficulty of the task. That I undertook it,
nevertheless, is because I was strongly tempted to perform what I
considered, in my case, an act of piety. Being naturally familiar with
the aim and style of this book, I have tried to compile a new chapter in
the simple narrative fashion by which the History has commended itself
to its readers.
In his "Introductory Words" to the original edition the author says:
"The History of Germany is not the history of a nation, but of a race.
It has little unity, therefore it is complicated, broken, and attached
on all sides to the histories of other countries. In its earlier periods
it covers the greater part of Europe, and does not return exclusively to
Germany until after France, Spain, England and the Italian States have
been founded. Thus, even before the fall of the Roman Empire, it becomes
the main trunk out of which branch the histories of nearly all European
nations, and must of necessity be studied as the connecting link between
ancient and modern history. The records of no other race throw so much
light upon the development of all civilized lands during a period of
fifteen hundred years.
"My aim has been to present a clear, continuous narrative, omitting no
episode of importance, yet preserving a distinct line of connection
from century to century. Besides referring to all the best authorities,
I have based my labors mainly upon three recent German works--that of
Dittmar, as the fullest; of Von Rochau, as the most impartial; and of
Dr. David Mueller, as the most readable. By constructing an entirely new
narrative from these, compressing the material into less than half the
space which each occupies, and avoiding the interruptions and changes by
which all are characterized, I hope to have made this History convenient
and acceptable to our schools."
The book is, indeed, eminently fitted for use in the higher grades of
schools. But the scope, comprehensiveness, and style of the work make it
in no less a degree inviting and attractive to the general reader.
The material for the preparation of the additional chapter was difficult
of access, since the history of the last twenty years is on record
chiefly in monographs and in the public press. The best guide I have
found is the "Politische Geschichte der Gegenwart," by Prof. Wilhelm
Mueller. The author of the present book was fortunate in being able to
close it with the glorious events of the years 1870 to 1871, and the
birth of the new Empire. The additional chapter has no such ending. It
deals with the beginning of a new era, and has to state facts, with an
eye to their results in the future.
MARIE HANSEN-TAYLOR.
NEW YORK, _1893_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--THE ANCIENT GERMANS AND THEIR COUNTRY.
(330 B. C.--70 B. C.) 1
II.--THE WARS OF ROME WITH THE GERMANS.
(70 B. C.--9 A. D.) 10
III.--HERMANN, THE FIRST GERMAN LEADER. (9--21 A. D.) 19
IV.--GERMANY DURING THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES OF OUR
ERA. (21--300 A. D.) 28
V.--THE RISE AND MIGRATIONS OF THE GOTHS. (300--412.) 37
VI.--THE INVASION OF THE HUNS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
(412--472.) 47
VII.--THE RISE AND FALL OF THE OSTROGOTHS. (472--570.) 55
VIII.--EUROPE, AT THE END OF THE MIGRATION OF THE RACES. (570.) 63
IX.--THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS. (486--638.) 71
X.--THE DYNASTY OF THE ROYAL STEWARDS. (638--768.) 80
XI.--THE REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE. (768--814.) 92
XII.--THE EMPERORS OF THE CAROLINGIAN LINE. (814--911.) 103
XIII.--KING KONRAD, AND THE SAXON RULERS, HENRY I. AND
OTTO THE GREAT. (912--973.) 116
XIV.--THE DECLINE OF THE SAXON DYNASTY. (973--1024.) 130
XV.--THE FRANK EMPERORS, TO THE DEATH OF HENRY IV.
(1024--1106.) 138
XVI.--END OF THE FRANK DYNASTY, AND RISE OF THE HOHENSTAUFENS.
(1106--1152.) 155
XVII.--THE REIGN OF FREDERICK I., BARBAROSSA. (1152--1197.) 164
XVIII.--THE REIGN OF FREDERICK II. AND END OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN
LINE. (1215--1268.) 175
XIX.--GERMANY AT THE TIME OF THE INTERREGNUM. (1256--1273.) 189
XX.--FROM RUDOLF OF HAPSBURG TO LUDWIG THE BAVARIAN.
(1273--1347.) 198
XXI.--THE LUXEMBURG EMPERORS, KARL IV. AND WENZEL.
(1347--1410.) 212
XXII.--THE REIGN OF SIGISMUND AND THE HUSSITE WAR.
(1410--1437.) 222
XXIII.--THE FOUNDATION OF THE HAPSBURG DYNASTY.
(1438--1493.) 235
XXIV.--GERMANY, DURING THE REIGN OF MAXIMILIAN I.
(1493--1519.) 246
XXV.--THE REFORMATION. (1517--1546.) 255
XXVI.--FROM LUTHER'S DEATH TO THE END OF THE 16TH
CENTURY. (1546--1600.) 273
XXVII.--BEGINNING OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. (1600--1625.) 284
XXVIII.--TILLY, WALLENSTEIN AND GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. (1625--1634.) 295
XXIX.--END OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. (1634--1648.) 309
XXX.--GERMANY, TO THE PEACE OF RYSWICK. (1648--1697.) 320
XXXI.--The war of the Spanish succession. (1697--1714.) 331
XXXII.--THE RISE OF PRUSSIA. (1714--1740.) 338
XXXIII.--THE REIGN OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. (1740--1786.) 347
XXXIV.--GERMANY UNDER MARIA THERESA AND JOSEPH II. (1740--1790.) 369
XXXV.--FROM THE DEATH OF JOSEPH II. TO THE END OF
THE GERMAN EMPIRE. (1790--1806.) 377
XXXVI.--GERMANY UNDER NAPOLEON. (1806--1814.) 392
XXXVII.--FROM THE LIBERATION OF GERMANY TO THE YEAR
1848. (1814--1848.) 409
XXXVIII.--THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 AND ITS RESULTS. (1848--1861.) 420
XXXIX.--THE STRUGGLE WITH AUSTRIA; THE NORTH-GERMAN UNION.
(1861--1870.) 429
XL.--THE WAR WITH FRANCE, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
GERMAN EMPIRE. (1870--1871.) 437
XLI.--THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE. (1871--1893.) 449
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF GERMAN HISTORY. 462
LIST OF MAPS.
PAGE
Germany under the Caesars 11
The Migrations of the Races, A. D. 500 64
Empire of Charlemagne, with the Partition of the Treaty of Verdun,
A. D. 843 107
Germany under the Saxons and Frank Emperors, Twelfth Century 139
Germany under Napoleon, 1812 401
Metz and Vicinity 441
The German Empire, 1871 446
A HISTORY OF GERMANY.
CHAPTER I.
THE ANCIENT GERMANS AND THEIR COUNTRY.
(330 B. C.--70 B. C.)
The Aryan Race and its Migrations. --Earliest Inhabitants of Europe.
--Lake Dwellings. --Celtic and Germanic Migrations. --Europe in the
Fourth Century B. C. --The Name "German." --Voyage of Pytheas.
--Invasions of the Cimbrians and Teutons, B. C. 113. --Victories of
Marius. --Boundary between the Gauls and the Germans.
--Geographical Location of the various Germanic Tribes. --Their
Mode of Life, Vices, Virtues, Laws, and Religion.
The Germans form one of the most important branches of the Indo-Germanic
or Aryan race--a division of the human family which also includes the
Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, and the Slavonic tribes. The
near relationship of all these, which have become so separated in their
habits of life, forms of government and religious faith, in the course
of many centuries, has been established by the evidence of common
tradition, language, and physiological structure. The original home of
the Aryan race appears to have been somewhere among the mountains and
lofty table-lands of Central Asia. The word "Arya," meaning _the high_
or _the excellent_, indicates their superiority over the neighboring
races long before the beginning of history.
When and under what circumstances the Aryans left their home, can never
be ascertained. Most scholars suppose that there were different
migrations, and that each movement westward was accomplished slowly,
centuries intervening between their departure from Central Asia and
their permanent settlement in Europe. The earliest migration was
probably that of the tribes who took possession of Greece and Italy;
who first acquired, and for more than a thousand years maintained, their
ascendency over all other branches of their common family; who, in fact,
laid the basis for the civilization of the world.
[Sidenote: 330 B. C.]
Before this migration took place, Europe was inhabited by a race of
primitive savages, who were not greatly superior to the wild beasts in
the vast forests which then covered the continent. They were
exterminated at so early a period that all traditions of their existence
were lost. Within the last fifty years, however, various relics of this
race have been brought to light. Fragments of skulls and skeletons, with
knives and arrow-heads of flint, have been found, at a considerable
depth, in the gravel-beds of Northern France, or in caves in Germany,
together with the bones of animals now extinct, upon which they fed. In
the lakes of Switzerland, they built dwellings upon piles, at a little
distance from the shore, in order to be more secure against the attacks
of wild beasts or hostile tribes. Many remains of these lake-dwellings,
with flint implements and fragments of pottery, have recently been
discovered. The skulls of the race indicate that they were savages of
the lowest type, and different in character from any which now exist on
the earth.
The second migration of the Aryan race is supposed to have been that of
the Celtic tribes, who took a more northerly course, by way of the
steppes of the Volga and the Don, and gradually obtained possession of
all Central and Western Europe, including the British Isles. Their
advance was only stopped by the ocean, and the tribe which first appears
in history, the Gauls, was at that time beginning to move eastward
again, in search of new fields of plunder. It is impossible to ascertain
whether the German tribes immediately followed the Celts, and took
possession of the territory which they vacated in pushing westward, or
whether they formed a third migration, at a later date. We only know the
order in which they were settled when our first historical knowledge of
them begins.
In the fourth century before the Christian Era, all Europe west of the
Rhine, and as far south as the Po, was Celtic; between the Rhine and the
Vistula, including Denmark and southern Sweden, the tribes were
Germanic; while the Slavonic branch seems to have already made its
appearance in what is now Southern Russia. Each of these three branches
of the Aryan race was divided into many smaller tribes, some of which,
left behind in the march from Asia, or separated by internal wars,
formed little communities, like islands, in the midst of territory
belonging to other branches of the race. The boundaries, also, were
never very distinctly drawn: the tribes were restless and nomadic, not
yet attached to the soil, and many of them moved through or across each
other, so that some were constantly disappearing, and others forming
under new names.
[Sidenote: 113 B. C. THE CIMBRIANS AND TEUTONS.]
The Romans first heard the name "Germans" from the Celtic Gauls, in
whose language it meant simply _neighbors_. The first notice of a
Germanic tribe was given to the world by the Greek navigator Pytheas,
who made a voyage to the Baltic in the year 330 B. C. Beyond the
amber-coast, eastward of the mouth of the Vistula, he found the Goths,
of whom we hear nothing more until they appear, several centuries later,
on the northern shore of the Black Sea. For more than two hundred years
there is no further mention of the Germanic races; then, most
unexpectedly, the Romans were called upon to make their personal
acquaintance.
In the year 113 B. C. a tremendous horde of strangers forced its way
through the Tyrolese Alps and invaded the Roman territory. They numbered
several hundred thousand, and brought with them their wives, children
and all their movable property. They were composed of two great tribes,
the Cimbrians and Teutons, accompanied by some minor allies, Celtic as
well as Germanic. Their statement was that they were driven from their
homes on the northern ocean by the inroads of the waves, and they
demanded territory for settlement, or, at least, the right to pass the
Roman frontier. The Consul, Papirius Carbo, collected an army and
endeavored to resist their advance; but he was defeated by them in a
battle fought near Noreia, between the Adriatic and the Alps.
The terror occasioned by this defeat reached even Rome. The
"barbarians," as they were called, were men of large stature, of
astonishing bodily strength, with yellow hair and fierce blue eyes. They
wore breastplates of iron and helmets crowned with the heads of wild
beasts, and carried white shields which shone in the sunshine. They
first hurled double-headed spears in battle, but at close quarters
fought with short and heavy swords. The women encouraged them with cries
and war-songs, and seemed no less fierce and courageous than the men.
They had also priestesses, clad in white linen, who delivered prophecies
and slaughtered human victims upon the altars of their gods.
[Sidenote: 102 B. C.]
Instead of moving towards Rome, the Cimbrians and Teutons marched
westward along the foot of the Alps, crossed into Gaul, devastated the
country between the Rhone and the Pyrenees, and even obtained temporary
possession of part of Spain. Having thus plundered at will for ten
years, they retraced their steps and prepared to invade Italy a second
time. The celebrated Consul, Marius, who was sent against them, found
their forces divided, in order to cross the Alps by two different roads.
He first attacked the Teutons, two hundred thousand in number, at Aix,
in southern France, and almost exterminated them in the year 102 B. C.
Transferring his army across the Alps, in the following year he met the
Cimbrians at Vercelli, in Piedmont (not far from the field of Magenta).
They were drawn up in a square, the sides of which were nearly three
miles long: in the centre their wagons, collected together, formed a
fortress for the women and children. But the Roman legions broke the
Cimbrian square, and obtained a complete victory. The women, seeing that
all was lost, slew their children, and then themselves; but a few
thousand prisoners were made--among them Teutoboch, the prince of the
Teutons, who had escaped from the slaughter at Aix,--to figure in the
triumph accorded to Marius by the Roman Senate. This was the only
appearance of the German tribes in Italy, until the decline of the
Empire, five hundred years later.
The Roman conquests, which now began to extend northwards into the heart
of Europe, soon brought the two races into collision again, but upon
German or Celtic soil. From the earliest reports, as well as the later
movements of the tribes, we are able to ascertain the probable order of
their settlement, though not the exact boundaries of each. The territory
which they occupied was almost the same as that which now belongs to the
German States. The Rhine divided them from the Gauls, except towards its
mouth, where the Germanic tribes occupied part of Belgium. A line drawn
from the Vistula southward to the Danube nearly represents their eastern
boundary, while, up to this time, they do not appear to have crossed the
Danube on the south. The district between that river and the Alps, now
Bavaria and Styria, was occupied by Celtic tribes. Northwards they had
made some advance into Sweden, and probably also into Norway. They thus
occupied nearly all of Central Europe, north of the Alpine chain.
[Sidenote: 100 B. C. THE GERMAN TRIBES.]
At the time of their first contact with the Romans, these Germanic
tribes had lost even the tradition of their Asiatic origin. They
supposed themselves to have originated upon the soil where they dwelt,
sprung either from the earth, or descended from their gods. According to
the most popular legend, the war-god Tuisko, or Tiu, had a son, Mannus
(whence the word _man_ is derived), who was the first human parent of
the German race. Many centuries must have elapsed since their first
settlement in Europe, or they could not have so completely changed the
forms of their religion and their traditional history.
Two or three small tribes are represented, in the earliest Roman
accounts, as having crossed the Rhine and settled between the Vosges and
that river, from Strasburg to Mayence. From the latter point to Cologne
none are mentioned, whence it is conjectured that the western bank of
the Rhine was here a debatable ground, possessed sometimes by the Celts
and sometimes by the Germans. The greater part of Belgium was occupied
by the Eburones and Condrusii, Germanic tribes, to whom were afterwards
added the Aduatuci, formed out of the fragments of the Cimbrians and
Teutons who escaped the slaughters of Marius. At the mouth of the Rhine
dwelt the Batavi, the forefathers of the Dutch, and, like them, reported
to be strong, phlegmatic and stubborn, in the time of Caesar. A little
eastward, on the shore of the North Sea, dwelt the Frisii, where they
still dwell, in the province of Friesland; and beyond them, about the
mouth of the Weser, the Chauci, a kindred tribe.
What is now Westphalia was inhabited by the Sicambrians, a brave and
warlike people: the Marsi and Ampsivarii were beyond them, towards the
Hartz, and south of the latter the Ubii, once a powerful tribe, but in
Caesar's time weak and submissive. From the Weser to the Elbe, in the
north, was the land of the Cherusci; south of them the equally fierce
and indomitable Chatti, the ancestors of the modern Hessians; and still
further south, along the head-waters of the river Main, the Marcomanni.
A part of what is now Saxony was in the possession of the Hermunduri,
who together with their kindred, the Chatti, were called _Suevi_ by the
Romans. Northward, towards the mouth of the Elbe, dwelt the Longobardi
(Lombards); beyond them, in Holstein, the Saxons; and north of the
latter, in Schleswig, the Angles.
East of the Elbe were the Semnones, who were guardians of a certain holy
place,--a grove of the Druids--where various related tribes came for
their religious festivals. North of the Semnones dwelt the Vandals, and
along the Baltic coast the Rugii, who have left their name in the island
of Ruegen. Between these and the Vistula were the Burgundiones, with a
few smaller tribes. In the extreme north-east, between the Vistula and
the point where the city of Koenigsberg now stands, was the home of the
Goths, south of whom were settled the Slavonic Sarmatians,--the same who
founded, long afterwards, the kingdom of Poland.
Bohemia was first settled by the Celtic tribe of the Boii, whence its
name--_Boiheim_, the home of the Boii--is derived. In Caesar's day,
however, this tribe had been driven out by the Germanic Marcomanni,
whose neighbors, the Quadi, on the Danube, were also German. Beyond the
Danube all was Celtic; the defeated Boii occupied Austria; the
Vindelici, Bavaria; while the Noric and Rhaetian Celts took possession of
the Tyrolese Alps. Switzerland was inhabited by the Helvetii, a Celtic
tribe which had been driven out of Germany; but the mountainous district
between the Rhine, the Lake of Constance and the Danube, now called the
Black Forest, seems to have had no permanent owners.
The greater part of Germany was thus in possession of Germanic tribes,
bound to each other by blood, by their common religion and their habits
of life. At this early period, their virtues and their vices were
strongly marked. They were not savages, for they knew the first
necessary arts of civilized life, and they had a fixed social and
political organization. The greater part of the territory which they
inhabited was still a wilderness. The mountain chain which extends
through Central Germany from the Main to the Elbe was called by the
Romans the Hercynian Forest. It was then a wild, savage region, the home
of the aurox (a race of wild cattle), the bear and the elk. The lower
lands to the northward of this forest were also thickly wooded and
marshy, with open pastures here and there, where the tribes settled in
small communities, kept their cattle, and cultivated the soil only
enough to supply the needs of life. They made rough roads of
communication, which could be traversed by their wagons, and the
frontiers of each tribe were usually marked by guard-houses, where all
strangers were detained until they received permission to enter the
territory.
[Sidenote: HABITS OF THE GERMANS.]
At this early period, the Germans had no cities, or even villages. Their
places of worship, which were either groves of venerable oak-trees or
the tops of mountains, were often fortified; and when attacked in the
open country, they made a temporary defence of their wagons. They lived
in log-houses, which were surrounded by stockades spacious enough to
contain the cattle and horses belonging to the family. A few fields of
rye and barley furnished each homestead with bread and beer, but hunting
and fishing were their chief dependence. The women cultivated flax, from
which they made a coarse, strong linen: the men clothed themselves with
furs or leather. They were acquainted with the smelting and working of
iron, but valued gold and silver only for the sake of ornament. They
were fond of bright colors, of poetry and song, and were in the highest
degree hospitable.
The three principal vices of the Germans were indolence, drunkenness and
love of gaming. Although always ready for the toils and dangers of war,
they disliked to work at home. When the men assembled at night, and the
great ox-horns, filled with mead or beer, were passed from one to the
other, they rarely ceased drinking until all were intoxicated; and when
the passion for gaming came upon them, they would often stake their
dearest possessions, even their own freedom, on a throw of the dice. The
women were never present on these occasions: they ruled and regulated
their households with undisputed sway. They were considered the equals
of the men, and exhibited no less energy and courage. They were supposed
to possess the gift of prophecy, and always accompanied the men to
battle, where they took care of the wounded, and stimulated the warriors
by their shouts and songs.
They honored the institution of marriage to an extent beyond that
exhibited by any other people of the ancient world. The ceremony
consisted in the man giving a horse, or a yoke of oxen, to the woman,
who gave him arms or armor in return. Those who proved unfaithful to the
marriage vow were punished with death. The children of freemen and
slaves grew up together until the former were old enough to carry arms,
when they were separated. The slaves were divided into two classes:
those who lived under the protection of a freeman and were obliged to
perform for him a certain amount of labor, and those who were wholly
"chattels," bought and sold at will.
Each family had its own strictly regulated laws, which were sufficient
for the government of its free members, its retainers and slaves. A
number of these families formed "a district," which was generally laid
out according to natural boundaries, such as streams or hills. In some
tribes, however, the families were united in "hundreds," instead of
districts. Each of these managed its own affairs, as a little republic,
wherein each freeman had an equal voice; yet to each belonged a leader,
who was called "count" or "duke." All the districts of a tribe met
together in a "General Assembly of the People," which was always held at
the time of new or full moon. The chief priest of the tribe presided,
and each man present had the right to vote. Here questions of peace or
war, violations of right or disputes between the districts were decided,
criminals were tried, young men acknowledged as freemen and warriors,
and, in case of approaching war, a leader chosen by the people.
Alliances between the tribes, for the sake of mutual defence or
invasion, were not common, at first; but the necessity of them was soon
forced upon the Germans by the encroachments of Rome.
The gods which they worshipped represented the powers of Nature. Their
mythology was the same originally which the Scandinavians preserved, in
a slightly different form, until the tenth century of our era. The chief
deity was named Wodan, or Odin, the god of the sky, whose worship was
really that of the sun. His son, Donar, or Thunder, with his fiery beard
and huge hammer, is the Thor of the Scandinavians. The god of war, Tiu
or Tyr, was supposed to have been born from the Earth, and thus became
the ancestor of the Germanic tribes. There was also a goddess of the
earth, Hertha, who was worshipped with secret and mysterious rites. The
people had their religious festivals, at stated seasons, when
sacrifices, sometimes of human beings, were laid upon the altars of the
gods, in the sacred groves. Even after they became Christians, in the
eighth century, they retained their habit of celebrating some of these
festivals, but changed them into the Christian anniversaries of
Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide.
[Sidenote: OPEN TO CIVILIZATION.]
Thus, from all we can learn respecting them, we may say that the
Germans, during the first century before Christ, were fully prepared, by
their habits, laws, and their moral development, for a higher
civilization. They were still restless, after so many centuries of
wandering; they were fierce and fond of war, as a natural consequence of
their struggles with the neighboring races; but they had already
acquired a love for the wild land where they dwelt, they had begun to
cultivate the soil, they had purified and hallowed the family relation,
which is the basis of all good government, and finally, although slavery
existed among them, they had established equal rights for free men.
If the object of Rome had been civilization, instead of conquest and
plunder, the development of the Germans might have commenced much
earlier and produced very different results.
CHAPTER II.
THE WARS OF ROME WITH THE GERMANS.
(70 B. C.--9 A. D.)
Roman Conquest of Gaul. --The German Chief, Ariovistus. --His Answer to
Caesar. --Caesar's March to the Rhine. --Defeat of Ariovistus.
--Caesar's Victory near Cologne. --His Bridge. --His Second
Expedition. --He subjugates the Gauls. --He enlists a German
Legion. --The Romans advance to the Danube, under Augustus. --First
Expedition of Drusus. --The Rhine fortified. --Death of Drusus.
--Conquests of Tiberius. --The War of the Marcomanni. --The
Cherusci. --Tyranny of Varus. --Resistance of the Germans.
[Sidenote: 70 B. C.]
After the destruction of the Teutons and Cimbrians by Marius, more than
forty years elapsed before the Romans again came in contact with any
German tribe. During this time the Roman dominion over the greater part
of Gaul was firmly established by Julius Caesar, and in losing their
independence, the Celts began to lose, also, their original habits and
character. They and the Germans had never been very peaceable neighbors,
and the possession of the western bank of the Rhine seems to have been,
even at that early day, a subject of contention between them.
About the year 70 B. C. two Gallic tribes, the AEdui in Burgundy and the
Arverni in Central France, began a struggle for the supremacy in that
part of Gaul. The allies of the latter, the Sequani, called to their
assistance a chief of the German Suevi, whose name, as we have it
through Caesar, was Ariovistus. With a force of 15,000 men, he joined the
Arverni and the Sequani, and defeated the AEdui in several battles. After
the complete overthrow of the latter, he haughtily demanded as a
recompense one-third of the territory of the Sequani. His strength had
meanwhile been increased by new accessions from the German side of the
Rhine, and the Sequani were obliged to yield. His followers settled in
the new territory: in the course of about fourteen years, they
amounted to 120,000, and Ariovistus felt himself strong enough to demand
another third of the lands of the Sequani.
[Sidenote: UNDER THE CAESARS.]
[Illustration: GERMANY UNDER THE CAESARS.]
[Sidenote: 57 B. C.]
Southern France was then a Roman province, governed by Julius Caesar. In
the year 57 B. C. ambassadors from the principal tribes of Eastern Gaul
appeared before him and implored his assistance against the inroads of
the Suevi. It was an opportunity which he immediately seized, in order
to bring the remaining Gallic tribes under the sway of Rome. He first
sent a summons to Ariovistus to appear before him, but the haughty
German chief answered: "When I need Caesar, I shall come to Caesar. If
Caesar needs me, let him seek me. What business has he in _my_ Gaul,
which I have acquired in war?"
On receiving this answer, Caesar marched immediately with his legions
into the land of the Sequani, and succeeded in reaching their capitol,
Vesontio (the modern Besancon), before the enemy. It was then a
fortified place, and its possession gave Caesar an important advantage at
the start. While his legions were resting there for a few days, before
beginning the march against the Suevi, the Gallic and Roman merchants
and traders circulated the most frightful accounts of the strength and
fierceness of the latter through the Roman camp. They reported that the
German barbarians were men of giant size and more than human strength,
whose faces were so terrible that the glances of their eyes could not be
endured. Very soon numbers of the Roman officers demanded leave of
absence, and even the few who were ashamed to take this step lost all
courage. The soldiers became so demoralized that many of them declared
openly that they would refuse to fight, if commanded to do so.
In this emergency, Caesar showed his genius as a leader of men. He called
a large number of soldiers and officers of all grades together, and
addressed them in strong words, pointing out their superior military
discipline, ridiculing the terrible stories in circulation, and sharply
censuring them for their insubordination. He concluded by declaring that
if the army should refuse to march, he would start the next morning with
only the tenth legion, upon the courage and obedience of which he could
rely. This speech produced an immediate effect. The tenth legion
solemnly thanked Caesar for his confidence in its men and officers, the
other legions, one after the other, declared their readiness to follow,
and the whole army left Vesontio the very next morning. After a rapid
march of seven days, Caesar found himself within a short distance of the
fortified camp of Ariovistus.
[Sidenote: 57 B. C. CAESAR AND ARIOVISTUS.]
The German chief now agreed to an interview, and the two leaders met,
half-way between the two armies, on the plain of the Rhine. The place is
supposed to have been a little to the northward of Basel. Neither Caesar
nor Ariovistus would yield to the demands of the other, and as the
cavalry of their armies began skirmishing, the interview was broken off.
For several days in succession the Romans offered battle, but the Suevi
refused to leave their strong position. This hesitation seemed
remarkable, until it was explained by some prisoners, captured in a
skirmish, who stated that the German priestesses had prophesied
misfortune to Ariovistus, if he should fight before the new moon.
Caesar, thereupon, determined to attack the German camp without delay.
The meeting of the two armies was fierce, and the soldiers were soon
fighting hand to hand. On each side one wing gave way, but the greater
quickness and superior military skill of the Romans enabled them to
recover sooner than the enemy. The day ended with the entire defeat of
the Suevi, and the flight of the few who escaped across the Rhine. They
did not attempt to reconquer their lost territory, and the three small
German tribes, who had long been settled between the Rhine and the
Vosges (in what is now Alsatia), became subject to Roman rule.
Two years afterwards, Caesar, who was engaged in subjugating the Belgae,
in Northern Gaul, learned that two other German tribes, the Usipetes and
Tencteres, who had been driven from their homes by the Suevi, had
crossed the Rhine below where Cologne now stands. They numbered 400,000,
and the Northern Gauls, instead of regarding them as invaders, were
inclined to welcome them as allies against Rome, the common enemy. Caesar
knew that if they remained, a revolt of the Gauls against his rule would
be the consequence. He therefore hastened to meet them, got possession
of their principal chiefs by treachery, and then attacked their camp
between the Meuse and the Rhine. The Germans were defeated, and nearly
all their foot-soldiers slaughtered, but the cavalry succeeded in
crossing the river, where they were welcomed by the Sicambrians.
Then it was that Caesar built his famous wooden bridge across the Rhine,
not far from the site of Cologne, although the precise point can not now
be ascertained. He crossed with his army into Westphalia, but the tribes
he sought retreated into the great forests to the eastward, where he was
unable to pursue them. He contented himself with burning their houses
and gathering their ripened harvests for eighteen days, when he returned
to the other side and destroyed the bridge behind him. From this time,
Rome claimed the sovereignty of the western bank of the Rhine to its
mouth.
[Sidenote: 53 B. C.]
While Caesar was in Britain, in the year 53 B. C., the newly subjugated
Celtic and German tribes which inhabited Belgium rose in open revolt
against the Roman rule. The rapidity of Caesar's return arrested their
temporary success, but some of the German tribes to the eastward of the
Rhine had already promised to aid them. In order to secure his
conquests, the Roman general determined to cross the Rhine again, and
intimidate, if not subdue, his dangerous neighbors. He built a second
bridge, near the place where the first had been, and crossed with his
army. But, as before, the Suevi and Sicambrians drew back among the
forest-covered hills along the Weser river, and only the small and
peaceful tribe of the Ubii remained in their homes. The latter offered
their submission to Caesar, and agreed to furnish him with news of the
movements of their warlike countrymen, in return for his protection.
When another revolt of the Celtic Gauls took place, the following year,
German mercenaries, enlisted among the Ubii, fought on the Roman side
and took an important part in the decisive battle which gave
Vercingetorix, the last chief of the Gauls, into Caesar's hands. He was
beheaded, and from that time the Gauls made no further effort to throw
off the Roman yoke. They accepted the civil and military organization,
the dress and habits, and finally the language and religion of their
conquerors. The small German tribes in Alsatia and Belgium shared the
same fate: their territory was divided into two provinces, called Upper
and Lower Germania by the Romans. The vast region inhabited by the
independent tribes, lying between the Rhine, the Vistula, the North Sea
and the Danube, was thenceforth named _Germania Magna_, or "Great
Germany."
Caesar's renown among the Germans, and probably also his skill in dealing
with them, was so great, that when he left Gaul to return to Rome, he
took with him a German legion of 6,000 men, which afterwards fought on
his side against Pompey, on the battle-field of Pharsalia. The Roman
agents penetrated into the interior of the country, and enlisted a great
many of the free Germans who were tempted by the prospect of good pay
and booty. Even the younger sons of the chiefs entered the Roman army,
for the sake of a better military education.
[Sidenote: 15 B. C. THE EXPEDITIONS OF DRUSUS.]
No movement of any consequence took place for more than twenty years
after Caesar's last departure from the banks of the Rhine. The Romans,
having secured their possession of Gaul, now turned their attention to
the subjugation of the Celtic tribes inhabiting the Alps and the
lowlands south of the Danube, from the Lake of Constance to Vienna. This
work had also been begun by Caesar: it was continued by the Emperor
Augustus, whose step-sons, Tiberius and Drusus, finally overcame the
desperate resistance of the native tribes. In the year 15 B. C. the
Danube became the boundary between Rome and Germany on the south, as the
Rhine already was on the west. The Roman provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum
and Pannonia were formed out of the conquered territory.
Augustus now sent Drusus, with a large army, to the Rhine, instructing
him to undertake a campaign against the independent German tribes. It
does not appear that the latter had given any recent occasion for this
hostile movement: the Emperor's design was probably to extend the
dominions of Rome to the North Sea and the Baltic. Drusus built a large
fleet on the Rhine, descended that river nearly to its mouth, cut a
canal for his vessels to a lake which is now the Zuyder Zee, and thus
entered the North Sea. It was a bold undertaking, but did not succeed.
He reached the mouth of the river Ems with his fleet, when the weather
became so tempestuous that he was obliged to return.
The next year, 11 B. C., he made an expedition into the land of the
Sicambrians, during which his situation was often hazardous; but he
succeeded in penetrating rather more than a hundred miles to the
eastward of the Rhine, and establishing--not far from where the city of
Paderborn now stands--a fortress called Aliso, which became a base for
later operations against the German tribes. He next set about building a
series of fortresses, fifty in number, along the western bank of the
Rhine. Around the most important of these, towns immediately sprang up,
and thus were laid the foundations of the cities of Strasburg, Mayence,
Coblenz, Cologne, and many smaller places.
[Sidenote: 9 B. C.]
In the year 9 B. C. Drusus marched again into Germany. He defeated the
Chatti in several bloody battles, crossed the passes of the Thuringian
Forest, and forced his way through the land of the Cherusci (the Hartz
region) to the Elbe. The legend says that he there encountered a German
prophetess, who threatened him with coming evil, whereupon he turned
about and retraced his way towards the Rhine. He died, however, during
the march, and his dejected army had great difficulty in reaching the
safe line of their fortresses.
Tiberius succeeded to the command left vacant by the death of his
brother Drusus. Less daring, but of a more cautious and scheming nature,
he began by taking possession of the land of the Sicambrians and
colonizing a part of the tribe on the west bank of the Rhine. He then
gradually extended his power, and in the course of two years brought
nearly the whole country between the Rhine and Weser under the rule of
Rome. His successor, Domitius AEnobarbus, built military roads through
Westphalia and the low, marshy plains towards the sea. These roads,
which were called "long bridges," were probably made of logs, like the
"corduroy" roads of our Western States, but they were of great service
during the later Roman campaigns.
After the lapse of ten years, however, the subjugated tribes between the
Rhine and the Weser rose in revolt. The struggle lasted for three years
more, without being decided; and then Augustus sent Tiberius a second
time to Germany. The latter was as successful as at first: he crushed
some of the rebellious tribes, accepted the submission of others, and,
supported by a fleet which reached the Elbe and ascended that river to
meet him, secured, as he supposed, the sway of Rome over nearly the
whole of _Germania Magna_. This was in the fifth year of the Christian
Era. Of the German tribes who still remained independent, there were the
Semnones, Saxons and Angles, east of the Elbe, and the Burgundians,
Vandals and Goths along the shore of the Baltic, together with one
powerful tribe in Bohemia. The latter, the Marcomanni, who seem to have
left their original home in Baden and Wuertemberg on account of the
approach of the Romans, now felt that their independence was a second
time seriously threatened. Their first measure of defence, therefore,
was to strengthen themselves by alliances with kindred tribes.
[Sidenote: 8 B. C. THE MARCOMANNI: VARUS.]
The chief of the Marcomanni, named Marbod, was a man of unusual capacity
and energy. It seems that he was educated as a Roman, but under what
circumstances is not stated. This rendered him a more dangerous enemy,
though it also made him an object of suspicion, and perhaps jealousy, to
the other German chieftains. Nevertheless, he succeeded in uniting
nearly all the independent tribes east of the Elbe under his command,
and in organizing a standing army of 70,000 foot and 4,000 horse, which,
disciplined like the Roman legions, might be considered a match for an
equal number. His success created so much anxiety in Rome, that in the
next year after Tiberius returned from his successes in Germany,
Augustus determined to send a force of twelve legions against Marbod.
Precisely at this time, a great insurrection broke out in Dalmatia and
Pannonia, and when it was suppressed, after a struggle of three years,
the Romans found it prudent to offer peace to Marbod, and he to accept
it.
By this time, the territory between the Rhine and the Weser had been
fifteen years, and that between the Weser and the Elbe four years, under
Roman government. The tribes inhabiting the first of these two regions
had been much weakened, both by the part some of them had taken in the
Gallic insurrections, and by the revolt of all against Rome, during the
first three or four years of the Christian Era. But those who inhabited
the region between the Weser and the Elbe, the chief of whom were the
Cherusci, were still powerful, and unsubdued in spirit.
While Augustus was occupied in putting down the insurrection in Dalmatia
and Pannonia, with a prospect, as it seemed, of having to fight the
Marcomanni afterwards, his representative in Germany was Quinctilius
Varus, a man of despotic and relentless character. Tiberius, in spite of
his later vices as Emperor, was prudent and conciliatory in his
conquests; but Varus soon turned the respect of the Germans for the
Roman power into the fiercest hate. He applied, in a more brutal form,
the same measures which had been forced upon the Gauls. He overturned,
at one blow, all the native forms of law, introduced heavy taxes, which
were collected by force, punished with shameful death crimes which the
people considered trivial, and decided all matters in Roman courts and
in a language which was not yet understood.
[Sidenote: 8 B. C.]
This violent and reckless policy, which Varus enforced with a hand of
iron, produced an effect the reverse of what he anticipated. The German
tribes with hardly an exception, determined to make another effort to
regain their independence; but they had been taught wisdom by seventy
years of conflict with the Roman power. Up to this time, each tribe had
acted for itself, without concert with its neighbors. They saw, now,
that no single tribe could cope successfully with Rome: it was necessary
that all should be united as one people: and they only waited until such
a union could be secretly established, before rising to throw off the
unendurable yoke which Varus had laid upon them.
CHAPTER III.
HERMANN, THE FIRST GERMAN LEADER.
(9--21 A. D.)
The Cherusci. --Hermann's Early Life. --His Return to Germany. --Enmity
of Segestes. --Secret Union of the Tribes. --The Revolt.
--Destruction of Varus and his Legions. --Terror in Rome. --The
Battle-Field and Monument. --Dissensions. --First March of
Germanicus. --Second March and Battle with Hermann. --Defeat of
Caecina. --Third Expedition of Germanicus. --Battles on the Weser.
--His Retreat. --Views of Tiberius. --War between Hermann and
Marbod. --Murder of Hermann. --His Character. --Tacitus.
[Sidenote: 9 A. D. HERMANN.]
The Cherusci, who inhabited a part of the land between the Weser and the
Elbe, including the Hartz Mountains, were the most powerful of the
tribes conquered by Tiberius. They had no permanent class of nobles, as
none of the early Germans seem to have had, but certain families were
distinguished for their abilities and their character, or the services
which they had rendered to their people in war. The head of one of these
Cheruscan families was Segimar, one of whose sons was named Hermann. The
latter entered the Roman service as a youth, distinguished himself by
his military talent, was made a Roman knight, and commanded one of the
legions which were employed by Augustus in suppressing the great
insurrection of the Dalmatians and Pannonians. It seems probable that he
visited Rome at the period of its highest power and splendor: it is
certain, at least, that he comprehended the political system by means of
which the Empire had become so great.
When Hermann returned to his people, he was a man of twenty-five and
already an experienced commander. He is described by the Latin writers
as a chief of fine personal presence, great strength, an animated
countenance and bright eyes. He was always self-possessed, quick in
action, yet never rash or heedless. He found the Cherusci and all the
neighboring tribes filled with hate of the Roman rule and burning to
revenge the injuries they had suffered. His first movement was to
organize a secret conspiracy among the tribes, which could be called
into action as soon as a fortunate opportunity should arrive. Varus was
then--A. D. 9--encamped near the Weser, in the land of the Saxons, with
an army of 40,000 men, the best of the Roman legions. Hermann was still
in the Roman service, and held a command under him. But among the other
Germans in the Roman camp was Segestes, a chief of the Cherusci, whose
daughter, Thusnelda, Hermann had stolen away from him and married.
Thusnelda was afterwards celebrated in the German legends as a
high-hearted, patriotic woman, who was devotedly attached to Hermann:
but her father, Segestes, became his bitterest enemy.
[Sidenote: 9 A. D.]
In engaging the different tribes to unite, Hermann had great
difficulties to overcome. They were not only jealous of each other,
remembering ancient quarrels between themselves, but many families in
each tribe were disposed to submit to Rome, being either hopeless of
succeeding or tempted by the chance of office and wealth under the Roman
Government. Hermann's own brother, Flavus, had become, and always
remained, a Roman; other members of his family were opposed to his
undertaking, and it seems that only his mother and his wife encouraged
him with their sympathy. Nevertheless, he formed his plans with as much
skill as boldness, while serving in the army of Varus and liable to be
betrayed at any moment. In fact he _was_ betrayed by his father-in-law,
Segestes, who became acquainted with the fact of a conspiracy and
communicated the news to the Roman general. But Varus, haughty and
self-confident, laughed at the story.
It was time to act; and, as no opportunity came Hermann created one. He
caused messengers to come to Varus, declaring that a dangerous
insurrection had broken out in the lands between him and the Rhine. This
was in the month of September, and Varus, believing the reports, broke
up his camp and set out to suppress the insurrection before the winter.
His nearest way led through the wooded, mountainous country along the
Weser, which is now called the Teutoburger Forest. According to one
account, Hermann was left behind to collect the auxiliary German troops,
and then, with them, rejoin his general. It is certain that he remained,
and instantly sent his messengers to all the tribes engaged in the
conspiracy, whose warriors came to him with all speed. In a few days he
had an army probably equal in numbers to that of Varus. In the meantime
the season had changed: violent autumn storms burst over the land, and
the Romans slowly advanced through the forests and mountain-passes, in
the wind and rain.
[Sidenote: 9 A. D. HERMANN'S CONSPIRACY.]
Hermann knew the ground and was able to choose the best point of attack.
With his army, hastily organized, he burst upon the legions of Varus,
who resisted him, the first day, with their accustomed valor. But the
attack was renewed the second day, and the endurance of the Roman troops
began to give way: they held their ground with difficulty, but exerted
themselves to the utmost, for there was now only one mountain ridge to
be passed. Beyond it lay the broad plains of Westphalia, with fortresses
and military roads, where they had better chances of defence. When the
third day dawned, the storm was fiercer than ever. The Roman army
crossed the summit of the last ridge and saw the securer plains before
them. They commenced descending the long slope, but, just as they
reached three steep, wooded ravines which were still to be traversed,
the Germans swept down upon them from the summits, like a torrent, with
shouts and far-sounding songs of battle.
A complete panic seized the exhausted and disheartened Roman troops, and
the fight soon became a slaughter. Varus, wounded, threw himself upon
his sword: the wooded passes, below, were occupied in advance by the
Germans, and hardly enough escaped to carry the news of the terrible
defeat to the Roman frontier on the Rhine. Those who escaped death were
sacrificed upon the altars of the gods, and the fiercest revenge was
visited upon the Roman judges, lawyers and civil officers, who had
trampled upon all the hallowed laws and customs of the people. The news
of this great German victory reached Rome in the midst of the rejoicings
over the suppression of the insurrection in Dalmatia and Pannonia, and
turned the triumph into mourning. The aged Augustus feared the overthrow
of his power. He was unable to comprehend such a sudden and terrible
disaster: he let his hair and beard grow for months, as a sign of his
trouble, and was often heard to cry aloud: "O, Varus, Varus, give me
back my legions!"
The location of the battle-field where Hermann defeated Varus has been
preserved by tradition. The long southern slope of the mountain, near
Detmold, now bare, but surrounded by forests, is called to this day the
_Winfield_. Around the summit of the mountain there is a ring of huge
stones, showing that it was originally consecrated to the worship of the
ancient pagan deities. Here a pedestal of granite, in the form of a
temple, has been built, and upon it has been placed a colossal statue of
Hermann in bronze, 90 feet high, and visible at a distance of fifty
miles.
[Sidenote: 14 A. D.]
Hermann's deeds were afterwards celebrated in the songs of his people,
as they have been in modern German literature; but, like many other
great men, the best results of his victory were cast away by the people
whom he had liberated. It was now possible to organize into a nation the
tribes which had united to overthrow the Romans, and such seems to have
been his intention. He sent the head of Varus to Marbod, Chief of the
Marcomanni, whose power he had secured by carrying out his original
design; but he failed to secure the friendship, or even the neutrality,
of the rival leader. At home his own family--bitterest among them all
his father-in-law, Segestes--opposed his plans, and the Cherusci were
soon divided into two parties,--that of the people, headed by Hermann,
and that of the nobility, headed by Segestes.
When Tiberius, therefore, hastily collected a new army and marched into
Germany the following year, he encountered no serious opposition. The
union of the tribes had been dissolved, and each avoided an encounter
with the Romans. The country was apparently subjugated for the second
time. The Emperor Augustus died, A. D. 14: Tiberius succeeded to the
purple, and the command in Germany then devolved upon his nephew,
Germanicus, the son of Drusus.
The new commander, however, was detained in Gaul by insubordination in
the army and signs of a revolt among the people, following the death of
Augustus, and he did not reach Germany until six years after the defeat
of Varus. His march was sudden and swift, and took the people by
surprise, for the apparent indifference of Rome had made them careless.
The Marsi were all assembled at one of their religious festivals,
unprepared for defence, in a consecrated pine forest, when Germanicus
fell upon them and slaughtered the greater number, after which he
destroyed the sacred trees. The news of this outrage roused the sluggish
spirit of all the neighboring tribes: they gathered together in such
numbers that Germanicus had much difficulty in fighting his way back to
the Rhine.
[Sidenote: 15 A. D. THE INVASION OF GERMANICUS.]
Hermann succeeded in escaping from his father-in-law, by whom he had
been captured and imprisoned, and began to form a new union of the
tribes. His first design was to release his wife, Thusnelda, from the
hands of Segestes, and then destroy the authority of the latter, who was
the head of the faction friendly to Rome. Germanicus re-entered Germany
the following summer, A. D. 15, with a powerful army, and to him
Segestes appealed for help against his own countrymen. The Romans
marched at once into the land of the Cherusci. After a few days they
reached the scene of the defeat of Varus, and there they halted to bury
the thousands of skeletons which lay wasting on the mountainside. Then
they met Segestes, who gave up his own daughter, Thusnelda, to
Germanicus, as a captive.
The loss of his wife roused Hermann to fury. He went hither and thither
among the tribes, stirring the hearts of all with his fiery addresses.
Germanicus soon perceived that a storm was gathering, and prepared to
meet it. He divided his army into two parts, one of which was commanded
by Caecina, and built a large fleet which transported one-half of his
troops by sea and up the Weser. After joining Caecina, he marched into
the Teutoburger Forest. Hermann met him near the scene of his great
victory over Varus, and a fierce battle was fought. According to the
Romans, neither side obtained any advantage over the other; but
Germanicus, with half the army, fell back upon his fleet and returned to
the Rhine by way of the North Sea.
Caecina, with the remnant of his four legions, also retreated across the
country, pursued by Hermann. In the dark forests and on the marshy
plains they were exposed to constant assaults, and were obliged to fight
every step of the way. Finally, in a marshy valley, the site of which
cannot be discovered, the Germans suddenly attacked the Romans on all
sides. Hermann cried out to his soldiers: "It shall be another day of
Varus!" the songs of the women prophesied triumph, and the Romans were
filled with forebodings of defeat. They fought desperately, but were
forced to yield, and Hermann's words would have been made truth, had not
the Germans ceased fighting in order to plunder the camp of their
enemies. The latter were thus able to cut their way out of the valley
and hastily fortify themselves for the night on an adjoining plain.
[Sidenote: 15 A. D.]
The German chiefs held a council of war, and decided, against the
remonstrances of Hermann, to renew the attack at daybreak. This was
precisely what Caecina expected; he knew what fate awaited them all if he
should fail, and arranged his weakened forces to meet the assault. They
fought with such desperation that the Germans were defeated, and Caecina
was enabled, by forced marches, to reach the Rhine, whither the rumor of
the entire destruction of his army had preceded him. The voyage of
Germanicus was also unfortunate: he encountered a violent storm on the
coast of Holland, and two of his legions barely escaped destruction. He
had nothing to show, as the result of his campaign, except his captive
Thusnelda and her son, who walked behind his triumphal chariot, in Rome,
three years afterwards, and never again saw their native land; and his
ally, the traitor Segestes, who ended his contemptible life somewhere in
Gaul, under Roman protection.
Germanicus, nevertheless, determined not to rest until he had completed
the subjugation of the country as far as the Elbe. By employing all the
means at his command he raised a new army of eight legions, with a great
body of cavalry, and a number of auxiliary troops, formed of Gauls,
Rhaetians, and even of Germans. He collected a fleet of more than a
thousand vessels, and transported his army to the mouth of the Ems,
where he landed and commenced the campaign. The Chauci, living near the
sea, submitted at once, and some of the neighboring tribes were disposed
to follow their example; but Hermann, with a large force of the united
Germans, waited for the Romans among the mountains of the Weser.
Germanicus entered the mountains by a gorge, near where the city of
Minden now stands, and the two armies faced each other, separated only
by the river. The legends state that Hermann and his brother Flavus, who
was still in the service of Germanicus, held an angry conversation from
the opposite shores, and the latter became so exasperated that he
endeavored to cross on horseback and attack Hermann.
Germanicus first sent his cavalry across the Weser, and then built a
bridge, over which his whole army crossed. The Romans and Germans then
met in battle, upon a narrow place between the river and some wooded
hills, called the Meadow of the Elves. The fight was long and bloody:
Hermann himself, severely wounded, was at one time almost in the hands
of the Romans. It is said that his face was so covered with blood that
he was only recognized by some of the German soldiers on the Roman side,
who purposely allowed him to escape. The superior military skill of
Germanicus, and the discipline of his troops, won the day: the Germans
retreated, beaten but not yet subdued.
[Sidenote: 16 A. D. END OF THE INVASION.]
In a short time the latter were so far recruited that they brought on a
second battle. On account of his wounds, Hermann was unable to command
in person, but his uncle, Ingiomar, who took his place, imitated his
boldness and bravery. The fight was even more fierce than the first had
been, and the Romans, at one time, were only prevented from giving way
by Germanicus placing himself at their head, in the thick of the battle.
It appears that both sides held their ground at the close, and their
losses were probably equally great, so that neither was in a condition
to continue the struggle.
Germanicus erected a monument on the banks of the Weser, claiming that
he had conquered Germany to the Elbe; but before the end of the summer
of the year 16 he re-embarked with his army, without leaving any tokens
of Roman authority behind him. A terrible storm on the North Sea so
scattered his fleet that many vessels were driven to the English coast:
his own ship was in such danger that he landed among the Chauci and
returned across the country to the Rhine. The autumn was far advanced
before the scattered remnants of his great army could be collected and
reorganized: then, in spite of the lateness of the season, he made a new
invasion into the lands of the Chatti, or Hessians, in order to show
that he was still powerful.
Germanicus was a man of great ambition and of astonishing energy. As
Julius Caesar had made Gaul Roman, so he determined to make Germany
Roman. He began his preparations for another expedition the following
summer; but the Emperor Tiberius, jealous of his increasing renown,
recalled him to Rome, saying that it was better to let the German tribes
exhaust themselves in their own internal discords, than to waste so many
of the best legions in subduing them. Germanicus obeyed, returned to
Rome, had his grand triumph, and was then sent to the East, where he
shortly afterwards died, it was supposed by poison.
[Sidenote: 19 A. D.]
The words of the shrewd Emperor were true: two rival powers had been
developed in Germany through the resistance to Rome, and they soon came
into conflict. Marbod, Chief of the Marcomanni and many allied tribes,
had maintained his position without war; but Hermann, now the recognized
head of the Cherusci and their confederates, who had destroyed Varus and
held Germanicus at bay, possessed a popularity, founded on his heroism,
which spread far and wide through the German land. Even at that early
day, the small chiefs in each tribe (corresponding to the later
nobility) were opposed to the broad, patriotic union which Hermann had
established, because it weakened their power and increased that of the
people. They were also jealous of his great authority and influence, and
even his uncle, Ingiomar, who had led so bravely the last battle against
Germanicus, went over to the side of Marbod when it became evident that
the rivalry of the two chiefs must lead to war.
Our account of these events is obscure and imperfect. On the one side,
it seems that Marbod's neutrality was a ground of complaint with
Hermann; while Marbod declared that the latter had no right to draw the
Semnones and Longobards--at first allied with the Marcomanni--into union
with the Cherusci against Rome. In the year 19 the two marched against
each other, and a great battle took place. Although neither was
victorious, the popularity of Hermann drew so many of Marbod's allies to
his side, that the latter fled to Italy and claimed the protection of
Tiberius, who assigned to him Ravenna as a residence. He died there in
the year 37, at a very advanced age. A Goth, named Catwalda, assisted by
Roman influence, became his successor as chief of the Marcomanni.
[Sidenote: 21 A. D. DEATH OF HERMANN.]
After the flight of Marbod, Hermann seems to have devoted himself to the
creation of a permanent union of the tribes which he had commanded. We
may guess, but can not assert, that his object was to establish a
national organization, like that of Rome, and in doing this, he must
have come into conflict with laws and customs which were considered
sacred by the people. But his remaining days were too few for even the
beginning of a task which included such an advance in the civilization
of the race. We only know that he was waylaid and assassinated by
members of his own family in the year 21. He was then thirty-seven years
old, and had been for thirteen years a leader of his people. The best
monument to his ability and heroism may be found in the words of a
Roman, the historian Tacitus; who says: "He was undoubtedly the
liberator of Germany, having dared to grapple with the Roman power, not
in its beginnings, like other kings and commanders, but in the maturity
of its strength. He was not always victorious in battle, but in _war_ he
was never subdued. He still lives in the songs of the Barbarians,
unknown to the annals of the Greeks, who only admire that which belongs
to themselves--nor celebrated as he deserves by the Romans, who, in
praising the olden times, neglect the events of the later years."
CHAPTER IV.
GERMANY DURING THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES OF OUR ERA.
(21--300 A. D.)
Truce between the Germans and Romans. --The Cherusci cease to exist.
--Incursions of the Chauci and Chatti. --Insurrection of the Gauls.
--Conquests of Cerealis. --The Roman Boundary. --German Legions
under Rome. --The _Agri Decumates_. --Influence of Roman
Civilization. --Commerce. --Changes among the Germans. --War
against Marcus Aurelius. --Decline of the Roman Power. --Union of
the Germans in Separate Nationalities. --The Alemanni. --The
Franks. --The Saxons. --The Goths. --The Thuringians. --The
Burgundians. --Wars with Rome in the Third Century. --The Emperor
Probus and his Policy. --Constantine. --Relative Position of the
two Races.
[Sidenote: 50.]
After the campaigns of Germanicus and the death of Hermann, a long time
elapsed during which the relation of Germany to the Roman Empire might
be called a truce. No serious attempt was made by the unworthy
successors of Augustus to extend their sway beyond the banks of the
Rhine and the Danube; and, as Tiberius had predicted, the German tribes
were so weakened by their own civil wars that they were unable to cope
with such a power as Rome. Even the Cherusci, Hermann's own people,
became so diminished in numbers that, before the end of the first
century, they ceased to exist as a separate tribe: their fragments were
divided and incorporated with their neighbors on either side. Another
tribe, the Ampsivarii, was destroyed in a war with the Chauci, and even
the power of the fierce Chatti was broken by a great victory of the
Hermunduri over them, in a quarrel concerning the possession of a sacred
salt-spring.
About the middle of the first century, however, an event is mentioned
which shows that the Germans were beginning to appreciate and imitate
the superior civilization of Rome. The Chauci, dwelling on the shores of
the North Sea, built a fleet and sailed along the coast to the mouth of
the Rhine, which they entered in the hope of exciting the Batavi and
Frisii to rebellion. A few years afterwards the Chatti, probably for
the sake of plunder, crossed the Rhine and invaded part of Gaul. Both
attempts failed entirely; and the only serious movement of the Germans
against Rome, during the century, took place while Vitellius and
Vespasian were contending for the possession of the imperial throne. A
German prophetess, of the name of Velleda, whose influence seems to have
extended over all the tribes, promised them victory: they united,
organized their forces, crossed the Rhine, and even laid siege to
Mayence, the principal Roman city.
[Sidenote: 70. THE INVASION OF CEREALIS.]
The success of Vespasian over his rival left him free to meet this new
danger. But in the meantime the Batavi, under their chief, Claudius
Civilis, who had been previously fighting on the new Emperor's side,
joined the Gauls in a general insurrection. This was so successful that
all northern Gaul, from the Atlantic to the Rhine, threw off the Roman
yoke. A convention of the chiefs was held at Rheims, in order to found a
Gallic kingdom; but instead of adopting measures of defence, they
quarrelled about the selection of a ruling family, the future capital of
the kingdom, and other matters of small comparative importance.
The approach of Cerealis, the Roman general sent by Vespasian with a
powerful army in the year 70, put an end to the Gallic insurrection.
Most of the Gallic tribes submitted without resistance: the Treviri, on
the Moselle, were defeated in battle, the cities and fortresses on the
western bank of the Rhine were retaken, and the Roman frontier was
re-established. Nevertheless, the German tribes which had been allied
with the Gauls--among them the Batavi--refused to submit, and they were
strong enough to fight two bloody battles, in which Cerealis was only
saved from defeat by what the Romans considered to be the direct
interposition of the gods. The Batavi, although finally subdued in their
home in Holland, succeeded in getting possession of the Roman admiral's
vessel, by a night attack on his fleet on the Rhine. This trophy they
sent by way of the river Lippe, an eastern branch of the Rhine, as a
present to the great prophetess, Velleda.
The defeat of the German tribes by Cerealis was not followed by a new
Roman invasion of their territory. The Rhine remained the boundary,
although the Romans crossed the river at various points and built
fortresses upon the eastern bank. They appear, in like manner, to have
crossed the Danube, and they also gradually acquired possession of the
south-western corner of Germany, lying between the head-waters of that
river and the Rhine. This region (now occupied by Baden and part of
Wuertemberg) had been deserted by the Marcomanni when they marched to
Bohemia, and it does not appear that any other German tribe attempted to
take permanent possession of it. Its first occupants, the Helvetians,
were now settled in Switzerland.
[Sidenote: 100.]
The enlisting of Germans to serve as soldiers in the Roman army, begun
by Julius Caesar, was continued by the Emperors. The proofs of their
heroism, which the Germans had given in resisting Germanicus, made them
desirable as troops; and, since they were accustomed to fight with their
neighbors at home, they had no scruples in fighting them under the
banner of Rome. Thus one German legion after another was formed, taken
to Rome, Spain, Greece or the East, and its veterans, if they returned
home when disabled by age or wounds, carried with them stories of the
civilized world, of cities, palaces and temples, of agriculture and the
arts, of a civil and political system far wiser and stronger than their
own.
The series of good Emperors, from Vespasian to Marcus Aurelius (A. D. 70
to 181) formed military colonies of their veteran soldiers, whether
German, Gallic or Roman, in the region originally inhabited by the
Marcomanni. They were governed by Roman laws, and they paid a tithe, or
tenth part, of their revenues to the Empire, whence this district was
called the _Agri Decumates_, or Tithe-Lands. As it had no definite
boundary towards the north and north-east, the settlements gradually
extended to the Main, and at last included a triangular strip of
territory extending from that river to the Rhine at Cologne. By this
time the Romans had built, in their provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum and
Pannonia, south of the Danube, the cities of Augusta Vindelicorum, now
Augsburg, and Vindobona, now Vienna, with another on the north bank of
the Danube, where Ratisbon stands at present.
From the last-named point to the Rhine at Cologne they built a stockade,
protected by a deep ditch, to keep off the independent German tribes,
even as they had built a wall across the north of England, to keep off
the Picts and Scots. Traces of this line of defence are still to be
seen. Another and shorter line, connecting the head-waters of the Main
with the Lake of Constance, protected the territory on the east. Their
frontier remained thus clearly defined for nearly two hundred years. On
their side of the line they built fortresses and cities, which they
connected by good highways, they introduced a better system of
agriculture, established commercial intercourse, not only between their
own provinces but also with the independent tribes, and thus extended
the influence of their civilization. For the first time, fruit-trees
were planted on German soil: the rich cloths and ornaments of Italy and
the East, the arms and armor, the gold and silver, and the wines of the
South, soon found a market within the German territory; while the horses
and cattle, furs and down, smoked beef and honey of the Germans, the
fish of their streams, and the radishes and asparagus raised on the
Rhine, were sent to Rome in exchange for those luxuries. Wherever the
Romans discovered a healing spring, as at Baden-Baden, Aix-la-Chapelle
and Spa, they built splendid baths; where they found ores or marble in
the mountains, they established mines or hewed columns for their
temples, and the native tribes were thus taught the unsuspected riches
of their own land.
[Sidenote: 150. THE ROMAN FRONTIER.]
For nearly a hundred years after Vespasian's accession to the throne,
there was no serious interruption to the peaceful intercourse of the two
races. During this time, we must take it for granted that a gradual
change must have been growing up in the habits and ideas of the Germans.
It is probable that they then began to collect in villages; to use stone
as well as wood in building their houses and fortresses; to depend more
on agriculture and less on hunting and fishing for their subsistence;
and to desire the mechanical skill, the arts of civilization, which the
Romans possessed. The extinction of many smaller tribes, also, taught
them the necessity of learning to subdue their internal feuds, and
assist instead of destroying each other. On the north of them was the
sea; on the east the Sarmatians and other Slavonic tribes, much more
savage than themselves: in every other direction they were confronted by
Rome. The complete subjugation of their Celtic neighbors in Gaul was
always before their eyes. In Hermann's day, they were still too ignorant
to understand the necessity of his plan of union; but now that tens of
thousands of their people had learned the extent and power of the Roman
Empire, and the commercial intercourse of a hundred years had shown them
their own deficiencies, they reached the point where a new development
in their history became possible.
[Sidenote: 166.]
Such a development came to disturb the reign of the noble Emperor,
Marcus Aurelius, in the latter half of the second century. About the
year 166, all the German tribes, from the Danube to the Baltic, united
in a grand movement against the Roman Empire. The Marcomanni, who still
inhabited Bohemia, appear as their leaders, and the Roman writers attach
their name to the long and desperate war which ensued. We have no
knowledge of the cause of this struggle, the manner in which the union
of the Germans was effected, or even the names of their leaders: we only
know that their invasion of the Roman territory was several times driven
back and several times recommenced; that Marcus Aurelius died in Vienna,
in 181, without having seen the end; and that his son and successor,
Commodus, bought a peace instead of winning it by the sword. At one
time, during the war, the Chatti forced their way through the
Tithe-Lands and Switzerland, and crossed the Alps: at another, the
Marcomanni and Quadi besieged the city of Aquileia, on the northern
shore of the Adriatic.
The ancient boundary between the Roman Empire and Germany was restored,
but at a cost which the former could not pay a second time. For a
hundred and fifty years longer the Emperors preserved their territory:
Rome still ruled, in name, from Spain to the Tigris, from Scotland to
the Desert of Sahara, but her power was like a vast, hollow shell.
Luxury, vice, taxation and continual war had eaten out the heart of the
Empire; Italy had grown weak and was slowly losing its population, and
the same causes were gradually ruining Spain, Gaul and Britain. During
this period the German tribes, notwithstanding their terrible losses in
war, had preserved their vigor by the simplicity, activity and morality
of their habits: they had considerably increased in numbers, and from
the time of Marcus Aurelius on, they felt themselves secure against any
further invasion of their territory.
Then commenced a series of internal changes, concerning which,
unfortunately, we have no history. We can only guess that their origin
dates from the union of all the principal tribes under the lead of the
Marcomanni; but whether they were brought about with or without internal
wars; whether wise and far-seeing chiefs or the sentiment of the people
themselves, contributed most to their consummation; finally, when these
changes began and when they were completed--are questions which can
never be accurately settled.
[Sidenote: 250--300. GERMAN NATIONALITIES.]
When the Germans again appear in history, in the third century of our
era, we are surprised to find that the names of nearly all the tribes
with which we are familiar have disappeared, and new names, of much
wider significance, have taken their places. Instead of twenty or thirty
small divisions, we now find the race consolidated into four chief
nationalities, with two other inferior though independent branches. We
also find that the geographical situation of the latter is no longer the
same as that of the smaller tribes out of which they grew. Migrations
must have taken place, large tracts of territory must have changed
hands, many reigning families must have been overthrown, and new ones
arisen. In short, the change in the organization of the Germans is so
complete that it can hardly have been accomplished by peaceable means.
Each of the new nationalities has an important part to play in the
history of the following centuries, and we will therefore describe them
separately:
1. THE ALEMANNI.--The name of this division (_Allemannen_,[A] signifying
"all men") shows that it was composed of fragments of many tribes. The
Alemanni first made their appearance along the Main, and gradually
pushed southward over the Tithe-Lands, where the military veterans of
Rome had settled, until they occupied the greater part of South-western
Germany, and Eastern Switzerland, to the Alps. Their descendants inhabit
the same territory, to this day.
[A] _Allemagne_ remains the French name for Germany.
2. THE FRANKS.--It is not known whence this name was derived, nor what
is its meaning. The Franks are believed to have been formed out of the
Sicambrians in Westphalia, together with a portion of the Chatti and the
Batavi in Holland, and other tribes. We first hear of them on the lower
Rhine, but they soon extended their territory over a great part of
Belgium and Westphalia. Their chiefs were already called kings, and
their authority was hereditary.
3. THE SAXONS.--This was one of the small original tribes, settled in
Holstein: the name is derived from their peculiar weapon, a short sword,
called _sahs_. We find them now occupying nearly all the territory
between the Hartz Mountains and the North Sea, from the Elbe westward
to the Rhine. The Cherusci, the Chauci, and other tribes named by
Tacitus, were evidently incorporated with the Saxons, who exhibit the
same characteristics. There appears to have been a natural enmity--no
doubt bequeathed from the earlier tribes out of which both grew--between
them and the Franks.
[Sidenote: 250--300.]
4. THE GOTHS.--The traditions of the Goths state that they were settled
in Sweden before they were found by the Greek navigators on the southern
shore of the Baltic, in 330 B. C. It is probable that only a portion of
the tribe migrated, and that the present Scandinavian race is descended
from the remainder. As the Baltic Goths increased in numbers, they
gradually ascended the Vistula, pressed eastward along the base of the
Carpathians and reached the Black Sea, in the course of the second
century after Christ. They thus possessed a broad belt of territory,
separating the rest of Europe from the wilder Slavonic races who
occupied Central Russia. The Vandals and Alans, with the Heruli, Rugii
and other smaller tribes, all Germanic, as well as a portion of the
Slavonic Sarmatians, were incorporated with them; and it was probably
the great extent of territory they controlled which occasioned their
separation into Ostrogoths (East-Goths) and Visigoths (West-Goths). They
first came in contact with the Romans, beyond the mouth of the Danube,
about the beginning of the third century.
5. THE THURINGIANS.--This branch had only a short national existence. It
was composed of the Hermunduri, with fragments of other tribes, united
under one king, and occupied all of Central Germany, from the Hartz
southward to the Danube.
6. THE BURGUNDIANS.--Leaving their original home in Prussia, between the
Oder and the Vistula, the Burgundians crossed the greater part of
Germany in a south-western direction, and first settled in a portion of
what is now Franconia, between the Thuringians and the Alemanni. Not
long afterwards, however, they passed through the latter, and took
possession of the country on the west bank of the Rhine, between
Strasburg and Mayence.
[Sidenote: 270. INCURSIONS OF THE GOTHS.]
Caracalla came into collision with the Alemanni in the year 213, and the
Emperor Maximin, who was a Goth on his father's side, laid waste their
territory, in 236. About the latter period, the Franks began to make
predatory incursions into Gaul, and the Goths became troublesome to the
Romans, on the lower Danube. In 251 the Emperor Decius found his death
among the marshes of Dacia, while trying to stay the Gothic invasion,
and his successor, Gallus, only obtained a temporary peace by agreeing
to pay an annual sum of money, thus really making Rome a tributary
power. But the Empire had become impoverished, and the payment soon
ceased. Thereupon the Goths built fleets, and made voyages of plunder,
first to Trebizond and the other towns on the Asiatic shore of the Black
Sea; then they passed the Hellespont, took and plundered the great city
of Nicomedia, Ephesus with its famous temple, the Grecian isles, and
even Corinth, Argos and Athens. In the meantime the Alemanni had resumed
the offensive: they came through Rhaetiae, and descended to the Garda
lake, in Northern Italy.
The Emperor, Claudius II., turned back this double invasion. He defeated
and drove back the Alemanni, and then, in the year 270, won a great
victory over the Goths, in the neighborhood of Thessalonica. His
successor, Aurelian, followed up the advantage, and in the following
year made a treaty with the Goths, by which the Danube became the
frontier between them and the Romans. The latter gave up to them the
province of Dacia, lying north of the river, and withdrew their
colonists and military garrisons to the southern side.
Both the Franks and Saxons profited by these events. They let their
mutual hostility rest for awhile, built fleets, and sailed forth in the
West on voyages of plunder, like their relatives, the Goths, in the
East. The Saxons descended on the coasts of Britain and Gaul; the Franks
sailed to Spain, and are said to have even entered the Mediterranean.
When Probus became Emperor, in the year 276, he found a great part of
Gaul overrun and ravaged by them and by the Alemanni, on the Upper
Rhine. He succeeded, after a hard struggle, in driving back the German
invaders, restored the line of stockade from the Rhine to the Danube,
and built new fortresses along the frontier. On the other hand, he
introduced into Germany the cultivation of the vine, which the previous
Emperors had not permitted, and thus laid the foundation of the famous
vineyards of the Rhine and the Moselle.
[Sidenote: 300.]
Probus endeavored to weaken the power of the Germans, by separating and
colonizing them, wherever it was possible. One of his experiments,
however, had a very different result from what he expected. He
transported a large number of Frank captives to the shore of the Black
Sea; but, instead of quietly settling there, they got possession of some
vessels, soon formed a large fleet, sailed into the Mediterranean,
plundered the coasts of Asia Minor, Greece and Sicily, where they even
captured the city of Syracuse, and at last, after many losses and
marvellous adventures, made their way by sea to their homes on the Lower
Rhine.
Towards the close of the third century, Constantine, during the reign of
his father, Constantius, suppressed an insurrection of the Franks, and
even for a time drove them from their islands on the coast of Holland.
He afterward crossed the Rhine, but found it expedient not to attempt an
expedition into the interior. He appears to have had no war with the
Alemanni, but he founded the city of Constance, on the lake of the same
name, for the purpose of keeping them in check.
The boundaries between Germany and Rome still remained the Rhine and the
Danube, but on the east they were extended to the Black Sea, and in
place of the invasions of Caesar, Drusus and Germanicus, the Empire was
obliged to be content when it succeeded in repelling the invasions made
upon its own soil. Three hundred years of very slow, but healthy growth
on the one side, and of luxury, corruption and despotism on the other,
had thus changed the relative position of the two races.
CHAPTER V.
THE RISE AND MIGRATIONS OF THE GOTHS.
(300--412.)
Rise of the Goths. --German Invasions of Gaul. --Victories of Julian.
--The Ostrogoths and Visigoths. --Bishop Ulfila. --The Gothic
Language. --The Gothic King, Athanaric. --The Coming of the Huns.
--Death of Hermanric. --The Goths take refuge in Thrace. --Their
Revolt. --Defeat of Valens. --The Goths under Theodosius. --The
Franks and Goths meet in Battle. --Alaric, the Visigoth. --He
invades Greece. --Battle with Stilicho. --Alaric besieges Rome.
--He enters Rome, A. D. 410. --His Death and Burial. --Succession
of Ataulf. --The Visigoths settle in Southern Gaul. --Beginning of
other Migrations.
[Sidenote: 325. RISE OF THE GOTHS.]
Rome, as the representative of the civilization of the world, and, after
the year 313, as the political power which left Christianity free to
overthrow the ancient religions, is still the central point of
historical interest during the greater part of the fourth century. Until
the death of the Emperor Valentinian, in 375, the ancient boundaries of
the Empire, though frequently broken down, were continually
re-established, and the laws and institutions of the Romans had
prevailed so long throughout the great extent of conquered territory
that the inhabitants now knew no other.
But beyond the Danube had arisen a new power, the independence of which,
after the time of Aurelian, was never disputed by the Roman Emperors.
The Goths were the first of the Germanic tribes to adopt a monarchical
form of government, and to acquire some degree of civilization. They
were numerous and well organized; and Constantine, who was more of a
diplomatist than a general, found it better to preserve peace with them
for forty years, by presents and payments, than to provoke them to war.
His best soldiers were enlisted among them, and it was principally the
valor of his Gothic troops which enabled him to defeat the rival
emperor, Licinius, in 325. From that time, 40,000 Goths formed the main
strength of his army.
[Sidenote: 350.]
The important part which these people played in the history of Europe
renders it necessary that we should now sketch their rise and growth as
a nation. First, however, let us turn to Western and Northern Germany,
where the development of the new nationalities was longer delayed, and
describe the last of their struggles with the power of Rome, during the
fourth century.
After the death of Constantine, in 337, the quarrels of his sons and
brothers for the Imperial throne gave the Germans a new opportunity to
repeat their invasions of Gaul. The Franks were the first to take
advantage of it: they got possession of Belgium, which was not
afterwards retaken. The Alemanni followed, and planted themselves on the
western bank of the Rhine, which they held, although Strasburg and other
fortified cities still belonged to the Romans. About the year 350, a
Frank or Saxon, of the name of Magnentius, was proclaimed Emperor by a
part of the Roman army. He was defeated by the true Emperor, Constantius
II., but the victory seems to have exhausted the military resources of
the latter, for immediately afterwards another German invasion occurred.
This time, the Franks took and pillaged Cologne, the Alemanni destroyed
Strasburg and Mayence, and the Saxons, who had now become a sea-faring
people, visited the northwestern coasts of Gaul. Constantius II. gave
the command to his nephew, Julian (afterwards, as Emperor, called the
Apostate), who first retook Cologne from the Franks, and then turned his
forces against the Alemanni. The king of the latter, Chnodomar, had
collected a large army, with which he encountered Julian on the banks of
the Rhine, near Strasburg. The battle which ensued was fiercely
contested; but Julian was completely victorious. Chnodomar was taken
prisoner, and only a few of his troops escaped, like those of
Ariovistus, 400 years before, by swimming across the Rhine. Although the
season was far advanced, Julian followed them, crossed their territory
to the Main, rebuilt the destroyed Roman fortresses, and finally
accepted an armistice of ten months which they offered to him.
He made use of this time to intimidate the Franks and Saxons. Starting
from Lutetia (now Paris) early in the summer of 358, he drove the Franks
beyond the Schelde, received their submission, and then marched a second
time against the Alemanni. He laid waste their well-settled and
cultivated land between the Rhine, the Main and the Neckar, crossed
their territory to the frontiers of the Burgundians (in what is now
Franconia, or Northern Bavaria), liberated 20,000 Roman captives, and
made the entire Alemannic people tributary to the Empire. His accession
to the imperial throne, in 360, delivered the Germans from the most
dangerous and dreaded enemy they had known since the time of Germanicus.
[Sidenote: 375. TERRITORY OF THE GOTHS.]
Not many years elapsed before the Franks and Alemanni again overran the
old boundaries, and the Saxons landed on the shores of England. The
Emperor Valentinian employed both diplomacy and force, and succeeded in
establishing a temporary peace; but after his death, in the year 375,
the Roman Empire, the capital of which had been removed to
Constantinople in 330, was never again in a condition to maintain its
supremacy in Gaul, or to prevent the Germans from crossing the Rhine.
We now return to the Goths, who already occupied the broad territory
included in Poland, Southern Russia, and Roumania. The river Dniester
may be taken as the probable boundary between the two kingdoms into
which they had separated. The Ostrogoths, under their aged king,
Hermanric, extended from that river eastward nearly to the Caspian Sea:
on the north they had no fixed boundary, but they must have reached to
the latitude of Moscow. The Visigoths stretched westward from the
Dniester to the Danube, and northward from Hungary to the Baltic Sea.
The Vandals were for some generations allied with the latter, but war
having arisen between them, the Emperor Constantine interposed. He
succeeded in effecting a separation of the two, and in settling the
Vandals in Hungary, where they remained for forty years under the
protection of the Roman Empire.
From the time of their first encounter with the Romans, in Dacia, during
the third century, the Goths appear to have made rapid advances in their
political organization and the arts of civilized life. They were the
first of the Germanic nations who accepted Christianity. On one of their
piratical expeditions to the shores of Asia Minor, they brought away as
captive a Christian boy. They named him Ulfila, and by that name he is
still known to the world. He devoted his life to the overthrow of their
pagan faith, and succeeded. He translated the Bible into their language,
and, it is supposed, even invented a Gothic alphabet, since it is
doubtful whether they already possessed one. A part of Ulfila's
translation of the New Testament escaped destruction, and is now
preserved in the library at Upsala, in Sweden. It is the only specimen,
in existence of the Gothic language at that early day. From it we learn
how rich and refined was that language, and how many of the elements of
the German and English tongues it contained. The following are the
opening words of the Lord's Prayer, as Ulfila wrote them between the
years 350 and 370 of our era:
GOTHIC. _Atta unsara, thu in himinam, veihnai namo thein._
ENGLISH. Father our, thou in heaven, be hallowed name thine.
GERMAN. Vater unser, du im Himmel, geweiht werde Name dein.
GOTHIC. _quimai Thiudinassus Theins, vairthai vilja theins,_
ENGLISH. come Kingdom thine, be done will thine,
GERMAN. komme Herrschaft dein, werde Wille dein,
GOTHIC. _sve in himina, jah ana airthai._
ENGLISH. as in heaven, also on earth.
GERMAN. wie im Himmel, auch auf Erden.
[Sidenote: 350.]
Ulfila was born in 318, became a bishop of the Christian Church, spent
his whole life in teaching the Goths, and died in Constantinople, in the
year 378. There is no evidence that he, or any other of the Christian
missionaries of his time, were persecuted, or even seriously hindered in
the good work, by the Goths: the latter seem to have adopted the new
faith readily, and the Arian creed which Ulfila taught, although
rejected by the Church of Rome, was stubbornly held by their descendants
for a period of nearly five hundred years.
Somewhere between 360 and 370, the long peace between the Romans and the
Goths was disturbed; but the Emperor Valens and the Gothic king,
Athanaric, had a conference on board a vessel on the Danube, and came to
an understanding. Athanaric refused to cross the river, on account of a
vow made on some former occasion. The Goths, it appears, were by this
time learning the art of statesmanship, and they might have continued on
good terms with the Romans, but for the sudden appearance on the scene
of an entirely new race, coming, as they themselves had come so many
centuries before, from the unknown regions of Central Asia.
[Sidenote: 375. COMING OF THE HUNS.]
In 375, the year of Valentinian's death, a race of people up to that
time unknown, and whose name--the Huns--had never before been heard,
crossed the Volga and invaded the territory of the Ostrogoths. Later
researches render it probable that they came from the steppes of
Mongolia, and that they belonged to the Tartar family; but, in the
course of their wanderings, before reaching Europe, they had not only
lost all the traditions of their former history, but even their
religious faith. Their very appearance struck terror into the Goths, who
were so much further advanced in civilization. They were short, clumsy
figures, with broad and hideously ugly faces, flat noses, oblique eyes
and long black hair, and were clothed in skins which they wore until
they dropped in rags from their bodies. But they were marvellous
horsemen, and very skilful in using the bow and lance. The men were on
their horses' backs from morning till night, while the women and
children followed their march in rude carts. They came in such immense
numbers, and showed so much savage daring and bravery, that several
smaller tribes, allied with the Ostrogoths, or subject to them, went
over immediately to the Huns.
The kingdom of the Ostrogoths, almost without offering resistance, fell
to pieces. The king, Hermanric, now more than a hundred years old, threw
himself upon his sword, at their approach: his successor, Vitimer, gave
battle, but lost the victory and his life at the same time. The great
body of the people retreated westward before the Huns, who, following
them, reached the Dnieper. Here Athanaric, king of the Visigoths, was
posted with a large army, to dispute their passage; but the Huns
succeeded in finding a fording-place which was left unguarded, turned
his flank, and defeated him with great slaughter. Nothing now remained
but for both branches of the Gothic people, united in misfortune, to
retreat to the Danube.
Athanaric took refuge among the mountains of Transylvania, and the
Bishop Ulfila was dispatched to Constantinople to ask the assistance of
the Emperor Valens, who was entreated to permit that the Goths,
meanwhile, might cross the Danube and find a refuge on Roman territory.
Valens yielded to the entreaty, but attached very hard conditions to his
permission: the Goths were allowed to cross unarmed, after giving up
their wives and children as hostages. In their fear of the Huns, they
were obliged to accept these conditions, and hundreds of thousands
thronged across the Danube. They soon exhausted the supplies of the
region, and then began to suffer famine, of which the Roman officers and
traders took advantage, demanding their children as slaves in return for
the cats and dogs which they gave to the Goths as food.
[Sidenote: 376.]
This treatment brought about its own revenge. Driven to desperation by
hunger and the outrages inflicted upon them, the Goths secretly procured
arms, rose, and made themselves masters of the country. The Roman
governor marched against them, but their Chief, Fridigern, defeated him
and utterly destroyed his army. The news of this event induced large
numbers of Gothic soldiers to desert from the imperial army, and join
their countrymen. Fridigern, thus strengthened, commenced a war of
revenge: he crossed the Balkan, laid waste all Thrace, Macedonia and
Thessaly, and settled his own people in the most fertile parts of the
plundered provinces. The Ostrogoths had crossed the Danube at the first
report of his success, and had taken part in his conquests.
Towards the end of the year 377, the Emperor Valens raised a large army
and marched against Fridigern. A battle was fought at the foot of the
Balkan, and a second, the following year, before the walls of
Adrianople. In both the Goths were victorious: in the latter two-thirds
of the Roman troops fell, Valens himself, doubtless, among them,--for he
was never seen or heard of after that day. His nephew, Gratian,
succeeded to the throne, but associated with him Theodosius, a young
Spaniard of great ability, as Emperor of the East. While Gratian marched
to Gaul, to stay the increasing inroads of the Franks, Theodosius was
left to deal with the Goths, who were beginning to cultivate the fields
of Thrace, as if they meant to stay there.
He was obliged to confirm them in the possession of the greater part of
the country. They were called allies of the Empire, were obliged to
furnish a certain number of soldiers, but retained their own kings, and
were governed by their own laws. After the death of Fridigern,
Theodosius invited Athanaric to visit him. The latter, considering
himself now absolved from his vow not to cross the Danube, accepted the
invitation, and was received in Constantinople on the footing of an
equal by Theodosius. He died a few weeks after his arrival, and the
Emperor walked behind his bier, in the funeral procession. For several
years the relations between the two powers continued peaceful and
friendly. Both branches of the Goths were settled together, south of the
Danube, their relinquished territory north of that river being occupied
by the Huns, who were still pressing westward.
[Sidenote: 400. ALARIC INVADES GREECE.]
In Italy, Valentinian II. succeeded his brother Gratian. His chief
minister was a Frank, named Arbogast, who, learning that he was to be
dismissed from his place, had the young Valentinian assassinated, and
set up a new Emperor, Eugene, in his stead. This act brought him into
direct conflict with Theodosius. Arbogast called upon his countrymen,
the Franks, who sent a large body of troops to his assistance, while
Theodosius strengthened his army with 20,000 Gothic soldiers. Then, for
the first time, Frank and Goth--West-German and East-German--faced each
other as enemies. The Gothic auxiliaries of Theodosius were commanded by
two leaders, Alaric and Stilicho, already distinguished among their
people, and destined to play a remarkable part in the history of Europe.
The battle between the two armies was fought near Aquileia, in the year
394. The sham Emperor, Eugene, was captured and beheaded, Arbogast threw
himself upon his sword, and Theodosius was master of the West.
The Emperor, however, lived but a few months to enjoy his single rule.
He died at Milan, in 395, after having divided the government of the
Empire between his two sons. Honorius, the elder, was sent to Rome, with
the Gothic chieftain, Stilicho, as his minister and guardian; while the
boy Arcadius, at Constantinople, was intrusted to the care of a Gaul,
named Rufinus. Alaric, perhaps a personal enemy of the latter, perhaps
jealous of the elevation of Stilicho to such an important place, refused
to submit to the new government. He collected a large body of his
countrymen, and set out on a campaign of plunder through Greece. Every
ancient city, except Thebes, fell into his hands, and only Athens was
allowed to buy her exemption from pillage.
The Gaul, Rufinus, took no steps to arrest this devastation; wherefore,
it is said, he was murdered at the instigation of Stilicho, who then
sent a fleet against Alaric. This undertaking was not entirely
successful, and the government of Constantinople finally purchased peace
by making Alaric the Imperial Legate in Illyria. In the year 403, he was
sent to Italy, as the representative of the Emperor Arcadius, to
overthrow the power of his former fellow-chieftain, Stilicho, who ruled
in the name of Honorius. His approach, with a large army, threw the
whole country into terror. Honorius shut himself up within the walls of
Ravenna, while Stilicho called the legions from Gaul, and even from
Britain, to his support. A great battle was fought near the Po, but
without deciding the struggle; and Alaric had already begun to march
towards Rome, when a treaty was made by which he and his army were
allowed to return to Illyria with all the booty they had gathered in
Italy.
[Sidenote: 408.]
Five years afterwards, when Stilicho was busy in endeavoring to keep the
Franks and Alemanni out of Gaul, and to drive back the incursions of
mixed German and Celtic bands which began to descend from the Alps,
Alaric again made his appearance, demanding the payment of certain sums,
which he claimed were due to him. Stilicho, having need of his military
strength elsewhere, satisfied Alaric's claim by the payment of 4,000
pounds of gold; but the Romans felt themselves bitterly humiliated, and
Honorius, listening to the rivals of Stilicho, gave his consent to the
assassination of the latter and his whole family including the Emperor's
own sister, Serena, whom Stilicho had married.
When the news of this atrocious act reached Alaric, he turned and
marched back to Italy. There was now no skilful commander to oppose him:
the cowardly Honorius took refuge in Ravenna, and the Goths advanced,
without resistance, to the gates of Rome. The walls, built by Aurelian,
were too strong to be taken by assault, but all supplies were cut off,
and the final surrender of the city became only a question of time. When
a deputation of Romans represented to Alaric that the people still
numbered half a million, he answered: "The thicker the grass, the better
the mowing!" They were finally obliged to yield to his demands, and pay
a ransom consisting of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver,
many thousands of silk robes, and a large quantity of spices,--a total
value of something more than three millions of dollars. In addition to
this, 40,000 slaves, mostly of Germanic blood, escaped to his camp and
became free.
Alaric only withdrew into Northern Italy, where he soon found a new
cause of dispute with the government of Honorius, in Ravenna. He seems
to have been a man of great military genius, but little capacity for
civil rule; of much energy and ambition, but little judgment. The result
of his quarrel with Honorius was, that he marched again to Rome,
proclaimed Attalus, the governor of the city, Emperor, and then demanded
entrance for himself and his troops, as an ally. The demand could not be
refused: Rome was opened to the Goths, who participated in the festivals
which accompanied the coronation of Attalus. It was nothing but a farce,
and seems to have been partly intended as such by Alaric, who publicly
deposed the new Emperor shortly afterwards, on his march to Ravenna.
[Sidenote: 410. ALARIC IN ROME.]
There were further negotiations with Honorius, which came to nothing;
then Alaric advanced upon Rome the third time, not now as an ally, but
as an avowed enemy. The city could make no resistance, and on the 24th
of August, 410, the Goths entered it as conquerors. This event, so
famous in history, has been greatly misrepresented. Later researches
show that, although the citizens were despoiled of their wealth, the
buildings and monuments were spared. The people were subjected to
violence and outrage for the space of six days, after which Alaric
marched out of Rome with his army, leaving the city, in its external
appearance, very much as he found it.
He directed his course towards Southern Italy, with the intention, it
was generally believed, of conquering Sicily and then crossing into
Africa. The plan was defeated by his death, in 411, at Cosenza, a town
on the banks of the Busento, in Calabria. His soldiers turned the river
from its course, dug a grave in its bed, and there laid the body of
Alaric, with all the gems and gold he had gathered. Then the Busento was
restored to its channel, and the slaves who had performed the work were
slain, in order that Alaric's place of burial might never be known.
His brother-in-law, Ataulf (Adolph), was his successor. He was also the
brother-in-law of Honorius, having married the latter's sister,
Placidia, after she was taken captive by Alaric. He was therefore
strengthened by the conquests of the one and by his family connection
with the other. The Visigoths, who had gradually gathered together under
Alaric, seem to have had enough of marching to and fro, and they
acquiesced in an arrangement made between Ataulf and Honorius, according
to which the former led them out of Italy in 412, and established them
in Southern Gaul. They took possession of all the region lying between
the Loire and the Pyrenees, with Toulouse as their capital.
[Sidenote: 412.]
Thus, in the space of forty years, the Visigoths left their home on the
Black Sea, between the Danube and the Dniester, passed through the whole
breadth of the Roman Empire, from Constantinople to the Bay of Biscay,
after having traversed both the Grecian and Italian peninsulas, and
settled themselves again in what seemed to be a permanent home. During
this extraordinary migration, they maintained their independence as a
people, they preserved their laws, customs, and their own rulers; and,
although frequently at enmity with the Empire, they were never made to
yield it allegiance. Under Athanaric, as we have seen, they were united
for a time with the Ostrogoths, and it was probably the renown and
success of Alaric which brought about a second separation.
Of course the impetus given to this branch of the Germanic race by the
invasion of the Huns did not affect it alone. Before the Visigoths
reached the shores of the Atlantic, all Central Europe was in movement.
Leaving them there for the present, and also leaving the great body of
the Ostrogoths in Thrace and Illyria, we will now return to the nations
whom we left maintaining their existence on German soil.
CHAPTER VI.
THE INVASION OF THE HUNS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
(412--472.)
General Westward Movement of the Races. --Stilicho's Defeat of the
Germans. --Migration of the Alans, Vandals, &c. --Saxon
Colonization of England. --The Vandals in Africa. --Decline of
Rome. --Spread of German Power. --Attila, king of the Huns. --Rise
of his Power. --Superstitions concerning him. --His March into
France. --He is opposed by Aetius and Theodoric. --The Great Battle
near Chalons. --Retreat of Attila. --He destroys Aquileia.
--Invades Italy. --His Death. --Geiserich takes and plunders Rome.
--End of the Western Empire. --The Huns expelled. --Movements of
the Tribes on German Soil.
[Sidenote: 412. MOVEMENT OF THE TRIBES.]
The westward movement of the Huns was followed, soon afterwards, by an
advance of the Slavonic tribes on the north, who first took possession
of the territory on the Baltic relinquished by the Goths, and then
gradually pressed onward towards the Elbe. The Huns themselves,
temporarily settled in the fertile region north of the Danube, pushed
the Vandals westward toward Bohemia, and the latter, in their turn,
pressed upon the Marcomanni. Thus, at the opening of the fifth century,
all the tribes, from the Baltic to the Alps, along the eastern frontier
of Germany, were partly or wholly forced to fall back. This gave rise to
a union of many of them, including the Vandals, Alans, Suevi and
Burgundians, under a Chief named Radagast. Numbering half a million,
they crossed the Alps into Northern Italy, and demanded territory for
new homes.
Stilicho, exhausted by his struggle with Alaric, whose retreat from
Italy he had just purchased, could only meet this new enemy by summoning
his legions from Gaul and Britain. He met Radagast at Fiesole (near
Florence), and so crippled the strength of the invasion that Italy was
saved. The German tribes recrossed the Alps, and entered Gaul the
following year. Here they gave up their temporary union, and each tribe
selected its own territory. The Alans pushed forwards, crossed the
Pyrenees, and finally settled in Portugal; the Vandals followed and took
possession of all Southern Spain, giving their name to (V-)Andalusia;
the Suevi, after fighting, but not conquering, the native Basque tribes
of the Pyrenees, selected what is now the province of Galicia; while the
Burgundians stretched from the Rhine through western Switzerland, and
southward nearly to the mouth of the Rhone. The greater part of Gaul was
thus already lost to the Roman power.
[Sidenote: 429.]
The withdrawal of the legions from Britain by Stilicho left the
population unprotected. The Britons were then a mixture of Celtic and
Roman blood, and had become greatly demoralized during the long decay of
the Empire; so they were unable to resist the invasions of the Picts and
Scots, and in this emergency they summoned the Saxons and Angles to
their aid. Two chiefs of the latter, Hengist and Horsa, accepted the
invitation, landed in England in 449, and received lands in Kent. They
were followed by such numbers of their countrymen that the allies soon
became conquerors, and portioned England among themselves. They brought
with them their speech and their ancient pagan religion, and for a time
overthrew the rude form of Christianity which had prevailed among the
Britons since the days of Constantine. Only Ireland, the Scottish
Highlands, Wales and Cornwall resisted the Saxon rule, as across the
Channel, in Brittany, a remnant of the Celtic Gauls resisted the sway of
the Franks. From the year 449 until the landing of William the
Conqueror, in 1066, nearly all England and the Lowlands of Scotland were
in the hands of the Saxon race.
Ataulf, the king of the Visigoths, was murdered soon after establishing
his people in Southern France. Wallia, his successor, crossed the
Pyrenees, drove the Vandals out of northern Spain, and made the Ebro
river the boundary between them and his Visigoths. Fifteen years
afterwards, in 429, the Vandals, under their famous king, Geiserich
(incorrectly called Genseric in many histories), were invited by the
Roman Governor of Africa to assist him in a revolt against the Empire.
They crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in a body, took possession of all
the Roman provinces, as far eastward as Tunis, and made Carthage the
capital of their new kingdom. The Visigoths immediately occupied the
remainder of Spain, which they held for nearly three hundred years
afterwards.
[Sidenote: 445. ATTILA, KING OF THE HUNS.]
Thus, although the name and state of an Emperor of the West were kept up
in Rome until the year 476, the Empire never really existed after the
invasion of Alaric. The dominion over Italy, Gaul and Spain, claimed by
the Emperors of the East, at Constantinople, was acknowledged in
documents, but (except for a short time, under Justinian) was never
practically exercised. Rome had been the supreme power of the known
world for so many centuries, that a superstitious influence still clung
to the very name, and the ambition of the Germanic kings seems to have
been, not to destroy the Empire, but to conquer and make it their own.
The rude tribes, which, in the time of Julius Caesar, were buried among
the mountains and forests of the country between the Rhine, the Danube
and the Baltic Sea, were now, five hundred years later, scattered over
all Europe, and beginning to establish new nations on the foundations
laid by Rome. As soon as they cross the old boundaries of Germany, they
come into the light of history, and we are able to follow their wars and
migrations; but we know scarcely anything, during this period, of the
tribes which remained within those boundaries. We can only infer that
the Marcomanni settled between the Danube and the Alps, in what is now
Bavaria; that, early in the fifth century, the Thuringians established a
kingdom including nearly all Central Germany; and that the Slavonic
tribes, pressing westward through Prussia, were checked by the valor of
the Saxons, along the line of the Elbe, since only scattered bands of
them were found beyond that river at a later day.
The first impulse to all these wonderful movements came, as we have
seen, from the Huns. These people, as yet unconquered, were so dreaded
by the Emperors of the East, that their peace was purchased, like that
of the Goths a hundred years before, by large annual payments. For fifty
years, they seemed satisfied to rest in their new home, making
occasional raids across the Danube, and gradually bringing under their
sway the fragments of Germanic tribes already settled in Hungary, or
left behind by the Goths. In 428, Attila and his brother Bleda became
kings of the Huns, but the latter's death, in 445, left Attila sole
ruler. His name was already famous, far and wide, for his strength,
energy and intelligence. His capital was established near Tokay, in
Hungary, where he lived in a great castle of wood, surrounded with moats
and palisades. He was a man of short stature, with broad head, neck and
shoulders, and fierce, restless eyes. He scorned the luxury which was
prevalent at the time, wore only plain woollen garments, and ate and
drank from wooden dishes and cups. His personal power and influence were
so great that the Huns looked upon him as a demigod, while all the
neighboring Germanic tribes, including a large portion of the
Ostrogoths, enlisted under his banner.
[Sidenote: 449.]
After the Huns had invaded Thrace and compelled the Eastern Empire to
pay a double tribute, the Emperor of the West, Valentinian III. (the
grandson of Theodosius), sent an embassy to Attila, soliciting his
friendship: the Emperor's sister, Honoria, offered him her hand. Both
divisions of the Empire thus did him reverence, and he had little to
fear from the force which either could bring against him; but the Goths
and Vandals, now warlike and victorious races, were more formidable
foes. Here, however, he was favored by the hostility between the aged
Geiserich, king of the Vandals, and the young Theodoric, king of the
Visigoths. The former sent messages to Attila, inciting him to march
into Gaul and overthrow Theodoric, who was Geiserich's relative and
rival. Soon afterwards, a new Emperor, at Constantinople, refused the
additional tribute, and Valentinian III. withheld the hand of his sister
Honoria.
Attila, now--towards the close of the year 449--made preparations for a
grand war of conquest. He already possessed unbounded influence over the
Huns, and supernatural signs of his coming career were soon supplied. A
peasant dug up a jewelled sword, which, it was said, had long before
been given to a race of kings by the god of war. This was brought to
Attila, and thenceforth worn by him. He was called "The Scourge of God,"
and the people believed that wherever the hoofs of his horse had trodden
no grass ever grew again. The fear of his power, or the hope of plunder,
drew large numbers of the German tribes to his side, and the army with
which he set out for the conquest, first of Gaul and then of Europe, is
estimated at from 500,000 to 700,000 warriors. With this, he passed
through the heart of Germany, much of which he had already made
tributary, and reached the Rhine. Here Gunther, the king of the
Burgundians, opposed him with a force of 10,000 men and was speedily
crushed. Even a portion of the Franks, who were then quarrelling among
themselves, joined him, and now Gaul divided between Franks, Romans and
Visigoths, was open to his advance.
[Sidenote: 451. THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS.]
The minister and counsellor of Valentinian III. was Aetius, the son of a
Gothic father and a Roman mother. As soon as Attila's design became
known, he hastened to Gaul, collected the troops still in Roman service,
and procured the alliance of Theodoric and the Visigoths. The Alans,
under their king Sangipan, were also persuaded to unite their forces:
the independent Celts in Brittany, and a large portion of the Franks and
Burgundians, all of whom were threatened by the invasion of the Huns,
hastened to the side of Aetius, so that the army commanded by himself
and Theodoric became nearly if not quite equal in numbers to that of
Attila. The latter, by this time, had marched into the heart of Gaul,
laying waste the country through which he passed, and meeting no
resistance until he reached the walled and fortified city of Orleans.
This was in the year 451.
Orleans, besieged and hard pressed, was about to surrender, when Aetius
approached with his army. Attila was obliged to raise the siege at once,
and retreat in order to select a better position for the impending
battle. He finally halted on the broad plains of the province of
Champagne, near the present city of Chalons, where his immense body of
armed horsemen would have ample space to move. Aetius and Theodoric
followed and pitched their camp opposite to him, on the other side of a
small hill which rose from the plain. That night, Attila ordered his
priests to consult their pagan oracles, and ascertain the fate of the
morrow's struggle. The answer was: "Death to the enemy's leader,
destruction to the Huns!"--but the hope of seeing Aetius fall prevailed
on Attila to risk his own defeat.
The next day witnessed one of the greatest battles of history. Aetius
commanded the right and Theodoric the left wing of their army, placing
between them the Alans and other tribes, of whose fidelity they were not
quite sure. Attila, however, took the centre with his Huns, and formed
his wings of the Germans and Ostrogoths. The battle began at dawn, and
raged through the whole day. Both armies endeavored to take and hold the
hill between them, and the hundreds of thousands rolled back and forth
as the victory inclined to one side or the other. A brook which ran
through the plain was swollen high by the blood of the fallen. At last
Theodoric broke Attila's centre, but was slain in the attack. The
Visigoths immediately lifted his son, Thorismond, on a shield,
proclaimed him king, and renewed the fight. The Huns were driven back to
the fortress of wagons where their wives, children and treasures were
collected, when a terrible storm of rain and thunder put an end to the
battle. Between 200,000 and 300,000 dead lay upon the plain.
[Sidenote: 452.]
All night the lamentations of the Hunnish women filled the air. Attila
had an immense funeral pile constructed of saddles, whereon he meant to
burn himself and his family, in case Aetius should renew the fight the
next day. But the army of the latter was too exhausted to move, and the
Huns were allowed to commence their retreat from Gaul. Enraged at his
terrible defeat, Attila destroyed everything in his way, leaving a broad
track of blood and ashes from Gaul through the heart of Germany, back to
Hungary.
By the following year, 452, Attila had collected another army, and now
directed his march towards Italy. This new invasion was so unexpected
that the passes of the Alps were left undefended, and the Huns reached
the rich and populous city of Aquileia, on the northern shore of the
Adriatic, without meeting any opposition. After a siege of three months,
they took and razed it to the ground so completely that it was never
rebuilt, and from that day to this only a few piles of shapeless stones
remain to mark the spot where it stood. The inhabitants who escaped took
refuge upon the low marshy islands, separated from the mainland by the
lagoons, and there formed the settlement which, two or three hundred
years later, became known to the world as Venice.
Attila marched onward to the Po, destroying everything in his way. Here
he was met by a deputation, at the head of which was Leo, the Bishop (or
Pope) of Rome, sent by Valentinian III. Leo so worked upon the
superstitious mind of the savage monarch, that the latter gave up his
purpose of taking Rome, and returned to Hungary with his army, which was
suffering from disease and want. The next year he died suddenly, in his
wooden palace at Tokay. The tradition states that his body was inclosed
in three coffins, of iron, silver and gold, and buried secretly, like
that of Alaric, so that no man might know his resting-place. He had a
great many wives, and left so many sons behind him, that their quarrels
for the succession to the throne divided the Huns into numerous parties,
and quite destroyed their power as a people.
[Sidenote: 455. GEISERICH TAKES ROME.]
The alliance between Aetius and the Visigoths ceased immediately after
the great battle. Valentinian III., suspicious of the fame of Aetius,
recalled him to Rome, the year after Attila's death, and assassinated
him with his own hand. The treacherous Emperor was himself slain,
shortly afterwards, by Maximus, who succeeded him, and forced his widow,
the Empress Eudoxia, to accept him as her husband. Out of revenge,
Eudoxia sent a messenger to Geiserich, the old king of the Vandals, at
Carthage, summoning him to Rome. The Vandals had already built a large
fleet and pillaged the shores of Sicily and other Mediterranean islands.
In 455, Geiserich landed at the mouth of the Tiber with a powerful
force, and marched upon Rome. The city was not strong enough to offer
any resistance: it was taken, and during two weeks surrendered to such
devastation and outrage that the word _vandalism_ has ever since been
used to express savage and wanton destruction. The churches were
plundered of all their vessels and ornaments, the old Palace of the
Caesars was laid waste, priceless works of art destroyed, and those of
the inhabitants who escaped with their lives were left almost as
beggars.
When "the old king of the sea," as Geiserich was called, returned to
Africa, he not only left Rome ruined, but the Western Empire practically
overthrown. For seventeen years afterwards, Ricimer, a chief of the
Suevi, who had been commander of the Roman auxiliaries in Gaul, was the
real ruler of its crumbling fragments. He set up, set aside or slew five
or six so-called Emperors, at his own will, and finally died in 472,
only four years before the boy, Romulus Augustulus, was compelled to
throw off the purple and retire into obscurity as "the last Emperor of
Rome."
In 455, the year when Geiserich and his Vandals plundered Rome, the
Germanic tribes along the Danube took advantage of the dissensions
following Attila's death, and threw off their allegiance to the Huns.
They all united under a king named Ardaric, gave battle, and were so
successful that the whole tribe of the Huns was forced to retreat
eastward into Southern Russia. From this time they do not appear again
in history, although it is probable that the Magyars, who came later
into the same region from which they were driven, brought the remnants
of the tribe with them.
[Sidenote: 450.]
During the fourth and fifth centuries, the great historic achievements
of the German race, as we have now traced them, were performed outside
of the German territory. While from Thrace to the Atlantic Ocean, from
the Scottish Highlands to Africa, the new nationalities overran the
decayed Roman Empire, constantly changing their seats of power, we have
no intelligence of what was happening within Germany itself. Both
branches of the Goths, the Vandals and a part of the Franks had become
Christians, but the Alemanni, Saxons and Thuringians were still
heathens, although they had by this time adopted many of the arts of
civilized life. They had no educated class, corresponding to the
Christian priesthood in the East, Italy and Gaul, and even in Britain;
and thus no chronicle of their history has survived.
Either before or immediately after Attila's invasion of Gaul, the
Marcomanni crossed the Danube, and took possession of the plains between
that river and the Alps. They were called the Boiarii, from their former
home of four centuries in Bohemia, and from this name is derived the
German _Baiern_, Bavaria. They kept possession of the new territory,
adapted themselves to the forms of Roman civilization which they found
there, and soon organized themselves into a small but distinct and
tolerably independent nation.
But the period of the Migration of the Races was not yet finished. The
shadow of the old Roman Empire still remained, and stirred the ambition
of each successive king, so that he was not content with territory
sufficient for the needs of his own people, but must also try to conquer
his neighbors and extend his rule. The bases of the modern states of
Europe were already laid, but not securely enough for the building
thereof to be commenced. Two more important movements were yet to be
made before this bewildering period of change and struggle came to an
end.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE OSTROGOTHS.
(472--570.)
Odoaker conquers Italy. --Theodoric leads the Ostrogoths to Italy. --He
defeats and slays Odoaker. --He becomes King of Italy. --Chlodwig,
king of the Franks, puts an End to the Roman Rule. --War between
the Franks and Visigoths. --Character of Theodoric's Rule. --His
Death. --His Mausoleum. --End of the Burgundian Kingdom. --Plans of
Justinian. --Belisarius destroys the Vandal Power in Africa. --He
conquers Vitiges, and overruns Italy. --Narses defeats Totila and
Teias. --End of the Ostrogoths. --Narses summons the Longobards.
--They conquer Italy. --The Exarchy and Rome. --End of the
Migrations of the Races.
[Sidenote: 476. ODOAKER, KING OF ITALY.]
After the death of Ricimer, in 472, Italy, weakened by invasion and
internal dissension, was an easy prey to the first strong hand which
might claim possession. Such a hand was soon found in a Chief named
Odoaker, said to have been a native of the island of Ruegen, in the
Baltic. He commanded a large force, composed of the smaller German
tribes from the banks of the Danube, who had thrown off the yoke of the
Huns. Many of these troops had served the last half-dozen Roman Emperors
whom Ricimer set up or threw down, and they now claimed one-third of the
Italian territory for themselves and their families. When this was
refused, Odoaker, at their head, took the boy Romulus Augustulus
prisoner, banished him, and proclaimed himself king of Italy, in 476,
making Ravenna his capital.
The dynasty at Constantinople still called its dominion "The Roman
Empire," and claimed authority over all the West. But it had not the
means to make its claim acknowledged, and in this emergency the Emperor
Zeno turned to Theodoric, the young king of the Ostrogoths, who had been
brought up at his court, in Constantinople. He was the successor of
three brothers, who, after the dispersion of the Huns, had united some
of the smaller German tribes with the Ostrogoths, and restored the
former power and influence of the race.
[Sidenote: 489.]
Theodoric (who must not be confounded with his namesake, the Visigoth
king, who fell in conquering Attila) was a man of great natural ability,
which had been well developed by his education in Constantinople. He
accepted the appointment of General and Governor from the Emperor, yet
the preparations he made for the expedition to Italy show that he
intended to remain and establish his own kingdom there. It was not a
military march, but the migration of a people, which he headed. The
Ostrogoths and their allies took with them their wives and children,
their herds and household goods: they moved so slowly up the Danube and
across the Alps, now halting to rest and recruit, now fighting a passage
through some hostile tribe, that several years elapsed before they
reached Italy.
Odoaker had reigned fourteen years, with more justice and discretion
than was common in those times, and was able to raise a large force, in
489, to meet the advance of Theodoric. After three severe battles had
been fought, he was forced to take shelter within the strong walls of
Ravenna; but he again sallied forth and attacked the Ostrogoths with
such bravery that he came near defeating them. Finally, in 493, after a
siege of three years, he capitulated, and was soon afterwards
treacherously murdered, by order of Theodoric, at a banquet to which the
latter had invited him.
Having the power in his own hands, Theodoric now threw off his assumed
subjection to the Eastern Empire, put on the Roman purple, and
proclaimed himself king. All Italy, including Sicily, Sardinia and
Corsica, fell at once into his hands; and, having left a portion of the
Ostrogoths behind him, on the Danube, he also claimed all the region
between, in order to preserve a communication with them. He was soon so
strongly settled in his new realm that he had nothing to fear from the
Emperor Zeno and his successors. The latter did not venture to show any
direct signs of hostility towards him, but remained quiet; while, on his
part, beyond seizing a portion of Pannonia, he refrained from
interfering with their rule in the East.
In the West, however, the case was different. Five years before
Theodoric's arrival in Italy, the last relic of Roman power disappeared
forever from Gaul. A general named Syagrius had succeeded to the
command, after the murder of Aetius, and had formed the central
provinces into a Roman state, which was so completely cut off from all
connection with the Empire that it became practically independent. The
Franks, who now held all Northern Gaul and Belgium, from the Rhine to
the Atlantic, with Paris as their capital, were by this time so strong
and well organized, that their king, Chlodwig, boldly challenged
Syagrius to battle. The challenge was accepted: a battle was fought near
Soissons, in the year 486, the Romans were cut to pieces, and the river
Loire became the southern boundary of the Frank kingdom. The territory
between that river and the Pyrenees still belonged to the Visigoths.
[Sidenote: 507. CHLODWIG CONQUERS GAUL.]
While Theodoric was engaged in giving peace, order, and a new prosperity
to the war-worn and desolated lands of Italy, his Frank rival, Chlodwig,
defeated the Alemanni, conquered the Celts of Brittany--then called
Armorica--and thus greatly increased his power. We must return to him
and the history of his dynasty in a later chapter, and will now only
briefly mention those incidents of his reign which brought him into
conflict with Theodoric.
In the year 500, Chlodwig defeated the Burgundians and for a time
rendered them tributary to him. He then turned to the Visigoths and made
the fact of their being Arian Christians a pretext for declaring war
against them. Their king was Alaric II., who had married the daughter of
Theodoric. A battle was fought in 507: the two kings met, and, fighting
hand to hand, Alaric II. was slain by Chlodwig. The latter soon
afterwards took and plundered Toulouse, the Visigoth capital, and
claimed the territory between the Loire and the Garonne.
Theodoric, whose grandson Amalaric (son of Alaric II.) was now king of
the Visigoths, immediately hastened to the relief of the latter. His
military strength was probably too great for Chlodwig to resist, for
there is no report of any great battle having been fought. Theodoric
took possession of Provence, re-established the Loire as the southern
boundary of the Franks, and secured the kingdom of his grandson. The
capital of the Visigoths, however, was changed to Toledo, in Spain. The
Emperor Anastasius, to keep up the pretence of retaining his power in
Gaul, appointed Chlodwig Roman Consul, and sent him a royal diadem and
purple mantle. So much respect was still attached to the name of the
Empire that Chlodwig accepted the title, and was solemnly invested by a
Christian Bishop with the crown and mantle. In the year 511 he died,
having founded the kingdom of France.
[Sidenote: 511.]
The power of Theodoric was not again assailed. As the king of the
Ostrogoths, he ruled over Italy and the islands, and the lands between
the Adriatic and the Danube; as the guardian of the young Amalaric, his
sway extended over Southern France and all of Spain. He was peaceful,
prudent and wise, and his reign, by contrast with the convulsions which
preceded it, was called "a golden age" by his Italian subjects. Although
he and his people were Germanic in blood and Arians in faith, while the
Italians were Roman and Athanasian, he guarded the interests and subdued
the prejudices of both, and the respect which his abilities inspired
preserved peace between them. The murder of Odoaker is a lasting stain
upon his memory: the execution of the philosopher Boethius is another,
scarcely less dark; but, with the exception of these two acts, his reign
was marked by wisdom, justice and tolerance. The surname of "The Great"
was given to him by his contemporaries, not so much to distinguish him
from the Theodoric of the Visigoths, as on account of his eminent
qualities as a ruler. From the year 500 to 526, when he died, he was the
most powerful and important monarch of the civilized world.
During Theodoric's life, Ravenna was the capital of Italy: Rome had lost
her ancient renown, but her Bishops, who were now called Popes, were the
rulers of the Church of the West, and she thus became a religious
capital. The ancient enmity of the Arians and Athanasians had only grown
stronger by time, and Theodoric, although he became popular with the
masses of the people, was always hated by the priests. When he died, a
splendid mausoleum was built for his body, at Ravenna, and still remains
standing. It is a circular tower, resting on an arched base with ten
sides, and surmounted by a dome, which is formed of a single stone,
thirty-six feet in diameter and four feet in thickness. The sarcophagus
in which he was laid was afterwards broken open, by the order of the
Pope of Rome, and his ashes were scattered to the winds, as those of a
heretic.
When Theodoric died, the enmities of race and sect, which he had
suppressed with a strong hand, broke out afresh. He left behind him a
grandson, Athalaric, only ten years old, to whose mother, Amalasunta,
was entrusted the regency during his minority. His other grandson,
Amalaric, was king of the Visigoths, and sufficiently occupied in
building up his power in Spain. In Italy, the hostility to Amalasunta's
regency was chiefly religious; but the Eastern Emperor on the one side,
and the Franks on the other, were actuated by political considerations.
The former, the last of the great Emperors, Justinian, determined to
recover Italy for the Empire: the latter only waited an opportunity to
get possession of the whole of Gaul. Amalasunta was persuaded to sign a
treaty, by which the territory of Provence was given back to the
Burgundians. The latter were immediately assailed by the sons of
Chlodwig, and in the year 534 the kingdom of Burgundy, after having
stood for 125 years, ceased to exist. Not long afterwards the Visigoths
were driven beyond the Pyrenees, and the whole of what is now France and
Belgium, with a part of Western Switzerland, was in the possession of
the Franks.
[Sidenote: 534. END OF THE VANDALS.]
While these changes were taking place in the West, Justinian had not
been idle in the East. He was fortunate in having two great generals,
Belisarius and Narses, who had already restored the lost prestige of the
Imperial army. His first movement was to recover Northern Africa from
the Vandals, who had now been settled there for a hundred years, and
began to consider themselves the inheritors of the Carthaginian power.
Belisarius, with a fleet and a powerful army, was sent against them.
Here, again, the difference of religious doctrine between the Vandals
and the Romans whom they had subjected, made his task easy. The last
Vandal king, Gelimer, was defeated and besieged in a fortress called
Pappua. After the siege had lasted all winter, Belisarius sent an
officer, Pharas, to demand surrender. Gelimer refused, but added: "If
you will do me a favor, Pharas, send me a loaf of bread, a sponge and a
harp." Pharas, astonished, asked the reason of this request, and Gelimer
answered: "I demand bread, because I have seen none since I have been
besieged here; a sponge, to cool my eyes which are weary with weeping;
and a harp, to sing the story of my misfortunes." Soon afterwards he
surrendered, and in 534 all Northern Africa was restored to Justinian.
The Vandals disappeared from history, as a race, but some of their
descendants, with light hair, blue eyes and fair skins, still live among
the valleys of the Atlas Mountains, where they are called Berbers, and
keep themselves distinct from the Arab population.
[Sidenote: 552.]
Amalasunta, in the mean time, had been murdered by a relative whom she
had chosen to assist her in the government. This gave Justinian a
pretext for interfering, and Belisarius was next sent with his army to
Italy. The Ostrogoths chose a new king, Vitiges, and the struggle which
followed was long and desperate. Rome and Milan were taken and ravaged:
in the latter city 300,000 persons are said to have been slaughtered.
Belisarius finally obtained possession of Ravenna, the Gothic capital,
took Vitiges prisoner and sent him to Constantinople. The Goths
immediately elected another king, Totila, who carried on the struggle
for eleven years longer. Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians and even
Alemanni, whose alliance was sought by both sides, flocked to Italy in
the hope of securing booty, and laid waste the regions which Belisarius
and Totila had spared.
When Belisarius was recalled to Constantinople, Narses took his place,
and continued the war with the diminishing remnant of the Ostrogoths.
Finally, in the year 552, in a great battle among the Apennines, Totila
was slain, and the struggle seemed to be at an end. But the Ostrogoths
proclaimed the young prince Teias as their king, and marched southward
under his leadership, to make a last fight for their existence as a
nation. Narses followed, and not far from Cumae, on a mountain opposite
Vesuvius, he cut off their communication with the sea, and forced them
to retreat to a higher position, where there was neither water for
themselves nor food for their animals. Then they took the bridles off
their horses and turned them loose, formed themselves into a solid
square of men, with Teias at their head, and for two whole days fought
with the valor and the desperation of men who know that their cause is
lost, but nevertheless will not yield. Although Teias was slain, they
still stood; and on the third morning Narses allowed the survivors,
about 1,000 in number, to march away, with the promise that they would
leave Italy.
Thus gloriously came to an end, after enduring sixty years, the Gothic
power in Italy, and thus, like a meteor, brightest before it is
quenched, the Gothic name fades from history. The Visigoths retained
their supremacy in Spain until 711, when Roderick, their last king, was
slain by the Saracens, but the Ostrogoths, after this campaign of
Narses, are never heard of again as a people. Between Hermann and
Charlemagne, there is no leader so great as Theodoric, but his empire
died with him. He became the hero of the earliest German songs; his name
and character were celebrated among tribes who had forgotten his
history, and his tomb is one of the few monuments left to us from those
ages of battle, migration and change. The Ostrogoths were scattered and
their traces lost. Some, no doubt, remained in Italy, and became mixed
with the native population; others joined the people which were nearest
to them in blood and habits; and some took refuge among the fastnesses
of the Alps. It is supposed that the Tyrolese, for instance, may be
among their descendants.
[Sidenote: 565. NARSES SUMMONS THE LONGOBARDS.]
The apparent success of Justinian in bringing Italy again under the sway
of the Eastern Empire was also only a flash, before its final
extinction. The Ostrogoths were avenged by one of their kindred races.
Narses remained in Ravenna as vicegerent of the Empire: his government
was stern and harsh, but he restored order to the country, and his
authority became so great as to excite the jealousy of Justinian. After
the latter's death, in 565, it became evident that a plot was formed at
Constantinople to treat Narses as his great cotemporary, Belisarius, had
been treated. He determined to resist, and, in order to make his
position stronger, summoned the Longobards (Long-Beards) to his aid.
This tribe, in the time of Caesar, occupied a part of Northern Germany,
near the mouth of the Elbe. About the end of the fourth century we find
them on the north bank of the Danube, between Bohemia and Hungary. The
history of their wanderings during the intervening period is unknown.
During the reign of Theodoric they overcame their Germanic neighbors,
the Heruli, to whom they had been partially subject: then followed a
fierce struggle with the Gepidae, another Germanic tribe, which
terminated in the year 560 with the defeat and destruction of the
latter. Their king, Kunimund, fell by the hand of Alboin, king of the
Longobards, who had a drinking-cup made of his skull. The Longobards,
though victorious, found themselves surrounded by new neighbors, who
were much worse than the old. The Avars, who are supposed to have been a
branch of the Huns, pressed and harassed them on the East; the Slavonic
tribes of the north descended into Bohemia; and they found themselves
alone between races who were savages in comparison with their own.
[Sidenote: 568.]
The invitation of Narses was followed by a movement similar to that of
the Ostrogoths under Theodoric. Alboin marched with all his people,
their herds and household goods. The passes of the Alps were purposely
left undefended at their approach, and in 568, accompanied by the
fragments of many other Germanic tribes who gave up their homes on the
Danube, they entered Italy and took immediate possession of all the
northern provinces. The city of Pavia, which was strongly fortified,
held out against them for four years, and then, on account of its
strength and gallant resistance, was chosen by Alboin for its capital.
Italy then became the kingdom of the Longobards, and the permanent home
of their race, whose name still exists in the province of Lombardy. Only
Ravenna, Naples and Genoa were still held by the Eastern Emperors,
constituting what was called the Exarchy. Rome was also nominally
subject to Constantinople, although the Popes were beginning to assume
the government of the city. The young republic of Venice, already
organized, was safe on its islands in the Adriatic.
The Migrations of the Races, which were really commenced by the Goths
when they moved from the Baltic to the Black Sea, but which first became
a part of our history in the year 375, terminated with the settlement of
the Longobards in Italy. They therefore occupied two centuries, and form
a grand and stirring period of transition between the Roman Empire and
the Europe of the Middle Ages. With the exception of the invasion of the
Huns, and the slow and rather uneventful encroachment of the Slavonic
race, these great movements were carried out by the kindred tribes who
inhabited the forests of "Germania Magna," in the time of Caesar.
CHAPTER VIII.
EUROPE, AT THE END OF THE MIGRATION OF THE RACES.
(570.)
Extension of the German Races in A. D. 570. --The Longobards. --The
Franks. --The Visigoths. --The Saxons in Britain. --The Tribes on
German Soil. --The Eastern Empire. --Relation of the Conquerors to
the Conquered Races. --Influence of Roman Civilization. --The
Priesthood. --Obliteration of German Origin. --Religion. --The
Monarchical Element in Government. --The Nobility. --The Cities.
--Slavery. --Laws in regard to Crime. --Privileges of the Church.
--The Transition Period.
[Sidenote: 570. SPREAD OF THE GERMAN RACES.]
Thus far, we have been following the history of the Germanic races, in
their conflict with Rome, until their complete and final triumph at the
end of six hundred years after they first met Julius Caesar. Within the
limits of Germany itself, there was, as we have seen, no united
nationality. Even the consolidation of the smaller tribes under the
names of Goths, Franks, Saxons and Alemanni, during the third century,
was only the beginning of a new political development which was not
continued upon German soil. With the exception of Denmark, Sweden,
Russia, Ireland, Wales, the Scottish Highlands, and the Byzantine
territory in Turkey, Greece and Italy, all Europe was under Germanic
rule at the end of the Migration of the Races, in the year 570.
The Longobards, after the death of Alboin and his successor, Kleph,
prospered greatly under the wise rule of Queen Theodolind, daughter of
king Garibald of Bavaria, and wife of Kleph's son, Authari. She
persuaded them to become Christians; and they then gave up their nomadic
habits, scattered themselves over the country, learned agriculture and
the mechanic arts, and gradually became amalgamated with the native
Romans. Their descendants form a large portion of the population of
Northern Italy at this day.
[Sidenote: 500.]
[Illustration: THE MIGRATIONS OF THE RACES, A. D. 500.]
[Sidenote: 570. LOCATION OF THE TRIBES.]
The Franks, at this time, were firmly established in Gaul, under the
dynasty founded by Chlodwig. They owned nearly all the territory west of
the Rhine, part of Western Switzerland and the valley of the Rhone, to
the Mediterranean. Only a small strip of territory on the east, between
the Pyrenees and the upper waters of the Garonne, still belonged to the
Visigoths. The kingdom of Burgundy, after an existence of 125 years,
became absorbed in that of the Franks, in 534.
After the death of Theodoric, the connection of the Visigoths with the
other German races ceased. They conquered the Suevi, driving them into
the mountains of Galicia, subdued the Alans in Portugal, and during a
reign of two centuries more impressed their traces indelibly upon the
Spanish people. Their history, from this time on, belongs to Spain.
Their near relations, the Vandals, as we have already seen, had ceased
to exist. Like the Ostrogoths, they were never named again as a separate
people.
The Saxons had made themselves such thorough masters of England and the
lowlands of Scotland, that the native Celto-Roman population was driven
into Wales and Cornwall. The latter had become Christians under the
Empire, and they looked with horror upon the paganism of the Saxons.
During the early part of the sixth century, they made a bold but brief
effort to expel the invaders, under the lead of the half-fabulous king
Arthur (of the Round Table), who is supposed to have died about the year
537. The Angles and Saxons, however, not only triumphed, but planted
their language, laws and character so firmly upon English soil, that the
England of the later centuries grew from the basis they laid, and the
name of Anglo-Saxon has become the designation of the English race all
over the world.
Along the northern coast of Germany, the Frisii and the Saxons who
remained behind, had formed two kingdoms and asserted a fierce
independence. The territory of the latter extended to the Hartz
Mountains, where it met that of the Thuringians, who still held Central
Germany southward to the Danube. Beyond that river, the new nation of
the Bavarians was permanently settled, and had already risen to such
importance that Theodolind, the daughter of its king, Garibald, was
selected for his queen by the Longobard king, Authari.
East of the Elbe, through Prussia, nearly the whole country was
occupied by various Slavonic tribes. One of these, the Czechs, had taken
possession of Bohemia, where they soon afterwards established an
independent kingdom. Beyond them, the Avars occupied Hungary, now and
then making invasions into German territory, or even to the borders of
Italy; Denmark and Sweden, owing to their remoteness from the great
theatre of action, were scarcely affected by the political changes we
have described.
[Sidenote: 570.]
Finally, the Alemanni, though defeated and held back by the Franks,
maintained their independence in the south-western part of Germany and
in Eastern Switzerland, where their descendants are living at this day.
Each of all these new nationalities included remnants of the smaller
original tribes, which had lost their independence in the general
struggle, and which soon became more or less mixed (except in England)
with the former inhabitants of the conquered soil.
The Eastern Empire was now too weak and corrupt to venture another
conflict with these stronger Germanic races, whose civilization was no
longer very far behind its own. Moreover, within sixty years after the
Migration came to an end, a new foe arose in the East. The successors of
Mahomet began that struggle which tore Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor from
Christian hands, and which only ceased when, in 1453, the crescent
floated from the towers of Constantinople.
Nearly all Europe was thus portioned among men of German blood, very few
of whom ever again migrated from the soil whereon they were now settled.
It was their custom to demand one-third--in some few instances, two
thirds--of the conquered territory for their own people. In this manner,
Frank and Gaul, Longobard and Roman, Visigoth and Spaniard, found
themselves side by side, and reciprocally influenced each other's speech
and habits of life. It must not be supposed, however, that the new
nations lost their former character, and took on that of the Germanic
conquerors. Almost the reverse of this took place. It must be remembered
that the Gauls, for instance, far outnumbered the Franks; that each
conquest was achieved by a few hundred thousand men, all of them
warriors, while each of the original Roman provinces had several
millions of inhabitants. There must have been at least ten of the ruled,
to one of the ruling race.
[Sidenote: 570. SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.]
The latter, moreover, were greatly inferior to the former in all the
arts of civilization. In the homes, the dress and ornaments, the social
intercourse, and all the minor features of life, they found their new
neighbors above them, and they were quick to learn the use of
unaccustomed comforts or luxuries. All the cities and small towns were
Roman in their architecture, in their municipal organization, and in the
character of their trade and intercourse; and the conquerors found it
easier to accept this old-established order than to change it.
Another circumstance contributed to Latinize the German races outside of
Germany. After the invention of a Gothic alphabet by Bishop Ulfila, and
his translation of the Bible, we hear no more of a written German
language until the eighth century. There was at least none which was
accessible to the people, and the Latin continued to be the language of
government and religion. The priests were nearly all Romans, and their
interest was to prevent the use of written Germanic tongues. Such
learning as remained to the world was of course only to be acquired
through a knowledge of Latin and Greek.
All the influences which surrounded the conquering races tended,
therefore, to eradicate or change their original German characteristics.
After a few centuries, their descendants, in almost every instance, lost
sight of their origin, and even looked with contempt upon rival people
of the same blood. The Franks and Burgundians of the present day speak
of themselves as "the Latin race": the blonde and blue-eyed Lombards of
Northern Italy, not long since, hated "the Germans" as the Christian of
the Middle Ages hated the Jew; and the full-blooded English or American
Saxon often considers the German as a foreigner with whom he has nothing
in common.
By the year 570, all the races outside of Germany, except the Saxons and
Angles in Britain, had accepted Christianity. Within Germany, although
the Christian missionaries were at work among the Alemanni, the
Bavarians, and along the Rhine, the great body of the people still held
to their old pagan worship. The influence of the true faith was no doubt
weakened by the bitter enmity which still existed between the Athanasian
and Arian sects, although the latter ceased to be powerful after the
downfall of the Ostrogoths. But the Christianity which prevailed among
the Franks, Burgundians and Longobards was not pure or intelligent
enough to save them from the vices which the Roman Empire left behind
it. Many of their kings and nobles were polygamists, and the early
history of their dynasties is a chronicle of falsehood, cruelty and
murder.
[Sidenote: 570.]
In each of the races, the primitive habit of electing chiefs by the
people had long since given way to an hereditary monarchy, but in other
respects their political organization remained much the same. The Franks
introduced into Gaul the old German division of the land into provinces,
hundreds and communities, but the king now claimed the right of
appointing a Count for the first, a _Centenarius_, or centurion, for the
second, and an elder, or head-man, for the third. The people still held
their public assemblies, and settled their local matters; they were all
equal before the law, and the free men paid no taxes. The right of
declaring war, making peace, and other questions of national importance,
were decided by a general assembly of the people, at which the king
presided. The political system was therefore more republican than
monarchical, but it gradually lost the former character as the power of
the kings increased.
The nobles had no fixed place and no special rights during the
migrations of the tribes. Among the Franks they were partly formed out
of the civil officers, and soon included both Romans and Gauls among
their number. In Germany their hereditary succession was already
secured, and they maintained their ascendancy over the common people by
keeping pace with the knowledge and the arts of those times, while the
latter remained, for the most part, in a state of ignorance.
The cities, inhabited by Romans and Romanized Gauls, retained their old
system of government, but paid a tax or tribute. Those portions of the
other Germanic races which had become subject to the Franks were also
allowed to keep their own peculiar laws and forms of local government,
which were now, for the first time, recorded in the Latin language. They
were obliged to furnish a certain number of men capable of bearing arms,
but it does not appear that they paid any tribute to the Franks.
Slavery still existed, and in the two forms of it which we find among
the ancient Germans,--chattels who were bought and sold, and dependents
who were bound to give labor or tribute in return for the protection of
a freeman. The Romans in Gaul were placed upon the latter footing by the
Franks. The children born of marriages between them and the free took
the lower and not the higher position,--that is, they were dependents.
[Sidenote: 570. PENALTIES FOR CRIME.]
The laws in regard to crime were very rigid and severe, but not bloody.
The body of the free man, like his life, was considered inviolate, so
there was no corporeal punishment, and death was only inflicted in a few
extreme cases. The worst crimes could be atoned for by the sacrifice of
money or property. For murder the penalty was two hundred shillings (at
that time the value of 100 oxen), two-thirds of which were given to the
family of the murdered person, while one-third was divided between the
judge and the State. This penalty was increased threefold for the murder
of a Count or a soldier in the field, and more than fourfold for that of
a Bishop. In some of the codes the payment was fixed even for the murder
of a Duke or King. The slaying of a dependent or a Roman only cost half
as much as that of a free Frank, while a slave was only valued at
thirty-five shillings, or seventeen and a half oxen: the theft of a
falcon trained for hunting, or a stallion, cost ten shillings more.
Slander, insult and false-witness were punished in the same way. If any
one falsely accused another of murder he was condemned to pay the
injured person the penalty fixed for the crime of murder, and the same
rule was applied to all minor accusations. The charge of witchcraft, if
not proved according to the superstitious ideas of the people, was
followed by the penalty of one hundred and eighty shillings. Whoever
called another a _hare_, was fined six shillings; but if he called him a
_fox_, the fine was only three shillings.
As the Germanic races became Christian, the power and privileges of the
priesthood were manifested in the changes made in these laws. Not only
was it enacted that the theft of property belonging to the Church must
be paid back ninefold, but the slaves of the priests were valued at
double the amount fixed for the slaves of laymen. The Churches became
sacred, and no criminal could be seized at the foot of the altar. Those
who neglected to attend worship on the Sabbath three times in
succession, were punished by the loss of one-third of their property. If
this neglect was repeated a second time, they were made slaves, and
could be sold as such by the Church.
[Sidenote: 570.]
The laws of the still pagan Thuringians and Saxons, in Germany, did not
differ materially from those of the Christian Franks. Justice was
administered in assemblies of the people, and, in order to secure the
largest expression of the public will, a heavy fine was imposed for the
failure to attend. The latter feature is still retained, in some of the
old Cantons of Switzerland. In Thuringia and Saxony, however, the nobles
had become a privileged class, recognized by the laws, and thus was laid
the foundation for the feudal system of the Middle Ages.
The transition was now complete. Although the art, taste and refinement
of the Roman Empire were lost, its civilizing influence in law and civil
organization survived, and slowly subdued the Germanic races which
inherited its territory. But many characteristics of their early
barbarism still clung to the latter, and a long period elapsed before we
can properly call them a civilized people.
CHAPTER IX.
THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS.
(486--638.)
Chlodwig, the Founder of the Merovingian Dynasty. --His Conversion to
Christianity. --His Successors. --Theuderich's Conquest of
Thuringia. --Union of the Eastern Franks. --Austria (or Austrasia)
and Neustria. --Crimes of the Merovingian Kings. --Clotar and his
Sons. --Sigbert's Successes. --His Wife, Brunhilde. --Sigbert's
Death. --Quarrel between Brunhilde and Fredegunde. --Clotar II.
--Brunhilde and her Grandsons. --Her Defeat and Death. --Clotar
II.'s Reign. --King Dagobert. --The Nobles and the Church. --War
with the Thuringians. --Picture of the Merovingian Line. --A New
Power.
[Sidenote: 500. THE MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY.]
The history of Germany, from the middle of the sixth to the middle of
the ninth century, is that of France also. After having conducted them
to their new homes, we take leave of the Anglo-Saxons, the Visigoths and
the Longobards, and return to the Frank dynasty founded by Chlodwig,
about the year 500, when the smaller kings and chieftains of his race
accepted him as their ruler. In the histories of France, even those
written in English, he is called "Clovis," but we prefer to give him his
original Frank name. He was the grandson of a petty king, whose name was
Merovich, whence he and his successors are called, in history, the
_Merovingian_ dynasty. He appears to have been a born conqueror, neither
very just nor very wise in his actions, but brave, determined and ready
to use any means, good or bad, in order to attain his end.
Chlodwig extinguished the last remnant of Roman rule in Gaul, in the
year 486, as we have related in Chapter VII. He was then only 20 years
old, having succeeded to the throne at the age of 15. Shortly afterwards
he married the daughter of one of the Burgundian kings. She was a
Christian, and endeavored, but for many years without effect, to induce
him to give up his pagan faith. Finally, in a war with the Alemanni, in
496, he promised to become a Christian, provided the God of the
Christians would give him victory. The decisive battle was long and
bloody, but it ended in the complete rout of the Alemanni, and
afterwards all of them who were living to the west of the Rhine became
tributary to the Franks.
[Sidenote: 511.]
Chlodwig and 3,000 of his followers were soon afterwards baptized in the
cathedral at Rheims, by the bishop Remigius. When the king advanced to
the baptismal font, the bishop said to him: "Bow thy head,
Sicambrian!--worship what thou hast persecuted, persecute what thou hast
worshipped!" Although nearly all the German Christians at this time were
Arians, Chlodwig selected the Athanasian faith of Rome, and thereby
secured the support of the Roman priesthood in France, which was of
great service to him in his ambitious designs. This difference of faith
also gave him a pretext to march against the Burgundians in 500, and the
Visigoths in 507: both wars were considered holy by the Church.
His conquest of the Visigoths was prevented, as we have seen, by the
interposition of Theodoric. He then devoted his remaining years to the
complete suppression of all the minor Frank kings, and was so successful
that when he died, in 511, all the race, to the west of the Rhine, was
united under his single sway. He was succeeded by four sons, of whom the
eldest, Theuderich, reigned in Paris; the others chose Metz, Orleans and
Soissons for their capitals. Theuderich was a man of so much energy and
prudence that he was able to control his brothers, and unite the four
governments in such a way that the kingdom was saved from dismemberment.
The mother of Chlodwig was a runaway queen of Thuringia, whose son,
Hermanfried, now ruled over that kingdom, after having deposed his two
brothers. The relationship gave Theuderich a ground for interfering, and
the result was a war between the Franks and the Thuringians. Theuderich
collected a large army, marched into Germany in 530, procured the
services of 9,000 Saxons as allies, and met the Thuringians on the river
Unstrut, not far from where the city of Halle now stands. Hermanfried
was taken prisoner, carried to France, and treacherously thrown from a
tower, after receiving great professions of friendship from his nephew,
Theuderich. His family fled to Italy, and the kingdom of Thuringia,
embracing nearly all Central Germany, was added to that of the Franks.
The northern part, however, was given to the Saxons as a reward for
their assistance.
[Sidenote: 530. AUSTRIA AND NEUSTRIA]
Four years afterwards the brothers of Theuderich conquered the kingdom
of Burgundy, and annexed it to their territory. About the same time, the
Franks living eastward of the Rhine entered into a union with their more
powerful brethren. Since both the Alemanni and the Bavarians were
already tributary to the latter, the dominion of the united Franks now
extended from the Atlantic nearly to the river Elbe, and from the mouth
of the Rhine to the Mediterranean, with Friesland and the kingdom of the
Saxons between it and the North Sea. To all lying east of the Rhine, the
name of Austria (East-kingdom) or Austrasia was given, while Neustria
(New-kingdom) was applied to all west of the Rhine. These designations
were used in the historical chronicles for some centuries afterwards.
While Theuderich lived, his brothers observed a tolerably peaceful
conduct towards one another, but his death was followed by a season of
war and murder. History gives us no record of another dynasty so steeped
in crime as that of the Merovingians: within the compass of a few years
we find a father murdering his son, a brother his brother and a wife her
husband. We can only account for the fact that the whole land was not
constantly convulsed by civil war, by supposing that the people retained
enough of power in their national assemblies, to refuse taking part in
the fratricidal quarrels. It is not necessary, therefore, to recount all
the details of the bloody family history. Their effect upon the people
must have been in the highest degree demoralizing, yet the latter
possessed enough of prudence--or perhaps of a clannish spirit, in the
midst of a much larger Roman and Gallic population--to hold the Frank
kingdom together, while its rulers were doing their best to split it to
pieces.
The result of all the quarrelling and murdering was, that in 558 Clotar,
the youngest son of Chlodwig, became the sole monarch. After forty-seven
years of divided rule, the kingly power was again in a single hand, and
there seemed to be a chance for peace and progress. But Clotar died
within three years, and, like his father, left four sons to divide his
power. The first thing they did was to fight; then, being perhaps rather
equally matched, they agreed to portion the kingdom. Charibert reigned
in Paris, Guntram in Orleans, Chilperic in Soissons, and Sigbert in
Metz. The boundaries between their territories are uncertain; we only
know that all of "Austria," or Germany east of the Rhine, fell to
Sigbert's share.
[Sidenote: 565.]
About this time the Avars, coming from Hungary, had invaded Thuringia,
and were inciting the people to rebellion against the Franks. Sigbert
immediately marched against them, drove them back, and established his
authority over the Thuringians. On returning home he found that his
brother Chilperic had taken possession of his capital and many smaller
towns. Chilperic was forced to retreat, lost his own kingdom in turn,
and only received it again through the generosity of Sigbert,--the first
and only instance of such a virtue in the Merovingian line of kings.
Sigbert seems to have inherited the abilities, without the vices, of his
grandfather Chlodwig. When the Avars made a second invasion into
Germany, he was not only defeated but taken prisoner by them.
Nevertheless, he immediately acquired such influence over their Khan, or
chieftain, that he persuaded the latter to set him free, to make a
treaty of peace and friendship, and to return with his Avars to Hungary.
In the year 568 Charibert died in Paris, leaving no heirs. A new strife
instantly broke out among the three remaining brothers; but it was for a
time suspended, owing to the approach of a common danger. The
Longobards, now masters of Northern Italy, crossed the Alps and began to
overrun Switzerland, which the Franks possessed, through their victories
over the Burgundians and the Alemanni. Sigbert and Guntram united their
forces, and repelled the invasion with much slaughter.
Then broke out in France a series of family wars, darker and bloodier
than any which had gone before. The strife between the sons of Clotar
and their children and grandchildren desolated France for forty years,
and became all the more terrible because the women of the family entered
into it with the men. All these Christian kings, like their father, were
polygamists: each had several wives; yet they are described by the
priestly chroniclers of their times as men who went about doing good,
and whose lives were "acceptable to God"! Sigbert was the only
exception: he had but one wife, Brunhilde, the daughter of a king of the
Visigoths, a stately, handsome, intelligent woman, but proud and
ambitious.
[Sidenote: 570. FAMILY WARS IN FRANCE.]
Either the power and popularity, or the rich marriage-portion, which
Sigbert acquired with Brunhilde, induced his brother, Chilperic, to ask
the hand of her sister, the Princess Galsunta of Spain. It was granted
to him on condition that he would put away all his wives and live with
her alone. He accepted the condition, and was married to Galsunta. One
of the women sent away was Fredegunde, who soon found means to recover
her former influence over Chilperic's mind. It was not long before
Galsunta was found dead in her bed, and within a week Fredegunde, the
murderess, became queen in her stead. Brunhilde called upon Sigbert to
revenge her sister's death, and then began that terrible history of
crime and hatred, which was celebrated, centuries afterwards, in the
famous _Nibelungenlied_, or Lay of the Nibelungs.
In the year 575, Sigbert gained a complete victory over Chilperic, and
was lifted upon a shield by the warriors of the latter, who hailed him
as their king. In that instant he was stabbed in the back, and died upon
the field of his triumph. Chilperic resumed his sway, and soon took
Brunhilde prisoner, while her young son, Childebert, escaped to Germany.
But his own son, Merwig, espoused Brunhilde's cause, secretly released
her from prison, and then married her. A war next arose between father
and son, in which the former was successful. He cut off Merwig's long
hair, and shut him up in a monastery; but, for some unexplained reason,
he allowed Brunhilde to go free. In the meantime Fredegunde had borne
three sons, who all died soon after their birth. She accused her own
step-son of having caused their deaths by witchcraft, and he and his
mother, one of Chilperic's former wives, were put to death.
Both Chilperic and his brother Guntram, who reigned at Orleans, were
without male heirs. At this juncture, the German chiefs and nobles
demanded to have Childebert, the young son of Sigbert and Brunhilde, who
had taken refuge among them, recognized as the heir to the Frankish
throne. Chilperic consented, on condition that Childebert, with such
forces as he could command, would march with him against Guntram, who
had despoiled him of a great deal of his territory. The treaty was made,
in spite of the opposition of Brunhilde, whose sister's murder was not
yet avenged, and the civil wars were renewed. Both sides gained or lost
alternately, without any decided result, until the assassination of
Chilperic, by an unknown hand, in 584. A few months before his death,
Fredegunde had borne him another son, Clotar, who lived, and was at once
presented by his mother as Childebert's rival to the throne.
[Sidenote: 597.]
The struggle between the two widowed queens, Brunhilde and Fredegunde,
was for a while delayed by the appearance of a new claimant, Gundobald,
who had been a fugitive in Constantinople for many years, and declared
that he was Chilperic's brother. He obtained the support of many
Austrasian (German) princes, and was for a time so successful that
Fredegunde was forced to take refuge with Guntram, at Orleans. The
latter also summoned Childebert to his capital, and persuaded him to
make a truce with Fredegunde and her adherents, in order that both might
act against their common rival. Gundobald and his followers were soon
destroyed: Guntram died in 593, and Childebert was at once accepted as
his successor. His kingdom included that of Charibert, whose capital was
Paris, and that of his father, Sigbert, embracing all Frankish Germany.
But the nobles and people, accustomed to conspiracy, treachery and
crime, could no longer be depended upon, as formerly. They were
beginning to return to their former system of living upon war and
pillage, instead of the honest arts of peace.
Fredegunde still held the kingdom of Chilperic for her son Clotar. After
strengthening herself by secret intrigues with the Frank nobles, she
raised an army, put herself at its head, and marched against Childebert,
who was defeated and soon afterwards poisoned, after having reigned only
three years. His realm was divided between his two young sons, one
receiving Burgundy and the other Germany, under the guardianship of
their grandmother Brunhilde. Fredegunde followed up her success, took
Paris and Orleans from the heirs of Childebert, and died in 597, leaving
her son Clotar, then in his fourteenth year, as king of more than half
of France. He was crowned as Clotar II.
Death placed Brunhilde's rival out of the reach of her revenge, but she
herself might have secured the whole kingdom of the Franks for her two
grandsons, had she not quarrelled with one and stirred up war between
them. The first consequence of this new strife was that Alsatia and
Eastern Switzerland were separated from Neustria, or France, and
attached to Austria, or Germany. Brunhilde, finding that her cause was
desperate, procured the assistance of Clotar II. for herself and her
favorite grandson, Theuderich. The fortune of war now turned, and before
long the other grandson, Theudebert, was taken prisoner. By his
brother's order he was formally deposed from his kingly authority, and
then executed: the brains of his infant son were dashed out against a
stone.
[Sidenote: 613. MURDER OF BRUNHILDE.]
It was not long before this crime was avenged. A quarrel in regard to
the division of the spoils arose between Theuderich and Clotar II. The
former died in the beginning of the war which followed, leaving four
young sons to the care of their great-grandmother, the queen Brunhilde.
Clotar II. immediately marched against her, but, knowing her ability and
energy, he obtained a promise from the nobles of Burgundy and Germany
who were unfriendly to Brunhilde, that they would come over to his side
at the critical moment. The aged queen had called her people to arms,
and, like her rival, Fredegunde, put herself at their head; but when the
armies met, on the river Aisne in Champagne, the traitors in her own
camp joined Clotar II. and the struggle was ended without a battle.
Brunhilde, then eighty years old, was taken prisoner, cruelly tortured
for three days, and then tied by her gray hair to the tail of a wild
horse and dragged to death. The four sons of Theuderich were put to
death at the same time, and thus, in the year 613, Clotar II. became
king of all the Franks. A priest named Fredegar, who wrote his
biography, says of him: "He was a most patient man, learned and pious,
and kind and sympathizing towards every one!"
Clotar II. possessed, at least, energy enough to preserve a sway which
was based on a long succession of the worst crimes that disgrace
humanity. In 622, six years before his death, he made his oldest son,
Dagobert, a boy of sixteen, king of the German half of his realm, but
was obliged, immediately afterwards, to assist him against the Saxons.
He entered their territory, seized the people, massacred all who proved
to be taller than his own two-handed sword, and then returned to France
without having subdued the spirit or received the allegiance of the bold
race. Nothing of importance occurred during the remainder of his reign;
he died in 628, leaving his kingdom to his two sons, Dagobert and
Charibert. The former easily possessed himself of the lion's share,
giving his younger brother only a small strip of territory along the
river Loire. Charibert, however, drove the last remnant of the Visigoths
into Spain, and added the country between the Garonne and the Pyrenees
to his little kingdom. The name of Aquitaine was given to this region,
and Charibert's descendants became its Dukes, subject to the kings of
the Franks.
[Sidenote: 628.]
Dagobert had been carefully educated by Pippin of Landen, the Royal
Steward of Clotar II., and by Arnulf, the Bishop of Metz. He had no
quality of greatness, but he promised to be, at least, a good and just
sovereign. He became at once popular with the masses, who began to long
for peace, and for the restoration of rights which had been partly lost
during the civil wars. The nobles, however, who had drawn the greatest
advantage from those wars, during which their support was purchased by
one side or the other, grew dissatisfied. They cunningly aroused in
Dagobert the love of luxury and the sensual vices which had ruined his
ancestors, and thus postponed the reign of law and justice to which the
people were looking forward.
In fact, that system of freedom and equality which the Germanic races
had so long possessed, was already shaken to its very base. During the
long and bloody feuds of the Merovingian kings, many changes had been
made in the details of government, all tending to increase the power of
the nobles, the civil officers and the dignitaries of the Church.
Wealth--the bribes paid for their support--had accumulated in the hands
of these classes, while the farmers, mechanics and tradesmen, plundered
in turn by both parties, had constantly grown poorer. Although the
external signs of civilization had increased, the race had already lost
much of its moral character, and some of the best features of its
political system.
There are few chronicles which inform us of the affairs of Germany
during this period. The Avars, after their treaty of peace with Sigbert,
directed their incursions against the Bavarians, but without gaining any
permanent advantage. On the other hand, the Slavonic tribes, especially
the Bohemians, united under the rule of a renegade Frank, whose name was
Samo, and who acquired a part of Thuringia, after defeating the Frank
army which was sent against him. The Saxons and Thuringians then took
the war into their own hands, and drove back Samo and his Slavonic
hordes. By this victory the Saxons released themselves from the payment
of an annual tribute to the Frank kings, and the Thuringians became
strong enough to organize themselves again as a people and elect their
own Duke. The Franks endeavored to suppress this new organization, but
they were defeated by the Duke, Radulf, nearly on the same spot where,
just one hundred years before, Theuderich, the son of Chlodwig, had
crushed the Thuringian kingdom. From that time, Thuringia was placed on
the same footing as Bavaria, tributary to the Franks, but locally
independent.
[Sidenote: 638. END OF THE MEROVINGIAN POWER.]
King Dagobert, weak, swayed by whatever influence was nearest, and
voluptuous rather than cruel, died in 638, before he had time to do much
evil. He was the last of the Merovingian line who exercised any actual
power. The dynasty existed for a century longer, but its monarchs were
merely puppets in the hands of stronger men. Its history, from the
beginning, is well illustrated by a tradition current among the people,
concerning the mother of Chlodwig. They relate that soon after her
marriage she had a vision, in which she gave birth to a lion (Chlodwig),
whose descendants were wolves and bears, and their descendants, in turn,
frisky dogs.
Before the death of Dagobert--in fact, during the life of Clotar II.--a
new power had grown up within the kingdom of the Franks, which gradually
pushed the Merovingian dynasty out of its place. The history of this
power, after 638, becomes the history of the realm, and we now turn from
the bloody kings to trace its origin, rise and final triumph.
CHAPTER X.
THE DYNASTY OF THE ROYAL STEWARDS.
(638--768.)
The Steward of the Royal Household. --His Government of the Royal
_Lehen_. --His Position and Opportunities. --Pippin of Landen.
--His Sway in Germany. --Gradual Transfer of Power. --Grimoald,
Steward of France. --Pippin of Heristall. --His Successes.
--Cooperation with the Church of Rome. --Quarrels between his
Heirs. --Karl defeats his Rivals. --Becomes sole Steward of the
Empire. --He favors Christian Missions. --The Labors of Winfried
(Bishop Bonifacius). --Invasion of the Saracens. --The Great Battle
of Poitiers. --Karl is surnamed Martel, the Hammer. --His Wars and
Marches. --His Death and Character. --Pippin the Short. --He
subdues the German Dukes. --Assists Pope Zacharias. --Is anointed
King. --Death of Bonifacius. --Pippin defeats the Lombards. --Gives
the Pope Temporal Power. --His Death.
[Sidenote: 638.]
We have mentioned Pippin of Landen as the Royal Steward of Clotar II.
His office gave birth to the new power which grew up beside the
Merovingian rule and finally suppressed it. In the chronicles of the
time the officer is called the _Majordomus_ of the King,--a word which
is best translated by "Steward of the Royal Household"; but in reality,
it embraced much more extended and important powers than the title would
imply. In their conquests, the Franks--as we have already
stated--usually claimed at least one-third of the territory which fell
into their hands. A part of this was portioned out among the chief men
and the soldiers; a part was set aside as the king's share, and still
another part became the common property of the people. The latter,
therefore, fell into the habit of electing a Steward to guard and
superintend this property in their interest; and, as the kings became
involved in their family feuds, the charge of the royal estates was
intrusted to the hands of the same steward.
The latter estates soon became, by conquest, so extensive and important,
that the king gave the use of many of them for a term of years, or for
life, to private individuals in return for military services. This was
called the _Lehen_ (lien, or loan) system, to distinguish it from the
_Allod_ (allotment), whereby a part of the conquered lands were divided
by lot, and became the free property of those to whom they fell. The
_Lehen_ gave rise to a new class, whose fortunes were immediately
dependent on the favor of the king, and who consequently, when they
appeared at the national assemblies, voted on his side. Such a "loaned"
estate was also called _feod_, whence the term "_feudal_ system," which,
gradually modified by time, grew from this basis. The importance of the
Royal Steward in the kingdom is thus explained. The office, at first,
had probably a mere business character. After Chlodwig's time, the civil
wars by which the estates of the king and the people became subject to
constant change, gave the steward a political power, which increased
with each generation. He stood between the monarch and his subjects,
with the best opportunity for acquiring an ascendency over the minds of
both. At first, he was only elected for a year, and his reelection
depended on the honesty and ability with which he had discharged his
duties. During the convulsions of the dynasty, he, in common with king
and nobles, gained what rights the people lost: he began to retain his
office for a longer time, then for life, and finally demanded that it
should be hereditary in his family.
[Sidenote: 638. THE "LEHEN" SYSTEM.]
The Royal Stewards of Burgundy and Germany played an important part in
the last struggle between Clotar II. and Brunhilde. When the successful
king, in 622, found that the increasing difference of language and
habits between the eastern and western portions of his realm required a
separation of the government, and made his young son, Dagobert, ruler
over the German half, he was compelled to recognize Pippin of Landen as
his Steward, and to trust Dagobert entirely to his hands. The dividing
line between "Austria" and "Neustria" was drawn along the chain of the
Vosges, through the forest of Ardennes, and terminated near the mouth of
the Schelde,--almost the same line which divides the German and French
languages, at this day.
Pippin was a Frank, born in the Netherlands, a man of energy and
intelligence, but of little principle. He had, nevertheless, shrewdness
enough to see the necessity of maintaining the unity and peace of the
kingdom, and he endeavored, in conjunction with Bishop Arnulf of Metz,
to make a good king of Dagobert. They made him, indeed, amiable and
well-meaning, but they could not overcome the instability of his
character. After Clotar II.'s death, in 628, Dagobert passed the
remaining ten years of his life in France, under the control of others,
and the actual government of Germany was exercised by Pippin.
[Sidenote: 670.]
The period of transition between the power of the kings, gradually
sinking, and the power of the Stewards, steadily rising, lasted about
fifty years. The latter power, however, was not allowed to increase
without frequent struggles, partly from the jealousy of the nobility and
priesthood, partly from the Resistance of the people to the extinction
of their remaining rights. But, after the devastation left behind by the
fratricidal wars of the Merovingians, all parties felt the necessity of
a strong and well-regulated government, and the long experience of the
Stewards gave them the advantage.
Grimoald, the son and successor of Pippin in the stewardship of Germany,
made an attempt to usurp the royal power, but failed. This event, and
the interference of a Steward of France with the rights of the dynasty,
led the Franks, in 670--when the whole kingdom was again united under
Childeric II.--to decree that the Stewards should be elected annually by
the people, as in the beginning. But when Childeric II., like the most
of his predecessors, was murdered, the deposed Steward of France
regained his power, forced the people to accept him, and attempted to
extend his government over Germany. In spite of a fierce resistance,
headed by Pippin of Heristall, the grandson of Pippin of Landen, he
partly maintained his authority until the year 681, when he was murdered
in turn.
Pippin of Heristall was also the grandson of Arnulf, Bishop of Metz,
whose son, Anchises, had married Begga, the daughter of Pippin of
Landen. He was thus of Roman blood by his father's, and Frank by his
mother's side. As soon as his authority was secured, as Royal Steward of
Germany, he invaded France, and a desperate struggle for the stewardship
of the whole kingdom ensued. It was ended in 687 by a battle near St.
Quentin, in which Pippin was victorious. He used his success with a
moderation very rare in those days: he did honor to the Frank king,
Theuderich III., who had fallen into his hands, spared the lives and
possessions of all who had fought against him, on their promise not to
take up arms against his authority, and even continued many of the chief
officials of the Franks in their former places.
[Sidenote: 687. PIPPIN OF HERISTALL.]
From this date the Merovingian monarch became a shadow. Pippin paid him
all external signs of allegiance, kept up the ceremonies of his Court,
supplied him with ample revenues, and governed the kingdom in his name;
but the actual power was concentrated in his own hands. France,
Switzerland and the greater part of Germany were subjected to his
government, although there were still elements of discontent within the
realm, and of trouble outside of its borders. The dependent dukedoms of
Aquitaine, Burgundy, Alemannia, Bavaria and Thuringia were restless
under the yoke; the Saxons and Frisians on the north were hostile and
defiant, and the Slavonic races all along the eastern frontier had not
yet given up their invasions.
Pippin, like the French rulers after him, down to the present day,
perceived the advantage of having the Church on his side. Moreover, he
was the grandson of a Bishop, which circumstance--although it did not
prevent him from taking two wives--enabled him better to understand the
power of the ecclesiastical system of Rome. In the early part of the
seventh century, several Christian missionaries, principally Irish, had
begun their labors among the Alemanni and the Bavarians, but the greater
part of these people, with all the Thuringians, Saxons and Frisians,
were still worshippers of the old pagan gods. Pippin saw that the latter
must be taught submission, and accustomed to authority through the
Church, and, with his aid, all the southern part of Germany became
Christian in a few years. Force was employed, as well as persuasion;
but, at that time, the end was considered to sanction any means.
Pippin's rule (we can not call it _reign_) was characterized by the
greatest activity, patience and prudence. From year to year the kingdom
of the Franks became better organized and stronger in all its features
of government. Brittany, Burgundy and Aquitaine were kept quiet; the
northern part of Holland was conquered, and immediately given into
charge of a band of Anglo-Saxon monks; and Germany, although restless
and dissatisfied, was held more firmly than ever. Pippin of Heristall,
while he was simply called a Royal Steward, exercised a wider power
than any monarch of his time.
[Sidenote: 714.]
When he died, in the year 714, the kingdom was for a while convulsed by
feuds which threatened to repeat the bloody annals of the Merovingians.
His heirs were Theudowald, his grandson by his wife Plektrude, and Karl
and Hildebrand, his sons by his wife Alpheid. He chose the former as his
successor, and Plektrude, in order to suppress any opposition to this
arrangement, imprisoned her step-son Karl. But the Burgundians
immediately revolted, elected one of their chiefs, Raginfried, to the
office of Royal Steward, and defeated the Franks in a battle in which
Theudowald was slain. Karl, having escaped from prison, put himself at
the head of affairs, supported by a majority of the German Franks. He
was a man of strong personal influence, and inspired his followers with
enthusiasm and faith; but his chances seemed very desperate. His
step-mother, Plektrude, opposed him: the Burgundians and French Franks,
led by Raginfried, were marching against him, and Radbod, Duke of
Friesland, invaded the territory which he was bound by his office to
defend.
Karl had the choice of three enemies, and he took the one which seemed
most dangerous. He attacked Radbod, but was forced to fall back, and
this repulse emboldened the Saxons to make a foray into the land of the
Hessians, as the old Germanic tribe of the Chatti were now called.
Radbod advanced to Cologne, which was held by Plektrude and her
followers: at the same time Raginfried approached from the west, and the
city was thus besieged by two separate armies, hostile to each other,
yet both having the same end in view. Between the two, Karl managed to
escape, and retreated to the forest of Ardennes, where he set about
reconstructing his shattered army.
Cologne was too strong to be assailed, and Plektrude, who possessed
large treasures, soon succeeded in buying off Radbod and Raginfried. The
latter, on his return to France, came into collision with Karl, who,
though repelled at first, finally drove him in confusion to the walls of
Paris. Karl then suddenly wheeled about and marched against Cologne,
which fell into his hands: Plektrude, leaving her wealth as his booty,
fled to Bavaria. This victory secured to Karl the stewardship over
Germany, but a king was wanting, to make the forms of royalty complete.
The direct Merovingian line had run out, and Raginfried had been
obliged to take a monk, an offshoot of the family, and place him on the
throne, under the name of Chilperic II. Karl, after a little search,
discovered another Merovingian, whom he installed in the German half of
the kingdom, as Clotar III. That done, he attacked the invading Saxons,
defeated and drove them beyond the Weser river.
[Sidenote: 719. KARL, STEWARD OF THE EMPIRE.]
He was now free to meet the rebellious Franks of France, who in the
meantime had strengthened themselves by offering to Duke Eudo of
Aquitaine the acknowledgment of his independent sovereignty in return
for his support. A decisive battle was fought in the year 719, and Karl
was again victorious. The nominal king, Chilperic II., Raginfried and
Duke Eudo fled into the south of France. Karl began negotiations with
the latter for the delivery of the fugitive king; but just at this time
his own puppet, Clotar III., happened to die, and, as there was no other
Merovingian left, the pretence upon which his stewardship was based
obliged him to recognize Chilperic II. Raginfried resigned his office,
and Karl was at last nominal Steward, and actual monarch, of the kingdom
of the Franks.
His first movement was to deliver Germany from its invaders, and
reestablish the dependency of its native Dukes. The death of the fierce
Radbod enabled him to reconquer West Friesland: the Saxons were then
driven back and firmly held within their original boundaries, and
finally the Alemanni and Bavarians were compelled to make a formal
acknowledgment of the Frank rule. As regards Thuringia, which seems to
have remained a Dukedom, the chronicles of the time give us little
information. It is probable, however, that the invasions of the Saxons
on the north and the Slavonic tribes on the east gave the people of
Central Germany no opportunity to resist the authority of the Franks.
The work of conversion, encouraged by Pippin of Heristall as a political
measure, was still continued by the zeal of the Irish and Anglo-Saxon
missionaries, and in the beginning of the eighth century it received a
powerful impulse from a new apostle, a man of singular ability and
courage.
He was a Saxon of England, born in Devonshire in the year 680, and
Winfried by name. Educated in a monastery, at a time when the struggle
between Christianity and the old Germanic faith was at its height, he
resolved to devote his life to missionary labors. He first went to
Friesland, during the reign of Radbod, and spent three years in a vain
attempt to convert the people. Then he visited Rome, offered his
services to the Pope, and was commissioned to undertake the work of
christianizing Central Germany. On reaching the field of his labors, he
manifested such zeal and intelligence that he soon became the leader and
director of the missionary enterprise. It is related that at Geismar, in
the land of the Hessians, he cut down with his own hands an aged
oak-tree, sacred to the god Thor. This and other similar acts inspired
the people with such awe that they began to believe that their old gods
were either dead or helpless, and they submissively accepted the new
faith without understanding its character, or following it otherwise
than in observing the external forms of worship.
[Sidenote: 725.]
On a second visit to Rome, Winfried was appointed by the Pope Archbishop
of Mayence, and ordered to take, thenceforth, the name of Bonifacius
(Benefactor), by which he is known in history. He was confirmed in this
office by Karl, to whom he had rendered valuable political services by
the conversion of the Thuringians, and who had a genuine respect for his
lofty and unselfish character. The spot where he built the first
Christian church in Central Germany, about twelve miles from Gotha, at
the foot of the Thuringian Mountains, is now marked by a colossal
candle-stick of granite, surmounted by a golden flame.
After Karl had been for several years actively employed in regulating
the affairs of his great realm, and especially, with the aid of Bishop
Bonifacius, in establishing an authority in Germany equal to that he
possessed in France, he had every prospect of a powerful and peaceful
rule. But suddenly a new danger threatened not only the Franks, but all
Europe. The Saracens, crossing from Africa, defeated the Visigoths and
slew Roderick, their king, in the year 711. Gradually possessing
themselves of all Spain, they next collected a tremendous army, and in
731, under the command of Abderrahman, Viceroy of the Caliph of
Damascus, set out for the conquest of France. Thus the new Christian
faith of Europe, still engaged in quelling the last strength of the
ancient paganism, was suddenly called upon to meet the newer faith of
Mohammed, which had determined to subdue the world.
[Sidenote: 732. THE BATTLE OF POITIERS.]
Not only France, but the Eastern Empire, Italy and England looked to
Karl, in this emergency. The Saracens crossed the Pyrenees with 350,000
warriors, accompanied by their wives and children, as if they were sure
of victory and meant to possess the land. Karl called the military
strength of the whole broad kingdom into the field, collected an army
nearly equal in numbers, and finally, in October, 732, the two hosts
stood face to face, near the city of Poitiers. It was a struggle almost
as grand, and as fraught with important consequences to the world, as
that of Aetius and Attila, nearly 300 years before. Six days were spent
in preparations, and on the seventh the battle began. The Saracens
attacked with that daring and impetuosity which had gained them so many
victories; but, as the old chronicle says, "the Franks, with their
strong hearts and powerful bodies, stood like a wall, and hewed down the
Arabs with iron hands." When night fell, 200,000 dead and wounded lay
upon the field. Karl made preparatio
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/36484