Among the German tribes it was the Goths who had first come under the
civilizing influence of the Christian religion.
As some winged seed is wafted from a fair garden into a dark, distant
forest, and there takes root and blossoms, so was the seed-germ of
Christianity caught by the wind of destiny, and carried from Palestine
to the heart of pagan Germany, where, strange to say, it found
congenial soil.
The story is a romantic one. A Christian boy in Asia Minor, while
straying on the shores of the Mediterranean, was captured by some
Goths, who took their fair-haired prize home to their own land, and
named him Ulfilas.
The boy, with his heart all aflame for the religion in which he had
been nurtured, told his captors the story of Calvary--of Christ and his
gospel of peace and love; and lived to see the terrible sacrificial
altars replaced by the Cross.
The Goths had no alphabet, so Ulfilas invented one, and then translated
the Bible into their rude speech. A part of this translation is now
preserved in Sweden and is the earliest extant specimen of the Gothic
language. This Gothic version of the Lord's Prayer, written by Ulfilas
more than fifteen centuries ago, bears such close resemblance to the
German and English versions that it can be easily read by us to-day;
and makes us realize our own near kinship to those simple barbarians of
the fourth century.
In the year 375, thirty-five years before the sacking of Rome, from the
vast plains lying between Russia and China there had poured into Europe
a terrible race of beings called Huns. They seemed more like demons
than men. Insensible alike to fear, to hunger, thirst, or cold, they
appeased their ferocious appetites upon wild roots and raw meat. These
hideous men ate, drank, and slept on horseback, their no less hideous
wives and children following them in wagons, as they ravaged through
the Continent of Europe.
The Huns, under the leadership of Attila, swept everything before them;
leaving a track of blood and ashes through Germany.
The Goths deserted their lands and homes on account of this brutish
invasion and pressed down into Italy and Southern Gaul; the Ostro-Goths
(or East Goths) becoming in time masters of Italy under King Theodoric,
while the Visigoths (or West Goths), who were already in Southern Gaul,
had overflowed the Pyrenees and established a Gothic empire in Spain
(or Hispania, as it was then called).
It was not alone the Goths who were swept before Attila and his Hunnish
hosts. The Vandals, the Burgundians, the Longobards were carried by
the same tide into Southern Europe; the Vandals thence into northern
Africa; while the Slavs from the northeast in turn pressed down after
them, and, like the waters of the sea, occupied the lands which they
had deserted.
So this Hunnish invasion was a tremendous upturning force--in itself
bearing no relation to the future result more than the plow to the
future grain; but it was a terrible instrument, used in bringing the
German race into contact with higher civilizations, where, in the
alchemy of time, they were destined to survive not as a nation, but
rather as an element, and where, in the great creative processes, they
were intended to re-enforce the decaying races of Southern Europe with
their rude but uncorrupted vitality.
Of the Huns themselves nothing remained in Europe after the defeat of
Attila, excepting in Dacia, over which they had permanently spread, and
which was later called Hungary.
During this process of re-creating the old races of Southern Europe,
the Roman Empire was perishing. Its conversion to Christianity in the
fourth century, under Constantine, was too late to save it. For three
hundred years pagan Rome had been drenching the soil of Southern Europe
with the blood of Christians. Then this zealous new convert not only
espoused the religion of Christ, but determined by her Church Councils
what that religion meant and what it did not mean, and made fierce war
upon heretics like the Gothic Christians, who knew nothing about these
strange doctrines of which Ulfilas had not told them, nor concerning
which did their simple Gothic Bible say one word! (A conflict between
_Trinitarianism_ and _Arianism_.)
The Roman Empire was the "_Holy_ Roman Empire," now. When Constantine
removed his capital to Byzantium, it required two Emperors, an Eastern
and a Western, to govern the crumbling mass. But as the temporal power
declined, there was at Rome a new and spiritual kingdom which was
expanding and claiming an empire over all Christendom. The Bishops of
Rome had become Popes. Gaul or France was now governed by the German
Franks. And the Frankish Kings in France, and the Visigoth Kings in
Spain, and Christians everywhere must bow to the will of the Pope.
But the Roman Emperors were becoming less and less able to protect
their dominions. The Teuton Lombards had overrun Italy, and at last
the lowest point of degradation seemed to be reached, when the Imperial
Crown at Byzantium was grasped by Irene, who deposed and blinded her
own son in order to reach the throne once occupied by Augustus.
Who could be more fit to fill this august position at the head of
Christendom than Charlemagne, the great conqueror of men and defender
of the Holy Faith?
The coronation of Charlemagne, King of France and Germany, at Rome, in
the year 800, was a revolt of the West against the sluggard Emperors at
Byzantium; just as his father Pepin's had been, fifty years before, a
revolt against the sluggard Kings of France.
Not for 800 years had there been such a commanding personality on the
earth; not since Caesar hurled his legions into Gaul and Britain had
there been such a display of military genius and valor, and perhaps
never before such a breadth of intelligence in controlling a vast and
heterogeneous empire.
Thenceforth, Charlemagne and his successors (when crowned by the Pope)
were the successors of the Caesars and the temporal heads of the Holy
Roman Empire. Excepting in name the once great empire had ceased to be
Roman. The rude barbarian race which, in the time of Julius Caesar, was
buried in the forests of Central Europe, was at the head of
Christendom; and under Charlemagne, a map of the German Empire was a
map of Europe.
Charlemagne acknowledged the Pope who crowned him as his spiritual
sovereign, while, on the other hand, the Pope bowed before the Emperor
who appointed him as his temporal sovereign. It was a magnificent,
all-embracing scheme of empire, of which the spiritual head was at
Rome, and the temporal at Aix-la-Chapelle.
It seemed as if, by this dual supremacy, Charlemagne had provided for
all possible exigencies of human government. He rested content, no
doubt thinking he had embodied a perfect ideal in creating a system
which should thus co-ordinate and embrace both the spiritual and
temporal needs of an empire. But as soon as his controlling hand was
removed unexpected dangers assailed his work.
In less than fifty years from his coronation his three grandsons had
quarreled and torn the empire into as many parts. With this event
France commenced a separate existence as a kingdom and the Imperial
title belonged alone to Germany (treaty of Verdun, 843).
It was the strong, rough arm of the Goth which had hammered in pieces
the Roman Empire and brought these tremendous results for the Teuton
race; but it was the Frank which had survived as the governing power.
These Franks established a new system of land tenure, which combined
the two opposing systems prevailing in North and South Germany. They
proclaimed that the land belonged to the Crown. But the Crown, upon
certain conditions, bestowed it upon landholders who were called
barons. These barons might hold their land from generation to
generation, so long as these conditions were fulfilled. They, in like
manner, parceled out their lands into farms, which were held by the
class below them upon like conditions of submission and fealty to them.
The people bound themselves to furnish military service and food, and
to work for their barons a specified number of days in the year, and to
receive in return a certain protection, and a refuge within the castle
of their chief. The baron was responsible to the count who was his
superior, and the count to the King.
This was the feudal system, which was a net-work of reciprocal duties.
No man, be he peasant or count, could call anything his own unless he
discharged his obligations and responsibilities.
The system met great opposition for a time in South Germany; especially
from Welf, Count of Bavaria, from whom the historic Guelphs are
descended. But it survived, as we know, increasing in oppressive
weight and rigidity, until for centuries it crushed the life out of
Europe.