their homes. There was a distinction of classes among them. Then, as
now, the German looked upon noble birth with reverence, and probably in
every village there were at least one or two heads of families called
noble, and believed to be sprung in far-distant ages from the seed of
gods. But the largest and most important class was that of the men,
free but not noble[25], who took part in all public assemblies, and who
formed the bone and muscle of the national army, but who, though proud
and independent, did not look upon themselves as eligible for any of
the highest places in the State. Among these, however, there were all
sorts of gradations of rank, depending partly on personal qualities,
but largely also on their relative wealth. The chief outward sign of
this wealth was cattle, so much so that the earliest translator of
the New Testament into a Teutonic tongue coined a word equivalent to
‘cattle-hoarder[26],’ when he wished to warn his readers against the
‘mammon of unrighteousness.’ But slaves also were possessed, probably
in considerable numbers, by wealthy German villagers, though they were
employed almost entirely in the labour of the farm and the pasture, all
domestic work being as a rule performed by the female members of even the
rich German family. Half-naked, and far from clean, the children of the
master and of the slave sprawled about together on the floor of either
home, until the years of manhood were reached, when it was deemed fitting
that some distinctive dress should show the difference of their rank. But
it was in these smoky huts, on these dirty floors, and doubtless also
in many a long day’s chase along with the slave-boys in the encircling
forest, that the fair limbs of the young German warriors grew to that
size and that sinewy stateliness which, as Tacitus admits, were the
admiration and the terror of Rome.
[Sidenote: _Land-system of the Germans._]
[27]The agriculture of these Teutonic tribes was conducted in a manner
which necessarily kept it in a backward and primitive state. Apparently
the Germans had learnt the lesson that frequent grain-crops exhaust the
fertility of the soil. Anything like a scientific system of manuring, in
order to repair that exhausted fertility, was of course yet undiscovered;
but a rude provision for fallows seems to have been generally made.
Periodically, the whole population of the village went forth into the
adjacent country and decided upon the portion of pasture or moorland
which was to be broken up by the plough in order to replace the portion
of arable land which had earned the right to repose. The new corn-land
thus created was divided among the villagers, not equally, but according
to their rank and wealth, chiefly because rank and wealth implied a
proportionate power of cultivation[28]. While the poor freeman, who was
only just above the rank of a slave, could bring only his own arms and
those of his sons to till the little patch of ground which was allotted
to him, his wealthy neighbour, who had slaves and horses and herds in
abundance, could cultivate, and therefore might insist upon having
allotted to him, a much larger part of the new corn-land. Thus, by this
arrangement, as by so many of those which belong to a more complicated
civilisation, ‘to him that had, more was given, so that he had
abundance.’ After all, every German village had still so much land at its
disposal, that few heartburnings seem to have been caused on the score of
too scanty allotment[29]. And in order to prevent the complaint that one
villager received a more fertile or a sunnier portion than another, the
lots periodically[30], perhaps even annually, changed hands, though still
on the same principle of unequal division.
At first sight, such a system as this appears communistic, but on
reflexion we see that the right of property, and the inequalities which
flow from the acknowledgment of that right, are fully recognised by it.
Only I think we must admit—and here the words both of Caesar[31] and
Tacitus seem to justify our conclusion—that there was in the minds of
the rough German politicians of the first century before and the first
century after Christ, a conviction, or perhaps rather an instinct, that
the land, though still cheap and not much more an object of desire than
water or air, was, like water and air, essential to the nation’s life;
and that, though cottages and the surrounding gardens were the subject
of absolute property, and descended from father to son without question,
it was safer for the community by frequent changes to prevent the right
of any one of its members to a given space of corn-land or meadow from
becoming firm and immovable.
How these open fields were probably divided into strips, or ‘yard-lands’;
how the villagers sometimes helped one another in the necessary
ploughing; how some traces of this peculiar kind of joint occupation
existed through the Middle Ages, and were still manifest in our own
country even in the early part of this century, has been set forth with
much fulness of detail by my friend Mr. Seebohm, in his interesting book,
_The English Village Community_[32].
[Sidenote: _Indolence of the Germans._]
Whatever other advantages this system might possess, it was not likely
to encourage highly-developed agriculture. But indeed, from the account
given by Tacitus, which is generally confirmed by later historians,
it is clear that the German freemen, though far from being the squalid
savages that they have been sometimes represented, were not industrious
tillers of the soil. War, the chase, the sword-dance, and the throw of
the dice-box were their chief excitements, and when they were not excited
they were torpid and lethargic. Long and heavy potations, sometimes
continued for a day and night together, sometimes interrupted by a bloody
brawl, were followed by equally long and heavy slumbers. Whether they
went to the banquet or to market they always wore arms, a sure sign of
a low state of civilisation; and the gravest affairs were all discussed
amid copious draughts of beer, or, if the disputants dwelt near the
Rhine or the Danube, of wine from the land of the Romans. In short,
while we can trace in the Teuton of the first Christian centuries some
noble qualities—truth, courage, chastity—we also discover the marks
of some deep inbred vices, which beset him till this day, especially
drunkenness and the love of gambling; and we do _not_ find even the
germs of that capacity for steady and continuous toil which, since they
became Christian and civilised, has been the glory of the German, the
Anglo-Saxon, and the Scandinavian.
[Sidenote: _How the village community developed into the state._]
Such, then, in brief outline, seems to have been the ordinary life of a
German village. The political institutions of the Teutonic races—which
are what we are chiefly now concerned with—depended on the manner and
extent of the consolidation of these villages into larger and more
powerful communities. If we go up to some high table-land we shall see
little brooks and streams running off from it in all directions, some
of which will perhaps eventually form part of a great and world-famous
river, while others will find their way unnoticed to the sea. In studying
the early history of the Germanic tribes, we stand on such a table-land.
The future fortunes of Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, Angles,
Saxons, are involved in the village politics of these much-drinking,
freely-fighting German boors; but there are also involved the obscure
destinies of countless little tribes, whose uncouth names survive only in
the pages of Tacitus or Jordanes, and are in fact forgotten by men.
[Sidenote: _Manifoldness of German political life._]
The characteristic of German polity, as much in the first century after
Christ as in the sixteenth, as much in the time of Arminius as in that
of Charles V, was its infinite diversity. There were tribes that knew
no king, tribes that had kings with very limited powers, tribes that
submitted to despotism—or something very like it—on the part of their
kings, and tribes that even endured to have such authority over them
exercised by a woman. And the chief—I will not say the only—cause of this
diversity seems to have been the relative greatness or littleness of the
clusters into which the village communities ultimately coalesced; and,
closely connected herewith, the question whether the organism which was
thus finally formed entertained widely extended schemes of aggression and
foreign conquest, or whether it rested content with the defence of its
own narrow borders against an invading foe.
[Sidenote: _The Pagus, Gau, County or Canton._]
Apparently every German village, at the time which we are now
considering, had so far coalesced with some of its neighbours as to
form what the Romans called a _pagus_. The extent of these _pagi_, and
the number of _vici_ which united to form them, doubtless differed
exceedingly, but as we find that in the time of Caesar[33] each Suevic
_pagus_ sent forth 1000 armed men, an equal number remaining at home
to till the ground, we may perhaps assume that the whole population of
a _pagus_ generally consisted of about 10,000 persons, and that about
ten _vici_, more or less, contributed to its formation. The choice of a
Teutonic word to represent the term _pagus_, which, though convenient, is
foreign, has not been found easy. Modern German scholars have generally
adopted the word _Gau_, which was extensively used in the Middle Ages,
though it is admitted that this does not precisely correspond to the
_pagus_, but was often of somewhat smaller extent. As an English
equivalent, _county_ or _shire_ comes the nearest, though both of them
suggest ideas of a somewhat later time[34]. Whether such a translation
be scientifically accurate or not[35] there can be little doubt that
the feeling of local patriotism which still animates a Devonshire man
or a Shropshire man when he speaks of his county, represents, at least
as well as any other modern equivalent, the bond which bound a German
warrior to his _pagus_. But, upon the whole, the Swiss _canton_, both in
extent and in the manner of its growth, namely, by the coalition of the
inhabitants of several neighbouring valleys, seems to me the most fitting
representative of the _pagus_ of the _Germania_.
Some German communities, perhaps, stopped in the process of consolidation
at the canton, and never reached a further stage. They may have had
traditions, and even religious rites, which kept alive the remembrance
that they formed part of a larger tribe, that they were Suevi, or
Mattiaci, or Chauci; but as far as political organisation went they were
willing to be a _pagus_ and nothing more. If so, we may probably affirm
that the tribes which contained many of these self-isolated cantons
retained what has been called their ‘republican’ organisation, engaged
but little in offensive war, were feeble in their resistance to Rome, and
have left but little mark in history.
[Sidenote: _Several Pagi might coalesce into a Civitas._]
The first step towards national existence on a larger scale was taken
when many _pagi_, bound together for the most part by the traditions
of a common origin, organised themselves into what the Romans called a
_civitas_, and in doing so generally, perhaps not always, elected for
themselves a King. I do not think it is possible to find a term which
exactly represents the stage of development which was thus reached, but
the Saxon and Anglian kingdoms which were set up in our own land—Wessex,
Mercia, Northumbria—will convey the true idea of it to our minds better
than an elaborate description.
[Sidenote: _Kingship and tendency towards unification went together._]
Kingship and a tendency towards unification went hand in hand in the
history of the German races. And not in that history alone: we may safely
illustrate the tendency of the kingly office among the Germans by what we
read in the Old Testament of the election of Saul. The Twelve Tribes of
Israel, conscious that they were losing national unity and were in danger
of being absorbed by the great monarchies on their borders, elected Saul
to be their king, and his very first act of kingship was the deliverance
of the outlying settlement of Jabesh-gilead from the destruction with
which it was threatened by Nahash, King of the Ammonites. In our own
days we have seen the aspirations of the Germans after national unity,
aspirations which seemed for centuries doomed to hopeless failure, at
length successful; and the visible token of their success and of that
victory over their foes which unity made possible, was the crowning of
the Emperor William by a host of kings, dukes and generals[36], in the
palace of Versailles. We must not press the conclusion too far, since the
history both of Rome and of the United States of America shows that a
Republic can found a great dominion and defend the oneness of a nation:
but for the German peoples, properly so called, I think we may safely say
Monarchy has meant Unity, and Unity has meant Monarchy.
[Sidenote: _Character of the kingly office among the Germans._]
Far other, however, than the languid despot upon the sanctity of whose
presence-chamber we intruded in the beginning of this lecture, was the
King of the Goths or the Alamanni. Whether himself the son of a king or
not, it was necessary that he should be of noble birth[37], and he had
therefore probably been reared in a house, rude but somewhat larger than
the ordinary freeman’s dwelling, built by the side of a fountain or near
a sacred grove, at some little distance from the village settlement[38].
But his life had been passed in the active exercises of war and the
chase: and before he was chosen king of a great and important _civitas_
he had probably given some proof of valour and ability, to cause him to
be singled out from the ranks of nobles, each of whom was a chief in
his own canton. Even after his election as king, his power was by no
means unlimited. He might not bind nor strike any one of the free German
warriors under him. Both in council and in war he had so much authority
as his gifts of intellect, of daring, or of strength enabled him to
acquire and retain, and not much more[39]. And when thus elected he had
no absolute right to transmit his crown to his first-born, nor indeed to
any of his sons. Doubtless the eldest son of a recently deceased king,
if himself a man of capacity and valour, had always a good chance of
being chosen to succeed him, but that was all. Gradually as the nation
and its royal race grew accustomed to one another, and especially when
the kings of that race had often led the nation to victory, the feeling
grew stronger and stronger that out of that race only the nation ought to
choose its kings. Thus were the Amals looked upon as the natural kingly
race of the Ostrogoths, the Merwings of the Franks, the Asdings of the
Vandals. But still there was no strict hereditary right, and the nation
on the death of its king exercised its power of choice often in utter
defiance of the rule of primogeniture.
[Sidenote: _Meeting of the members of the Civitas._]
The choice of the ruler, the decision as to war or peace, the enactment
of a few very simple laws, these formed the chief business of the
assembly of the _civitas_, which was called probably by some name like
our own Anglo-Saxon Folc-gemot or Folcs-thing. Tacitus gives us a
concise but vivid picture of the proceedings of one of these national
assemblies. The _gemots-men_ indicated their deep-seated love of liberty
by the unpunctuality of their attendance. Two days, and sometimes three,
would elapse before a sufficient number had arrived to enable them to
commence their proceedings. Then, when the crowd was in the humour for
beginning, they sat down on the ground, all arrayed in their armour. The
priests called for silence, and upon them rested the duty of maintaining
order during the deliberations of the assembly[40]. Then the king or
chief whose age, or eloquence, or noble birth gave him the right of
pre-audience, addressed the assembly, and afterwards each in his turn
according to the same blended qualifications. All the speakers sought
rather to persuade than to command. An unpopular proposal was drowned in
murmurs of disapproval, while eagerly brandished lances testified the
applause and the agreement of the assembly.
[Sidenote: _Judicial power of the popular assembly._]
In these assemblies an accusation might be brought against a man who
was suspected of treason against the nation’s life, and if the charge
were pushed home, a capital sentence was pronounced upon the offender.
Betrayers and deserters were hanged from a tree; the mere coward and
fugitive, the man whom our Saxon forefathers would have called a
_nithing_, was plunged deep in mud and covered with a hurdle to prevent
his struggling back to life—a mode of punishment which reminds one of
some scenes in Dante’s _Inferno_.
[Sidenote: _Election of the King._]
Probably, however, it was neither the legislative nor the judicial,
but the elective aspect of these national councils which was the most
important. The chiefs, or elders, or judges, or by whatever name they
were called, the men whose business it was to administer a rude justice
in the cantons and the villages, were chosen in the national council[41].
And the highest act of the nation’s great assize was performed when the
chief who was to repel the eagles of Rome, to lead the people across the
frozen Danube, or to swoop upon the wealthy plains of Gaul, was solemnly
chosen king. The clashing arms testified the nation’s assent to his
nomination. Six strong warriors slowly upheaved the shield on which stood
the newly-chosen one, and shouts of ‘Thiudans! Thiudans[42]!’ proclaimed
to the echoing hills that the nation had once more a king. Thus was he
singled out from his fellows who was to conduct the people’s quarrel with
the far-off, mysterious, Imperator of Rome.
LECTURE III.
THE COMING OF THE HUNS.
Having thus given a cursory glance at the political and social condition
of the Roman Empire and its German neighbours in the fourth century after
Christ, let us now even more briefly survey the ethnological aspect of
the barbarian world on its northern frontier at the same time.
[Sidenote: _Celtic nations._]
[Sidenote: _Slavonic nations._]
Of the three great groups into which the non-Latin nations of Europe are
at this day divided, Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic, the Teutonic alone
here claims our especial attention. The Celtic nationality had been
beaten down in ten years of battle by Julius Caesar, and its last hope of
offering a successful resistance to Rome vanished when Suetonius Paulinus
crossed the straits of Menai and put the Druids to the sword in their
hitherto inviolable island of Mona. The Slavonic group of nations, which
now fills Russia and Poland, forms half the population of Austria and is
founding new kingdoms and principalities in what was lately Turkey in
Europe, had not then come fully on the stage of history. The vague term
Sarmatians, used by Roman geographers, is probably the best indication
that we have of their presence in Europe, but few ethnological questions
are harder than to define the ever-shifting boundary which separated
them from their Teutonic neighbours. It is very possible that many of
the barbarian hosts that warred on Rome may have consisted of Slavonic
marauders led on by Teutonic chieftains: but just because the initiative
at any rate belonged to the Teutons, and because the Slaves originated so
few expeditions against the Empire, we may practically leave them out of
the question and consider only the great Teutonic population which, all
round the northern frontier of the Empire, from the mouth of the Rhine
to the mouth of the Danube, faced the Masters of the Soldiery and their
Legions.
[Sidenote: _Tendency of the Teutonic nations to form confederacies._]
[Sidenote: _Franks._]
[Sidenote: _Alamanni._]
[Sidenote: _Goths._]
There had been a marked tendency during the third century after Christ in
the barbarian nations to merge themselves into a few great confederacies,
a tendency which possibly had something to do with the ill-success of the
Roman arms during that period. A whole string of names of petty tribes
on the lower Rhine, mentioned to us by Tacitus, disappears in order to
form the nation of the _Franks_. In like manner the tribes which dwelt
on the Main and the Neckar clustered together into the confederation of
the _Alamanni_. On the Middle Danube the great nation of the Marcomanni,
who once pressed Marcus Aurelius hard, disappeared, and no one nation
of pre-eminent power arose in its place; but when we come towards the
mouth of the Danube, to the countries which are now known as Roumania,
Transylvania, and Bessarabia, we find them occupied by the great and
powerful confederacy of the _Goths_. This race, of pure Teutonic origin,
belonging to that which is called the Low-German family of peoples, and
speaking a language much more akin to Lowland Scotch than to the modern
German of Hanover, had migrated, probably in the second century of our
era, from the district now known as East Prussia in the south-east corner
of the Baltic. They had spread themselves along the northern shore of
the Euxine, near the mouths of the Dnieper and the Dniester, and after a
series of piratical expeditions by sea and marauding inroads by land upon
the Eastern half of the Empire, had occupied without further opposition
the Roman province of Dacia, constituted by Trajan in the early part of
the second century. During the century before our narrative begins, they
had been dwelling for the most part as friendly and peaceable neighbours
of Rome. They had become gradually divided into two great groups of
peoples, the Eastern and Western Goths, who eventually became known as
the Ostrogoths and Visigoths.
[Sidenote: _Associations connected with the term Gothic._]
A hard and undeserved fate, as well as an unmerited glory, has come upon
the possessors of the Gothic name. The glory is that of having given
their name to the most solemn and impressive order of architecture that
the world has ever seen. Men speak, and doubtless will ever continue to
speak, of Gothic buildings, though the last traces of Gothic nationality
had expired many centuries before a pointed arch was seen at Canterbury
or Notre Dame. On the other hand the expression ‘What a Goth!’ as
indicative of rudeness and lack of culture, is constantly used by the
descendants of men who were centuries behind the Goths in refinement
and civilisation, and who do not know that ‘What a Frank!’ or ‘What a
Saxon!’ would be far nearer to historic truth. In point of fact, of all
the Teutonic races none showed so early an appreciation of what was
best in Roman civilisation as the Gothic, none showed a greater power
of assimilating that civilisation, and none, had its career not been
prematurely cut short, would more happily for Europe have blended the old
with the new by uniting the culture and refinement of ‘Romania’ with the
rough energy and freedom of ‘Barbaricum.’
[Sidenote: _The Visigoths and the Empire._]
[Sidenote: _Circa 350-376._]
At the particular period which we have reached these remarks apply rather
to the Visigoth than to the Ostrogoth. While the Ostrogoths, wandering
wide over the vast plains of Southern Russia, were coming in contact
with and subduing the dim Slavonic peoples of the interior, and thus
building up for their great king, Hermanric, a vast but ill-consolidated
empire which his flatterers—those of them at least who had some slight
knowledge of classical history—compared to that of Alexander the Great,
the Visigoths dwelling in Transylvania and Wallachia, and acknowledging
perhaps in a general way the suzerainty of Hermanric, but under the
especial rule of their own native chieftains who bore the subordinate
title of _Judges_, were continually coming more and more under the
influence of the Empire. Latin and Greek words were creeping into their
language. The soldier talked of his pay as _mizdo_ (evidently the same
word as the Greek μισθός), and of his rations as _anno_ (probably the
Latin _annona_). The _alewa_ displayed to the grateful husbandman the
fatness of the olive-tree, and he carried home its produce in a _sakkus_.
[Sidenote: _Ulfilas and the Gothic Bible._]
[Sidenote: _348-370._]