cloister; for all the assumptions that have been raised of the physical
degeneracy of the people are quite unsupported by any real historical
evidence. M. Guizot considers it unjust and cruel to view their humble
supplications, so declared by Gildas, to Rome for aid, as evidences of
the effeminacy of that nation, whose resistance to the Saxons has given
a chapter to history at a time when history has few traces of Italians,
Spaniards, and Gauls.
That the representations of Gildas could only be partially true, as
applied to some particular districts, is sufficiently proved, by the
undoubted fact that within little more than twenty years from the date
of these cowardly demonstrations Anthemius, the Emperor, solicited the
aid of the Britons against the Visigoths; and twelve thousand men from
this island, under one of the native chieftains, Rhiothimus, sailed up
the Loire, and fought under the Roman command. They are described by a
contemporary Roman writer as quick, well-armed; turbulent and
contumacious from their bravery, their numbers, and their common
agreement. These were not the people who were likely to have stood upon
a wall to be pulled down by hooked weapons. They might have been the
people who had clung, more than the other inhabitants of the Roman
provinces, to their original language and customs; but it is not
improbable that they would have been of the mixed races with whom Rome
had been in more intimate relations, and to whom she continued to render
offices of friendship after the separation of the island province from
her empire.
Amid all this conflict of testimony there is the undoubted fact that
out of the Roman municipal institutions had risen the establishment of
separate sovereignties, as Procopius relates. Britain, according to St.
Jerome, was "a province fertile in tyrants." The Roman municipal
government was kept compact and uniform under a great centralizing
power. It fell to pieces here, as in Gaul, when that power was
withdrawn. It resolved itself into a number of local governments without
any principle of cohesion. The vicar of the municipium became an
independent ruler and head of a little republic; and that his authority
was contested by some who had partaken of his delegated dignity may be
reasonably inferred.
The difference of races would also promote the contests for command. If
East Anglia contained a preponderance of one race of settlers, and Kent
and Sussex of another, they might well quarrel for supremacy. But when
all the settlers on the Saxon shore had lost the control and protection
of the Count who once governed them, it may also be imagined that the
more exclusively British districts would not readily coöperate for
defence with those who were more strange to their kindred even than the
Roman. All the European Continent was in a state of political
dislocation; and we may safely conclude that when the great power was
shattered that had so long held the government of the world, the more
distant and subordinate branch of its empire would resolve itself into
some of the separate elements of authority and of imperfect obedience by
which a clan is distinguished from a nation.
Nor was the power of the Christian Church in Britain of a more united
character than that of the civil rulers. No doubt a church had been
formed and organized. There were bishops, so called, in the several
cities; but their authority was little concentrated and their tenets
were discordant. Pilgrimages were even made to the sacred places of
Palestine; and at a very early period monasteries were founded. That of
Bangor, or the Great Circle, seems to have had some relation to the
ancient Druidical worship, upon which it was probably engrafted in that
region where Druidism had long flourished. There were British versions
of the Bible. But that the church had no sustaining power at the period
when civil society was so wholly disorganized, may be inferred from
circumstances which preceded the complete overthrow of Christian rites
by Saxon heathendom.
Bede devotes several chapters of his _Ecclesiastical History_ to the
actions of St. Germanus, who came expressly to Britain to put down the
Pelagian heresy; and, amid the multitude of miraculous circumstances,
records how "the authors of the perverse notions lay hid, and, like the
evil spirits, grieved for the loss of the people that was rescued from
them. At length, after mature deliberation, they had the boldness to
enter the lists, and appeared, being conspicuous for riches, glittering
in apparel, and supported by the flatteries of many." The people,
according to Bede, were the judges of this great controversy, and gave
their voices for the orthodox belief.
Whether the Pelagians were expelled from Britain by reason or by force,
it is evident that, in the middle of the fifth century, there was a
strong element of religious disunion very generally prevailing; and that
at a period when the congregations were in a great degree independent of
each other, and therefore difficult of subjection to a common authority,
the rich and the powerful had adopted a creed which was opposed to the
centralizing rule of the Roman Church, and were arguing about points of
faith as strongly as they were contesting for worldly supremacy. Dr.
Lappenberg justly points out this celebrated controversy in our country
as "indicating the weakness of that religious connection which was so
soon to be totally annihilated." We may, in some degree, account for the
reception of the doctrine of Pelagius by knowing that he was a Briton,
whose plain unlatinized name was Morgan.
Macaulay has startled many a reader of the most familiar histories of
England, in saying, "Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and
Mordred, are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned,
and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and
Romulus." It is difficult to write of a period of which the same writer
has said, "an age of fable completely separates two ages of truth." Yet
no one knew better than this accomplished historian himself that an age
of fable and an age of truth cannot be distinguished with absolute
precision. It is not that what is presented to us through the haze of
tradition must necessarily be unreal, any more than that what comes to
us in an age of literature must be absolutely true. An historical fact,
a real personage, may be handed down from a remote age in the songs of
bards; but it is not therefore to be inferred that these national lyrics
are founded upon pure invention. It is curious to observe that,
wandering amid these traces of events and persons that have been shaped
into history, how ready we are to walk in the footsteps of some
half-fabulous records, and wholly to turn away from others which seem as
strongly impressed upon the shifting sands of national existence.
We derive Hengist and Horsa from the old Anglo-Saxon authorities; and
modern history generally adopts them. Arthur and Mordred have a Celtic
origin, and they are as generally rejected as "mythical persons." It
appears to us that it is as precipitate wholly to renounce the one as
the other, because they are both surrounded with an atmosphere of the
fabulous. Hengist and Horsa come to us encompassed with Gothic
traditions that belong to other nations. Arthur presents himself with
his attributes of the magician Merlin, and the knights of the Round
Table. But are we therefore to deny altogether their historical
existence? In following the _ignis fatuus_ of tradition, the credulous
annalists of the monastic age were lost in the treacherous ground over
which it led them. The more patient research of a critical age sees in
that doubtful light a friendly warning of what to avoid, and hence a
guide to more stable pathways.
Hengist and Horsa--who, according to the Anglo-Saxon historians, landed
in the year 449 on the shore which is called Ebbsfleet--were personages
of more than common mark. "They were the sons of Wihtgils; Wihtgils son
of Witta, Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden." So says the _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_, and adds, "From this Woden sprang all our royal families."
These descendants, in the third generation from the great Saxon
divinity, came over in three boats. They came by invitation of
Wyrtgeone--Vortigern--King of the Britons. The King gave them land in
the southeast of the country, on condition that they should fight
against the Picts; and they did fight, and had the victory wheresoever
they came. And then they sent for the Angles, and told them of the
worthlessness of the people and the excellences of the land. This is the
Saxon narrative. The seductive graces of Rowena, the daughter of Horsa,
who corrupted the King of the Britons by love and wine, is an
embellishment of the British traditions.
Then came the great battles for possession of the land. At Aylesford and
Crayford the Kentish Britons were overthrown. Before the Angles the
Welsh fled like fire. These events occupy a quarter of a century. While
they are going on, the Roman Emperor, as we have mentioned upon
indubitable authority, receives an auxiliary force of twelve thousand
men from Britain. We cannot rely upon narratives that tell us of _the_
king of the Britons, when we learn from no suspicious sources that the
land was governed by many separate chiefs; and which represent a petty
band of fugitives as gaining mighty triumphs for a great ruler, and then
subduing him themselves in a wonderfully short time.
The pretensions of Hengist and Horsa to be the immediate descendants of
Woden would seem to imply their mythical origin. But many Saxon chiefs
of undoubted reality rested their pretensions upon a similar genealogy.
The myth was as flattering to the Anglo-Saxon pride of descent as the
corresponding myth that the ancient inhabitants of the island were
descended from the Trojan Brute was acceptable to the British race. But
amid much of fable there is the undoubted fact that Germanic tribes were
gradually possessing themselves of the fairest parts of Britain--a
progressive usurpation, far different from a sudden conquest. Amid the
wreck of the social institutions left by Rome, when all that remained of
a governing power was centred in the towns, it may be readily conceived
that the rich districts of the eastern and southern coasts would be
eagerly peopled by new settlers, whose bond of society was founded upon
the occupation of the land; and who, extending the area of their
occupation, would eventually come into hostile conflict with the
previous possessors.
For a century and a half a thick darkness seems to overspread the
history of our country. In the Anglo-Saxon writers we can trace little,
with any distinctness, beyond the brief and monotonous records of
victories and slaughters. Hengist and Æsc slew four troops of Britons
with the edge of the sword. Hengist then vanishes, and Ælla comes with
his three sons. In 491 they besieged Andres-cester, "and slew all that
dwelt therein, so that not a single Briton was there left." Then come
Cerdic and Cynric his son; then Port and his two sons, and land at
Portsmouth; and so we reach the sixth century. Cerdic and Cynric now
stand foremost among the slaughterers, and they establish the kingdom of
the West Saxons and conquer the Isle of Wight.
In the middle of the century Ida begins to reign, from whom arose the
royal race of North-humbria. In 565 Ethelbert succeeded to the kingdom
of the Kentish-men, and held it fifty-three years. The war goes on in
the south-midland counties, where Cuthwulf is fighting; and it reaches
the districts of the Severn, where Cuthwine and Ceawlin slay great
kings, and take Gloucester and Cirencester and Bath. One of these fierce
brethren is killed at last, and Ceawlin, "having taken many spoils and
towns innumerable, wrathful returned to his own." Where "his own" was we
are not informed.
We reach, at length, the year 596, when "Pope Gregory sent Augustin to
Britain, with a great many monks, who preached the word of God to the
nation of the Angles." Bede very judiciously omits all such details. He
tells us that "they carried on the conflagration from the eastern to the
western sea, without any opposition, and almost covered all the
superfices of the perishing island. Public as well as private structures
were overturned; the priests were everywhere slain before the altars;
the prelates and the people, without any respect of persons, were
destroyed with fire and sword." There is little to add to these
impressive words, which no doubt contain the general truth. But if we
open the British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, we find ourselves
relieved from the thick darkness of the Anglo-Saxon records, by the blue
lights and red lights of the most wondrous romance. Rowena comes with
her golden wine-cup. Merlin instructs Vortigern how to discover the two
sleeping dragons who hindered the foundation of his tower. Aurelius, the
Christian King, burns Vortigern in his Cambrian city of refuge. Eldol
fights a duel with Hengist, cuts off his head, and destroys the Saxons
without mercy. Merlin the magician, and Uther Pendragon, with fifteen
thousand men, bring over "the Giant's Dance" from Ireland, and set it up
in Salisbury Plain. Uther Pendragon is made the Christian king over all
Britain.
At length we arrive at Arthur, the son of Uther. To him the entire
monarchy of Britain belonged by hereditary right. Hoel sends him fifteen
thousand men from Armorica, and he makes the Saxons his tributaries; and
with his own hand kills four hundred and seventy in one battle. He not
only conquers the Saxons, but subdues Gaul, among other countries, and
holds his court in Paris. His coronation at the City of the Legions
(Caer-Leon) is gorgeous beyond all recorded magnificence; and the
general state of the country, in these days of Arthur, before the middle
of the sixth century, is thus described: "At that time, Britain had
arrived at such a pitch of grandeur that in abundance of riches, luxury
of ornaments, and politeness of inhabitants, it far surpassed all other
kingdoms." Mordred, the wicked traitor, at length disturbs all this
tranquillity and grandeur, and brings over barbarous people from
different countries. Arthur falls in battle. The Saxons prevail, and the
Britons retire into Cornwall and Wales.
Amid the bewildering mass of the obscure and the fabulous which our
history presents of the first century and a half of the Saxon
colonization, there are some well-established facts which are borne out
by subsequent investigations. Such is Bede's account of the country of
the invaders, and the parts in which they settled. This account,
compared with other authorities, gives us the following results. They
consisted of "the three most powerful nations of Germany--Saxons,
Angles, and Jutes." The Saxons came from the parts which, in Bede's
time, were called the country of the Old Saxons. That country is now
known as the duchy of Holstein. These, under Ella, founded the kingdom
of the South Saxons--our present Sussex. Later in the fifth century, the
same people, under Cerdic, established themselves in the district
extending from Sussex to Devonshire and Cornwall, which was the kingdom
of the West Saxons.
Other Saxons settled in Essex and Middlesex. The Angles, says Bede, came
from "the country called Angelland, and it is said from that time to
remain desert to this day." There is a part of the duchy of Schleswig,
to the north of Holstein, which still bears the name of Anglen. These
people gave their name to the whole country, Engla-land, or Angla-land,
from the greater extent of territory which they permanently occupied. As
the Saxons possessed themselves of the southern coasts, the Angles
established themselves on the northeastern. Their kingdom of East Anglia
comprised Norfolk and Suffolk, as well as part of Cambridgeshire; and
they extended themselves to the north of the Humber, forming the
powerful state of Northumbria, and carrying their dominion even to the
Forth and the Clyde.
The Jutes came from the country north of the Angles, which is in the
upper part of the present Schleswig; and they occupied Kent and the Isle
of Wight, with that part of Hampshire which is opposite the island. Sir
Francis Palgrave is of opinion that "the tribes by whom Britain was
invaded appear principally to have proceeded from the country now called
Friesland; for of all the continental dialects the ancient Frisick is
the one which approaches most nearly to the Anglo-Saxon of our
ancestors." Mr. Craik has pointed out that "the modern kingdom of
Denmark comprehends all the districts from which issued, according to
the old accounts, the several tribes who invaded Britain upon the fall
of the Roman Empire. And the Danes proper (who may be considered to
represent the Jutes); the Angles, who live between the Bight of
Flensborg and the river Schley on the Baltic; the Frisons, who inhabit
the islands along the west coast of Jutland, with a part of the
bailiwick of Husum in Schleswig; and the Germans of Holstein (Bede's Old
Saxons) are still all recognized by geographers and ethnographers as
distinct races."
ATTILA INVADES WESTERN ROME
BATTLE OF CHÂLONS
A.D. 451
CREASY GIBBON
After Attila had conquered and laid waste the provinces of the
Eastern Empire south of the Danube and exacted heavy tribute from
Theodosius II, he turned his attention to the subjugation of the
Slavic and Germanic tribes who still remained independent. These,
with one exception, he overcame and placed under the sovereignty of
his son. He laid claim to one-half of the Western Empire, as the
betrothed husband of Valentinian's sister Honoria, from whom he had
years before received the offer of her hand in marriage.
In 451, with Genseric, King of the Vandals, for his ally, he
invaded Gaul. Before his advance the cities hastened to capitulate,
and so complete was his devastation of the country that it came to
be a saying that the grass never grew where his horses had trod.
But in Aetius, their commander-in-chief under Valentinian III, the
Romans had an able general, who was aided by the West Gothic king
Theodoric. The West Goths and the Franks, the former from the
South, the latter from the North of Gaul, joined him in large
numbers, and the allied forces drove the Huns from the walls of
Orleans, which he had besieged. From there he retreated to Châlons,
where his westward movement was to receive its final check. This
decisive event was, in the words of Herbert, "the discomfiture of
the mighty attempt of Attila to found a new anti-Christian dynasty
upon the wreck of the temporal power of Rome, at the end of the
term of twelve hundred years, to which its duration had been
limited by the forebodings of the heathen."
SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
A broad expanse of plains, the Campi Catalaunici of the ancients,
spreads far and wide around the city of Châlons, in the northeast of
France. The long rows of poplars, through which the river Marne winds
its way, and a few thinly scattered villages, are almost the only
objects that vary the monotonous aspect of the greater part of this
region. But about five miles from Châlons, near the little hamlets of
Chape and Cuperly, the ground is indented and heaped up in ranges of
grassy mounds and trenches, which attest the work of man's hands in ages
past, and which, to the practised eye, demonstrate that this quiet spot
has once been the fortified position of a huge military host.
Local tradition gives to these ancient earthworks the name of Attila's
Camp. Nor is there any reason to question the correctness of the title,
or to doubt that behind these very ramparts it was that fourteen hundred
years ago the most powerful heathen king that ever ruled in Europe
mustered the remnants of his vast army, which had striven on these
plains against the Christian soldiery of Toulouse and Rome. Here it was
that Attila prepared to resist to the death his victors in the field;
and here he heaped up the treasures of his camp in one vast pile, which
was to be his funeral pyre should his camp be stormed. It was here that
the Gothic and Italian forces watched, but dared not assail their enemy
in his despair, after that great and terrible day of battle when
"The sound
Of conflict was o'erpast, the shout of all
Whom earth could send from her remotest bounds,
Heathen or faithful; from thy hundred mouths,
That feed the Caspian with Riphean snows.
Huge Volga! from famed Hypanis, which once
Cradled the Hun; from all the countless realms
Between Imaus and that utmost strand
Where columns of Herculean rock confront
The blown Altantic; Roman, Goth, and Hun,
And Scythian strength of chivalry, that tread
The cold Codanian shore or what far lands
Inhospitable drink Cimmerian floods,
Franks, Saxons, Suevic, and Sarmatian chiefs,
And who from green Armorica or Spain
Flocked to the work of death."
The victory which the Roman general Aetius, with his Gothic allies, had
then gained over the Huns, was the last victory of imperial Rome. But
among the long fasti of her triumphs, few can be found that, for their
importance and ultimate benefit to mankind, are comparable with this
expiring effort of her arms. It did not, indeed, open to her any new
career of conquest--it did not consolidate the relics of her power--it
did not turn the rapid ebb of her fortunes. The mission of imperial
Rome was, in truth, already accomplished. She had received and
transmitted through her once ample dominion the civilization of Greece.
She had broken up the barriers of narrow nationalities among the various
states and tribes that dwelt around the coasts of the Mediterranean. She
had fused these and many other races into one organized empire, bound
together by a community of laws, of government and institutions. Under
the shelter of her full power the true faith had arisen in the earth,
and during the years of her decline it had been nourished to maturity,
it had overspread all the provinces that ever obeyed her sway. For no
beneficial purpose to mankind could the dominion of the seven-hilled
city have been restored or prolonged. But it was all-important to
mankind what nations should divide among them Rome's rich inheritance of
empire. Whether the Germanic and Gothic warriors should form states and
kingdoms out of the fragments of her dominions, and become the free
members of the Commonwealth of Christian Europe, or whether pagan
savages, from the wilds of central Asia, should crush the relics of
classic civilization and the early institutions of the Christianized
Germans in one hopeless chaos of barbaric conquest. The Christian
Visigoths of King Theodoric fought and triumphed at Châlons side by side
with the legions of Aetius. Their joint victory over the Hunnish host
not only rescued for a time from destruction the old age of Rome, but
preserved for centuries of power and glory the Germanic element in the
civilization of modern Europe.
In order to estimate the full importance to mankind of the battle of
Châlons we must keep steadily in mind who and what the Germans were, and
the important distinctions between them and the numerous other races
that assailed the Roman Empire; and it is to be understood that the
Gothic and Scandinavian nations are included in the German race. Now,
"in two remarkable traits the Germans differed from the Sarmatic as well
as from the Slavic nations, and, indeed, from all those other races to
whom the Greeks and Romans gave the designation of barbarians. I allude
to their personal freedom and regard for the rights of men; secondly, to
the respect paid by them to the female sex, and the chastity for which
the latter were celebrated among the people of the North. These were
the foundations of that probity of character, self-respect, and purity
of manners which may be traced among the Germans and Goths even during
pagan times, and which, when their sentiments were enlightened by
Christianity, brought out those splendid traits of character which
distinguish the age of chivalry and romance."
What the intermixture of the German stock with the classic, at the fall
of the Western Empire, has done for mankind may be best felt by
watching, with Arnold, over how large a portion of the earth the
influence of the German element is now extended.