THE PASSING OF THE BARBARIAN
We left the Vandals in 450 established in possession of all the
African shore that had belonged to the Western Empire. The place of
chief importance that fell into their hands was Carthage, that city
from which so much trouble had come to Rome several centuries before.
And just as had happened before, so it happened again now. The
Carthaginian, descendants of those famous sea-rovers, the
Phœnicians, had made Carthage, with its fine harbour, the
headquarters of a fleet which went raiding and marauding all over the
Mediterranean Sea. So too, now, the king of the Vandals assembled a
great fleet which acted in just the same piratical way. Its first
act was to defeat, so completely as practically to destroy it, the
fleet of the Western Empire, and thereafter it became the terror of
the Mediterranean, and its act of final and most unbearable insolence
was when it came into the Tiber and the Vandals attacked and sacked
Rome itself. This was in 455.
It is only a few years before, that we heard of the Goths "sacking"
Rome. We may begin to ask ourselves what exactly is meant by this
"sacking"; for we may wonder that there was very much left, after a
while, to sack.
We have to remember, however, just as we had to remember when we were
learning about the dreadful suffering of the Britons at the hands of
the Anglo-Saxons, that all we know of what happened is what is {44}
told us by the sufferers of the "sacking." Probably the ferocity of
it was a little exaggerated. You may have heard the phrase "an act
of Vandalism," as describing some savage and senseless destruction of
beautiful buildings and other works of art. And that description is
taken from what the Vandals are supposed to have done when they
sacked Rome. But the true story seems to be that they really did not
destroy the most beautiful things in Rome, which were generally the
temples to the old Greek gods. What they did destroy were the
Christian churches. And they took away all the gold and silver they
could lay their hands on, no doubt. But they destroyed the Christian
churches just because they were pagans, and because Christianity was
to them a false religion. It was a mistaken religious zeal which
seems to have impelled them to do it. And since the men who have
handed down the story were Christians, it is likely enough that the
destruction would be described as somewhat worse than it really was.
Doubtless it was bad enough; and the Vandals were not at all pleasant
pagans. They persecuted the Christians wherever they laid hands on
them.
Now, we may follow the fortune of these Vandals until they disappear
from the great story altogether. They continued their bad work as
pirates and persecutors of the Christians for the best part of a
hundred years; and then there came against them a very great general
of the Eastern Empire, Belisarius. In a hard-fought battle,
Belisarius at length gained the victory over the Vandal king. It was
a victory so complete that he could impose what terms he pleased on
the conquered people. The whole fighting force of the Vandals that
still survived was taken captive to Constantinople, where it was
formed into a mounted guard and sent to fight the Empire's battles
against that still unconquered enemy, the Parthian, on the Eastern
boundary.
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Thus the Vandals were destroyed, and their very name passes out of
the story after contributing to it one of its most remarkable
episodes. Let us briefly recapitulate their story. Starting from
somewhere on the shores of the Baltic, they come across Gaul and down
into and through Spain, westward and southward. Then, crossing into
Africa, they turn eastward again and become a great and terrible
force, and finally are vanquished and taken yet further eastward to
Constantinople and to Parthia, disappearing out of history at a point
far eastward of their original starting-place for their westward
journey. They have gone from the Baltic to the Black Sea, after
travelling to the farthest western confines of the world as then
known in order to get there.
So vanish, then, the Vandals.
[Sidenote: The Visigoths]
Now as to those Visigoths, under whose pressure the Vandals were only
too thankful to get out of Spain, we have seen them establishing
their Kingdom of Toulouse, in the south of Gaul, and surging over the
Pyrenees so that they made themselves masters of most of Spain. At
first we find them making treaty with Rome under conditions which
confess the superior sovereignty of the Roman Empire. But by the
year 470 or so they have thrown off all pretence of regarding Rome as
their mistress. They deal with her as an independent monarchy.
But though their kingdom is an independent kingdom, it is a kingdom
based on the Roman model for its government. Its laws are the Roman
laws. It has adopted Roman manners and Roman ways of thought. It
does not, like the Anglo-Saxon government in Britain, impose German
customs. It even gives to Roman habits and thought a vigour which
they have lost in Rome itself. In Spain, at all events, their
kingdom is to endure for the best part of three centuries, and it
will then be ended by an actor who {46} has not yet appeared at all
in the great story--the Saracen.
With that we may now dismiss the Visigoths from the story. The main
scenes in which they took the chief role have been sketched, and they
may go behind the scenes with the Vandals. Their influence, however,
and their descendants remain: their effect on the story far greater
and more lasting than that of the Vandals.
Very soon after the date 470, or so, of the Visigoths claiming
independence, there happened in Rome itself an event which was full
of interest and of meaning in the story. A barbarian, by name
Odoacer, was appointed King of Italy. That in itself was a notable
appointment. What made it more notable still is that, though calling
himself King of Italy, he did not also call himself emperor.
It was an acknowledgment that the Western Empire had ceased to exist
or had ceased to be governed from Rome. Odoacer recognised the
emperor at Constantinople as the one and only emperor; and accepted
from him an official title, that of "Patrician," showing clearly that
he regarded himself as owing some sort of service and obedience to
the emperor of the East. It made Rome and Italy seem of no greater
importance than other provinces or kingdoms, such as the kingdom of
the Visigoths with its capital at Toulouse, or that of the Vandals in
Africa.
[Sidenote: Attila the Hun]
Under Odoacer, as king, Italy suffered invasion from yet another
tribe of barbarians, from those Ostrogoths, related to the Visigoths,
whom we saw under Attila fighting against their cousins at Chalons.
The power of the Hun was so broken by the defeat of Chalons that
these Ostrogoths were then able to free themselves from their
dependence. Likely enough, however, the Hun still pressed hard on
them from the {47} east, for although Attila's strength was shattered
it was not wholly destroyed. Two years after the Chalons battle the
"Scourge of God," as he was named, was at length killed, and most of
the horde that he led was either exterminated or lost among the
people of the land in which they made their last stand as fighters;
but even this great host of Attila's we have to look on as only a
"swarm," so to call it, from the main "hive" which still lived and
multiplied somewhere in that immense territory which we now call
Russia. Even three or four hundred years later we hear of Rome and
Italy being menaced by Huns from the north at the same time as the
Saracens are threatening from the south. For the moment, however,
their defeats on the northern border of Italy, following on their
disaster at, or near, Chalons, have sent them behind the scenes of
our story. The Eastern Empire was threatened with an attack by them
on Byzantium itself about ninety years later than the date of
Attila's death; but this menace was dealt with successfully by that
Belisarius whom we have already seen victorious over the Vandals. As
he thrust the Vandals, so also it was he who thrust the Huns, out of
the story.
But now, in Odoacer's reign, the Ostrogoths, free of the Huns, but
still perhaps pushed westward by them, appear in North Italy. This
happened in the year 488. Odoacer marched against them, but was
heavily defeated, and was killed by the very hand of Theodoric, the
famous king of these Eastern Goths. It was with the full knowledge
and approval of the Eastern Emperor that these Goths thus invaded
Italy, although the King of Italy had owed his kingdom in the first
place to the Emperor at Constantinople. After their victory the
Goths established themselves in North Italy, and this kingdom of the
Ostrogoths in Italy lasted for about fifty years. By that time {48}
there was certainly no force at the disposal of Rome that could drive
them out; but the Eastern Empire then moved against them. Once more
it was that great Byzantine general Belisarius who had command of the
Empire's forces. Once more he was completely victorious. The
Ostrogoths were compelled to relinquish their hold of the Italian
territory; and so they too, having played their part, pass behind the
scenes.
While they were in Italy they had stretched hands across the Alps,
and had come into touch again with their kinsmen, those Western Goths
that had their Kingdom of Toulouse in Southern Gaul. But even before
the Eastern Goths were pushed out of the Italian kingdom that they
had conquered, the hold of the Western Goths on their kingdom in Gaul
had been loosened, the extent of that kingdom had been diminished,
and they were left with little on the northern side of the
Pyrenees--that is, with little outside of what we now call Spain.
This loss was inflicted on them by that tribe or nation of Germanic
barbarians of which I have several times made mention already, the
Franks.
As of the Goths, so too of these Franks, there were more than one
tribe or nation, but the tribe which is most important in the story
is that of the Salian Franks. It was so called either because it
came from the River Saal, or, more likely, because it came from the
"salt," the "saline" sea. You may have heard of the "Salic Law,"
which provides that the right of succession to the throne shall not
be given to a son by relationship through the mother with the
previous occupant of the throne. It must come through the
father--"in the male line," as is said. That was one of the ancient
laws of these Salic, or Salian Franks.
About the middle of the fourth century, that is to say about, or a
little after, 350, they were invading Gaul, in the north, but were
checked and defeated, {49} and after their defeat were allowed to
settle north of the Rhine, under treaty with the Romans. Fifty years
later, the Roman Empire had so much need of its legions to protect
itself from the south, that the legions of the Rhine, like those of
Britain, were withdrawn.
[Sidenote: Clovis, King of the Franks]
Upon that the Franks claimed, and took, their independence. Within
another fifty years we find them established as far south as the
River Somme. They had fought, as we have seen, with Romans and
Visigoths against the Huns, the common enemy of them all, at Chalons,
in 451. Only a few years later they were fighting with the Romans
and against the Visigoths further south; but by 480 they asserted
their independence, and the next year the famous Frankish King Clovis
came to the throne, and under him the Franks took possession of
nearly the whole of Gaul. He united all the tribes of the Franks
under his sovereignty.
The only parts of Gaul which were not now under his rule were the
kingdom of Burgundy, as it was called, after a German tribe, the
Burgundi, coming from the east, like all the rest of them, and a
piece of Provence, in the south, which is all that the Visigoths were
able to retain on the north of the Pyrenees of their Kingdom of
Toulouse.
Terrific and most picturesque warriors were these Franks, according
to the accounts that we have of them, very tall men and strong, with
long red or fair hair. For defence they had a wicker shield, light
so that they could move it quickly. One of their chief weapons was
the throwing axe, with which they were very accurate and expert.
They had bows and arrows and a long spear. They wore breeches, close
fitting, as far down as the knee, and a tunic that was belted about
the waist with a broad leather girdle adorned with metalwork of iron
and silver. Brooches kept it fastened.
Thus they came conquering; and the parent stock {50} remarked above
all the rest of the conquering and invading barbarians, because they
came to stay. Doubtless many of the others stayed also, but not as
conquerors.
There is one other tribe of barbarian invaders for us to notice--the
Lombards.
But I fear that you will be rather tired of all these different
nations to whom I am introducing you. Their comings seem very
confusing. It is difficult to remember which came before another and
where they went and what they did. The biggest things done were, I
suppose, first--though not first of all in point of time--that
wonderful pilgrimage of the Vandals. That is perhaps the strangest
story of all. Secondly, the invasion of the Visigoths, establishing
their kingdom temporarily in South Gaul and more permanently in
Spain, was really more important, because it was more lasting in the
form that it gave to the great story. And then, thirdly, this
Frankish dominion in Gaul is of great interest to us. It is the
beginning of modern France.
But they are very puzzling--the comings and the vanishings. A friend
of mine gave me what we call a _memoria technica_, to help me, and
you, in remembering the order in which the different nations of the
barbarians came in from the east. You know what a _memoria technica_
is: some words easy to remember which recall to our minds something
that we find difficult to remember. These words, as he gave them to
me, are: "Visiting friends' houses very often frankly laborious."
Do you see what that means? I am afraid he must have found himself
rather bored, at times, when his friends were doing their best to
entertain him. He does not seem to have been as grateful as he
should have been. But the suggestion of the words is as follows:
"Visiting" is for Visigoths, who were the {51} first to come west, in
any force; then "friends" is for Franks--they came very early in the
story of the barbarian invasions, but they came in much greater
number later, as is indicated by the later "frankly." "Houses" is
for those Huns, defeated at Chalons, "very," for the Vandals, "often"
for the Ostrogoths, and "laborious" for the Lombards.
[Illustration: THE IRON CROWN OF THE LOMBARDS. The iron part of this
crown, supposed to have been forged from one of the nails of the
Cross, is the narrow circlet embedded in its interior.]
It is not quite perfect, because some of them came and came again at
different times. I believe that the Franks were really the first of
all to break through the Roman wall of Empire; but on the whole it
roughly represents the order of their coming. It is easily
remembered and is a great help.
Let us see now what it was that these latest comers, the Lombards,
did, and who they were.
They were a tribe that lived up north of the {52} Visigoths and east
of the Saxons and they were called Longo-bardi, long beards. They
came last of all the Germanic tribes, for it is not till 568 that we
hear of them in Italy, though they had drifted southward and had
settled along the North of the Danube long before. But though the
latest, they seem also to have been the rudest and least advanced of
these tribes. They never became Romanised, as the others did, never
learned any civilisation from the civilised people whom they
conquered. But they came in great force and made their conquering
way right down to the Tiber. They settled then and formed a kingdom
in the North of Italy, more or less where Lombardy now is. They were
still so powerful some two centuries later that we find them taking
Ravenna, which was within the boundaries of the Eastern Empire and
was a place of great importance with a fine harbour.
It was the increasing power and savage rapacity of the Lombards which
led to an incident that was of the very greatest importance in the
story. The Pope--and notice this particularly, for it is the very
first time that we have had occasion to name him in our story--the
Pope begged for help, against the Lombards, of the King of the
Franks. And this assistance was given him, at first by Pepin and
afterwards by Charlemagne--the greatest of all the Frankish
kings--and the result of that assistance was that Charlemagne was
triumphantly victorious and in 774 took to himself the title of King
of the Lombards. The real result was that the Kingdom of Lombardy,
in any independent sense, was at an end.
So now we may sum up these invasions of the various barbarian tribes
and see what they amounted to and what effect they had on our story.
The Visigoths continued on in Spain until the Saracens and the Moors
came to overthrow their Spanish kingdom in 710.
{53}
The Huns ceased, for some centuries, to be a danger to the West about
450, though at least a hundred years later they were a menace to
Constantinople and the East, and even as late as 900 they were again
threatening Northern Italy. The Vandals went out of the story, in
the curious way that we have seen, in 533.
About 550 the Ostrogothic kingdom in North Italy was likewise ended.
[Sidenote: Belisarius]
Incidentally, we note that it was by the great Byzantine general
Belisarius, that these last three were defeated and sent out of the
story. None of the three left a very lasting impression on it, but
that cannot be said of the Visigoths, who altered the way in which
people lived both in Gaul and Spain very considerably. The Lombards'
kingdom was swallowed up, as we saw, by Charlemagne, in 744. They,
too, left little mark on the story.
There remain, however (and their kingdom does not, like that of the
others, come to an end), the Franks. The others go, but the Franks
stay. Charlemagne absorbs into his own domains many others besides
those Lombards. He absorbs the Burgundians, the Saxons (this name
had by now been transferred from those Northern Saxons who were
sea-pirates and came to Britain, to a people occupying part of that
territory in south-west Germany which is still called Saxony) and
many besides.
With Charlemagne we come to the beginnings of Europe such as we know
Europe now. But in order to see how Europe began at that time to
seem something like the Europe that we know we must go back again to
"the Eternal City," as it has been called--to Rome--and see what has
been happening there, and especially what it is that has happened
which has brought into being and into his great importance in the
story that personage of whom we made our first mention only a page or
two back--the Pope.
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