A History of Germany Part 6

[Sidenote: 552.]

Amalasunta, in the mean time, had been murdered by a relative whom she had chosen to a.s.sist 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, Na.r.s.es 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. Na.r.s.es followed, and not far from c.u.mae, 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 Na.r.s.es 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 Na.r.s.es, 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. Na.r.s.eS 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.

Na.r.s.es 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 Na.r.s.es 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 hara.s.sed 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 Na.r.s.es 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 pa.s.ses 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, const.i.tuting what was called the Exarchy. Rome was also nominally subject to Constantinople, although the Popes were beginning to a.s.sume 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 n.o.bility. --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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.serted 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 munic.i.p.al 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 circ.u.mstance 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 n.o.bles 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 a.s.semblies, 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 a.s.sembly 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 n.o.bles 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 b.l.o.o.d.y.