A History of Germany Part 7

The body of the free man, like his life, was considered inviolate, so there was no corporeal punishment, and death was only inflicted in a few extreme cases. The worst crimes could be atoned for by the sacrifice of money or property. For murder the penalty was two hundred shillings (at that time the value of 100 oxen), two-thirds of which were given to the family of the murdered person, while one-third was divided between the judge and the State. This penalty was increased threefold for the murder of a Count or a soldier in the field, and more than fourfold for that of a Bishop. In some of the codes the payment was fixed even for the murder of a Duke or King. The slaying of a dependent or a Roman only cost half as much as that of a free Frank, while a slave was only valued at thirty-five shillings, or seventeen and a half oxen: the theft of a falcon trained for hunting, or a stallion, cost ten shillings more.

Slander, insult and false-witness were punished in the same way. If any one falsely accused another of murder he was condemned to pay the injured person the penalty fixed for the crime of murder, and the same rule was applied to all minor accusations. The charge of witchcraft, if not proved according to the superst.i.tious ideas of the people, was followed by the penalty of one hundred and eighty shillings. Whoever called another a _hare_, was fined six shillings; but if he called him a _fox_, the fine was only three shillings.

As the Germanic races became Christian, the power and privileges of the priesthood were manifested in the changes made in these laws. Not only was it enacted that the theft of property belonging to the Church must be paid back ninefold, but the slaves of the priests were valued at double the amount fixed for the slaves of laymen. The Churches became sacred, and no criminal could be seized at the foot of the altar. Those who neglected to attend worship on the Sabbath three times in succession, were punished by the loss of one-third of their property. If this neglect was repeated a second time, they were made slaves, and could be sold as such by the Church.

[Sidenote: 570.]

The laws of the still pagan Thuringians and Saxons, in Germany, did not differ materially from those of the Christian Franks. Justice was administered in a.s.semblies of the people, and, in order to secure the largest expression of the public will, a heavy fine was imposed for the failure to attend. The latter feature is still retained, in some of the old Cantons of Switzerland. In Thuringia and Saxony, however, the n.o.bles had become a privileged cla.s.s, recognized by the laws, and thus was laid the foundation for the feudal system of the Middle Ages.

The transition was now complete. Although the art, taste and refinement of the Roman Empire were lost, its civilizing influence in law and civil organization survived, and slowly subdued the Germanic races which inherited its territory. But many characteristics of their early barbarism still clung to the latter, and a long period elapsed before we can properly call them a civilized people.

CHAPTER IX.

THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS.

(486--638.)

Chlodwig, the Founder of the Merovingian Dynasty. --His Conversion to Christianity. --His Successors. --Theuderich's Conquest of Thuringia. --Union of the Eastern Franks. --Austria (or Austrasia) and Neustria. --Crimes of the Merovingian Kings. --Clotar and his Sons. --Sigbert's Successes. --His Wife, Brunhilde. --Sigbert's Death. --Quarrel between Brunhilde and Fredegunde. --Clotar II.

--Brunhilde and her Grandsons. --Her Defeat and Death. --Clotar II.'s Reign. --King Dagobert. --The n.o.bles and the Church. --War with the Thuringians. --Picture of the Merovingian Line. --A New Power.

[Sidenote: 500. THE MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY.]

The history of Germany, from the middle of the sixth to the middle of the ninth century, is that of France also. After having conducted them to their new homes, we take leave of the Anglo-Saxons, the Visigoths and the Longobards, and return to the Frank dynasty founded by Chlodwig, about the year 500, when the smaller kings and chieftains of his race accepted him as their ruler. In the histories of France, even those written in English, he is called "Clovis," but we prefer to give him his original Frank name. He was the grandson of a petty king, whose name was Merovich, whence he and his successors are called, in history, the _Merovingian_ dynasty. He appears to have been a born conqueror, neither very just nor very wise in his actions, but brave, determined and ready to use any means, good or bad, in order to attain his end.

Chlodwig extinguished the last remnant of Roman rule in Gaul, in the year 486, as we have related in Chapter VII. He was then only 20 years old, having succeeded to the throne at the age of 15. Shortly afterwards he married the daughter of one of the Burgundian kings. She was a Christian, and endeavored, but for many years without effect, to induce him to give up his pagan faith. Finally, in a war with the Alemanni, in 496, he promised to become a Christian, provided the G.o.d of the Christians would give him victory. The decisive battle was long and b.l.o.o.d.y, but it ended in the complete rout of the Alemanni, and afterwards all of them who were living to the west of the Rhine became tributary to the Franks.

[Sidenote: 511.]

Chlodwig and 3,000 of his followers were soon afterwards baptized in the cathedral at Rheims, by the bishop Remigius. When the king advanced to the baptismal font, the bishop said to him: "Bow thy head, Sicambrian!--worship what thou hast persecuted, persecute what thou hast worshipped!" Although nearly all the German Christians at this time were Arians, Chlodwig selected the Athanasian faith of Rome, and thereby secured the support of the Roman priesthood in France, which was of great service to him in his ambitious designs. This difference of faith also gave him a pretext to march against the Burgundians in 500, and the Visigoths in 507: both wars were considered holy by the Church.

His conquest of the Visigoths was prevented, as we have seen, by the interposition of Theodoric. He then devoted his remaining years to the complete suppression of all the minor Frank kings, and was so successful that when he died, in 511, all the race, to the west of the Rhine, was united under his single sway. He was succeeded by four sons, of whom the eldest, Theuderich, reigned in Paris; the others chose Metz, Orleans and Soissons for their capitals. Theuderich was a man of so much energy and prudence that he was able to control his brothers, and unite the four governments in such a way that the kingdom was saved from dismemberment.

The mother of Chlodwig was a runaway queen of Thuringia, whose son, Hermanfried, now ruled over that kingdom, after having deposed his two brothers. The relationship gave Theuderich a ground for interfering, and the result was a war between the Franks and the Thuringians. Theuderich collected a large army, marched into Germany in 530, procured the services of 9,000 Saxons as allies, and met the Thuringians on the river Unstrut, not far from where the city of Halle now stands. Hermanfried was taken prisoner, carried to France, and treacherously thrown from a tower, after receiving great professions of friendship from his nephew, Theuderich. His family fled to Italy, and the kingdom of Thuringia, embracing nearly all Central Germany, was added to that of the Franks.

The northern part, however, was given to the Saxons as a reward for their a.s.sistance.

[Sidenote: 530. AUSTRIA AND NEUSTRIA]

Four years afterwards the brothers of Theuderich conquered the kingdom of Burgundy, and annexed it to their territory. About the same time, the Franks living eastward of the Rhine entered into a union with their more powerful brethren. Since both the Alemanni and the Bavarians were already tributary to the latter, the dominion of the united Franks now extended from the Atlantic nearly to the river Elbe, and from the mouth of the Rhine to the Mediterranean, with Friesland and the kingdom of the Saxons between it and the North Sea. To all lying east of the Rhine, the name of Austria (East-kingdom) or Austrasia was given, while Neustria (New-kingdom) was applied to all west of the Rhine. These designations were used in the historical chronicles for some centuries afterwards.

While Theuderich lived, his brothers observed a tolerably peaceful conduct towards one another, but his death was followed by a season of war and murder. History gives us no record of another dynasty so steeped in crime as that of the Merovingians: within the compa.s.s of a few years we find a father murdering his son, a brother his brother and a wife her husband. We can only account for the fact that the whole land was not constantly convulsed by civil war, by supposing that the people retained enough of power in their national a.s.semblies, to refuse taking part in the fratricidal quarrels. It is not necessary, therefore, to recount all the details of the b.l.o.o.d.y family history. Their effect upon the people must have been in the highest degree demoralizing, yet the latter possessed enough of prudence--or perhaps of a clannish spirit, in the midst of a much larger Roman and Gallic population--to hold the Frank kingdom together, while its rulers were doing their best to split it to pieces.

The result of all the quarrelling and murdering was, that in 558 Clotar, the youngest son of Chlodwig, became the sole monarch. After forty-seven years of divided rule, the kingly power was again in a single hand, and there seemed to be a chance for peace and progress. But Clotar died within three years, and, like his father, left four sons to divide his power. The first thing they did was to fight; then, being perhaps rather equally matched, they agreed to portion the kingdom. Charibert reigned in Paris, Guntram in Orleans, Chilperic in Soissons, and Sigbert in Metz. The boundaries between their territories are uncertain; we only know that all of "Austria," or Germany east of the Rhine, fell to Sigbert's share.

[Sidenote: 565.]

About this time the Avars, coming from Hungary, had invaded Thuringia, and were inciting the people to rebellion against the Franks. Sigbert immediately marched against them, drove them back, and established his authority over the Thuringians. On returning home he found that his brother Chilperic had taken possession of his capital and many smaller towns. Chilperic was forced to retreat, lost his own kingdom in turn, and only received it again through the generosity of Sigbert,--the first and only instance of such a virtue in the Merovingian line of kings.

Sigbert seems to have inherited the abilities, without the vices, of his grandfather Chlodwig. When the Avars made a second invasion into Germany, he was not only defeated but taken prisoner by them.

Nevertheless, he immediately acquired such influence over their Khan, or chieftain, that he persuaded the latter to set him free, to make a treaty of peace and friendship, and to return with his Avars to Hungary.

In the year 568 Charibert died in Paris, leaving no heirs. A new strife instantly broke out among the three remaining brothers; but it was for a time suspended, owing to the approach of a common danger. The Longobards, now masters of Northern Italy, crossed the Alps and began to overrun Switzerland, which the Franks possessed, through their victories over the Burgundians and the Alemanni. Sigbert and Guntram united their forces, and repelled the invasion with much slaughter.

Then broke out in France a series of family wars, darker and bloodier than any which had gone before. The strife between the sons of Clotar and their children and grandchildren desolated France for forty years, and became all the more terrible because the women of the family entered into it with the men. All these Christian kings, like their father, were polygamists: each had several wives; yet they are described by the priestly chroniclers of their times as men who went about doing good, and whose lives were "acceptable to G.o.d"! Sigbert was the only exception: he had but one wife, Brunhilde, the daughter of a king of the Visigoths, a stately, handsome, intelligent woman, but proud and ambitious.

[Sidenote: 570. FAMILY WARS IN FRANCE.]

Either the power and popularity, or the rich marriage-portion, which Sigbert acquired with Brunhilde, induced his brother, Chilperic, to ask the hand of her sister, the Princess Galsunta of Spain. It was granted to him on condition that he would put away all his wives and live with her alone. He accepted the condition, and was married to Galsunta. One of the women sent away was Fredegunde, who soon found means to recover her former influence over Chilperic's mind. It was not long before Galsunta was found dead in her bed, and within a week Fredegunde, the murderess, became queen in her stead. Brunhilde called upon Sigbert to revenge her sister's death, and then began that terrible history of crime and hatred, which was celebrated, centuries afterwards, in the famous _Nibelungenlied_, or Lay of the Nibelungs.

In the year 575, Sigbert gained a complete victory over Chilperic, and was lifted upon a shield by the warriors of the latter, who hailed him as their king. In that instant he was stabbed in the back, and died upon the field of his triumph. Chilperic resumed his sway, and soon took Brunhilde prisoner, while her young son, Childebert, escaped to Germany.

But his own son, Merwig, espoused Brunhilde's cause, secretly released her from prison, and then married her. A war next arose between father and son, in which the former was successful. He cut off Merwig's long hair, and shut him up in a monastery; but, for some unexplained reason, he allowed Brunhilde to go free. In the meantime Fredegunde had borne three sons, who all died soon after their birth. She accused her own step-son of having caused their deaths by witchcraft, and he and his mother, one of Chilperic's former wives, were put to death.

Both Chilperic and his brother Guntram, who reigned at Orleans, were without male heirs. At this juncture, the German chiefs and n.o.bles demanded to have Childebert, the young son of Sigbert and Brunhilde, who had taken refuge among them, recognized as the heir to the Frankish throne. Chilperic consented, on condition that Childebert, with such forces as he could command, would march with him against Guntram, who had despoiled him of a great deal of his territory. The treaty was made, in spite of the opposition of Brunhilde, whose sister's murder was not yet avenged, and the civil wars were renewed. Both sides gained or lost alternately, without any decided result, until the a.s.sa.s.sination of Chilperic, by an unknown hand, in 584. A few months before his death, Fredegunde had borne him another son, Clotar, who lived, and was at once presented by his mother as Childebert's rival to the throne.

[Sidenote: 597.]

The struggle between the two widowed queens, Brunhilde and Fredegunde, was for a while delayed by the appearance of a new claimant, Gundobald, who had been a fugitive in Constantinople for many years, and declared that he was Chilperic's brother. He obtained the support of many Austrasian (German) princes, and was for a time so successful that Fredegunde was forced to take refuge with Guntram, at Orleans. The latter also summoned Childebert to his capital, and persuaded him to make a truce with Fredegunde and her adherents, in order that both might act against their common rival. Gundobald and his followers were soon destroyed: Guntram died in 593, and Childebert was at once accepted as his successor. His kingdom included that of Charibert, whose capital was Paris, and that of his father, Sigbert, embracing all Frankish Germany.

But the n.o.bles and people, accustomed to conspiracy, treachery and crime, could no longer be depended upon, as formerly. They were beginning to return to their former system of living upon war and pillage, instead of the honest arts of peace.

Fredegunde still held the kingdom of Chilperic for her son Clotar. After strengthening herself by secret intrigues with the Frank n.o.bles, she raised an army, put herself at its head, and marched against Childebert, who was defeated and soon afterwards poisoned, after having reigned only three years. His realm was divided between his two young sons, one receiving Burgundy and the other Germany, under the guardianship of their grandmother Brunhilde. Fredegunde followed up her success, took Paris and Orleans from the heirs of Childebert, and died in 597, leaving her son Clotar, then in his fourteenth year, as king of more than half of France. He was crowned as Clotar II.

Death placed Brunhilde's rival out of the reach of her revenge, but she herself might have secured the whole kingdom of the Franks for her two grandsons, had she not quarrelled with one and stirred up war between them. The first consequence of this new strife was that Alsatia and Eastern Switzerland were separated from Neustria, or France, and attached to Austria, or Germany. Brunhilde, finding that her cause was desperate, procured the a.s.sistance of Clotar II. for herself and her favorite grandson, Theuderich. The fortune of war now turned, and before long the other grandson, Theudebert, was taken prisoner. By his brother's order he was formally deposed from his kingly authority, and then executed: the brains of his infant son were dashed out against a stone.

[Sidenote: 613. MURDER OF BRUNHILDE.]

It was not long before this crime was avenged. A quarrel in regard to the division of the spoils arose between Theuderich and Clotar II. The former died in the beginning of the war which followed, leaving four young sons to the care of their great-grandmother, the queen Brunhilde.

Clotar II. immediately marched against her, but, knowing her ability and energy, he obtained a promise from the n.o.bles of Burgundy and Germany who were unfriendly to Brunhilde, that they would come over to his side at the critical moment. The aged queen had called her people to arms, and, like her rival, Fredegunde, put herself at their head; but when the armies met, on the river Aisne in Champagne, the traitors in her own camp joined Clotar II. and the struggle was ended without a battle.

Brunhilde, then eighty years old, was taken prisoner, cruelly tortured for three days, and then tied by her gray hair to the tail of a wild horse and dragged to death. The four sons of Theuderich were put to death at the same time, and thus, in the year 613, Clotar II. became king of all the Franks. A priest named Fredegar, who wrote his biography, says of him: "He was a most patient man, learned and pious, and kind and sympathizing towards every one!"

Clotar II. possessed, at least, energy enough to preserve a sway which was based on a long succession of the worst crimes that disgrace humanity. In 622, six years before his death, he made his oldest son, Dagobert, a boy of sixteen, king of the German half of his realm, but was obliged, immediately afterwards, to a.s.sist him against the Saxons.

He entered their territory, seized the people, ma.s.sacred all who proved to be taller than his own two-handed sword, and then returned to France without having subdued the spirit or received the allegiance of the bold race. Nothing of importance occurred during the remainder of his reign; he died in 628, leaving his kingdom to his two sons, Dagobert and Charibert. The former easily possessed himself of the lion's share, giving his younger brother only a small strip of territory along the river Loire. Charibert, however, drove the last remnant of the Visigoths into Spain, and added the country between the Garonne and the Pyrenees to his little kingdom. The name of Aquitaine was given to this region, and Charibert's descendants became its Dukes, subject to the kings of the Franks.

[Sidenote: 628.]

Dagobert had been carefully educated by Pippin of Landen, the Royal Steward of Clotar II., and by Arnulf, the Bishop of Metz. He had no quality of greatness, but he promised to be, at least, a good and just sovereign. He became at once popular with the ma.s.ses, who began to long for peace, and for the restoration of rights which had been partly lost during the civil wars. The n.o.bles, however, who had drawn the greatest advantage from those wars, during which their support was purchased by one side or the other, grew dissatisfied. They cunningly aroused in Dagobert the love of luxury and the sensual vices which had ruined his ancestors, and thus postponed the reign of law and justice to which the people were looking forward.

In fact, that system of freedom and equality which the Germanic races had so long possessed, was already shaken to its very base. During the long and b.l.o.o.d.y feuds of the Merovingian kings, many changes had been made in the details of government, all tending to increase the power of the n.o.bles, the civil officers and the dignitaries of the Church.

Wealth--the bribes paid for their support--had acc.u.mulated in the hands of these cla.s.ses, while the farmers, mechanics and tradesmen, plundered in turn by both parties, had constantly grown poorer. Although the external signs of civilization had increased, the race had already lost much of its moral character, and some of the best features of its political system.

There are few chronicles which inform us of the affairs of Germany during this period. The Avars, after their treaty of peace with Sigbert, directed their incursions against the Bavarians, but without gaining any permanent advantage. On the other hand, the Slavonic tribes, especially the Bohemians, united under the rule of a renegade Frank, whose name was Samo, and who acquired a part of Thuringia, after defeating the Frank army which was sent against him. The Saxons and Thuringians then took the war into their own hands, and drove back Samo and his Slavonic hordes. By this victory the Saxons released themselves from the payment of an annual tribute to the Frank kings, and the Thuringians became strong enough to organize themselves again as a people and elect their own Duke. The Franks endeavored to suppress this new organization, but they were defeated by the Duke, Radulf, nearly on the same spot where, just one hundred years before, Theuderich, the son of Chlodwig, had crushed the Thuringian kingdom. From that time, Thuringia was placed on the same footing as Bavaria, tributary to the Franks, but locally independent.

[Sidenote: 638. END OF THE MEROVINGIAN POWER.]

King Dagobert, weak, swayed by whatever influence was nearest, and voluptuous rather than cruel, died in 638, before he had time to do much evil. He was the last of the Merovingian line who exercised any actual power. The dynasty existed for a century longer, but its monarchs were merely puppets in the hands of stronger men. Its history, from the beginning, is well ill.u.s.trated by a tradition current among the people, concerning the mother of Chlodwig. They relate that soon after her marriage she had a vision, in which she gave birth to a lion (Chlodwig), whose descendants were wolves and bears, and their descendants, in turn, frisky dogs.

Before the death of Dagobert--in fact, during the life of Clotar II.--a new power had grown up within the kingdom of the Franks, which gradually pushed the Merovingian dynasty out of its place. The history of this power, after 638, becomes the history of the realm, and we now turn from the b.l.o.o.d.y kings to trace its origin, rise and final triumph.