GERMANY FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD

PART IV

THE TRANSITION FROM PAGANISM TO CHRISTIANITY

 

 

LXVIII. The Propagation of the Gospel

LXIX. The Spirit of Christianity

 

The fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," was a command of love by which it was at once distinguished from the different religions, founded upon egotism, practiced by the heathens. The Jews, Greeks, and Romans, like the ancient priest-castes of the East, that kept themselves apart from the rest of the people, regarded themselves as chosen nations, all others as barbarians, strangers, and enemies, whom they were not only permitted but commanded to treat with cruelty or to exterminate. Hence slavery was universally practiced. The ancient Germans, who only respected the rights of those with whom they were in immediate alliance, and the laws of hospitality, were not free from a similar charge, and habitually treated every stranger, nay, even their own countrymen and nearest neighbours, as enemies, and made it their chief occupation to attack and oppress each other. Christianity first taught equality and fraternal love. The spirituality of its doctrines was also directly opposed to those inculcated by paganism, which, referring merely to the external world, degraded men's minds by sensuality and superstition. To many of the nations of antiquity, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was utterly unknown, while others formed their notions of a future state on the same principle as the Germans, who imagined their heavenly Walhalla to be merely a more joyous continuation of their earthly existence. Christianity first taught the doctrines of the Divine origin, and of the eternal duration of the soul. Deeply impressed with the truth of these two great doctrines, whole nations renounced their ancient superstitions and customs, and egotism, so deeply rooted in the nature of man, alone opposed the fulfilment of the great injunction of universal love that has ever been so universally disobeyed. Nations continued to butcher each other, nay, they even carried on the butchery in the name of the very Saviour who enjoined peace and love; while slavery not only continued, but even gained ground among the Germans, who framed their excuse on the humility inculcated by the gospel. But the good seed had been sown, and gradually produced better fruit. Centuries passed away; and, as the doctrine of mercy, the knowledge of the common rights of man, of the value of civilization and of peace, imperceptibly gained ground, ancient barbarism disappeared. Although the precept of universal philanthropy taught by Christ found a slow and difficult reception among the conquerors of the earth, the second aim of Christianity, inward contemplation, met with universal encouragement; souls oppressed by crime or misfortune sought peace in the bosom of the church, or the egotism and pride of man led to a haughty contempt of the world, and immoderate mortification of the body. The Roman, whose sense of guilt was sharpened by the ever-recurring recollection of his ancient empire, now trampled beneath the foot of the savage invader, sought to expiate the past and to forget the present in the contemplation of eternity; while to the German, hurried away by his fervid imagination and enthusiastic zeal, Christianity presented a bright and joyous view, and he regarded himself as a soldier of Christ, whose glory he must seek to promote on earth by fighting and conquering in his cause. An inspiring and encouraging faith also pervaded the doctrines of the first German theologians, recluses, and ecclesiastical orders, whose renunciation of the world, and disdain of its allurements, far from being the result of sorrow or remorse, originated in religious enthusiasm, and an ecstatic contemplation of future and eternal joy.

 

LXX. The Catholic Doctrine

 

The false interpretation of the figurative expressions with which the Bible abounds has ever been owing to ignorance or to wilful perversion. In the earlier times of Christianity, the new doctrine was tainted with paganism and the ancient philosophy of Greece; the former, in direct contradiction to the words of the Saviour, requiring many outward forms, while the philosophers sought to build some theory of their own imagining on some fancied interpretation of the gospel. Two of the religious sects, to which these various interpretations gave rise, whose animosity greatly influenced the history of the world, and whose dispute was settled by the great council of Nice, convoked by the emperor Constantino, AD 325, may be more particularly remarked. The sect of the Arians, so named after their founder, Arius, maintained that God only consisted of one person, and that Christ was not God himself; while the opposite party professed that Christ, the Son of God, was also God the Father, only appearing as a second person under his earthly form, but united to the Godhead by the eternal Spirit. They also divided the Godhead into three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, and named them the Holy Trinity. The latter sect triumphed, and took the appellation of Catholic or universal.

The German bishops could not yet compete in learning with the countless clergy of Greece and Rome. One of them, named Theophilus, a Goth, distinguished himself at Nice in defense of Arianism; two others, Sunnia and Fretela, asked the advice of St. Hieronymus on the subject. Unila, Nicetas, and Theotimus are also mentioned as celebrated Gothic bishops, but the only Gothic book extant is the Bible translation of Ulphilas. It is merely known that all the Goths regarded Arianism as the simpler and better doctrine, and that their zealous profession of it gave rise to a Catholic alliance between the Greeks and Romans (which the Franks, who, although Catholics, at first inclined to the simpler doctrine, and objected to the worship of images, soon afterward joined), which ultimately proved too powerful for them, and greatly contributed to their calamities. An extraordinary multiplicity of doctrines and ceremonies was gradually introduced into the Catholic church. At first, tradition had greater influence than dogma, or rather, examples were cited without the precepts they inculcated being much commented upon. Piety was demonstrated by actions of self-denial, of bold heroism, of fidelity unto death, etc., which were transcribed and held up for imitation, and with a little poetical embellishment were converted into legends, which, in the first centuries after Christ, had already become very numerous, and formed the chief literature of the times. The naivete and profound thought that distinguish the le­gends of Germany prove that Christianity was originally in that country entirely practical, and free from subtle speculations. Their moral is ever noble and elevated, and they inculcate every Christian virtue through the medium of interesting and attractive tales, generally founded upon fact. At a later period, the legends became less natural, and the moral they inculcated more ecclesiastical. Simple practical Christianity was lost amid the artificial and complicated ceremonies of the church, which were chiefly introduced by the exaggerated and perverted practice of worshiping the saints, and men, instead of being roused by the example of the martyrs to emulate their piety and virtue, instead of seeking to live and to act in the same spirit by which they were animated, actually began to worship their dead bodies, their ashes, and their relics, to raise chapels and churches in their honour, and to invoke them, as the heathens formerly did their household deities, as the patrons and guardians of their country, their nation, their houses, and their families. Still, notwithstand­ing these heathenish practice of the church and the subtlety of theologians, the living spirit of Christianity was not entirely lost, and long breathed in the simple and unadulterated forms of the church in Germany. A spirit of austerity and of reverential awe, modified by a faith of almost child­like simplicity, may be traced throughout our earliest legends. The strict morality practiced by the German while yet a heathen was now ratified by the commands of the gospel, and more strictly enforced by religious zeal. The legends of this period chiefly record the pious fidelity of men, and the holy chastity of women, and clothe ancient German virtue, as in the beautiful legend of Genoveva, in a more religious garb. Christianity, while still in its infancy, presented a bright contrast with the dark religions of antiquity, and inspired every mind with confidence. A light had burst upon mankind; the dark clouds veiling futurity had passed away, and the brightness of heaven was disclosed to view. The combats of the gods and their carousals in Walhalla were exchanged for the promises of Christian bliss, of spiritual glorification. The ferocity of the warrior was tamed; for a while the clash of the weapon and the din of war ceased, while the iron-bound knee bent at the sound of the vesper bell. Rapine and bloodshed had devastated Europe for centuries, and the most sudden vicissitudes of fortune had become common during the great migrations; today a slave, tomorrow an emperor; now the ruler of the North, now dragged in chains to the far South, the land of the dark African; and so general had been the suffering that the first dream of the convert, the first hope of the Christian, was that once again he might behold those from whom he had been so cruelly torn; a hope that forms the groundwork of the interesting legend of St. Faustinianus, so deeply char­acteristic of the age, and of all the legends of those times, now so lightly esteemed, although valuable as historical documents, and replete with beauty.

 

LXXI. Commencement of the Hierarchy

 

The only Christian communities were scattered and oppressed; and even when the whole Roman empire embraced Christianity, no spiritual superior was allowed by the emperor. Each community had its priest, a certain number of whom were controlled by a bishop. The bishops were all of equal rank, and formed a council (concilium), which was presided over by the emperor, and which deliberated upon and fixed the doctrines of faith, the forms of worship, and the ordinances of the church.

The necessity of unity in the church, the division and gradual decay of the imperial power, afforded an opportunity for ambitious churchmen to increase their authority, and the bishops were ere long controlled by the patriarchs, or heads of the church, four of whom were created; viz., the patriarch for Western Europe, who resided at Rome; for Eastern Europe, at Constantinople; for Asia, at Antioch; for Africa, at Alexandria. The highest authority was, however, in reality still exercised by the councils. In the seventh century, the patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria were destroyed by the Turks, by whom Mohammedanism, which speedily supplanted Christianity in Asia and Africa, was introduced.

The long and violent contest carried on between the patri­arch of Constantinople, whose power sank with that of the Eastern empire, and his Roman rival, naturally roused the sympathy and passions of the different nations that owned their supremacy, and while Rome was supported by Germany, the Eastern Romans, Greeks, Asiatics, and Slavi sided with Constantinople. A difference, at first hardly perceptible, in the dogma and form of the Greek church, gradually produced a schism, which at length caused its complete separation from that of Rome, whose patriarch usurped the unlimited control of the church, and gave it a monarchical form. The entire West, including the whole of Germany and the northern countries, embraced the tenets of the Roman church, whose authority mainly rested on the interpretation of a certain verse in the New Testament, which it was alleged proved the intention of the Saviour to found the new church upon St. Peter, as upon a rock; as a logical sequel to this doctrine, this foundation stone was the martyrdom of St. Peter at Rome, where he preached the gospel. The chair of the Roman patriarch was consequently called that of St. Peter, whom he was supposed to succeed, and, like whom, he was also supposed to hold the keys of heaven. The pontiff, or pope {papa, father), was at first subordinate to and protected by the temporal monarchs, and it was some time before he usurped any temporal power, or ventured to interfere in any great degree with the internal regulations of the German church, whose bishops, although subject to the decisions of the general council, held independent convocations in their own country, and, having the first voice in the national assembly, were united in one common national interest, and had not yet become blindly submissive to Rome. The archbishops (among whom those of Mayence and Rheims were the first who extended their authority) had each several bishops under their control. The common clergy were always chosen by the people, and slaves were not allowed to enter into holy orders. In default of schools, the monasteries and the service under priests afforded the only means of spiritual tuition. The priests were obliged to be confirmed in their offices and to be ordained by the bishops, who, although chosen by the priests, were confirmed in their dignity by the people, the king, and the pope. In the same manner that the vote of the monarch became more influential, as democratic power gradually decayed, monarchical power at a later period yielded (in its turn) before the despotic vote of the pope, who was at first very irregularly chosen, his election being greatly influenced by the people of Rome, until its final regulation in the eleventh century. The pope was surrounded by a chosen number of dignitaries of the church, who, according to statute, consisted of archbishops and bishops, and who acted as counsellors, officers, and legates, and, under the title of Cardinals, elected his successor. As early as the eighth century, a similar regulation existed in some of the bishoprics, the bishops being elected by a num­ber of canons. The popes, during their assumption of power, added their decretals to the laws or canons of the church, compiled by the council, and sanctioned by the monarch, which, gradually creeping into the civil law, influenced both public and private life. All pagan customs, with the exception of those incorporated into the Roman ceremonies and belief, were interdicted by the church, not by the state, under penalty of public penance. Domestic life in Germany was also greatly affected by the laws laid down by the church concerning marriage between relatives, which was merely allowed to be contracted by persons five or six degrees removed from each other, and which was denounced as incest when contracted by persons more nearly allied by blood; thus, many things which, until then, had been considered lawful, were now punished as criminal. By these means, the church acquired a fearful degree of influence, yet further increased by the sale of indulgences, or the remission of sin on payment of a certain sum of money. An additional hold was gained upon the people by means of the judiciary power exercised by the monastic orders, and by the higher church dignitaries over their dependents and slaves.

The clergy were generally maintained by tithes. Every landowner, in obedience to the old Jewish law, gave a tenth of his product to the church, which was also enriched by gifts to the saints, or by pious offerings, either voluntary, or imposed by law. The churches and monasteries neces­sarily required land for their support, and as extensive and uncultivated tracts were, at that time, everywhere to be met with, the clergy were at first remunerated with grants by the monarch or the people, and speedily vied with the laity in influence and magnificence. The superior knowl­edge of the Roman priesthood, and more especially their improvements in agriculture, early disposed the governments of Germany in their favour, and it was to the priests and monks, who introduced the use of the plow while they taught the gospel, that our rude forefathers owed the peaceful arts of tillage and the knowledge of a Saviour. It was no unusual occurrence for pious or guilty men of rank to bestow their Allods or freeholds upon the church, whose dependents and slaves, secure from the ravages of war, were ever blessed with peace, which, added to the consideration in which the clergy were held on account of their knowledge of agriculture, and to their being everywhere in possession of the most productive soil, rendered it an enviable distinc­tion to dwell beneath the shade of the crosier.

 

LXXII. The Monasteries

 

The first permits, or recluses (men who, shunning society, and despising worldly pleasures and grandeur, dwelt in dark caves, fed upon roots, and passed their lives in prayer and meditation), are met with in the vast deserts of Egypt, whither they had either fled for safety during the bloody persecutions of the Christians, or had resorted for devotional purposes. St. Antony was the first hermit. Soon after him, St. Pachomius founded the first community of recluses, AD 306, who bound themselves to the observance of the severest rules. Women also formed similar communities; and monasteries and nunneries soon became numerous. About the fifth century, Benedict of Nursia founded a new and powerful monkish order in Italy, distinguished as the Benedictins, or Western monks, from the earlier Basilians (who took their name from St. Basilius), or Greek monks. Although the trinal vow, of obedience, poverty, and chastity, was common to all monkish orders, they were reasonable enough to perceive the impossibility of enforcing it, and it is expressly stated in the rules of the Benedictins, an order including all the monks and nuns of the West, that those who found the vow too severe might quit the cloister and return to the world: "Si non potes servare, liber discede." Benedict also ordained that the monks, instead of being idle, should work, cultivate the land, write useful books, etc.; a law which proved extremely beneficial, and greatly tended to spread the knowledge of agriculture, which received many useful improvements from the monks, and of the cultivation of useful plants, facilitated by the mutual intercourse between adjacent monasteries; and it must be confessed that whatever has been handed down to us of the science and literature of Greece and Rome, of the history of the world and of that of Christianity, is owing to the labours of the pious and learned monks of those times, who preserved and copied the manuscripts that escaped the destruction caused by the migrations, and who penned the histories of their monasteries, or recorded the political events of their times.

Rome was, at that period, the center of the learned world, and the Latin tongue was, consequently, in general use in the monasteries. An attempt made, in later times, to replace it by the language of the country failed, owing to the influence of the pope, whose power had already reached a dangerous height, and by whom the use of the Latin tongue was prescribed in all ecclesiastical matters as a means of increasing the dependence of the laity upon the priesthood, and of curbing the independent spirit of the Germans. The monasteries and convents, governed by abbots and abbesses, origi­nally under the control of the bishops, were no sooner enriched by endowments of money or land, and rendered powerful by the number of their dependents, than they asserted their independence, in which they were upheld by the popes, who made use of these co-operative societies, whose influence extended throughout Christendom, as a check upon the ambition of the bishops.

 

LXXIII. The Catholic Form of Worship

 

God, no longer adored on the mountain or in the forest, was now worshiped in temples consecrated to his service. The Christian or Byzantine style of architecture, so called from having been first introduced at Byzantium (Constantinople), was general throughout Germany until the Middle Ages, when it attained a higher degree of perfection, and was called the German or Gothic style. The introduction of pictures and images into churches early became a source of contention, and was as strongly censured by one party, who feared lest the veneration in which they were held might endanger the spiritual purity of the Christian faith, and degenerate into idolatry, as it was strongly upheld by another, who argued that they were merely venerated as visible representations of the objects of their mental adoration, the Saviour, the holy family, the martyrs, and their sufferings, etc., and that the effect produced by an elevated style of architecture, by sculpture, paintings, music, illuminations, processions, and ceremonies, upon the senses, was highly conducive to devotion. The latter opinion prevailed, and the churches were gorgeously decorated. Vaulted roofs and lofty towers lent an air of imposing grandeur to the edifice, adorned within with columns, statues, and pictures. In simple but deeply stirring hymns, the priests chanted in the Latin tongue the praise of the Most High; lamps and waxen tapers burned day and night before the sacred pictures and images; while holy water and incense, genuflections, folding of the hands, the sign of the cross, the measured and solemn movements of the richly attired priests before the splendid altar, placed to the east, where shone the natal star of Jesus, the harmony of the choristers, etc., added solemnity to the scene. In the ceremonies and in the dress of the priests much was borrowed from the pagan worship of ancient Rome, and from the Jewish ceremonial. All important affairs, for instance, those transacted in the national assembly, opened with prayer. The elected monarch was solemnly anointed and crowned; the ordeal was still retained in the laws; in every important private affair counsel was sought of God or of a saint by prayer, and by the casting of lots; much of the pagan belief in natural powers, omens, etc., was also retained by the Christians in their various superstitions, such as belief in magic, witchcraft, etc. The ancient feasts of the heathens were now replaced by, or rather changed into. Christian festivals, the chief of which, Passion Week and Easter, in memory of the sufferings and resurrection of the Saviour, were partly borrowed from the ancient Passover of the Jews, and partly from the spring festival of the ancient Germans. Whitsuntide, like Easter, was a movable feast; Easter always falling on the first Sunday after the first full moon during the equinox, sometimes earlier, sometimes later; Whitsuntide always falling forty-nine days after Easter. The church-ale (Kirmess, consecration of the church), corresponding with the autumnal festival of the ancient Germans, was of equal importance; and lastly, Christmas, or the birth of Christ, fell in the middle of winter, and was a repetition of the great Yule feast. Many of the numerous other festivals, in honour of the Saviour, of the holy Virgin, and of the saints, corresponded with those of pagan times, to which several of the customs practiced at those periods bear great resemblance; for instance, the practice of carrying palm branches and green boughs; St. John's fire; St. Martin's goose; horns, etc. Sunday was a regular festival, on which, as on all others, peace, joy, and rest were enjoined. Fasts, or the prohibition of meat, although taken from a Jewish custom, accorded with the Christian spirit of self-denial, and fell on several feast days, on every Friday, and lasted several weeks before Passion Week.

The institution of certain sacraments, or holy acts, such as baptism, the confirmation or consecration of adults, the marriage benediction, the last unction, and confession, which, under pain of eternal condemnation and excommunication, ordained that all crimes should be confessed to the priest, who, bound to secrecy, awarded penance or gave absolution, greatly influenced domestic life. The clergy, as they increased in importance, arrogated to themselves the right of excluding rebellious members from the church, the most severe of all ecclesiastical punishments, which, formerly, consisted merely of penance within or without the church, corporeal chastisement, offerings, and fines. The supposed sanctity of certain localities to which pilgrimages were made (Wallfahrten, a name derived from the pagan custom of visiting distant sacred forests), gave rise to another peculiar mode of worship. The saints, supposed to preside over these localities, were either invoked by people when in danger, who, on such occasions, vowed to make a pilgrimage to their sanctuaries, or they were visited by others in the hope of a miracle being performed in their behalf, in order to free them from mental or bodily ailments. Some of the saints were held in such high estimation that their admirers deemed it incumbent upon them to make a pilgrimage to their graves at least once during their lives, and sometimes imposed severe penance upon themselves, by going barefoot, or crawling the whole way on their knees.

 

LXXIV. The Christian Kings

 

The struggle between the migratory nations and those among whom they attempted to settle, had, by necessitating implicit obedience to the dukes or chiefs, greatly increased their authority and gradually consolidated their power. The servility of the Italians, accustomed to the despotic rule of Rome, ere long inspired the German chieftains with a wish to tame the independent spirit of their followers. The example of a Jewish king, recorded in the Scriptures, at that period diligently studied, greatly tended to strengthen this wish, and while fierce and warlike kings coveted the purple of the Roman tyrant, gentle-minded and pious ones deemed themselves, like David, the anointed of the Lord, and the vicegerents of God upon earth. The ancient Jewish ceremony of anointing with oil was countenanced by the priesthood, on account of the opportunity it afforded of flattering royalty, and of increasing their own power, they alone having the right to perform this sacred function. These ideas, however, were not prejudicial to the ancient privileges of the people, the kings being still dependent upon them for their election, and presiding, not ruling, over the general assembly. When the throne became hereditary it was made so with the consent of the people, and was by no means granted from an inclination on their part to increase the royal prerog­ative, but with an intention of diminishing it, by imposing fresh conditions on each successor to the crown. Nor was the person of the king considered inviolable; the crime of murdering him being, in the Anglo-Saxon and Bavarian laws, merely punishable by a fine of considerable amount. The royal allotment of the conquered land was larger than that of any of the freeborn warriors, and consisted of a large Allod (freehold) or domain, where the king had his palace (Hofburg) and held his court. He also possessed other Allods, of smaller extent, in different parts of the country, on which he had little Pfalzen (palaces) or country houses (villas), which served as resting places for him and his household on his journeyings; and on these occasions, in order to render the charge of his maintenance less burdensome to the people, the king and his court were supported by the revenues of these lands, to which royal dues, such as tolls, mines, fines, etc., were gradually added. Taxes and duties upon freeholds, private property, person, or commerce, were utterly unknown, the loyal nation presenting gifts of honour to their monarch on occasions of national festivity or of royal weddings, when a considerable tribute was often imposed upon the conquered nations. The kings, chiefly enriched by the pillage of the wealthy Roman provinces, expended great part of their wealth upon their numerous followers, the splendour of whose appearance contributed to their pomp and magnificence, besides insuring respect for their authority when presiding over the general assembly, and also served as a means of alluring the youthful warriors into their service, to which, dazzled by courtly splendour, and lured by ambition (the nobles and leaders of the army being chosen by the monarch from their number), they willingly attached themselves.

 

LXXV. State Assemblies, Dukes and Counts

 

The new kingdoms retained much of the ancient Germanic constitution; for instance, the division of freeborn men into tens and hundreds. The tens (decania) disappeared in course of time, and the hundreds (centena) became cantons, several of which formed a Gau or province. The popular assembly was, as in former times, held every fourteen days, but, instead of the president being a judge elected by the free voices of the people, he was a Graf or count (comes), who was nominated by the king, and headed the contingent furnished by the Gau in time of war. Every post of honour, not only in the army and in the provinces, but also in the court and around the royal person, being filled by the Grafs, gave rise to different titles, such as, Pfalzgraf, Waldgraf, Landgraf, Markgraf, etc. The word Graf (gravia) has been falsely derived from grau (gray, old). Grimm has rightly deduced it from Ravo (tectum), and makes it synonymous with Geselle, a companion (from Saal, a hall), which also signified a companion in the house and in the field; hence a Graf in Latin was always called Comes, and had sometimes a proxy called Vicecomes; whence are derived the modern French and English titles of comte, vicomte, count, viscount. The army consisted of the whole nation, headed by its Centners and Grafs. The great extent of the territory gained by conquerors, like Attila, etc., who, in order to facilitate the government of their enormous kingdoms, allowed the subdued nations to retain their former rulers, on condition of their furnishing a contingent in the field, gave rise to the ducal dignity. The Frankish monarchs pursued a similar policy toward the subjugated Germanic tribes, either allowing them to be governed by their own princes, or setting dukes over them; but in either case allowing them to retain their native laws, whether Alemannic. Bavarian, Saxon, or Thuringian. All the Dukes, Grafs, Centners, and the higher dignitaries of the church, were bound to call the freemen of the state to a general assembly, presided over by the monarch, once a year, and in extraordinary cases, more frequently. These assemblies took cognizance of the judiciary proceedings in which an appeal had been made to their tribunal from the lower courts; framed and improved the laws; elected and deposed the king, who was responsible to them for his actions; declared war, and concluded peace, unless civil war happened to be raging. Each man's vote bore equal weight with that of the king; each individual also possessed an equal right to state his opinion, and to lay petitions before the court, beyond which there was no appeal. The chief alterations in the laws related to the confirmation of the royal, ducal, and ecclesiastical power, which affected the whole state, and was consequently decided by the assembly, which also regulated the particular laws relating to dukedoms and provinces. These state assemblies were, under different names, common to all the Germanic kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxons named theirs the Witenagemots (council of wise men, elders, or gray heads), aged, wise or distinguished men being next in rank to the dignitaries of the church and state. The Franks, whose assemblies were held in the open air during the month of March, styled them the fields of March.

The conduct of the war, as soon as declared, was intrusted to the king, who, on that occasion, received, as was the case with the ancient German leaders, a great accession of authority and the strictest obedience was enforced to his bann or right of compulsion. The Arimannia, from mannire, to cite, were the armed community convoked to the national assembly during peace, which, in time of war, formed a Landwehr (militia), called the arrier-ban (Heerbann, from Heer, an army, and hannire, to summon). The monarch summoned the dukes; they, the counts; who, in their turn, summoned the centners; and so on throughout the several degrees. Each man served the same chief in the field by whom he was governed in time of peace. Every canton, county and dukedom furnished its contingent, which was distinguished by a particular banner (Fanner, Panier, a standard, whence comes the Bannerherr or banneret). Every man provided himself with arms and provisions until the conclusion of the campaign, which was settled before­hand. Non-appearance in the field, and the still graver crime of Heeresliz, or desertion on the field of battle, were severely punished. Obedience was strictly enforced by the king and the subordinate leaders, who had the right of inflicting instant and summary punishment on the person of the criminal, a right they durst not exercise in time of peace. The civil laws were also thrice as severe during war time.

 

LXXVI. The Laws

 

The example of the Romans, the increased extent of the states, and the novelty of many of the new laws imposed upon the people, gradually produced the necessity of possessing written codes, which were to a certain degree disadvantageous to the people, who were rendered unfamiliar with their contents as soon as the necessity of committing them to memory ceased, while the facility with which the number and intricacy of the laws could be increased soon required them to be interpreted by lawyers or expositors of the law, whose power depended on their knowledge and capacity. The people were, consequently, on account of their igno­rance, deprived of the right of judging in legal matters, upon which, in ancient times, every freeman had a right freely to state his opinion and to vote, but which were now decided by a select committee of the Rachimburgen, who, in difficult cases, referred to the opinion of a learned professor or Sagibaro, who had no casting vote. The Rachimburgen were members chosen from the national assembly. They were continually changed, until the reign of Charlemagne, by whom their office was rendered permanent, and they were entitled Schoffen, whose nomination rested with the Grafs. The system of Wergeld, or fining, was retained in the new constitution, which was constructed upon the ancient one, and which, owing to the constant insertion of new and often contradictory laws, became at length extremely intricate and confused. Many of the Roman civil laws were either en­tirely or partially adopted into the civil code, and the Mosaic ecclesiastical laws were mixed up with the ordinances of the church, until, at length, the erection of states into hereditary kingdoms, and the universal adoption of the feudal system, rendered a new constitution and new laws necessary. The most important alteration was the partial suppression of the ancient perfect and pure Wergeld system, which was replaced by the Roman laws regarding imprisonment, corporeal and capital punishment, the latter of which was supposed to be upheld by the scriptural maxim of "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Actions injurious to ducal, royal, or ecclesiastical dignity were especially punished by corporeal chastisement and death: new crimes punished by new laws. The old Wergeld system was still retained by the people, with this single alteration, that the Wergeld was now always paid in money. The highest coin current at that period was the shilling (solidus). The trial by single combat also still continued to be legal, and the other ordeals were merely altered to suit them to the more enlightened ideas of the age.

As everything modern originated from the South, and everything ancient from the North, the codes of the southern nations, the Ostro and VisiGoths, for the most part contain Roman laws indued with the principles of Romans and biblical legislature, which exercised power over the life, person, freedom, honour, and freehold property (Allod) of the criminal, while the codes of the northern nations, particularly those of the Anglo-Saxons, still retain traces of their genuine German origin. The Salic is the oldest written law, and was first adapted to the new system by Chlodwig, almost all of whose successors either added to or modified it. The original manuscript was in German, but the only complete copy now extant is in Latin, and besides containing the oldest preface, records many of the barbarous customs of ancient Germany, which, at that period, were still practiced. The antiquity of the Thuringian code is proved by its barbarity; it is still perfectly heathenish, and chiefly treats of revenge for bloodshed, and of trials by single combat. The contrast between the nations of Lower and Upper Germany, or the Frankish Saxons and Goths, is perceptible throughout the laws which have descended to our times; those of the Franks, Thuringians, and Longobardi, and those of the Saxons, Anglo-Saxons, and Frisii, forming two connected codes, widely differing from those of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Burgundians, and those of the Alemanni and Bavarians. All the German nations anciently acted upon the principle of judging every man by the laws of his native country, for which reason the Franks allowed the different tribes subdued by them, and incorporated into their king­dom, to retain their national laws, merely introducing others referring to the church and state, and to the new situation of affairs in general. The Longobardi alone deviated from this principle. Under the Merovingian dynasty, the several codes of the Ripuarii, Alemanni, Thuringians, and Bavarians were transcribed. In the fifth century, Dietrich von Bern gave a code of laws to the Ostrogoths, and King Eurich one to the Visigoths, in both of which much was borrowed from the Roman law. The Burgundian code was drawn out during the reign of Gundebald, and when the Franks took possession of Burgundy merely received some slight alterations. The first code of the Longobardi was drawn up in the seventh century, during the reign of King Rotharis, whose successors, and at a later period the Franks, added to it many new and Roman laws. Originally the laws of the Longobardi were essentially German, nor were any others at first tolerated in their country.

The Saxons and Frisii were, at the end of this period, compelled by the Franks to commit their laws to writing with the addition of the new Frankish ordinances. In England, the Anglo-Saxon law, in which the spirit of the genuine old Germanic code has been faithfully preserved, was gradually introduced by the kings. Latin transcripts of al] the codes of ancient Germany are still extant.

 

LXXVII. The Feudal System

 

Feudal tenure (or the manner in which slaves, emancipated slaves or freed-men, and poor freemen, held part of an Allod, for the use of which they rendered certain duties to the owner, who, if the feoffee failed in fulfilling his engage­ments, had the power of depriving him of the use of the property, which was only lent upon certain conditions, and not given away) was general among the Germans in pagan times. Tacitus mentions that the German slaves who cultivated a small parcel of land formed a class distinct from the household slaves. The wars, at a later period, introduced another description of feudal tenure among the subdued nations, who were constrained to pay tribute and to swear allegiance to their conquerors, whenever the latter did not take immediate possession of the lands; or, sometimes, a whole nation held its lands in fief from another on a system similar to that which bound the slave to the freeman. When the migrations had ceased, the feudal system was perfected by the Frankish monarchs, who divided the extensive lands they had gained in Gaul, as fiefs, among their armed followers or dependents, who, by their services, had become their Angetrauten (confidants, Antrustiones) or Getreuen (fideles) who, either on account of the royal fiefs being as large, and often larger, than the Allods of the freemen, or on account of their holding offices as Grafs, were not only admitted into the state assembly on an equality with the freemen, but were also estimated higher in Wergeld. By their success in war they gradually increased in wealth and influence, and were at length formed into a class of nobles, who bore precedence, as royal feudatories, over the ancient nobility merely composed of freemen, the majority of whom, either influenced by the ambition of shining at court, or anxious to escape from poverty and debt, made a voluntary cession of their Allods to the monarch, to whom they swore allegiance as their liege lord, from whom they held their lands in fee (feudum oblatum), and were thus received into the class of nobles or vassals of the crown. In this manner the feudal system gradually gained ground, and the freemen, now the minority in point of numbers, bearing little weight in the state assembly, oppressed by the arrier-ban, which continually summoned them to the field, the whole of their little property either swallowed up by the necessary expenses, or ruined by neglect, compelled to endure contempt, tyranny, and poverty, and often deprived of their estates by cabals, became completely subservient to the vassals, whom increasing wealth and power had rendered proud and insolent. Besides the crown vassals, there were also the church feudatories, who held their land on similar conditions, and the underfeudatories to the vassals, mesne-lords or valvasors. All the crown vassals were originally Comites, companions in arms; but the other Comites, or Grafen, before long merely signified those who were distinguished by the offices they held from the crowd of dependents, while the immediate personal servants, or ministeriales, were distinguished from the indirect servants by their feudal tenure, which imposed certain duties upon them as vassals of the crown. The ministeriales originally consisted of the Mareschalk, or groom; the Truchsess, he who set the Truke or dish upon the table; the Mundschenk, or cup-bearer; the Kammerer, or chamberlains; the Kuchenmeister, or master of the kitchen; the Kellermeister, or superintendent of the cellar; and the Hausmaier, or major domus, who, on account of the ministeriales being composed of the chief vassals and of the heads of the nobility, was naturally considered as the highest dignitary of the state, and, being himself a noble, was the representative of his class on all state occasions. At first, all these ministeriales were merely common servants, and long after the introduction of Christianity these offices were performed by slaves; as the royal prerogative increased, these offices gradually became of higher importance, and their titles being eagerly sought by men of distinction, became attached to the highest offices of state, to the ducal dignity, and to the great fiefs.

The service rendered by the vassal was the only bond between him and his lord. The fiefs, at first held only for a certain time, were afterward held for life, and returned to the mesne-lord upon the death of the feoffee, a grievance that was speedily removed by the vassals, as soon as they became powerful enough to compel the monarch to make the fiefs hereditary.

 

LXXVIII. Migrations and New Languages

 

The whole of eastern Germany, as far as the Elbe and Saal, had been depopulated by the migrations of the Germans, who were replaced by the Slavian nations, the Wendi, Sorbi and Bohemians, while the great hordes of the ancient Ostro-Germanic or Gothic nations spread over the south and west as far as Africa. The Saxons, Thuringians, and the Bavarians, whose name now suddenly starts from its long oblivion, the Alemanni in Swabia, Alsace, and Switzerland, and the Franks on the Rhine, retained their ancient positions in Germany until the migration of the Saxons to England; of the Franks, to northern and central Gaul; of the Burgundians, to the Rhone and the Alps; of the Ostrogoths and Longobardi, to Italy; of the Visigoths, to the Pyrenees and Spain; and of the Vandals, to Africa.

All the tribes that settled within the limits of the Roman empire at first formed a separate and warlike class of nobles, who governed the inhabitants in the despotic manner in which the Turks governed the Greeks, but ere long mixed with the Romans, and more or less adopted their language. This change was more rapidly effected in Italy, where Roman influence was most powerful, on account of the memory of past grandeur and the policy of the popes, who sought to render the Latin tongue universal, in order to facilitate the subjection of the barbarians of the North to the crosier; and, in fact, the Italian language retains more of the ancient Latin tongue, and has been less adulterated with German, than any other of Western Europe.

In Spain, where the Germans formed the minority of the population, the Latin tongue, which had been orientalized by the Moors, who crossed over from Africa, was the common language of the country. In Gaul, the Franks retained the pure German tongue until the time of Charlemagne; but, at a later period, when a separation took place between the Roman West Franks and the Ostro-Franks of pure Germanic descent, the Latin tongue was, through the influence of the Roman clergy, generally adopted by the former. Various dialects of the new French tongue sprang up in Burgundy, in the Visigothic South, in central Gaul, and in the North, where the population was partly composed of Britons, who had fled thither from the Saxon in England, and partly of Normans from Scandinavia (Brittany and Normandy). In England, which had never been entirely subdued by the Romans, the Latin tongue had not taken deep root, and was quickly supplanted by that of the Angli and Saxons, who migrated to that country, which at once accounts for the great similarity that exists between English and German.

I shall merely trace the steps of the migrating Germanic tribes until they mingle with the inhabitants of the country in which they settled, and touch upon the affairs of England and of the Scandinavian North in so far as they are illustrative of those of Germany, whose influence has ever spread far beyond her natural limits, and after affecting the histories of Italy, Spain, and France, after stamping an indelible character on the Middle Ages, has travelled with the Spaniard and the Englishman to the far West, and spread along the shores of the Mississippi, the La Plata, and the Ganges, and over the boundless plains of New Holland), lest in following the winding of the stream we may stray too far from the source. Our mother country, invigorated instead of weakened by the migrations, those great drains of her strength, has imparted a noble heritage of moral and physical power (which in former times proved invincible to the assaults of Roman corruption) to the remotest branches of the great nations she still fosters in her bosom.