and Spain Latinized and Chris tianized by the fourth century. all the objects of Roman art, cities which were governed Italy, Gaul, by Roman municipal institutions. By the end of the fourth century the fabric of this society was not only Roman,-it was fast becoming Christian. The ancient paganism had althe end of ready broken down before the aggressive force of the Christian Church. In the provincial cities were fixed the sees of Christian bishops, who formed a part of an ecclesiastical system based upon the dominant faith.2 The three great streams of Teutonic invasion, which spread in successive waves over these Latinized and Christianized provinces of the empire, were unequal both in force and effect. In Gaul the Teuton made his deepest impression, in Italy the least, while in Spain his influence occupies a middle place between the two. But the general character of his influence was everywhere the same; it only varied in degree. Wherever we find settle down the Teutonic invaders conquering and entering into possesin the midst sion of a continental province, we have an example of a new tinental na- nation intruding itself into the midst of an older nation and Teutonic invaders of the con tions. Conquest nowhere as sumed the form of extermination. settling down by its side upon the conquered soil. The invaders came as conquerors, it is true; but they came rather as imitators than as mere destroyers. They had long been in contact with Roman civilization; they had tested the power of the Roman arms; they had felt the charm of the Roman name; and they had nearly all become converts to the Christian religion before the invasions began. And, besides, the invaders were nowhere opposed by any fierce or prolonged native resistance. The consequence was that conquest nowhere assumed the form of extermination.5 The land was generally divided between the conquerors and the conquered 1 As to the history of the Roman municipal system, see Guizot, Hist. Representative Gov., lect. xxii. part i.; Savigny's Hist. of the Roman Law, vol. i. pp. 16-98; De Coulanges, The Ancient City, pp. 470-519. 2 "At the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth, Christianity was no longer a simple belief; it was an institution,-it had formed itself into a corporate body. It had its government, a body of priests; a settled ecclesiastical polity for the regulation of their different functions; revenues; independent means of influence." Guizot, Hist. of Civilization, vol. i. p. 48. 8 A full treatment of this subject will be found in Freeman, Norm. Cong., vol. i. ch. ii.; Stubbs' Const. Hist., vol. i. ch. i.; Origin of the English Nation, part ii. 4 The invaders first became acquainted with Christianity in its Arian form; in Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul, they were for a long time involved in that heresy. In the end, however, they everywhere embraced the orthodox faith. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. iii. pp. 547, 573. 5 The Teutonic conquerors styled themselves guests of the conquered. Ibid., vol. iii. p. 315. according to certain fixed proportions.1 The Roman native language So far as language is concerned the conquerors everywhere Conquerors adopted the tongue of the conquered. Out of the old Latin adopt the speech the Romance languages - French, Spanish, Italian, and creeds and the rest-were born.3 The Romance languages are quered. nothing but Latin, with a deep infusion of Teutonic words.4 So far as religion is concerned the conquerors everywhere adopted the creeds of the conquered. Only in the domain of polity and military organization can the Teutonic element claim in the new combination a position of dominant importance. The leading principles which are worked out in the constitutional histories of France and Spain are Teutonic,an assertion which may be applied in a modified form to the states of Northern and Southern Italy. After making due allowance, however, for Teutonic influence upon polity and military organization, the predominant fact must be recognized in the general result that the framework of the older society survived; it remained in the end Roman and Chris- The older tian; it did not become heathen and Teutonic. In the his- society retory of the continental provinces there is no lack of historical man and continuity. We do not find upon the Continent, as we shall it did not hereafter find in Britain, a century and a half of heathenism, heathen and darkness, and legend intervening between the overthrow of Teutonic. the Roman province and the beginning of the new Teutonic society. In Italy, Spain, and Gaul the older civilization, while taking to itself many elements of Teutonic life, not only mained Ro Christian: become General character Britain. continued to be Roman and Christian, but preserved throughout its identity and continuity. 2. In Britain the continental aspects of Teutonic conquest of Teutonic completely disappear; such conquest there assumed a charconquest in acter and form at once local and peculiar. This changed condition of things resulted, in the main, from two causes. In the first place, apart from its insular character, the very remoteness of Britain from the seat of empire necessarily weakened the tie which bound it to the life of Rome.1 It is, therefore, easy to understand why Roman civilization in Britain took such shallow root. In no other province did the language, the laws, the institutions of Rome rest upon such superficial foundations.2 And yet all the externals of Roman life were there. The municipia and colonia sprang up within the area which the legions had reduced to subjection, and a net-work of Roman roads by which the country was intersected connected them with each other. The cities were, no doubt, thoroughly Romanized, but it is extremely doubtful whether Roman civilization ever made any serious impression upon the mass of the Celtic provincials. The language of Rome was doubtless spoken in the cities and towns, and by the wealthy classes outside of the towns, but it is hardly possible that it could ever have been spoken by the main Roman civ- body of the people. Roman civilization in Britain was Britain nothing but an exotic, with no real, self-sustaining hold upon nothing but the native Celtic race. Consequently, when the power and ilization in an exotic. support of Rome were withdrawn, it collapsed from lack of power to maintain an independent existence. The Teutonic invaders of what had been Roman Britain never came in contact with the full force of Roman civilization; they only encountered a set of superficial influences already in a state of disorganization and decay. In the second place, the invaders came directly into Britain from their seats in the far 1 Green, Making of Eng., p. 6. 2 "No otherwise can we even plau- 4 Green, Making of Eng., p. 12. "Latin was undoubtedly the speech of the cities, the speech of government, literature, and polite life. Welsh was under a cloud, just as English was, ages after, in the days of Norman rule." Freeman, Origin of the Eng. Nation p. 102. ers cross small com panies. North, where they had lived completely removed from the power and influence of Rome. Excepting perhaps a single expedition, the legions had never been seen upon their shores; with Roman standards and with Roman missionaries they were equally unfamiliar. They possessed no conceptions either of government or of law except such as were indigenous to the race; they knew no religion except the religion of Odin. In this state of pure barbaric heathenism the invaders entered, without intermediate probation, upon the conquest of Britain. Such conquest necessarily differed from every continental conquest in the manner in which it was undertaken, and it also differed as to the native resistance which it encountered. The invaders were compelled to cross the sea The invad in ships, and their sea craft and war craft could only trans- the sea in port bodies of men, more or less formidable, and not great armies of invasion by which the whole land could be suddenly overrun. All the evidence goes to show that the Teutonic invaders came into Britain in disconnected bands, each under its own leader, who singled out some special district of country for conquest and settlement.1 Such a leader, with the limited force at his command, necessarily circumscribed his efforts to a narrow area, from which, by dint of hard fighting, he was obliged to drive the Celtic masters of the soil. In this way, bit by bit, the land was won. Moving from the south, the east, and the northeast, the invaders drove the Britons slowly to the west. The struggle, from its very nature, was a bitter one; invasion no longer signified forcible intrusion; it became the equivalent of extermination. Invasion Everything goes to show that the first stage of Teutonic equivalent conquest in Britain signified the utter annihilation of the of exterminative race within the limits which the conquerors defined within cerwith their swords.2 Before the invader settled down the Celt was either expelled or exterminated, and with him disappeared whatever he had acquired of the civilization, language, religion, or law of Rome. In the general wreck, even the Roman land, p. 128; Freeman, Origin of Eng. Nation, p. 107. 1 "The story of the conquest confirms the English tradition that the invaders of Britain landed in small parties, and that they were only gradually reinforced by after-comers. Nor was there any joint action among the assailants to compensate for the smallness of their numbers." Green, Making of Eng 2 This restatement of the "Teutonic theory" must be taken with the quali fications put upon it in the Introduc tion. See above, p. 11. 8 "The proofs of such a displacement lie less in isolated passages from chron became the nation, tain limits. Result of the con trast. "A Germany outside of municipalities perished.1 The Teuton came into Britain as a mere destroyer; and of the Romanized natives of the land he learned absolutely nothing. 3. Under these favorable circumstances the whole fabric of Teutonic life was replanted, in its primitive purity, on a free and unincumbered soil. While the Germans of Gaul, Italy, and Spain became Romans, the Saxons retained their language, their genius, and manners, and created in Britain a Germany outside of Germany.' "2 By this statement the difference between Teutonic conquest and settlement in Britain Germany." and Teutonic conquest and settlement upon the Continent is clearly defined. In the one case the invaders were absorbed in the mass of the conquered; Teutonic life simply became an element in the older Roman society. In the other the invaders absolutely annihilated, within the limits which they made their own while they were still heathens, every vestige of the existing civilization, and established in its stead their whole scheme of barbaric life. The Teutonic polity thus established in Britain in its purity has been able to survive, and to preserve not only its identity but its primitive instinct in all the vicissitudes of change and of growth through which it has passed. English nation Teu race. 4. The invaders, who thus established a new nationality in tonic as to Britain, were of the purest Teutonic type, and all spoke dialects of the Low-German. From the earliest period in their insular history, these settlers knew themselves as "the English kin;" and out of their union has arisen the English nation, which, through all the vicissitudes of internal growth and external influence, has preserved both its national character and its identity. In the course of its history it has received many infusions, it is true, for the most part, however, from other branches of the Teutonic stock. No nation can claim absolute purity of blood; foreign elements are present in the veins of every people. But the national character is never lost so long as the paternal element is strong enough to absorb all other elements and to impress icle or history than in the broad fea- 1 Kemble, Saxons in Eng., vol. ii. - 2 Taine, Hist. of Eng. Literature, vol. i. p. 50. Freeman, Norm. Cong., vol. i. p. 15; citing the entries in Chronicle under the years 443, 449, and 473. |