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The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians

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The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians A Series of Lectures. By J. B. Bury 1928 Credits Support the Scribe’s Gild and help us make the Lore of the North accessible to everyone. To visit the Scribe’s Gild and find out how go to: http://www.northvegr.org/scribe/index.html This text brought to you in e-Book format by: Visit Northvegr on the web at: http://www.northvegr.org/ This text transcribed by Loptsson [email protected] Get Northvegr Texts on CD-ROM © 2003 Northvegr and A. Odhinssen. This book can be distributed freely as long as no monetary gain is made and the credits are left intact. PREFATORY NOTE In 1902 the late Professor J. B. Bury was appointed to succeed Lord Acton as the holder of the Regius Chair of Modern History in the University of Cambridge. He interpreted the term "modern" with the same largeness and liberality as had his friend and master, Professor E. A. Freeman, at Oxford; even if he did not go so far as to say, with a German authority, the "Modern History begins with the Call of Abraham". In other words, he did not feel himself bound to restrict either his reading or his lecturing to the four Post-Renaissance centuries which are regarded as "modern" in the narrow sense of the term. On the contrary, he considered it proper that he should continue to pursue those researches into the history of the later Roman Empire for which his high technicle equipment---in particular his remarkable knowledge of Slavonic and other East-European languages---specially fitted him. Hence, as Professor at Cambridge, he completed the important investigations, begun at Dublin, which resulted in the publication of the scholarly notes and appendixes in his illustrated edition of Gibbon's Decline and Fall (1909); his masterly Constitution of the Later Roman Empire (1910); his notable article on the "Later Roman Empire" in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911); his pioneer History of the Roman Empire, A.D. 802-867 (1912); and his revised and amplified History of the Roman Empire, A.D. 395-565 (1923). The main results of his highly specialised research and wide reading he embodied in various courses of lectures delivered from time to time before the University. In particular, beginning in the Michaelmas term of his second professorial year, he treated periodically of "The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians", covering roughly the two centuries of transition from Roman to Mediaeval Europe, A.D. 375-575. These lectures, of course, contained little or nothing which was not being incorporated in greater detail and with an elaborate apparatus of notes and references in the larger works which were being produced simultaneously with them. They did, however, as revised from year to year, present in vivid and memorable form the principal conclusions of much recondite research and mature thought. As summaries of Professor Bury's opinions on a number of long-debated problems they are of great interest and enduring value. What Professor Bury has to say, for instance, on the relative importance of the battles of Chalons (451) and Nedao (454) will be fresh to many readers, and full of illumination for all. His constant insistence, too, on the gradual and imperceptible encroachment of Barbarism upon Romanism during the two centuries under review is, in the highest degree, impressive and convincing. Apart from the correcting of a few typographical errors, the amending of a grammatical slip here and there, and the adding of an occasional reference, the work of the editor has consisted mainly in (1) finding an appropriate title for each of the lectures here presented, and (2) in dividing each lecture into sections, with sub-headings, so as to give a clearer idea of the contents of the lectures and to facilitate reference on particular points. In case any reader should consider that the titles and sub-headings are not happily chosen, it is here explicitly stated that the sole responsibility for them rests upon the shoulders of F. J. C. HEARNSHAW King's College University of London 15th December 1927 LECTURE 1 THE GERMANS AND THEIR WANDERINGS EARLY GERMAN HISTORY---WEST GERMANS AND EAST GERMANS---POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE GERMANS---EARLY GOTHIC MIGRATIONS EARLY GERMAN HISTORY The present series of lectures is designed to give a broad and general view of the long sequence of the migratory movements of the northern barbarians which began in the third and fourth centuries A.D. and cannot be said to have terminated till the ninth. This long process shaped Europe into its present form, and it must be grasped in its broad outlines in order to understand the framework of modern Europe. There are two ways in which the subject may be treated, two points of view from which the sequence of changes which broke up the Roman Empire may be regarded. We may look at the process, in the earliest and most important stage, from the point of view of the Empire which was being dismembered or from that of the barbarians who were dismembering it. We may stand in Rome and watch the strangers sweeping over her provinces; or we may stand east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, amid the forests of Germany, and follow the fortunes of the men who issued thence, winning new habitations and entering on a new life. Both methods have been followed by modern writers. Gibbon and many others have told the story from the side of the Roman Empire, but all the principal barbarian peoples---not only those who founded permanent states, but even those who formed only transient kingdoms---have had each its special historian. One naturally falls into the habit of contemplating these events from the Roman side because the early part of the story has come down to us in records which were written from the Roman side. We must, however, try to see things from both points of view. The barbarians who dismembered the Empire were mainly Germans. It is not till the sixth century that people of another race---the Slavs---appear upon the scene. Those who approach for the first time the study of the beginnings of medieval history will probably find it difficult to group and locate clearly in their minds the multitude of Germanic peoples who surge over the scene in distracting confusion. The apparent confusion vanishes, of course, with familiarity, and the movements fall into a certain order. But at the very outset the study of the period may be simplified by drawing a line of division within the Germanic world. This capital line of division is geographical, but it has its basis in historical facts. It is the distinction of the West Germans from the East Germans. To understand this division we must go back for a moment into the early history of the Germans. WEST GERMANS AND EAST GERMANS In the second millennium B.C. the homes of the Germanic peoples were in southern Scandinavia, in Denmark, and in the adjacent lands between the Elbe and the Oder. East of them beyond the Oder were Baltic or Lettic peoples, who are now represented by Lithuanians and Letts. The lands west of the Elbe, to the Rhine, were occupied by Celts. After 1000 B.C. a double movement of expansion began. The Germans between the Oder and the Elbe pressed westward, displacing the Celts. The boundary between the Celts and Germans advanced to the west, and by about 200 B.C. it had been pushed forward to the Rhine, and southward to the Main. Throughout this period the Germans had been also pressing up the Elbe. Soon after 100 B.C. southern Germany had been occupied, and they were attempting to flood Gaul. This inundation was stemmed by Julius Ceasar. Now all these peoples who expanded over western Germany from their original seats between the Oder and Elbe we will class as the West Germans. The other movement was a migration from Scandinavia to the opposite coasts of the Baltic, between the Oder and the Vistula, and ultimately beyond the Vistula. This migration seems to have taken place at a later period than the beginning of the expansion of the West Germans. It is placed by a recent authority, Kossinna, in the later bronze period, between 600 and 300 B.C. (1) By the latter date they seem to have pressed right up to the Vistula to the neighbourhood of the Carpathians. These comers from Scandinavia formed a group which in dialect and customs may be distinguished from the West Germans, as well as in their geographical position; and we designate them as East Germans. The distinction is convenient because the historical roles of these two divisions of the German race were different. There is also a third division, the North Germans of Scandinavia; but with them we are not concerned. In the period with which we have to do, the West Germans are comparatively settled geographically, whereas the East Germans are migratory. Now it is not difficult to understand why this is so. All the ancient Germans were shepherds and hunters. They had some agriculture before the time of Julius Ceasar, but not much. Central Europe till well into the Middle Ages consisted largely of dense forests and marshlands. There were, however, districts free from wood, and the absence of wood was the circumstance which largely determined the early settlements of the Germans. Geographers are able to fix the position of such tracts of steppe land by means of the remains of steppe plants---plants which cannot live either in the forest or on cultivated soil---and also by the remains of animals which are characteristic of the steppe.
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