The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

During the whole of that century the Franks were pressing into Gaul. The Imperial city of Trier was more than once taken, and the seat of the provincial government was removed to Arles. ♦Reign of Chlodwig. A.D. 481-511.♦ The union of the two chief divisions of the Frankish confederacy, and the overthrow of the Alemanni, made the Franks, under their first Christian king, Chlodwig or Clovis, the ruling people of northern Gaul and central Germany. Their territory thus took in both lands which had been part of the Empire, and lands which had never been such. ♦Character and divisions of the Frankish kingdom.♦ This is a special characteristic of the Frankish settlement, and one which influences the whole of their later history. There was, from the very beginning, long before any such distinction was consciously drawn, a Teutonic and a Latin Francia. There were Frankish lands to the East which never had been Roman. There were lands in northern Gaul which remained practically Roman under the Frankish dominion. ♦Roman Germany Teutonized afresh.♦ And between them lay, on the left bank of the Rhine, the Teutonic lands which had formed part of the Roman province of Gaul, but which now became Teutonic again. Moguntiacum, Augusta Treverorum, and Colonia Agrippina, cities founded on Teutonic soil, now again became German, ready to be in due time, by the names of Mainz, Trier, and Köln, the metropolitan and electoral cities of Germany. ♦Eastern and Western Francia.♦ These lands, with the original German lands, formed the Eastern or Teutonic Francia, where the Franks, or their German allies and subjects, formed the real population of the country. In the Western Francia, between the Loire and the Channel, though the Franks largely settled and influenced the country in many ways, the mass of the population remained Roman. ♦Armorica or Britanny.♦ Over the western peninsula of Armorica the dominion of the Franks was always precarious and, at most, external. Here the ante-Roman population still kept its Celtic language, and it was further strengthened by colonies from Britain, from which the land took its later name of the Lesser Britain or Britanny. ♦Extent of the Frankish dominion. A.D. 500.♦ Thus, at the end of the fifth century, the Frankish dominion was firmly established over the whole of central Germany and Northern Gaul. Their dominion was fated to be the most lasting of the Teutonic kingdoms formed on the Roman mainland. The reason is obvious; while the Goths in Spain and the Vandals in Africa were isolated Teutonic settlers in a Roman land, the Franks in Gaul were strengthened by the unbroken Teutonic mainland at their back.

♦The Burgundians.♦

The greater part of Gaul was thus, at the end of the fifth century, divided between the Franks in the north and the West-Goths in the south. But, early in the fifth century, a third Teutonic power grew up in south-eastern Gaul. ♦Their kingdom.♦ The Burgundians, a people who, in the course of the Wandering of the Nations, seem to have made their way from the shores of the Baltic, established themselves in the lands between the Rhone and the Alps, where they formed a kingdom which bore their name. Their dominion in Gaul may be said to have been more lasting than that of the Goths, less lasting than that of the Franks. ♦Meaning of the word Burgundy.♦ Burgundy is still a recognized name; but no name in geography has so often shifted its place and meaning, and it has for some centuries settled itself on a very small part of the ancient kingdom of the Burgundians. ♦Provence Burgundian. A.D. 500-510.
510-536.♦ At the end of the fifth century the Rhone was a Burgundian river; Autun, Besançon, Lyons, and Vienne were Burgundian cities; but the sea coast, the original Roman Province, the land which has so steadily kept that name, though it fell for a moment under the Burgundian power, followed at this time, as became the first Roman land beyond the Alps, the fortunes of Italy rather than those of Gaul.

♦Invasion of the Huns.♦

Among these various conquests and shiftings of dominion, all of which affected the map at the time, some of which have affected history and geography ever since, it may be well to mention, if only by way of contrast, an inroad which fills a great place in the history of the fifth century, but which had no direct effect on geography. ♦Battle of Châlons. A.D. 451.♦ This was the invasion of Italy and Gaul by the Huns under Attila, and their defeat at Châlons by the combined forces of Romans, West-Goths, and Franks. This battle is one of the events which is remarkable, not for working change, but for hindering it. Had Attila succeeded, the greatest of all changes would have taken place throughout all Western Europe. As it was, the map of Gaul was not affected by his inroad. ♦Destruction of Aquileia, and origin of Venice.♦ On the map of Italy it did have an indirect effect; he destroyed the city of Aquileia, and its inhabitants, fleeing to the Venetian islands, laid the foundation of one of the later powers of Europe in the form of the commonwealth of Venice.

While Spain and Gaul were thus rent away from the Empire, Italy and Rome itself were practically rent away also, though the form which the event took was different. ♦Reunion of the Empire.
Rule of Odoacer. A.D. 476-493.♦ A vote of the Senate reunited the Western Empire to the Eastern; the Eastern Emperor Zeno became sole Emperor, and the government of the diocese of Italy—that is, it will be remembered, of a large territory besides the Italian peninsula—was entrusted by his commission to Odoacer, a general of barbarian mercenaries, with the rank of Patrician. No doubt Odoacer was practically independent of the Empire; but the union of the Empire was preserved in form, and no separate kingdom of Italy was set up. ♦The East-Goths in Italy.♦ Presently Odoacer was overthrown by Theodoric king of the East-Goths, who, though king of his own people, reigned in Italy by an Imperial commission as Patrician. ♦Rule of Theodoric. A.D. 493-526.♦ Practically, he founded an East-Gothic kingdom, taking in Italy and the other lands which formed the dioceses of Italy and Western Illyricum. ♦Extent of his dominion.♦ His dominion also took in the coast of what we may now call Provence, and his influence was extended in various ways over most of the kingdoms of the West. The seat of the Gothic dominion, like that of the later Western Empire, was at Ravenna. Practically Theodoric and his successors were independent kings, and, as chiefs of their own people, they bore the kingly title. ♦Theory of the Empire.♦ Hence, as Rome formed part of their dominions, it is true to say that under them Rome ceased to be part of the Roman Empire. Still in theory the Imperial supremacy went on, and in this way it became much easier for Italy to be won back to the Empire at a somewhat later time.

§ 4. Settlement of the English in Britain.

Meanwhile, in another part of Europe, a Teutonic settlement of quite another character from those on the mainland was going on. ♦The Romans withdrawn from Britain. A.D. 411.♦ Spain and Gaul fell away from the Empire by slow degrees; but the Roman dominion in Britain came to an end by a definite act at a definite moment. The Roman armies were withdrawn from the province, and its inhabitants were left to themselves. Presently, a new settlement took place in the island which was thus left undefended. ♦Difference between the conquest of Britain and other Teutonic conquests.♦ It is specially important to mark the difference between the Teutonic settlements in Britain and the Teutonic conquests on the mainland. The Teutonic conquests in Gaul and Spain were made by Teutonic neighbours who had already learned to know and respect the Roman civilization, who were either Christians already or became Christians soon after they entered the Empire. They pressed in gradually by land; they left the Roman inhabitants to live after the Roman law, and they themselves gradually adopted the speech and much of the manners of Rome. The only exception to this rule on the continent is to be found in the lands immediately on the Rhine and the Danube, where the Teutonic settlement was complete, and where the Roman tongue and civilization were pretty well wiped out. This same process happened yet more completely in the Teutonic conquest of Britain. ♦Character of the English settlement; long struggle with the Britons.♦ The great island possession of Rome had been virtually abandoned by Rome before the Teutonic settlements in it began. The invaders had therefore to struggle rather with native Britons than with Romans. Moreover, they were invaders who came by sea, and who came from lands where little or nothing was known of the Roman law or religion. They therefore made a settlement of quite another kind from the settlement of the Goths or even from that of the Franks. They met with a degree of strictly national resistance such as no other Teutonic conquerors met with; therefore in the end they swept away all traces of the earlier state of things in a way which took place nowhere else. ♦The English remain Teutonic.♦ As far as such a process is possible, they slew or drove out the older inhabitants; they kept their heathen religion and Teutonic language, and were thus able to grow up as a new Teutonic nation in their new home without any important intermixture with the earlier inhabitants, Roman or British.

♦The Low-Dutch settlements in Britain.♦

The conquerors who wrought this change were our own forefathers, the Low-Dutch inhabitants of the border lands of Germany and Denmark, quite away from the Roman frontier; and among them three tribes, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, had the chief share in the conquest of Britain. ♦Saxons.♦ The Saxons had, as has already been said, attempted a settlement in the fourth century. They were therefore the tribe who were first known to the Roman and Celtic inhabitants of the island; the Celts of Britain and Ireland have therefore called all the Teutonic settlers Saxons to this day. ♦Origin of the name English.♦ But, as the Angles or English occupied in the end much the greater part of the land, it was they who, when the Teutonic tribes in Britain began to form one nation, gave their name to that nation and its land. That nation was the English, and their land was England. While Britain therefore remains the proper geographical name of the whole island, England is the name of that part of Britain which was step by step conquered by the English. Before the end of the fifth century several Teutonic kingdoms had begun in Britain. ♦Jutes in Kent. A.D. 449.♦ The Jutes began the conquest by their settlement in Kent, and presently the Saxons began to settle on the South coast and on a small part of the East coast, in Sussex, Wessex, and Essex. ♦Saxon and Anglian settlements.♦ And along a great part of the eastern coast various Anglian settlements were made, which gradually grew into the kingdoms of East-Anglia, Deira, and Bernicia, which two last formed by their union the great kingdom of Northumberland. But, at the end of the sixth century, the English had not got very far from the southern and eastern coasts. ♦The Welsh and Scots.♦ The Britons, whom the English called Welsh or strangers, held out in the West, and the Picts and Scots in the North. The Scots were properly the people of Ireland; but a colony of them had settled on the western coast of northern Britain, and, in the end, they gave the name of Scotland to the whole North of the island.