THEY SETTLE DOWN WITHIN THE EMPIRE. Finally, after a period of wandering and plundering, each of these new peoples settled down within the Empire as rulers over the numerically larger native Roman population, and slowly began to turn from hunting to a rude type of farming. For three or four centuries after the invasions ceased, though, Europe presented a dreary spectacle of ignorance, lawlessness, and violence. Force reigned where law and order had once been supreme. Work largely ceased, because there was no security for the results of labor. The Roman schools gradually died out, in part because of pagan hostility (all pagan schools were closed by imperial edict in 529 A.D.), and in part because they no longer ministered to any real need. The church and the monastery schools alone remained, the instruction in these was meager indeed, and they served almost entirely the special needs of the priestly and monastic classes. The Latin language was corrupted and modified into spoken dialects, and the written language died out except with the monks and the clergy. Even here it became greatly corrupted. Art perished, and science disappeared. The former Roman skill in handicrafts was largely lost. Roads and bridges were left without repair. Commerce and intercourse almost ceased. The cities decayed, and many were entirely destroyed (R. 49).
The new ruling class was ignorant—few could read or write their names— and they cared little for the learning of Greece and Rome. Much of what was excellent in the ancient civilizations died out because these new peoples were as yet too ignorant to understand or use it, and what was preserved was due to the work of others than themselves. It was with such people and on such a basis that it was necessary for whatever constructive forces still remained to begin again the task of building up new foundations for a future European civilization. This was the work of centuries, and during the period the lamp of learning almost went out.
BARBARIAN AND ROMAN IN CONTACT. Civilization was saved from almost complete destruction chiefly by reason of the long and substantial work which Rome had done in organizing and governing and unifying the Empire; by the relatively slow and gradual coming of the different tribes; and by the thorough organization of the governing side of the Christian Church, which had been effected before the Empire was finally overrun and Roman government ceased. In unifying the government of the Empire and establishing a common law, language, and traditions, and in early beginning the process of receiving barbarians into the Empire and educating them in her ways and her schools, [7] Rome rendered the western world a service of inestimable importance and one which did much to prepare the way for the reception and assimilation of the invaders. [8] In the cities, which remained Roman in spirit even after their rulers had changed, and where the Roman population greatly preponderated even after the invaders had come, some of the old culture and handicrafts were kept up, and in the cities of southern Europe the municipal form of city government was retained. Roman law still applied to trials of Roman citizens, and many Roman governmental forms passed over to the invader chiefly because he knew no other. The old Roman population for long continued to furnish the clergy, and these, because of their ability to read and write, also became the secretaries and advisers of their rude Teutonic overlords. In one capacity or another they persuaded the leaders of the tribes to adopt, not only Christianity, but many of the customs and practices of the old civilization as well. These various influences helped to assimilate and educate the newcomers, and to save something of the old civilization for the future. Being strong, sturdy, and full of youthful energy, and with a large capacity for learning, the civilizing process, though long and difficult, was easier than it might otherwise have been, and because of their strength and vigor these new races in time infused new life and energy into every land from Spain to eastern Europe (R. 50).
The most powerful force with which the barbarians came in contact, though, and the one which did most to reduce them to civilization, was the Christian Church. Organized, as we have seen, after the Roman governmental model, and as a State within a State, the Church gained in strength as the Roman government grew weaker, and was ready to assume governmental authority when Rome could no longer exert it. The barbarians here encountered an organization stronger than force and greater than kings, [9] which they must either accept and make terms with or absolutely destroy. As all the tribes, though heathen, possessed some form of spirit or nature worship or heathen gods, which served as a basis for understanding the appeal of the Church, the result was the ultimate victory, and the Christianizing, in name at least, of all the barbarian tribes. This was the first step in the long process of civilizing and educating them.
THE IMPRESS OF CHRISTIANITY UPON THEM. The importance of the services rendered by bishops, priests, and monks during what are known as the Dark Ages can hardly be overestimated. In the face of might they upheld the right of the Church and its representatives to command obedience and respect. [10] The Christian priest gradually forced the barbarian chief to do his will, though at times he refused to be awed into submission, murdered the priest, and sacked the sacred edifice. That the Church lost much of its early purity of worship, and adopted many practices fitted to the needs of the time, but not consistent with real religion, there can be no question. In time the Church gained much from the mixture of these new peoples among the old, as they infused new vigor and energy into the blood of the old races, but the immediate effect was quite otherwise. The Church itself was paganized, but the barbarians were in time Christianized.
Priests and missionaries went among the heathen tribes and labored for their conversion. Of course the leaders were sought out first, and often the conversion of a chieftain was made by first converting his wife. After the chieftain had been won the minor leaders in time followed. The lesson of the cross was proclaimed, and the softening and restraining influences of the Christian faith were exerted on the barbarian. It was, however, a long and weary road to restore even a semblance of the order and respect for life and property which had prevailed under Roman rule.
One of the most interesting of all the conversions was that made by the Bishop Ulphilas (c. 313-383) among the Visigoths, before they moved westward from their original home north of the Danube, in what is now southwestern Russia. Ulphilas was made bishop and sent among them in 343, and spent the remainder of his life in laboring with them. He devised an alphabet for them, based on the Greek, and gave them a written language into which he translated for them the Bible, or rather large portions of it. In the translation he omitted the two books of Kings and the two Samuels, that the people might not find in them a further stimulus to their great warlike activity.
[Illustration: FIG. 36. A PAGE OF THE GOTHIC GOSPELS (reduced) One of the treasures of the library of the University or Upsala, in Sweden, is a manuscript of this translation by Bishop Ulphilas. Greek letters, with a few Runic signs were used to represent Gothic sounds. The word "rune" comes from a Gothic word meaning "mystery." To the primitive Germans it seemed a mysterious thing that a series of marks could express thought.]
Christianity had been carried early to Great Britain by Roman missionaries, and in 440 Saint Patrick converted the Irish. In 563 Saint Columba crossed to Scotland, founded the monastery at Iona, and began the conversion of the Scots. After the Angles and Saxons and Jutes had overrun eastern and southern Britain there was a period of several generations during which this portion of the island was given over to Teutonic heathenism. In 597 Saint Augustine, "the Apostle to the English," landed in Kent and began the conversion of the people, that year succeeding in converting Ethelbert, King of Kent. In 626 Edwin, King of Northumbria, was converted, and in 635 the English of Wessex accepted Christianity. The English at once became strong supporters of the Christian faith, and in 878 they forced the invading Danes to accept Christianity as one of the conditions of the Peace of Wedmore. (See Map, Figure 42.)
In 496 Clovis, King of the Franks, and three thousand of his followers were baptized, following a vow and a victory in battle; [11] in 587 Recarred, King of the Goths in Spain, was won over; and in 681 the South Saxons accepted Christianity. The Germans of Bavaria and Thuringia were finally won over by about 740. Charlemagne repeatedly forced the northern Saxons to accept Christianity, between 772 and 804, when the final submission of this German tribe took place. Finally, in the tenth century, Rollo, Duke of the Normans, was won (912); Boleslav II, King of the Bohemians, in 967; and the Hungarians in 972. In the tenth century the Slavs were converted to the Eastern or Greek type of Christianity, and Poland, Norway, and Sweden to the Western or Roman type. The last people to be converted were the Prussians, a half-Slavic tribe inhabiting East Prussia and Lithuania, along the eastern Baltic, who were not brought to accept Christianity, in name, until near the middle of the thirteenth century, though efforts were begun with them as early as 900. As late as 1230 they were still offering human sacrifices to their heathen gods to secure their favor, but soon after this date they were forced to a nominal acceptance of Christianity as a result of conquest by the "Teutonic Knights." It was thus a thousand years after its foundation before Europe had accepted in name the Christian faith. To change a nominal acceptance to some semblance of a reality has been the work of the succeeding centuries.