A second world force had now come into its own. The new power was the Germanic peoples, those wandering tribes who, after shattering the Roman Empire, were destined to form the modern nations of Europe and to find in Christianity the religion most admirably adapted to fill their spiritual needs and shape their ideals. In the year 476 the barbarian Odoacer ascended the throne of the Caesars. He still pretended to govern by virtue of the authority delegated to him by Zeno, emperor at Constantinople; but the rupture between East and West was becoming final and after the reign of Justinian (527-565) it was practically complete. Henceforth the eastern empire had little or nothing to do with western Europe and subsisted as an independent monarchy until Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1453. I shall not concern myself with it any longer.
In western Europe, then, new races with new ideals were forming the nations that to-day are England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Austria. It is interesting to note what some of these barbarians thought about women and what place they assigned them.
Julius Caesar's account.
Our earliest authorities on the subject are Julius Caesar and Tacitus. Caesar informs us[[288]] that among the Gauls marriage was a well recognized institution. The husband contributed of his own goods the same amount that his wife brought by way of dowry; the combined property and its income were enjoyed on equal terms by husband and wife. If husband or wife died, all the property became the possession of the surviving partner. Yet the husband had full power of life and death over his wife as over his children; and if, upon the decease of a noble, there were suspicions regarding the manner of his death, his wife was put to inquisitorial torture and was burnt at the stake when adjudged guilty of murder. Among the Germans women seem to have been held in somewhat greater respect. German matrons were esteemed as prophetesses and no battle was entered upon unless they had first consulted the lots and given assurance that the fight would be successful.[[289]] As for the British, who were not a Germanic people, Caesar says that they practiced polygamy and near relatives were accustomed to have wives in common.[[290]]
The account of Tacitus.
Tacitus wrote a century and a half after Julius Caesar when the tribes had become better known the Romans; hence we get from him more detailed information. From him we learn that both the Sitones—a people of northern Germany—and the British often bestowed the royal power on women, a circumstance which aroused the strong contempt of Tacitus, who was in this respect of a conservative mind.[[291]] The Romans had, indeed, good reason to remember with sorrow the valiant Boadicea, queen of the Britons.[[292]] Regarding the Germans Tacitus wrote a whole book in which he idealises that nation as a contrast to the lax morality of civilised Rome, much as Rousseau in the eighteenth century extolled the virtues of savages in a state of nature. What Tacitus says in regard to lofty morals we shall do well to take with a pinch of salt; but we may with more safety trust his accuracy when he depicts national customs. From Tacitus we learn that the Germans believed something divine resided in women[[293]]; hence their respect for them as prophetesses.[[294]] One Velaeda by her soothsaying ruled the tribe of Bructeri completely[[295]] and was regarded as a goddess,[[296]] as were many others.[[297]] The German warrior fought his best that he might protect and please his wife.[[298]] The standard of conjugal fidelity was strict[[299]]; men were content with one wife, although high nobles were sometimes allowed several wives as an increase to the family prestige.[[300]] The dowry was brought not by the wife to the husband, but to the wife by the husband—evidently a survival of the custom of wife purchase; but the wife was accustomed to present her husband with arms and the accoutrements of war.[[301]] She was reminded that she took her husband for better and worse, to be a faithful partner in joy and sorrow until death.[[302]] A woman guilty of adultery was shorn and her husband drove her naked through the village with blows.[[303]]
The written laws of the barbarians.
We see, then, that by no means all of these barbarian nations had the same standards in regard to women. Of written laws there were none as yet. But contact with the civilisation of Rome had its effect; and when Goths, Burgunindians, Franks, and Lombards had founded new states on the ruins of the western Roman Empire, the national laws of the Germanic tribes began to be collected and put into writing at the close of the fifth century. Between the fifth and the ninth centuries we get the Visigothic, Burgundian, Salic, Ripuarian, Alemannic, Lombardian, Bavarian, Frisian, Saxon, and Thuringian law books. They are written in medieval Latin and are not elaborated on a scientific basis. Three distinct influences are to be seen in them: (1) native race customs, ideals, and traditions; (2) Christianity; (3) the Roman civil law, which was felt more or less in all, but especially in the case of the Visigoths; as was natural, since this people had been brought into closest touch with Rome. Inasmuch as the barbarians allowed all peoples conquered by them to be tried under their own laws, the old Roman civil law was still potent in all its strength in cases affecting a Roman. Let us endeavour to glean what we can from the barbarian codes on the matter of women's rights.
Guardianship.
The woman was always to be under guardianship among the Germanic peoples and could never be independent under any conditions. Perhaps we should rather call the power (mundium) wielded by father, brother, husband, or other male relative a protectorate; for in those early days among rude peoples any legal action might involve fighting to prove the merits of one's case, and the woman would therefore constantly need a champion to assert her rights in the lists. Thus the woman was under the perpetual guardianship of a male relative and must do nothing without his consent, under penalty of losing her property.[[304]] Her guardian arranged her marriage for her as he wished, provided only that he chose a free man for her husband[[305]]; if the woman, whether virgin or widow, married without his consent, she lost all power to inherit the goods of her relatives[[306]]; and her husband was forced to pay to her kin a recompense amounting to 600 solidi among the Saxons, 186 among the Burgundians.[[307]]