History of Human Society

by Frank W. Blackmar

There was another class of houses, belonging to the nobility and the chiefs, called halls. They consisted of one long room, which sometimes had transepts or alcoves for the women, partitioned off by curtains from the main hall. This large room was the place where the lord and his companions were accustomed to sit at the great feasts after their return from a successful expedition. This is the "beer hall" that we read so much about in song, epic, and legend. Here the beer and the mead were passed; here arose the songs and the mirth of the warriors. On the walls of the hall might be seen the rude arms of the warrior, the shield and the spear, or decorations composed of the heads and the skins of wild beasts—all of which bring us to the early type of the hall of the great baron of the feudal age.

Until the age of chivalry, women were not present at these rude feasts. The religious life of the early Germans was tribal rather than personal or of the simple family. There were certain times at which members of the same tribe were wont to assemble and sacrifice to the gods. There was a common meeting-place from year to year. As it has been related, this had a tendency to cement the tribe together and enhance political unity. This custom must have had its influence on social order and must have, in a measure, arrested the tendency of the people to an unsocial and selfish life.

Political Assemblies.—The political assemblies, where all of the freemen met to discuss the affairs of the community, must have been powerful factors in the establishment of social customs and usage. The kinsmen or fellow tribesmen were grouped in villages, and each village maintained its privilege of self-government, and consequently the freemen met in the village assembly to consider the affairs of the community. We find combined in the political representation the ideas of tribal unity and individuality, or at least family independence. As the tribes federated, there was a tendency to make the assemblies more general, and thus the family exclusiveness tended to give way in favor of the development of the individual as a member of the tribal state. It was a slow transition from an ethnic to a democratic type of society.

This association created a feeling of common interest akin to patriotism. Mr. Freeman has given us a graphic representation of the survival of the early assembly in the Swiss cantons.[[1]] In the forest cantons the freemen met in the open field on stated occasions to enact the laws and transact the duties of legislators and judges. But although there was a tendency to sectional and clannish relations in society, this became much improved by the communal associations for political and economic life. But society, as such, could not advance very far when the larger part of the occupation of the freemen was that of war. The youth were educated in the field, and the warriors spent much of their time fighting with neighboring tribes.

The entire social structure, resting as it did upon kinship, found its changes in developing economic, political, and religious life. Especially is this seen in the pursuit of the common industries. As soon as the tribes obtained permanent seats and had given themselves mostly to agriculture, the state of society became more settled, and new customs were gradually introduced. At the same time society became better organized, and each man had his proper place, not only in the social scale but also in the industrial and political life of the tribe.

General Social Customs.—In the summer-time the clothing was very light. The men came frequently to the Roman camp clad in a short jacket and a mantle; the more wealthy ones wore a woollen or linen undergarment. But in the cold weather sheepskins and the pelts of wild animals, as well as hose for the legs and shoes made of leather for the feet, were worn. The mantle was fastened with a buckle, or with a thorn and a belt. In the belt were carried shears and knives for daily use. The women were not as a general thing dressed differently from the men. After the contact with the Romans the methods of dress changed, and there was a greater difference in the garments worn by men and women.

Marriage was a prominent social institution among the tribes, as it always is where the monogamic family prevails. There were doubtless traces of the old custom, common to most races, of wife capture, a custom which long continued as a mere fiction to some extent among the peasantry of certain localities in Germany. In this survival the bride makes feint to escape, and is chased and captured by the bridegroom. Some modern authorities have tried to show that there is a survival of this old custom of courtship, whereby the advances are supposed to be made by the men. The engagement to be married meant a great deal more in those days than at present. It was more than half of the marriage ceremony. Just as among the Hebrews, the engagement was the real marriage contract, and the latter ceremony only a form, so among the Germans the same custom prevailed. After engagement, until marriage they were called the Bräut and Bräutigam, but when wedded they ceased to be thus entitled. The betrothal contained the essential bonds of matrimony, and was far more important before the law than the later ceremony. In modern usage the opposite custom prevails.

The woman was always under wardship; her father was her natural guardian and made the marriage contract or the engagement. When a woman married, she brought with her a dower, furnished by her parents. This consisted of all house furnishings, clothes, and jewelry, and a more substantial dower in lands, money, or live stock. On the morning of the day after marriage the husband gave to the wife the "Morgengabe," which thereafter was her own property. It was the wedding-present of the groom. This is but a survival of the time when marriage among the Germans meant a simple purchase of a wife. It is said that "ein Weib zu kaufen" (to buy a wife) was the common term for getting engaged, and that this phrase was so used as late as the eleventh century. The wardship was called the mundium, and when the maid left her father's house for another home, her mundium was transferred from her father to her husband. This dower began, indeed, with the engagement, and the price of the mundium was paid over to the guardian at the time of the contract. From this time suit for breach of promise could be brought. These are the primitive customs of the marriage ceremony, but they were changed from time to time. Through the influence of Christianity, the woman finally attained prominence in the matter of choosing a husband, and learned, much to her satisfaction, to make her own contracts in matrimony.

The Economic Life.—The economic life was of the most meagre kind in the earlier stages of society. We find that Tacitus, writing 150 years after Caesar, shows that there had been some changes in the people. In the time of Caesar, the tribes were just making their transition from the pastoral-nomadic to the pastoral-agricultural state, and by the time of Tacitus this transition was so general that most of the tribes had settled to a more or less permanent agricultural life. It must be observed that the development of the tribes was not symmetrical, and that which reads very pleasantly on paper represents a very confused state of society. However much the tribes practised agriculture, they had but little peace, for warfare continued to be one of their chief occupations. It was in the battle that a youth received his chief education, and in the chase that he occupied much of his spare time.

But the ground was tilled, and barley, wheat, oats, and rye were raised. Flax was cultivated, and the good housewife did the spinning and weaving—all that was done—for the household. Greens, or herbage, were also cultivated, but fruit-trees seldom were cultivated. With the products of the soil, of the chase, and of the herds, the Teutons lived well. They had bread and meat, milk, butter and cheese, beer and mead, as well as fish and wild game. The superintending of the fields frequently fell to the lot of the hausfrau, and the labor was done by serfs. The tending of the fields, the pursuit of wild animals or the catching of fish, the care of the cattle or herds, and the making of butter and cheese, the building of houses, the bringing of salt from the sea, the making of garments, and the construction of weapons of war and utensils of convenience—these represent the chief industries of the people. Later, the beginnings of commerce sprang up between the separate tribes, and gradually extended to other nationalities.