The Heroic Age

by H. Munro Chadwick

The Heroic Age, both Greek and Teutonic, presents us with the picture of a society largely free from restraint of any kind. In the higher ranks tribal law has ceased to maintain its force; and its decay leaves the individual free from obligations both to the kindred and to the community. He may disregard the bonds of kinship even to the extent of taking a kinsman's life; and he recognises no authority beyond that of the lord whose service he has entered. The same freedom is exhibited in his attitude to the deities.

It is of course in princes that we find these features most strongly developed. That which they prize above all else is the ability to indulge their desires to the full—in feasting and every form of enjoyment for themselves, in unlimited generosity to their friends, in ferocious vindictiveness towards their foes. The hero of the Odyssey, when his opportunity arrives, sets no limit to the vengeance which he exacts, from prince, goatherd and maidservant. Achilles, the chief hero of the Iliad, is transformed into a savage when he gets possession of the dead body of his enemy. His story furnishes a fitting parallel to that of Alboin, whose brutal conduct brought upon him so swift a retribution. And it is to be remembered that this Alboin's generosity was a theme of poetry from Italy to England.

The best side of heroic kingship may be seen in such a character as Hrothgar. His conception of the duties of a national ruler may have been of a somewhat elementary character. But it is rather as the head of a large household that we have to regard him; and as such he commands our esteem. Even in the Merovingian family—we may cite Gregory's description (III 25) of Theodberht—there were princes who won the respect of Roman ecclesiastics. In the courts of such princes the conditions of life were probably as good as at any time for many centuries later. We have no reason for supposing that the case was otherwise in the Heroic Age of Greece.

But above all we have to remember the heroic poems. It is not reasonable to regard the Anglo-Saxon poems, much less the Homeric poems, as products of barbarism. The courts which gave birth to such poetry must have appropriated to a considerable extent the culture, as well as the wealth and luxury, of earlier civilisations. It is to be remarked however that the hold which these poems have exercised on subsequent ages, in very different stages of culture, is due not only to their artistic qualities but also to the absorbing interest of the situations which they depict. This interest arises very largely from the extraordinary freedom from restraint enjoyed by the characters in the gratification of their feelings and desires and from the tremendous and sudden vicissitudes of fortune to which they are exposed. The pictures presented to us are those of persons by no means ignorant of the pleasures and even the refinements of civilised life, yet dominated by the pride and passions which spring from an entirely reckless individualism and untrained by experience to exercise moderation. According to the view put forward above the explanation of such features is to be found not so much in any peculiarly fertile gift of imagination by which the conventional court poetry of these periods was inspired, but rather in the circumstances of the times and in the character of the courts which produced that poetry.

FOOTNOTES:

[637] Cremation may have a common origin in the two cases; but this practice appears to have been introduced into the North at least fifteen centuries before the Heroic Age. It has been suggested that the origin of the practice may be found in the late neolithic settlements in the district of the Dniestr and Dniepr—dating probably from the latter part of the third millennium (cf. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums², I § 537). Evidence however is now accumulating to the effect that cremation was practised in Crete in Early Minoan times.

[638] The Early Age of Greece, Vol. I, Ch. IV and passim, together with a number of articles which have appeared in various publications.

[639] I mention this point only because Prof. Ridgeway lays stress upon it. I do not myself regard the use of iron weapons as an essential characteristic of the Heroic Age. The evidence seems to me to indicate that such weapons came into use only towards the close of the period (cf. p. [199] ff.).

[640] By this term I mean 'belonging to communities which spoke Celtic languages.' It is only fair to add that Prof. Ridgeway appears to have racial (physical), rather than linguistic, characteristics in view. But I am not clear whether he means to include among his 'Celts' peoples who used other than Celtic languages.