[488] U.R. Burke, History of Spain, Hume's ed. i. 115. The special explanation of the Visgothic decadence is held by this historian to lie (1) in the elective character of the monarchy, which left the king powerless to check the extortions of the nobles who degraded and enfeebled the common people, and (2) in the ascendency of the Church.
[489] Burke, as cited, i. 119.
[490] Cp. Prof. Paul Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, 1892, pp. 10-11, 17.
[491] Guizot (Hist. de la Civ. en France, i, 2e leçon) has an extraordinary passage to the effect that while German and English civilisation was German in origin, that of France is romaine dès ses premiers pas. As if there had not been a primary Gallic society as well as a Germanic. If Mommsen be right, the Galli before their conquest were much more advanced in civilisation than the Germani. In point of fact, the Celtæ of Southern France had commercial contact with the Greeks before they had any with the Romans. And in the very passage under notice, Guizot goes on to say that the life and institutions of northern France had been essentially Germanic. The theorem is hopelessly confused. The plain facts are that German "civilisation" came from Italy and Romanised Gaul, albeit later, as fully as did that of Gaul from Italy.
[492] Cp. Prof. Butler, The Lombard Communes, 1906, pp. 23, 28-30.
[493] Poole, Illustrations, as cited, p. 11.
[494] For a pleasing attempt to retain the credit for Teutonism, on the score that German invaders had "determined the character of the population" in the region of Paris, where the new architecture arose, see Dr. E. Richard's History of German Civilisation, New York, 1911, pp. 203-4. It is not explained at what stage the German responsibility for French evolution ceased.
[495] Burke, as cited, i, 118. On the "Gothic mania," cp. Michelet, Hist. de France, vii—Renaissance: Introd. § 10 and note in App.
[496] Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, as cited, i, 35, 172, 238.
[497] Gibbon, ch. 36, end.