[PART I.]
FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE IRON PERIOD TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.
By whatever race Europe may have been originally peopled, this portion of the world seems to have been swept by successive tribes of adventurers from Central Asia. The so-called "Allophylian race" was displaced by the Celts; the Sclaves then drove the Celts to the west, and the Tshuds into the cold regions of the north; and lastly, the Teutonic conquerors, dispossessing at will the nations that had preceded them, laid the foundation of that vast social empire which at present, in Europe, in America, in Asia, and in the new world of the South Seas, rules the destinies of half the globe. For the purposes of art, the long period of time at which we have so rapidly glanced has been divided into the Stone Period, the Bronze Period, and the Iron Period; names derived from the materials which were in general use during the progress of the various races towards civilization;—a division which, though, from its great comprehensiveness, necessarily open to some objection, seems likely to be of much use in simplifying a study hitherto embarrassing alike to the general reader, and to those whose task it is to extend the range of our knowledge.
With the nations of the Stone Period and the Bronze Period we do not purpose to occupy ourselves; not that the relics of their times are of an inferior interest, but that, in commencing with the days of the iron-workers, which for general purposes we assume to be identical with the retirement of the Romans beyond the Alps, and the domination of the northern nations in the centre and west of Europe, we feel that we have a task before us already much greater than we can hope to fulfil, either to the satisfaction of our readers, or our own. If we leave much undone, we shall endeavour, in that we do, to be exact. Modern archæology differs from the old antiquarianism especially in this,—that whatever it contributes to knowledge is required to be scrupulously true. A monkish chronicler of the fourteenth century is no longer held to be an authority for the affairs of the twelfth; an illuminated Froissart of the fifteenth century is no more permitted to supply us with portraits of the Black Prince, or the costume of Duguesclin. Our pictures are no longer copies of copies; neither are they mere versions of old art. We must have line for line, point for point. This is essential, for two reasons: we are freed from the danger of any wrong interpretation of an historic fact, and we keep in view the characteristic art of the period under examination. The importance of this practice admitted, we shall be excused for stating that almost all the illustrations of this work have been drawn by the writer;—when from manuscripts, the collection and folio of the volume have been carefully recorded, so that the truthfulness of the copy may be readily tested;—after the drawings had been transferred to the wood, they were carefully examined before the graver was permitted to commence its work; and if, in spite of every precaution, some unlucky error would at last creep in, the mistake was always rectified with new engraving.
The chief evidences for the military equipment and usages of the Teutonic conquerors of Europe, from the period of the dismemberment of the Roman empire to the great triumphs achieved by the Normans in the eleventh century, are the writers of those times, the miniatures which decorate their works, and the graves of these ancient races; which last have of late years yielded a wondrous harvest of valuable memorials, illustrating as well the domestic practices of their occupants, as their warlike array. If these three classes of monuments are useful in supplying each other's deficiencies, still more valuable do they become to the archæologist and the historian, by the confirmation which they mutually afford to each other's testimony. A few discrepancies indeed occasionally appear on points of minute detail; and it is in the pages of the historians and chroniclers that these are generally found: but when we consider the difficulty of the transmission of knowledge in those days, and the errors that may have crept in from the negligence of book-copyists through so many successive generations, the wonder is, not that something has been left obscure, but that so much has been faithfully transmitted to our times.
The various sons of Odin, whether settled in Germany, in Gaul, in Iberia, in Scandinavia, or in Britain, bore a strong resemblance to each other, both in their military equipment, and in such tactics as they possessed. If we find one branch of this vast family combating the Romans with more than usual art, or conducting a campaign with larger strategical views than their fellows, we must attribute it rather to the superior skill of a particular leader, or to their having borrowed some valuable hints from the practice of their opponents, than to any essential difference between this or that tribe of Teutons,—between the dwellers on the right bank of the Rhine and the dwellers on the left bank,—between those whose huts were on the flats of the Waal, and those who had built their cabins in the valleys of the Loire. Such differences as have been observed, we shall point out in our progress; but we are inclined to believe that, as collections are augmented and comparisons extended, resemblances will be found to increase, and differences to diminish.
Among the writers who afford us information on the early weapons and mode of warfare of that branch of the Teutonic family which acquired the name of Franks, there are three whose testimony is of especial value to us; and we must again remark, that what was particularly true of the Franks was generally true of the Anglo-Saxons, and of all the cognate tribes which traversed Europe as conquerors. These three writers are—Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Auvergne, who, in the fifth century, wrote his Panegyric of the Emperor Majorian; Procopius, the secretary of Belisarius, who lived in the sixth century, and was an eye-witness of the facts he records; and Agathias, a Greek historian, who flourished in the seventh century. "The Franks," says Sidonius, describing the defeat of their king Clodion by the Roman general Aetius, "are a tall race, and clad in garments which fit them closely. A belt (balteus) encircles their waist. They hurl their axes (bipennes) and cast their spears (hastas) with great force, never missing their aim. They manage their shields with much address, and rush on their enemy with such velocity, that they seem to fly more rapidly than their javelins (hastas). They accustom themselves to warfare from their earliest years, and if overpowered by the multitude of their enemies, they meet their end without fear. Even in death their features retain the expression of their indomitable valour:—
'Invicti perstant, animoque supersunt
Jam propè post animam.'"
Procopius, describing the expedition of the Franks into Italy in the sixth century, tells us:—"Among the hundred thousand men that the king (Theodobert I.) led into Italy, there were but few horsemen, and these he kept about his person. This cavalry alone carried spears (hastas). The remainder were infantry, who had neither spear nor bow, (non arcu, non hastâ armati,) all their arms being a sword, an axe, and a shield. The blade of the axe was large, its handle of wood, and very short. At a given signal they march forward; on approaching the adverse ranks they hurl their axes against the shields of the enemy, which by this means are broken; and then, springing on the foe, they complete his destruction with the sword[3]."