General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

The rule of the Lombard princes was brought to an end by Charlemagne, the greatest of the Frankish rulers (see p. 405); but the blood of the invaders had by this time become intermingled with that of the former subjects of the Roman empire, so that throughout all that part of the peninsula which is still called Lombardy after them, the people at the present day reveal, in the light hair and fair features which distinguish them from the inhabitants of Southern Italy, their partly German origin.

THE ANGLO-SAXONS IN BRITAIN.—We have already seen how in the time of Rome's distress the Angles and Saxons secured a foothold in Britain (see p. 344). The advance of the invaders here was stubbornly resisted by the half-Romanized Celts of the island. At the end of a century and a half of fighting, the German tribes had gained possession of only the eastern half of what is now England. On the conquered soil they set up eight or nine, or perhaps more, petty kingdoms. For the space of two hundred years there was an almost perpetual strife among these states for supremacy. Finally Egbert, king of the West Saxons, brought all the other states into a subject or tributary condition, and became the first king of the English, and the founder of the long line of Saxon monarchs (A.D. 827).

TEUTONIC TRIBES OUTSIDE THE EMPIRE.—We have now spoken of the most important of the Teutonic tribes that forced themselves within the limits of the Roman empire in the West, and that there, upon the ruins of the civilization they had overthrown, laid or helped to lay the foundations of the modern nations of Italy, Spain, France, and England. Beyond the boundaries of the old empire were still other tribes and clans of this same mighty family of nations,—tribes and clans that were destined to play great parts in European history.

On the east, beyond the Rhine, were the ancestors of the modern Germans. Notwithstanding the immense hosts that the forests and morasses of Germany had poured into the Roman provinces, the Father-land, in the sixth century of our era, seemed still as crowded as before the great migration began. These tribes were yet savages in manners and for the most part pagans in religion.

In the northwest of Europe were the Scandinavians, the ancestors of the modern Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians. They were as yet untouched either by the civilization or the religion of Rome. We shall scarcely get a glimpse of them before the ninth century, when they will appear as the Northmen, the dreaded corsairs of the northern seas.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE CONVERSION OF THE BARBARIANS.

INTRODUCTORY.—The most important event in the history of the tribes that took possession of the Roman empire in the West was their conversion to Christianity. Many of the barbarians were converted before or soon after their entrance into the empire; to this circumstance the Roman provinces owed their immunity from the excessive cruelties which pagan barbarians seldom fail to inflict upon a subjected enemy. Alaric left untouched the treasures of the churches of the Roman Christians, because his own faith was also Christian (see p. 342). For like reason the Vandal king Genseric yielded to the prayers of Pope Leo the Great, and promised to leave to the inhabitants of the Imperial City their lives (see p. 346). The more tolerable fate of Italy, Spain, and Gaul, as compared with the hard fate of Britain, is owing, in part at least, to the fact that the tribes which overran those countries had become, in the main, converts to Christianity before they crossed the boundaries of the empire, while the Saxons, when they entered Britain, were still untamed pagans.

CONVERSION OF THE GOTHS, VANDALS, AND OTHER TRIBES.—The first converts to Christianity among the barbarians beyond the limits of the empire were won from among the Goths. Foremost of the apostles that arose among them was Ulfilas, who translated the Scriptures into the Gothic language, omitting from his version, however, "the Book of Kings," as he feared that the stirring recital of wars and battles in that portion of the Word might kindle into too fierce a flame the martial ardor of his new converts.

When the Visigoths, distressed by the Huns, besought the Eastern Emperor Valens for permission to cross the Danube, one of the conditions imposed upon them was that they should all be baptized in the Christian faith (see p. 336). This seems to have crowned the work that had been going on among them for some time, and thereafter they were called Christians.