The Ethnology of Europe

by R. G. Latham

* * * *

The ethnology of Belgium is comparatively simple. Its elements are the same as those of Northern France,—Keltic, German, and Roman; for the analysis (as has perhaps been observed) grows simpler when we passed the Seine. And this was but natural, as the scene receded from the great centre of conquest and the great points of international contact.

In Belgium the Roman element is somewhat less, the occupation being somewhat more imperfect; whilst the Keltic basis is referable to the Belgic variety—a point in which Picardy, French Flanders, Artois, and part of Champagne agree.

In Belgium the German element is more uniform, i.e., it is more exclusively referable to a single division of the German stock. No Goths, no High-German Burgundians are here; but Franks of the Lower Rhine the followers of Clojo and Clovis; Franks from the Ysel or Salian Franks; Franks whose chief locality in the country that they conquered was the parts about Tournay in Hainault; Franks who, if they differed at all from the Franks of Charlemagne, whose line subsequently replaced that of Clovis, did so but slightly; Franks, too, of the Platt-Deutsch division of the German stock, whose nearest representatives are the Dutch of Holland, and the Low-Germans of Cleves, Juliers, and Berg. I believe that whether the kings of these Germans ruled from Tournay or from Aix la-Chapelle, the section to which they belonged was the same, herein differing from those writers who, because Charlemagne was an Austrasian, contrast his descent somewhat strongly with that of Clovis.

To begin, however, with the earliest ethnological history of Belgium, I remark that the same question which presented itself in the case of Alsatia re-appears here. Were the oldest known occupants of the country Gauls, or Germans, or Germanized Gauls? I believe that they were the latter, though not to any great extent; for it must be remembered that Treves, Juliers, and Berg, where the modification was considerable, lie beyond the Belgic frontier. Still, as Tongres (a locality which the express evidence of Tacitus makes German) is in Belgium, and as Cæsar calls the Nervii, Pæmani and others, Germans (by which I understand that they belonged to a Germanic confederacy) the existence of a considerable and early intrusion of the tribes beyond the Rhine must be admitted. So that the Romans, when they reduced Belgium, reduced a country which, like Alsatia, although Gallic, was also Quasi-Germanic.

But they reduced it, and they Romanized it; and as we find the more active emperors coercing the Batavi, Chamavi, and other populations beyond the Rhine, we may reasonably suppose that they Romanized it throughout.

The analogue to the Burgundian conquest of Burgundy and Franche-Comté began in the fourth century, and not with the invasion of Clovis, as is often imagined. Constantius and Julian had to defend the frontier by land, and Carausius the Menapian by sea. And Julian was the last emperor who defended it successfully. At the beginning of the fifth century a Frank chief, not less formidable than Clovis, although less famous, Clojo, invaded Gaul, and penetrated as far as the Somme. Hainault, Brabant, and West Flanders he seems to have permanently reduced; and what Clojo left undone, Clovis completed.

In the reign of Charlemagne, the process of Germanizing went on, but soon after his death it came to a close; so that about four hundred years is the time that must be allowed for the displacement of the Romano-Belgic language of Belgium, i.e., of Antwerp, South Brabant, Limburg, West Flanders, and Hainault; to which may be added French Flanders, Artois, and the northern part of Picardy—for to this extent it seems to have gone when it attained its maximum. And, then, a reaction took place, and the French has encroached ever since. Artois, French Flanders, and Northern Picardy have been wholly recovered in respect to their language to France, and the Belgian provinces partially. Such is the evidence of the Flemish language in Belgium, of the parts wherein it is still spoken, and of the traces of it in as far south as the frontier of Normandy.

But it is not the only native language of Belgium—I say native, because the French as it is spoken at Brussels and the towns is, to all intents and purposes, as foreign a language as English is in Argyle or Inverness. In Namur, Liege, and Luxembourg, the speech is what is called Walloon, the same word as Welsh, and derived from the German root wealh, a foreigner. By this designation the Germans of the Flemish tongue denoted the Romano-Belgic population whose language was akin to the French, and whom a hilly and impracticable country (the forest districts of the Ardennes) had more or less protected from their own arms. Now the Walloon is a form of the Romano-Keltic, so peculiar and independent, that it must be of great antiquity, i.e., as old as the oldest dialect of the French, and no extension of the dialects of Lorraine, or Champagne from which it differs materially. It is also a language which must have been formed on a Keltic basis, a fact which (as stated elsewhere) is a strong argument against the doctrine of the Belgæ of Cæsar and Tacitus having been Germans.

The Walloons, then, are Romano-Keltic; whereas the Flemings are Germans, in speech and in blood—either Romano-Kelts Germanized, or else absolute Germans; for upon the extent to which the Flemish language is a measure of German descent, I venture no opinion. We must remember, however, that as the Franks came from the other side of the Rhine, and from a not very distant locality, the number of females who accompanied them may have been considerable. Still, I think, that intermixture was the rule, and purity of blood the exception.