The Ethnology of Europe

by R. G. Latham

Saxony.—Either conquered from Westphalian Saxony, or settled by Saxon colonies, the kingdom to which Dresden is the metropolis, originally the country of the Semnones, is German only in language. In blood it belongs to the same division with Silesia; indeed the Sorabian frontier (for so the Srbie, and Serskie may conveniently be called) extended as far westwards as the Saale.

Hanover.—From Hanover, the north-east quarter (there or thereabouts) must be deducted as Slavonic. Luneburg took its name from the Slavonic Linones, whose language was spoken in a few villages as late as the last century.

The remaining three-fourths are German; and from the extent of the kingdom and the irregularity of its outline, four out of the six divisions of the old Germanic populations may have been contained in it.

From the Ems to the Elbe, extended to an undetermined distance inland, the ancient tribes were the Chauci and Frisii, who were Frisians. Embden is the capital of East Friesland, where the Frisian language was general until the seventeenth century, and where, in one or two localities, it is still spoken at the present moment.

A line drawn from the Dutch district of Drenthe to the Hartz would pass through the country of the Old Saxons; one from Hamburg to Minden, through that of the Anglo-Saxons. The Longobardi, Chatti, and Cherusci, some portions of whom, whether High or Low, were Dutch, extended towards the Hartz. Soon after this the Slavonic area began.

Oldenburg.—Undoubtedly Frisian in its northern, Oldenburg was either Frisian or Old Saxon in its southern, parts.

Holland.—If the Dutch of Holland be the indigenous dialect of any part of that country, it is only so for the southern third of it. The Frisians are the oldest occupants.

Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau, the two former, the localities of the Chatti, take us from the Saxons and Frisians to the true Dutch or Germans. At present their language is High German. Probably, it was so at the beginning. I do not, however, pretend to say where the Low-Dutch form of speech originated. It has encroached upon the Frisian and Saxon; and, in all the parts where it is now spoken, with the exception, perhaps, of the parts below Cologne, is of foreign origin. On the other hand, however, the High German of Franconia, Suabia, and Bavaria has encroached on it.

Weimar, Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Schwartzburg, Coburg, and the south-western corner of Prussia, are considered to form the area of the ancestors of those Germans who, in the second, third, and fourth centuries played so conspicuous a part on the Lower Danube, under Alaric, Theodoric, and others. The following is submitted as a sketch of their history. As the Hermunduri of the country in which the Albis (the Saale rather than the Bohemian Elbe) rises, they are known to Tacitus; but their power, as elements of the great empire of Maroboduus has been felt by the Romans of Rhætia and Vindelicia nearly a century earlier. Encroaching southwards, and crossing the watershed of the Elbe and Danube (the Fichtelgebirge) they displace the probably Slavonic occupants of the valley of the Naab; press on further both southwards and eastwards; form, along their line, with the nations to the north, a March, but not of a character so hostile as to exclude the formation of confederacies formidable to Rome, under the name of Marcomanni; make their permanent settlements on the northern side of the Lower Danube; harass the Roman provinces, Thrace and Mœsia, until, themselves harassed by the Huns, they cross the Danube and effect settlements in Mœsia, where they become Arian Christians, and read the Gospel of Ulphilas, in their native tongue. Portions retrace their steps, still marking their way by conquest. Ataulphus in Gaul, Wallia in Spain, Theodoric in the Italy of the sixth, and Alaric in the Italy of the fifth century, all having been Goths of this division. They leave Germany as Grutungs and Thervings (Thuringians), become Marcomanni along the Bohemian and Moravian frontiers, Goths,[17] Ostrogoths and Visigoths, on the Lower Danube (or the land of the Getæ), and Mœsogoths (from the locality in which they became Christian) in Mœsia.

Wurtemburg, Baden, and Hohenzollern coincide with the Agri Decumates of the Roman writers. The original inhabitants, I believe, to have been Slaves and Kelts; then Kelts more exclusively (the Gauls of the western bank of the Rhine having encroached); then a heterogeneous mass of Gauls, Boii, Suevi, and Vindelicians, occupying a sort of Debatable Land between the Roman and non-Roman areas; lastly Alemanni and Suevi, the latter being Germans, the former a mixture of populations with the Germanic element preponderating. From these are descended the present occupants.