Lecture III
1 November, 1904
It is only necessary
to mention one of all the facts which speak to the same purpose, in
order to see what far-reaching changes preceded the fifth century.
At the end of the fourth century we find the Visigoths east of the
Danube; a century later the map shows them in Spain. And just as
this race travelled from one end of Europe to the other, so did many
more. They penetrated into countries where they met with different
civilisations, and adopted other customs. To understand the
revolution which a hundred years produced in Central Europe, we must
cast a glance back to the previous historical epochs. If we follow
the records of the Romans, we find warlike tribes along the Rhine,
whose main occupation, apart from fighting, was the chase. Farther
east we find agriculture and cattle raising among the Germani; and
farther still the Romans speak of the tribes in the northeast as of
something nebulous and obscure.
We are told that this
race, which dwelt by the sea, worshipped the Sun, believing that it
saw the Sun goddess rising from the ocean. Of the Semnones, who
lived in the Electorate of Bradenburg, it is told that their divine
service was characterised by blood sacrifices. True, with them it
was not, as a rule, human beings, but animals, that were offered up
to the Gods. Nevertheless their sacrificial services bore a
reputation for cruelty, which distinguished them from other tribes.
And there would be much besides to relate concerning this epoch.
Then followed a
comparatively quiet time.
Gradually the
frontiers of the Roman Empire were crossed by various tribes. To
begin with, in the third century the Burgundians advanced against
the Roman Empire in the southwest, and farther north the Franks, who
invaded Gaul. Farther east, too, on the Danube, other tribes moved
against the Roman Empire. Thus the Romans, with their highly
developed culture, had to defend themselves againse those peoples.
We find here a great difference in levels of culture. Among the
Germani everywhere, a system of barter still prevailed, among the
Romans money transactions had been developed. Trade among the
Germani was a matter of exchange; trading with money was still
unknown to them. We see the clash of highly developed culture with
barbaric tribes.
Then the Huns broke
in. In the year 375 occurred the first clash with the Herulern and
the Ostrogoths, whose dwelling place was on the Black Sea. They were
forced westwards, and consequently the Visigoths were also obliged
to break up their settlements. Where were they to go but into the
Roman Empire, which they inundated as far as the Danube. Already the
Roman Empire was split into an East and West Empire, the former with
Byzantium, the latter with Rome, as its capital. The East Roman
ruler assigned dwelling places to the Visigoths; but they
nevertheless first had to fight for them at the battle of
Adrianople. There, in that neighbourhood, Ulfils wrote his
translation of the Bible. Soon, however, the Visigoths were obliged
to resume their wanderings. Slavonic tribes followed in their
footsteps, pressing them farther westward. Under their king Alarich,
they conquered Rome, and, in the fifth century, founded the
Visigothic Empire in Spain.
The Ostrogoths
followed them, and likewise sought to establish a dwelling place in
the domain of the Roman Empire. The Germanic tribe of Vandals
conquered Spain, then sailed over to Africa, and, in the region
where Carthage once stood, founded a Vandal Empire, and thence
harassed Rome with incursions. Thus the whole character of these
races is such, that into every part of the new configuration of
Christian Rome, the Germanic races pressed. From this type of
conquest new configurations of quite a special character arose.
In the domain of the
former Gauls, rose a mighty empire — the empire of the Franks
— which, for a whole century, imprinted its stamp on Central
Europe. Within it, above all grew up what is commonly called Roman
Christianity. Those other races — Goths, Vandals — who,
in rapid triumphal marches, had subdued for themselves parts of the
Roman Empire, soon disappeared again, completely, out of History.
With the Franks we see a mighty empire extending over Europe. What
is the reason for this?
To find that out, we
must cast a glance at the way in which these tribes extended
their empire. It was done in this way: a third, or two-thirds, of
the region which they had invaded, was divided among the conquerors.
Thus the leaders received great tracts of land, which they
cultivated for themselves. For this work the conquered inhabitants
were employed; a part of the population became slaves, or unfree.
This was the policy of the Visigoths in Spain, the Ostrogoths in
Italy. You may suppose that, under the existing circumstances where
the population lived at a high level of culture, this mode of
procedure caused great hardship and could not be permanently
maintained.
It was different in
Gaul.
There, there were
great forests and uninhabited tracts of land. There, too, the
conquered regions were divided, and large portions fell to the
leaders, so that the leaders became great landowners, and rulers
over the vanquished tribes. Here, however, they were not trammelled
by already existing circumstances; there was room for expansion.
And, although the leaders became rulers, circumstances made it
possible for this to happen without great oppression. In the days
before folk migrations, members of one tribe had, in essentials,
resembled one another. Freedom was a common Germanic possession; in
a certain sense, every man was his own master, responsible to no
one, on his own land and soil. The independence and power of the
leaders increased, because so many had become dependent on them.
Hence, they were in a
position to protect themselves better; and small proprietors placed
themselves under the protection of greater. Thus arose a protective
relationship of the powerful towards the less powerful. Many small
feuds were carried on by many small landowners who could not
adequately protect themselves, in dependence upon more powerful
protectors. Some swore fealty in case of war; others relinquished
parts of their property, or paid tribute to their protectors. Such
dependents were called vassals. Others held land under feudal tenure
from the big proprietors, as payment for their service in case of
war; this was the fief. The powerful warriors were feudal lords, the
others were vassals. Thus, in the most natural way in the world,
proprietary relationships grew up.
The invasions of the
Goths had no lasting effect. Those peoples who had forced their way
into civilised lands, came to nothing; their power was soon
broken.
It was different in
Gaul. Here, where extensive tracts had still to be cleared, the
immigration of new tribal masses could only be welcomed, in the
interest of culture. The great men in the Empire of the Franks were
unimpeded in the cultivation of their racial character.
The Goths and Vandals
were wiped out, they and all the Germanic tribes who came into the
regions where industry was already developed. We see the Franks as
independent of an industrial foundation; and the Franks gave their
impress to the character of the ensuing age, especially because they
provided a base upon which evolving Christianity was able to expand.
Although the Visigoths were originally Aryan Christians, other ideas
were engrafted into their belief; among the industrial assumptions
which were foreign to their nature, that was developed which may be
regarded as the stamp of materialistic conditions. It was not so
among the Frankish tribes, where the Church was the great landowner.
Undaunted by material considerations, these abbots, bishops, priests
and theologians devoted themselves to the service of religion.
Unalloyed, as it emanated from the nature of these men, the
characteristic culture of this form of Christianity was developed.
The spiritual strivings of the free ranks were encouraged by the
influx of the Celtic element. The Celts, whose fiery blood again
manifested itself, became the teachers and leaders of the
spiritually less active Franks. From Scotland and Ireland came
Celtic monks and priests in great numbers, to spread their faith
among the Franks.
All this made it
possible for Christianity to be, at that time, not a mirror of
external conditions, but to develop freely, unconstrained by
material considerations. The conditions of Central Europe were
determined by Christianity. All the knowledge of antiquity was thus
preserved by Christianity for the Germanic tribes. Aristotle gave
the spiritual kernel, which Christianity sought to grasp. At that
time there was no dependence on Rome. The Christian life could
develop freely in the Empire of the Franks. Plato's world of ideas
found entrance too into this spiritual life. This was brought about
especially through the influence of Scottish monks, above all
through Scotus Erigene in his work De Divisioni Naturae, a
work which is well-known as indicating a high level of spiritual
life. Thus we see how spiritual life was being formed, unhindered by
external conditions. Spiritual currents received their
characteristic independently of industrial conditions. Later when
the material pressure increased they accepted, retrospectively, the
character of these conditions; then, however, when they themselves
joined them, they exercised influence on them in their turn.
Several small kingdoms
formed what we know as the Merovingian Empire, which later came
under the power of one ruler.
From the foregoing
description you will see that southern Christianity was bound to be
different from that with which it was later amalgamated. The
Christianity of the Franks was comparatively independent, and could
make use of political relationships, to its own advantage. The
farther the Roman rule was pressed back, the more clerics came from
among the Franks. Their education lagged far behind that of the
other clergy; the learned priests and monks were all Celts.
In these centuries,
therefore, the most divine tribes were gradually shaken up together;
the invasion of the Huns gave rise to these changes While that which
has been described was taking shape within the actual currents of
civilisation, great struggles had been going on outside. But what we
call the evolution of civilisation was not essentially affected by
these external struggles.
The Huns had
penetrated far to the west; if we are not blind to what the old
legends relate, we know that they pushed as far as the south of
France.
In the old heroic poem
of Walther on der Vogelweide, handed down to us in a Latin
translation, we are told how the princes of the Germanic tribes, the
Burgundians and Franks, had to scourge the Huns, among them that
Walther, son of the prince of a Germanic tribe, who ruled in
Aquitania. This heroic song narrates the feats of Walther, Hagen and
Gunther. In continuous succession followed incursions of the Huns,
harassing the Germanic races far into the west, until eventually the
Franks, the Goths and what was left of the Roman race, formed the
force which opposed the Huns in battle on the Catalaunian Plain in
the year 451. This is the first defeat that the Huns suffered. Their
rule, however, which had weighed heavily upon the peoples, left no
lasting impression.
In manners and customs
the Huns were so alien to the people of Europe, that their whole
type and form is described as something quite peculiar. An important
point was that this race formed a compact unity; a submissiveness,
amounting to idolatry, under their king, Attila, made them an
irresistible terror to other races. After their defeat on the
Catalaunian Plain, this army received its last decisive defeat
through Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, who withstood Attila, and
induced him to retreat. Leo knew the power which Attila exercised
over his people. But with all his power Attila did not know what was
opposing him, namely, Christianity; therefore he bowed before
it.
The rule of the Huns
remained merely an episode; what came from the west made a much more
lasting influence. After Attila's death in 453, his army soon
collapsed. Neither was the rule of the Goths, Gepidae, or Vandals,
of lasting duration; they found themselves hemmed in by conditions
already settled, and were not able to maintain their own character.
Things happened differently in France: the culture there proved
faithful to the character of the Frankish tribe, and it may be seen
how powerfully this race evolved. Later, however, we see too how
this tribe forced other to accept Christianity. We see further that
there existed nothing better calculated to develop material culture
than Christianity; all sorts of culture forms received their stamp
from external Christianity. And because they were able to maintain
their free character, they provided a framework for mobile forms in
which spiritual life could develop, and in this way the spiritual,
industrial communities — monasteries, etc. — grew up. In
process of time, however, spiritual and industrial culture were
separated. Although the empire of Charlemagne considered itself a
Christian empire, in spreading Christianity by force, it set itself
in opposition to the spirit of Christianity. Hence Christianity was
soon no longer suited to industrial life. The conditions of
industrial life were felt to be oppressive — and thus the
“free cities” originated.
This, in outline, is
the evolution of spiritual and material evolution. You see that it
was only when the spiritual currents no longer coincided with the
material conditions, that this disparity found expression in a
purely material culture, the city-culture. From these industrial
formations grew out of material interests. The population which
could not be supported on the land, pressed into the towns to find
protection and security. Thus we see empires rising and falling, and
new creations taking the place of old. We can, however, only
understand their organisation, if we realise how the first model
realm, the empire of the Franks, was formed. Not having pressed into
already existing conditions, but going where space was offered for
free expansion, this tribe had evolved its character and was able to
develop its rule.
The tribes driven from
their homes during the great folk migrations, were not only
thoroughly mingled together, they were also newly constructed. Some
had disappeared from History altogether, others had taken their
place. This great metamorphosis was accomplished, not merely from
outside, but still more in the deepest depth of their character. At
the beginning of the epoch of the folk migrations, we see the
various Germanic tribes asking a question of destiny. For the Goths,
who had chosen for themselves a tolerant Christianity, this question
signified extermination. For the Franks, confrontation with it under
other freer, more favourable circumstances, it meant increase of
power throughout the centuries. Whether or not for the good of all,
we shall see in what follows.
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