Part 3 (2/2)

[Sidenote: Their nomadic character]

Not one among them cultivates the ground, or ever touches a plow-handle. All wander abroad without fixed abodes, without home, or law, or settled customs, like perpetual fugitives, with their wagons for their only habitations. If you ask them, not one can tell you what is his place of origin. They are ruthless truce-breakers, fickle, always ready to be swayed by the first breath of a new desire, abandoning themselves without restraint to the most ungovernable rage.

Finally, like animals devoid of reason, they are utterly ignorant of what is proper and what is not. They are tricksters with words and full of dark sayings. They are never moved by either religious or superst.i.tious awe. They burn with unquenchable thirst for gold, and they are so changeable and so easily moved to wrath that many times in the day they will quarrel with their comrades on no provocation, and be reconciled, having received no satisfaction.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] A somewhat indefinite region north and east of the Caspian Sea.

[34] The modern Don, flowing into the Sea of Azof.

[35] One of two constellations in the northern hemisphere, called respectively the Great Bear and the Lesser Bear, or _Ursa Major_ and _Ursa Minor_. The Great Bear is commonly known as the Dipper.

[36] That is, agriculture. The Huns were even less settled in their mode of life than were the early Germans described by Tacitus.

[37] A strange creature of cla.s.sical mythology, represented as half man and half horse.

[38] The White Sea. It is hardly to be believed that the Huns dwelt so far north. This was, of course, a matter of sheer speculation with the Romans.

CHAPTER IV.

THE EARLY FRANKS

6. The Deeds of Clovis as Related by Gregory of Tours

The most important historical writer among the early Franks was a bishop whose full name was Georgius Florentius Gregorius, but who has commonly been known ever since his day as Gregory of Tours. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it was probably either 539 or 540. He was not a Frank, but a man of mixed Roman and Gallic descent, his parentage being such as to rank him among the n.o.bility of his native district, Auvergne. At the age of thirty-four he was elected bishop of Tours, and this important office he held until his death in 594.

During this long period of service he won distinction as an able church official, as an alert man of affairs, and as a prolific writer on ecclesiastical subjects. Among his writings, some of which have been lost, were a book on the Christian martyrs, biographies of several holy men of the Church, a commentary on the Psalms, and a treatise on the officers of the Church and their duties.

But by far his largest and most important work was his _Ecclesiastical History of the Franks_, in ten books, written well toward the end of his life. It is indeed to be regarded as one of the most interesting pieces of literature produced in any country during the Middle Ages.

For his starting point Gregory went back to the Garden of Eden, and what he gives us in his first book is only an amusing but practically worthless account of the history of the world from Adam to St. Martin of Tours, who died probably in 397. In the second book, however, he comes more within the range of reasonable tradition, if not of actual information, and brings the story down to the death of Clovis in 511.

In the succeeding eight books he reaches the year 591, though it is thought by some that the last four were put together after the author's death by some of his a.s.sociates. However that may be, we may rest a.s.sured that the history grows in accuracy as it approaches the period in which it was written. Naturally it is at its best in the later books, where events are described that happened within the writer's lifetime, and with many of which he had a close connection.

Gregory was a man of unusual activity and of wide acquaintance among the influential people of his day. He served as a counselor of several Frankish kings and was a prominent figure at their courts. The shrine of St. Martin of Tours[39] was visited by pilgrims from all parts of the Christian world and by conversation with them Gregory had an excellent opportunity to keep informed as to what was going on among the Franks, and among more distant peoples as well. He was thus fortunately situated for one who proposed to write the history of his times. As a bishop of the orthodox Church he had small regard for Arians and other heretics, and so was in some ways less broad-minded than we could wish; and of course he shared the superst.i.tion and ignorance of his age, as will appear in some of the selections below.

Still, without his extensive history we should know far less than we now do concerning the Frankish people before the seventh century. He mixes legend with fact in a most confusing manner, but with no intention whatever to deceive. The men of the earlier Middle Ages knew no other way of writing history and their readers were not critical as we are to-day. The pa.s.sages quoted below from Gregory's history give some interesting information concerning the Frankish conquerors of Gaul, and at the same time show something of the spirit of Gregory himself and of the people of his times.

Particularly interesting is the account of the conversion of Clovis and of the Franks to Christianity. When the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Lombards, and Burgundians crossed the Roman frontiers and settled within the bounds of the old Empire they were all Christians in name, however much their conduct might be at variance with their profession. The Franks, on the other hand, established themselves in northern Gaul, as did the Saxons in Britain, while they were yet pagans, wors.h.i.+pping Woden and Thor and the other strange deities of the Germans. It was about the middle of the reign of King Clovis, or, more definitely, in the year 496, that the change came. In his _Ecclesiastical History_ Gregory tells us how up to this time all the influence of the Christian queen, Clotilde, had been exerted in vain to bring her husband to the point of renouncing his old G.o.ds. In his wars and conquests the king had been very successful and apparently he was pretty well satisfied with the favors these old G.o.ds had showered upon him and was unwilling to turn his back upon such generous patrons. But there came a time, in 496, in the course of the war with the Alemanni, when the tide of fortune seemed to be turning against the Frankish king. In the great battle of Stra.s.sburg the Franks were on the point of being beaten by their foe, and Clovis in desperation made a vow, as the story goes, that if Clotilde's G.o.d would grant him a victory he would immediately become a Christian. Whatever may have been the reason, the victory was won and the king, with characteristic German fidelity to his word, proceeded to fulfill his pledge. Amid great ceremony he was baptized, and with him three thousand of his soldiers the same day. The great majority of Franks lost little time in following the royal example.

Two important facts should be emphasized in connection with this famous incident. The first is the peculiar character of the so-called ”conversion” of Clovis and his Franks. We to-day look upon religious conversion as an inner experience of the individual, apt to be brought about by personal contact between a Christian and the person who is converted. It was in no such sense as this, however, that the Franks--or any of the early Germans, for that matter--were made Christian. They looked upon Christianity as a mere portion of Roman civilization to be adopted or let alone as seemed best; but if it were adopted, it must be by the whole tribe or nation, not by individuals here and there. In general, the German peoples took up Christianity, not because they became convinced that their old religions were false, but simply because they were led to believe that the Christian faith was in some ways better than their own and so might profitably be taken advantage of by them. Clovis believed he had won the battle of Stra.s.sburg with the aid of the Christian G.o.d when Woden and Thor were about to fail him; therefore he reasoned that it would be a good thing in the future to make sure that the G.o.d of Clotilde should always be on his side, and obviously the way to do this was to become himself a Christian. He did not wholly abandon the old G.o.ds, but merely considered that he had found a new one of superior power. Hence he enjoined on all his people that they become Christians; and for the most part they did so, though of course we are not to suppose that there was any very noticeable change in their actual conduct and mode of life, at least for several generations.

The second important point to observe is that, whereas all of the other Germanic peoples on the continent had become Christians of the Arian type, the Franks accepted Christianity in its orthodox form such as was adhered to by the papacy. This was sheer accident. The Franks took the orthodox rather than the heretical religion simply because it was the kind that was carried to them by the missionaries, not at all because they were able, or had the desire, to weigh the two creeds and choose the one they liked the better. But though they became orthodox Christians by accident, the fact that they became such is of the utmost importance in mediaeval history, for by being what the papacy regarded as true Christians rather than heretics they began from the start to be looked to by the popes for support. Their kings in time became the greatest secular champions of papal interests, though relations were sometimes far from harmonious. This virtual alliance of the popes and the Frankish kings is a subject which will repay careful study.

Source--Gregorius Episcopus Turonensis, _Historia Ecclesiastica Francorum_ [Gregory of Tours, ”Ecclesiastical History of the Franks”], Bk. II., Chaps. 27-43 _pa.s.sim_. Text in _Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum_, Vol. I., Part 1, pp. 88-89, 90-95, 98-100, 158-159.

[Sidenote: The battle of Soissons (486)]

=27.= After all these things Childeric[40] died and his son Clovis ruled in his stead. In the fifth year of the new reign Syagrius, son of aegidius, was governing as king of the Romans in the town of Soissons, where his father had held sway before him.[41] Clovis now advanced against him with his kinsman Ragnachar, who also held a kingdom, and gave him an opportunity to select a field of battle.

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