A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the Renaissance. J. J. Jusserand

by Clovis himself. That long-haired chieftain donned the toga and chlamys; he became a patrice; although he knew by experience that he derived his power from his sword, it pleased him to ascribe it to the emperor. He had an instinct of what Rome was. The prestige of the emperor was worth an army to him, and assisted him to rule his latinised subjects. Conquered, pillaged, sacked, and ruined, the Eternal City still remained fruitful within her crumbling walls. Under the ruins subsisted living seeds, one, amongst others, most important of all, containing the great Roman idea, the notion of the State. The Celts hardly grasped it, the Germans only at a late period. Clovis, barbarian though he was, became imbued with it. He endeavoured to mould his subjects, Franks, Gallo-Romans, and Visigoths, so as to form a State, and in spite of the disasters that followed, his efforts were not without some durable results.

      In France the vanquished taught the victors their language; the grandsons of Clovis wrote Latin verses; and it is owing to poems written in a Romance idiom that Karl the Frank became the "Charlemagne" of legend and history; so that at last the new empire founded in Gaul had nothing Germanic save the name. The name, however, has survived, and is the name of France.

      Thus, and not by an impossible massacre, can be explained the different results of the invasions in France and England. In both countries, but less abundantly in the latter, the Celtic race has been perpetuated, and the veil which covers it to-day, a Latin or Germanic tissue, is neither so close nor so thick that we cannot distinguish through its folds the forms of British or Gaulish genius; a very special and easily recognisable genius, very different from that of the ancients, and differing still more from that of the Teutonic invaders.

      FOOTNOTES:

       Table of Contents

      [26] "De Moribus Germanorum," b. ii. chap. xlv.

      [27] "Agricola," xxi.

      [28] "Vita omnis in venationibus atque in studiis rei militaris constitit; ab parvulis labori ac duritiei student." "De Bello Gallico," book vi.

[29] "Saxones, sicut omnes fere Germaniam incolentes nationes, et natura feroces et cultui dæmonum dediti." Eginhard, "Vita Karoli," vii.

[30] The arms of the Franks and those of the Anglo-Saxons, the former preserved in the Museum of St. Germain, and the latter in the British Museum, are similar, and differ widely from those of the Celts. The shields, a part of the equipment, which among all nations are found highly ornamented, were equally plain with the Franks and Angles; the umbo or boss in the centre was, in those of both nations, of iron, and shaped like a rude dish-cover, which has often caused them to be catalogued as helmets or military head-pieces.

[31] "Innumerabiles et ferocissimæ nationes universas Gallias occuparunt. … Quis hoc crederet? … Romam in gremio suo non pro gloria, sed pro salute pugnare? Imo ne pugnare quidem, sed auro et cuncta supellectile vitam redimere." Epistola cxxiii. ad Ageruchiam, in the "Patrologia" of Migne, vol. xxii., col. 1057–8.

[32] This ship was discovered in 1863 in a peat bog of Schleswig; that is in the very country of the Angles; judging by the coins found at the same time, it must belong to the third century. It measures 22 metres 67 centimetres in length, 3 metres 33 centim. in breadth, and 1 metre 19 centim. in height. Specimens of Scandinavian ships have also been discovered. When a chief died his ship was buried with him, as his chariot or horse was in other countries. A description of a Scandinavian funeral (the chief placed on his boat, with his arms, and burnt, together with a woman and some animals killed for the occasion) has been handed down to us in the narrative of the Arab Ahmed Ibn Fozlan, sent by the caliph Al Moktader, in the tenth century, as ambassador to a Scandinavian king established on the banks of the Volga (Journal Asiatique, 1825, vol. vi. pp. 16 ff.). In some cases there was an interment but no incineration, and thus it is that Norse ships have been found. Two of these precious relics are preserved in the museum of Christiania. One of them, discovered in 1880, constructed out of oaken planks held together by iron nails, still retained several of its oars; they were about seven yards long, and must have been thirty-two, sixteen on each side. This measurement seems to have been normal, for the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" says that Alfred had ships built twice the size of ordinary ships, and gave them "sixty oars or more" (sub anno 897). A ship constructed on the exact model of the Scandinavian barks went from Bergen to New York at the time of the Chicago Exhibition, 1893. It was found to be perfectly seaworthy, even in rough weather.

[33] It may be added in favour of this same word that it is difficult to replace it by another as clear and convenient. Some have proposed "Old English," an expression considered as having the advantage of better representing the continuity of the national history, and marking less conspicuously the break occasioned by the Norman Conquest. "Anglo-Saxon" before the Conquest, "English" after, implies a radical change, a sort of renovation in the people of England. It is added, too, that this people already bore in the days of King Alfred the name of English. But besides the above-mentioned reasons, it may be pointed out that this break and this renovation are historical facts. In language, for example, the changes have been such that, as it has been justly observed, classical English resembles Anglo-Saxon less than the Italian of to-day resembles Latin. Still it would not be considered wise on the part of the Italians to give the name of "Old Italians" to their Roman ancestors, though they spoke a similar language, were of the same blood, lived in the same land, and called it by the same name. As for Alfred, he calls himself sometimes king of the Saxons "rex Saxonum," sometimes king of the Angles, sometimes king of the Anglo-Saxons: "Ægo Aelfredus, gratia Dei, Angol Saxonum rex." Æthelstan again calls himself "rex Angul-Saxonum" (Kemble, "Codex" ii. p. 124; Grein, "Anglia," i. p. 1; de Gray Birch, "Cartularium Saxonicum," 1885, ii. p. 333). They never call themselves, as may be believed, "Old English." The word, besides, is not of an easy use. In a recent work one of the greatest historians of our day, Mr. Freeman, spoke of people who were "men of old English birth"; evidently it would have been simpler and clearer to call them Anglo-Saxons.

[34] "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," Rolls, sub anno 491.

[35] "De Moribus Germanorum," xv., xxvi.

[36] Names of villages recalling German clans or families are very numerous on the eastern and southern coasts. "They diminish rapidly as we move inland, and they die away altogether as we approach the purely Celtic west. Fourteen hundred such names have been counted, of which 48 occur in Northumberland, 127 in Yorkshire, 76 in Lincolnshire, 153 in Norfolk and Suffolk, 48 in Essex, 60 in Kent, 86 in Sussex and Surrey, only 2 are found in Cornwall, 6 in Cumberland, 24 in Devon, 13 in Worcester, 2 in Westmoreland, and none in Monmouth." Grant Allen, "Anglo-Saxon Britain" (S.P.C.K.), p. 43.

[37] Ammianus Marcellinus: "Ipsa oppida, ut circumdata retiis busta declinant"; in reference to the Franks and Alemanni, "Rerum Gestarum," lib. xvi., cap. ii. Tacitus says the same thing for the whole of the Germans: "Nullas Germanorum populis urbes habitari, satis notum est. … Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit. Vicos locant, non in nostrum morem, connexis et cohærentibus ædificiis: suam quisque domum spatio circumdat." "De Moribus Germanorum," xvi.