422 



GERMANY. (HISTORY.) 



from Jaxtliausen to Oehringrn. But the power of 

 the Romans sank more and more, partly by the inces- 

 sant struggle against the barbarians, partly by inter- 

 nal agitations. At the time when the Roman power 

 had been weakened by civil wars, in the frequent 

 military revolutions during the government ot the 

 emperors, the Franks forced their way as far as 

 Spain, and, in the reign of the emperor Pro bus, they 

 also conquered the island of the Batavi. Thus the 

 Franks and Alemanni were now the most powerful 

 German nations. Under Julian, the former lost the 

 island of the Batavi, which was conquered by the 

 Saxons, and the latter were humbled by the armies 

 of Rome. But this was Rome's last victory. In the 

 beginning of the fifth century, barbarians assailed 

 the Roman empire on all sides. The Vandals, Suevi, 

 and Alans occupied Gaul and Spain ; the Burgundians 

 followed them to Gaul, the Visigoths to Italy and 

 Spain; the Burgundians were followed by the Franks, 

 the Visigoths by the Ostrogoths, and these by the 

 Longobardi (Lombards). Thus began those migra- 

 tions of the innumerable hosts, that spread them- 

 selves, from the North and East, over all Europe, 

 subduing every thing in their course. This event is 

 called the great migration of the nations. 



The principal consequences of the general irrup- 

 tion of the barbarians were, the destruction of the 

 western empire by the German Odoacer, who made 

 himself king of Italy, the conquest of Gaul by the 

 Franks, and the establishment of an empire which 

 was to give to Germany itself, where the Saxons, the 

 Frisians, Thuringians, and Alemanni remained, a 

 political constitution under a single head. Clovis, 

 first king of France, professed the Christian religion 

 (496), and with him commenced the series of the 

 Merovingian kings, the last of whom was removed to 

 a monastery (752). The Carlovingians ascended 

 the throne of France, and the conflicts with the 

 neighbouring Germans, not incorporated with the 

 Prankish kingdom, among whom the Saxons were 

 the most dangerous enemies, became more violent. 

 Charlemagne (768 814) resolved to put an end to 

 the conflict, by forcing the rude Saxons to embrace 

 Christianity, and uniting them, in a political whole, 

 under his sceptre ; but he met with an unexpected 

 resistance for thirty years. Wittikind the Great, 

 duke of Saxony, finally submitted, and, to spare the 

 blood of his subjects, which Charlemagne had shed 

 in torrents, consented to be baptized, with his army. 

 Tims the great Prankish monarchy, comprehending 

 Gaul, Italy, and Germany to the North sea, was 

 founded. It is, however, erroneous to suppose, that, 

 in this long war, the whole nation engaged in the 

 repeated insurrections against Charlemagne. The 

 Saxons, on the left bank of the Weser, submitted 

 after the first victory of Charlemagne, and did not 

 revolt afterwards ; but the officers and priests of 

 Charlemagne (q. v.) governed with so much severity, 

 that many of them removed to the right bank of the 

 Weser, and from thence attacked the Franks and 

 their own countrymen, who remained behind. After 

 many alternations of defeat and victory, the right 

 bank of the Weser was also obliged to acknowledge 

 the sway of Charlemagne ; but priests and nobles, 

 who retired before the conqueror, from the right 

 bank of the Elbe, again renewed the war. By trans- 

 planting several thousands of the most turbulent 

 families from beyond the Elbe into Picardy, and by 

 granting others the vacant lands on the river, Charle- 

 magne finally succeeded in obliging them to abandon 

 their savage manners, permitted them to govern 

 themselves, and thus restored peace. Prankish 

 Germany became an independent kingdom, when 

 the sons of Charlemagne divided the empire. The 

 treaty of Verdun declared Louis (the German) the 



first king of Germany (843 87 G). At this peri,*], 

 the Rhine formed the frontier of Germany on one 

 side (Spire, Worms, and Mentz, on the left bank of 

 the Rhine, with their territories, were, however, in- 

 cluded; not, indeed, on account of their inhabitants, 

 but for their vineyards, of which the eastern king- 

 dom would otherwise have been destitute); the other 

 boundaries were nearly the same as at present. The 

 constitution of the country, which was of Prankish 

 origin, remained. Under the reign of Louis, mar- 

 graves were appointed, and castles built as securities 

 against the invasions of the Normans and Sclavoni- 

 ans, particularly the Wendes. He enlarged his 

 dominions by the annexation of Cologne, Treves, 

 Aix-la-Chapelle, Utrecht, Metz, Strasburg, Basle, 

 and several places on the left bank of the Rhine, 

 from the hereditary possessions of his nephew Lo- 

 thaire II. Louis died 876, and his three sons, Car- 

 loman, Louis the Younger, and Charles the Fat, 

 divided his dominions among themselves. From 884, 

 Germany and France were again under the same 

 sovereign, Charles the Fat, who nearly restored the 

 limits of the kingdom of his grandfather ; but the spirit 

 of Charlemagne, which alone had been able to hold 

 together the heterogeneous mass, had long since fled, 

 and Charles the Fat sank so low in the estimation of 

 the nation, that the Germans declared the crown for- 

 feited (887), and raised his nephew Arnold of Carin- 

 thia, a natural son of Carloman, to the new throne. 

 After several severe struggles with the Sclavonians 

 in Moravia, against whom he called to his aid the 

 Hungarians (who, in 889, had seated themselves at 

 the foot of the Carpathian mountains), he acquired 

 the imperial crown (896) by the defeat of Berenga- 

 rius, duke of Friuli. In 899, Arnold died, and Louis 

 the Infant, his son, was made king, at the age of six 

 years, by whose death, in 9 11, the Carlovingian race 

 became extinct in Germany. With Henry the Fowler 

 commenced the line of Saxon emperors, distinguished 

 for warlike vigour, for their victories over the Hun- 

 garians, and for the foundation of cities in Germany. 

 Otho the Illustrious, duke of Saxony, having declined 

 the royal dignity, on account of his great age, Conrad 

 I., duke of Franconia, was elected King of Germany 

 by his influence; and, from this time, Germany 

 remained an elective monarchy, till the dissolution of 

 the empire in 1806. If we examine this period of 

 970 years, we find Germany, for a long time, in an 

 unsettled state, suffering under the arbitrary power 

 of its rulers, the feudal oppressions, and the struggle 

 of secular authority against the usurpations of the 

 clergy, till Conrad II. (1024 39) organized the 

 feudal system by a new statute, and first checked the 

 fury of private warfare, by establishing the truce of 

 God, by which the prosecution of deadly feuds, in 

 certain places and on certain days of the week, was 

 attended with the punishment of outlawry. He 

 enlarged the empire by the addition of Burgundy. 

 His successor, Henry III. (1039 56), humbled the 

 papal pride by deposing three popes successively. 

 But the authority of Rome, which exerted so great 

 influence in Germany, gained the ascendency under 

 Henry IV. (10561106) and pope Gregory VII. 

 That emperor was too weak to prevent the establish- 

 ment of the maxim, that the secular power was sub- 

 ject to the spiritual. The warlike spirit of the Ger- 

 man nobility found a theatre of action in the crusades, 

 which powerfully promoted the civilization of all 

 Europe. (See Crusades.} The establishment of the 

 first orders of knighthood, the knights of St John 

 the Templars and the Teutonic order (q. v.), had an 

 important influence on future events. The consti- 

 tution of the empire was the chief obstacle to the 

 rising commerce, which now began to introduce the 

 productions of Asiatic industry into Germany. For 



