Chapter IV: , VII (81)

The work of Roman conquest in Germany, left unfinished by
Drusus, was taken up by his brother Tiberius (afterwards
emperor) under the direction of Augustus. Tiberius crossed the
Rhine, for the first time, B. C. 8. The frontier tribes made
no resistance, but offered submission at once. Tiberius sent
their chiefs to Augustus, then holding his court at Lugdunum
(Lyons), to make terms with the emperor in person, and
Augustus basely treated them as captives and threw them into
prison. The following year found the German tribes again under
arms, and Tiberius again crossed the Rhine; but it was only to
ravage the country, and not to remain. Then followed a period
of ten years, during which the emperor's step-son,
dissatisfied with his position and on ill terms with Augustus,
retired to Rhodes. In the summer of A. D. 4, he returned to
the command of the legions on the Rhine. Meantime, under other
generals,--Domitius and Vinicius,--they had made several
campaigns beyond the river; had momentarily crossed the Elbe;
had constructed a road to the outposts on the Weser; had
fought the Cherusci, with doubtful results, but had not
settled the Roman power in Germany. Tiberius invaded the
country once more, with a powerful force, and seems to have
crushed all resistance in the region between the lower Rhine
and the Weser. The following spring, he repeated, with more
success, the movement of Drusus by land and sea, sending a
flotilla around to the Elbe and up that stream, to a point
where it met and co-operated with a column moved overland,
through the wilderness. A single battle was fought and the
Germans defeated; but, once more, when winter approached, the
Romans retired and no permanent conquest was made. Two years
later (A. D. 6), Tiberius turned his arms against the powerful
nation of the Marcomanni, which had removed itself from the
German mark, or border, into the country formerly occupied, by
the Boii--modern Bohemia. Here, under their able chief Marbod,
or Maroboduus, they developed a formidable military
organization and became threatening to the Roman frontiers on
the Upper Danube. Two converging expeditions, from the Danube
and from the Rhine, were at the point of crushing the
Marcomanni between them, when news of the alarming revolt, in
Pannonia and Dalmatia, called the "Batonian War," caused the
making of a hasty peace with Maroboduus. The Batonian or
Pannonian war occupied Tiberius for nearly three years. He had
just brought it to a close, when intelligence reached Rome of
a disaster in Germany which filled the empire with horror and
dismay. The tribes in northwestern Germany, between the lower
Rhine and the Elbe, supposed to be cowed and submissive, had
now found a leader who could unite them and excite them to
disdain the Roman yoke. This leader was Arminius, or Hermann,
a young chief of the Cherusci, who had been trained in the
Roman military service and admitted to Roman citizenship, but
who hated the oppressors of his country with implacable
bitterness. The scheme of insurrection organized by Arminius
was made easy of execution by the insolent carelessness and
the incapacity of the Roman commander in Germany, L.
Quintilius Varus. It succeeded so well that Varus and his
army,--three entire legions, horse, foot and
auxiliaries,--probably 20,000 men in all,--were overwhelmed in
the Teutoburger Wald, north of the Lippe, and destroyed. Only
a few skulking fugitives reached the Rhine and escaped to tell
the fate of the rest. This was late in the summer of A. D. 9.
In the following spring Tiberius was sent again to the Rhine
frontier, with as powerful a levy of men and equipments as the
empire could collect. He was accompanied by his nephew,
Germanicus, son of Drusus, destined to be his successor in the
field of German conquest.
{1431}
But dread and fear were in the Roman heart, and the campaign
of Tiberius, delayed another twelve months, until A. D. 11,
was conducted too cautiously to accomplish any important
result. He traversed and ravaged a considerable region of the
German country, but withdrew again across the Rhine and left
it, apparently, unoccupied. This was his last campaign.
Returning to Rome, he waited only two years longer for the
imperial sovereignty to which he succeeded on the death of
Augustus, who had made him, by adoption, his son and his heir.

_C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapters 36-38._

ALSO IN:
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 1._

_Sir E. Creasy,
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,
chapter 5._

_T. Smith,
Arminius, part 1,
chapters 4-6._

GERMANY: A. D. 14-16.
Campaigns of Germanicus.

Germanicus--the son of Drusus--was given the command on the
Rhine at the beginning of the year 13 A. D. The following
year, Augustus died and Tiberius became emperor; whereupon
Germanicus found himself no longer restrained from crossing
the river and assuming the offensive against Arminius and his
tribes. His first movement, that autumn, was up the valley of
the Lippe, which he laid waste, far and wide. The next spring,
he led one column, from Mentz, against the Chatti, as far as
the upper branches of the Weser, while he sent another farther
north to chastise the Cherusci and the Marsi, surprising and
massacring the latter at their feast of Tanfana. Later in the
same year, he penetrated, by a double expedition,--moving by
sea and by land, as his father had done before,--to the
country between the Ems and the Lippe, and laid waste the
territory of the Bructeri, and their neighbors. He also
visited the spot where the army of Varus had perished, and
erected a monument to the dead. On the return from this
expedition, four legions, under Cæcina, were beset in the same
manner that Varus had been, and under like difficulties; but
their commander was of different stuff and brought them safely
through, after punishing his pursuers severely. But the army
had been given up as lost, and only the resolute opposition of
Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, had prevented the Roman
commander at Vetera, on the Rhine, from destroying the bridge
there, and abandoning the legions to their supposed fate. In
the spring of A. D. 16, Germanicus again embarked his army,
80,000 strong, at the mouth of the Rhine, on board transports,
and moved it to the mouth of the Ems, where the fleet
remained. Thence he marched up the Ems and across to the
Weser, and was encountered, in the country of the Cherusci, by
a general levy of the German tribes, led by Arminius and
Inguiomerus. Two great battles were fought, in which the
Romans were victorious. But, when returning from this
campaign, the fleet encountered a storm in which so much of it
perished, with the troops on board, that the disaster threw a
heavy cloud of gloom over the triumph of Germanicus. The young
general was soon afterwards recalled, and three years later he
died,--of poison, as is supposed,--at Antioch. "The central
government ceased from this time to take any warm interest in
the subjugation of the Germans; and the dissensions of their
states and princes, which peace was not slow in developing,
attracted no Roman emissaries to the barbarian camps, and
rarely led the legions beyond the frontier, which was now
allowed to recede finally to the Rhine."

_C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 42._

ALSO IN:
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 1._

_T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 1, chapter 7._

GERMANY: 3d Century.
Beginning of the "Wandering of the Nations."

"Towards the middle of the third century, ... a change becomes
perceptible in the relations and attitude of the German
peoples. Many of the nations, which have been celebrated in
the annals of the classical writers, disappear silently from
history; new races, new combinations and confederacies start
into life, and the names which have achieved an imperishable
notoriety from their connection with the long decay and the
overthrow of the Roman Empire, come forward, and still
survive. On the soil whereon the Sigambri, Marsi, Chauci, and
Cherusci had struggled to preserve a rude independence, Franks
and Saxons lived free and formidable; Alemanni were gathered
along the foot of the Roman wall which connected the Danube
with the Rhine, and had, hitherto, preserved inviolate the
Agri decumates; while eastern Germany, allured by the hope of
spoil, or impelled by external pressure, precipitated itself
under the collective term of Goths upon the shrinking
settlements of the Dacia and the Danube. The new appellations
which appear in western Germany in the third century have not
unnaturally given rise to the presumption that unknown peoples
had penetrated through the land, and overpowered the ancient
tribes, and national vanity has contributed to the delusion.
As the Burgundians ... were flattered by being told they were
descendants of Roman colonists, so the barbarian writers of a
later period busied their imaginations in the solitude of
monastic life to enhance the glory of their countrymen, by the
invention of what their inkling of classical knowledge led
them to imagine a more illustrious origin. ... Fictions like
these may be referred to as an index of the time when the
young barbarian spirit, eager after fame, and incapable of
balancing probabilities, first gloated over the marvels of
classical literature, though its refined and delicate beauties
eluded their grosser taste; but they require no critical
examination; there are no grounds for believing that Franks,
Saxons, or Alemanni, were other than the original inhabitants
of the country, though there is a natural difficulty arising
from the want of written contemporary evidence in tracing the
transition, and determining the tribes of which the new
confederacies were formed. At the same time, though no
immigration of strangers was possible, a movement of a
particular tribe was not unfrequent. The constant internal
dissensions of the Germans, combined with their spirit of
warlike enterprise, led to frequent domestic wars; and the
vanquished sometimes chose rather to seek an asylum far from
their native soil, where they might live in freedom, than
continue as bondmen or tributaries to the conqueror. Of such a
nature were the wanderings of the Usipites and Teuchteri
[Tenchteri] in Cæsar's time, the removal of the Ubii from
Nassau to the neighbourhood of Cöln and Xanthen; and to this
must be ascribed the appearance of the Burgundians, who had
dwelt beyond the Oder, in the vicinity of the Main and the
Necker. Another class of national emigrations, were those
which implied a final abandonment of the native Germany with
the object of seeking a new settlement among the possessions
of the sinking empire.
{1432}
Those of the Goths, Vandals, Alans, Sueves, the second
movement of the Burgundians, may be included in this category;
the invasions of the Franks, Alemanni, and Saxons, on the
contrary, cannot be called national emigrations, for they
never abandoned, with their families, their original
birthplace; their outwanderings, like the emigrations of the
present day, were partial; their occupation of the enemy's
territory was, in character, military and progressive; and,
with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain,
their connection with the original stock was never
interrupted. In all the migrations of German peoples spoken of
from Cæsar downwards, the numbers of the emigrants appear to
be enormously exaggerated. The Usipites and Teuchteri are
estimated by Cæsar at 430,000 souls. How could such a
multitude find nourishment during a three years' wandering? If
80,000 Burgundian Wehrmen came to the Rhine to the assistance
of Valentinian, as Cassiodorius, Jerome, and other chroniclers
state, the numbers of the whole nation must have approached
400,000, and it is impossible to believe that such a mass
could obtain support in the narrow district lying between the
Alemanni, the Hermunduri, and the Chatti. In other cases,
vague expressions, and still more the wonderful achievements
of the Germans in the course of their emigrations, have led to
the supposition of enormous numbers; but Germany could not
find nourishment for the multitudes which have been ascribed
to it. Corn at that period was little cultivated; it was not
the food of the people, whose chief support was flesh. ... The
conquests of the barbarians may be ascribed as much to the
weakness of their adversaries, to their want of energy and
union, as to their own strength. There was, in fact, no enemy
to meet them in the field; and their domination was, at least,
as acceptable to the provincial inhabitants as that of the
imbecile, but rapacious ministers of the Roman government. ...
It was not the lust of wandering, but the influence of
external circumstances which brought them to the vicinity of
the Danube: at first the aggressions of the Romans, then the
pressure of the Huns and the Sclavonic tribes. The whole
intercourse of Germany with Rome must be considered as one
long war, which began with the invasion of Cæsar; which, long
restrained by the superior power of the enemy, warmed with his
growing weakness, and only ended with the extinction of the
Roman name. The wars of the third, fourth, and fifth
centuries, were only a continuance of the ancient hostility.
There might be partial truce, or occasional intermission; some
tribes might be almost extirpated by the sword; some, for a
time, bought off by money; but Rome was the universal enemy,
and much of the internal restlessness of the Germans was no
more than the natural movement towards the hostile borders. As
the invasion of northern Germany gave rise to the first great
northern union, so the conquest of Dacia brought Goths from
the Vistula to the south, while the erection of the giant wall
naturally gathered the Suevic tribes along its limits, only
waiting for the opportunity to break through. Step by step
this battle of centuries was fought; from the time of
Caracalla the flood turned, wave followed wave like the
encroaching tide, and the ancient landmarks receded bit by
bit, till Rome itself was buried beneath the waters. ... Three
great confederacies of German tribes, more or less united by
birth, position, interest, or language, may be discerned,
during this period, in immediate contact with the Romans---the
Alemanni, the Goths, and the Franks. A fourth, the Saxons, was
chiefly known from its maritime voyages off the coast of Gaul
and Britain. There were also many independent peoples which
cannot be enumerated among any of the political confederacies,
but which acted for themselves, and pursued their individual
ends: such were the Burgundians, the Alans, the Vandals, and
the Lombards."

_T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_R. G. Latham,
Nationalities of Europe,
volume 2, chapter 21._

See, also,
ALEMANNI; MARCOMANNI; QUADI; GOTHS;
GEPIDÆ; SAXONS; ANGLES, FRANKS;
BURGUNDIANS; VANDALS; SUEVI; LOMBARDS;
and, also, Appendix A, volume 1.

GERMANY: A. D. 277.
Invasion by Probus.

The vigorous emperor Probus, who, in the year 277, drove from
Gaul the swarms of invaders that had ravaged the unhappy
province with impunity for two years past, then crossed the
Rhine and harried the country of the marauders, as far as the
Elbe and the Neckar. "Germany, exhausted by the ill success of
the last emigration, was astonished by his presence. Nine of
the most considerable princes repaired to his camp and fell
prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was humbly received by
the Germans as it pleased the conqueror to dictate." Probus
then caused a stone wall, strengthened at intervals with
towers, to be built from the Danube, near Neustadt and
Ratisbon, to Wimpfen on the Neckar, and thence to the Rhine,
for the protection of the settlers of the "Agri Decumates."
But the wall was thrown down, a few years afterwards, by the
Alemanni.

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 12._

GERMANY: 5th Century.
Conversion of the Franks.

See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.

GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.
Acquisition of supremacy by the Franks.

The original dominions of Clovis, or Chlodwig--with whose
reign the career of the Franks as a consolidated people
began--corresponded nearly to the modern kingdom of Belgium.
His first conquests were from the Romans, in the neighboring
parts of Gaul, and when those were finished, "the king of the
Franks began to look round upon the other German nations
settled upon its soil, with a view to the further extension of
his power. A quarrel with the Alemanni supplied the first
opportunity for the gratification of his ambition. For more
than a century the Alemanni had been in undisturbed possession
of Alsace, and the adjoining districts; Mainz, Worms, Speyer,
Strasburg, Basel, Constanz, Bregenz, lay within their
territory. ... The Vosegen range was a bulwark on the side of
Gaul, waste lands separated them from the Burgundians, who
were settled about the Jura and in the south-west part of
Helvetia, and the Moselle divided them from the Ripuarian
Franks. It is unknown whether they formed a state distinct
from their brethren on the right of the Rhine; probably such
was the case, for the Alemanni, at all times, were divided
into separate tribes, between which, however, was generally a
common union; nor is it certain whether the Alsatian Alemanni
were under one or several Adelings; a single king is mentioned
as having fallen in the battle with Chlodwig, who may have
been merely an elected military leader.

{1433 and 1434 moved forward for continuity}

{1435}
Equally obscure is the cause of their war with Chlodwig,
though it has been assumed, perhaps too hastily, by all recent
historians, that the Frank king became involved in it as an
ally of the Ripuarians. The Ripuarian Franks were settled, as
the name imports, upon the banks of the Rhine, from the
Moselle downwards; their chief seat was the city of Cologne.
It is probable that they consisted of the remains of the
ancient Ubii, strengthened by the adventurers who crossed over
on the first invasion, and the name implies that they were
regarded by the Romans as a kind of limitanean soldiery. For,
in the common parlance of the Romans of that period, the tract
of land lying along the Rhine was called Ripa, in an absolute
sense, and even the river itself was not unfrequently
denominated by the same title. Ripuarii are Ripa-wehren,
Hreop, or Hrepa-wehren, defenders of the shore. About the
close of the fifth century these Ripuarii were under the
government of a king, named Sigebert, usually called 'the
lance.' The story told by modern writers is, that this
Sigebert, having fallen into dispute with the Alemanni, called
upon Chlodwig for assistance, a call which the young king
willingly listened to. The Alemanni had invaded the Ripuarian
territory, and advanced within a short distance of Cologne,
when Chlodwig and his Franks joined the Ripuarii; a battle
took place at Zülpich, about twenty-two English miles from
Cologne, which, after a fierce struggle, ended in the defeat
of the Alemanni. ... Chlodwig was following up his victory
over the Alemanni, perhaps with unnecessary ferocity, when he
was stopped in his course by a flattering embassy from the
great Theodorich. Many of the Alemanni had submitted, after
the death of their chief, on the field of battle. 'Spare us,'
they cried, 'for we are now thy people!' but there were many
who, abhorring the Frank yoke, fled towards the south, and
threw themselves under the protection of the Ostrogothic king,
who had possessed himself of the ancient Rhætia and
Vindelicia."

_T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 4._

The sons of Clovis pushed their conquests on the Germanic as
well as on the Gallic side of the Rhine. Theodoric, or
Theuderik, who reigned at Metz, with the aid of his brother
Clotaire, or Chlother, of Soissons, subjugated the
Thuringians, between A. D. 515 and 528. "How he [Theuderik]
acquired authority over the Alemans and the Bavarians is not
known. Perhaps in the subjugation of Thuringia he had taken
occasion to extend his sway over other nations; but from this
time forth we find not only these, but the Saxons more to the
north, regarded as the associates or tributaries of the
Eastern or Ripuarian Franks. From the Elbe to the Meuse, and
from the Northern Ocean to the sources of the Rhine, a region
comprising a great part of ancient Germany, the ascendency of
the Franks was practically acknowledged, and a kingdom was
formed [Austrasia--Oster-rike--the Eastern Kingdom] which was
destined to overshadow all the other Mérovingian states; The
various tribes which composed its Germanic accretions, remote
and exempt from the influences of the Roman civilization,
retained their fierce customs and their rude superstitions,
and continued to be governed by their hereditary dukes; but
their wild masses marched under the standards of the Franks,
and conceded to those formidable conquerors a certain degree
of political supremacy." When, in 558, Clotaire, by the death
of his brothers, became the sole king of the Franks, his
empire embraced all Roman Gaul, except Septimania, still held
by the Visigoths, and Brittany, but slightly subjected; "while
in ancient Germany, from the Rhine to the Weser, the powerful
duchies of the Alemans, the Thuringians, the Bavarians, the
Frisons, and the Saxons, were regarded not entirely as
subject, and yet as tributary provinces." During the next
century and a half, the feebleness of the Merovingians lost
their hold upon these German tributaries. "As early as the
time of Chlother II. the Langobards had recovered their
freedom; under Dagobert [622-638], the Saxons; under Sighebert
II. [638-656], the Thuringians; and now, during the late
broils [670-687], the Alemans, the Bavarians and the Frisons."
But the vigorous Mayors of the Palace, Pepin Heristal and Karl
Martel, applied themselves resolutely to the restoration of
the Frank supremacy, in Germany as well as in Aquitaine. Pepin
"found the task nearly impossible. Time and again he assailed the
Frisons, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Alemans, but could
bind them to no truce nor peace for any length of time. No
less than ten times the Frisons resumed their arms, while the
revolts of the others were so incessant that he was compelled
to abandon all hope of recovering the southern or Roman part
of Gaul, in order to direct his attention exclusively to the
Germans. The aid which he received from the Christian
missionaries rendered him more successful among them. Those
intrepid propagandists pierced where his armies could not. ...
The Franks and the Popes of Rome had a common interest in this
work of the conversion of the Germans, the Franks to restrain
irruptions, and the Popes to carry their spiritual sway over
Europe." Pepin left these unfinished German wars to his son
Karl, the Hammer, and Karl prosecuted them with characteristic
energy during his first years of power. "Almost every month he
was forced into some expedition beyond the Rhine. ... The
Alemans, the Bavarians, and the Frisons, he succeeded in
subjecting to a formal confession at least of the Frankish
supremacy; but the turbulent and implacable Saxons baffled his
most strenuous efforts. Their wild tribes had become, within a
few years, a powerful and numerous nation; they had
appropriated the lands of the Thuringians and Hassi, or Catti,
and joined to themselves other confederations and tribes; and,
stretching from the Rhine to the Elbe, offered their marshes
and forests a free asylum to all the persecuted sectaries of
Odhinn, to all the lovers of native and savage independence.
Six times in succession the armies of Karl penetrated the
wilderness they called their home, ravaging their fields and
burning their cabins, but the Saxon war was still renewed. He
left it to the energetic labors of other conquerors, to
Christian missionaries, ... to break the way of civilization
into those rude and darkened realms." Karl's sons Pepin and
Karloman crushed revolts of the Alemans, or Suabians, and the
Bavarians in 742, and Karloman humbled the Saxons in a great
campaign (744), compelling them in large numbers to submit to
Christian baptism. After that, Germany waited for its first
entire master--Charlemagne.

_P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapters 12-15._

ALSO IN:
_W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapters 2-6._

See, also,
FRANKS, and AUSTRASIA.

{1433 moved here for continuity}

FIFTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

* Uncertain date.

A. D. 402.
Defeat of Alaric by Stilicho.

Birth of Phocion* (d. 317).

404.
Removal of the capital of the Western Empire from Rome to
Ravenna.*

Banishment of the Patriarch, John Chrysostom, from
Constantinople; burning of the Church of Saint Sophia.

406.
Barbarian inroad of Radagaisus into Italy.

Breaking of the Rhine barrier by German tribes;
overwhelming invasion of Gaul by Vandals, Alans, Suevi, and
Burgundians.

407.
Usurpation of Constantine in Britain and Gaul.

408.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, and accession of
Theodosius II.

Execution of Stilicho at Ravenna;
massacre of barbarian hostages in Italy;
blockade of Rome by Alaric.

409.
Invasion of Spain by the Vandals, Suevi, and Alans.

410.
Siege, capture and pillage of Rome by Alaric; his death.

Abandonment of Britain by the Empire.

The barbarian attack upon Gaul joined by the Franks.

412.
Gaul entered by the Visigoths

Cyril made Patriarch of Alexandria.

414.
Title of Augusta taken by Pulcheria at Constantinople.

415.
Visigothic conquest of Spain begun.

Persecution of Jews at Alexandria; death of Hypatia.

418.
Founding of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse in Aquitaine.

422.
War between Persia and the Eastern Empire
partition of Armenia.

423.
Death of Honorius, Emperor in the West;
usurpation of John the Notary.

425.
Accession of the Western Emperor, Valentinian III., under the
regency of Placidia; formal and legal separation of the
Eastern and Western Empires.

428.
Conquests of the Vandals in Spain.

Nestorius made Patriarch of Constantinople.

429.
Vandal conquests in Africa begun.

430.
Siege of Hippo Regius in Africa;
death of Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo.

431.
Third General Council of the Church, held at Ephesus.

433.
Beginning of the reign of Attila, king of the Huns. *

435.
Nestorius exiled to the Libyan desert.

439.
Carthage taken by the Vandals.

440.
Leo the Great elected Pope.

441.
Invasion of the Eastern Empire by Attila and the Huns.

443.
Conquest and settlement of Savoy by the Burgundians.

446.
Thermopylæ passed by the Huns;
humiliating purchase of peace with them by the Eastern
Emperor.

449.
Landing in Britain of the Jutes under Hengist and Horsa.*
Meeting of the so-called Robber Synod at Ephesus.

450.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II., and accession of
Pulcheria.

451.
Great defeat of the Huns at Chalons;
retreat of Attila from Gaul.

Fourth General Council of the Church, held at Chalcedon.

452.
Invasion of Italy by Attila; origin of Venice.

453.
Death of Attila; dissolution of his empire.

Death of Pulcheria, Empress in the East.

455.
Murder of Valentinian III., Emperor in the West;
usurpation of Maximus.

Rome pillaged by the Vandals.

Birth of Theodoric the Great (d. 526).

456.
Supremacy of Ricimer, commander of the barbarian mercenaries,
in the Western Empire; Avitus deposed.

457.
Marjorian, first of the imperial puppets of Ricimer, raised to
the throne of the Western Empire.

Accession of Leo I., Emperor in the East.

461.
Marjorian deposed; Severus made Emperor in the West.

Death of Pope Leo the Great and election of Pope Hilarius.

467.
Anthemius made Emperor in the West.

472.
Siege and storming of Rome by Ricimer;
death of Anthemius, and of Ricimer;
Olybrius and Glycerius successive emperors.

473.
Ostrogothic invasion of Italy diverted to Gaul.

474.
Julius Nepos Emperor in the West;
accession of Zeno in the Eastern Empire.

475.
Romulus Augustulus made Emperor in the West.

476.
Romulus Augustulus dethroned by Odoacer:
extinction for more than three centuries of the Western line
of emperors.

477.
Beginning of Saxon conquests in Britain.

480.
Birth of Saint Benedict (d. 543).

481.
Founding of the Frank kingdom by Clovis.

486.
Overthrow of the kingdom of Syagrius, the last Roman
sovereignty in Gaul.

488.
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, commissioned by the Eastern
Emperor to invade Italy.

489.
Defeat of Odoacer by Theodoric at Verona.

491.
Accession of Anastasius, Emperor in the East.

Capture of Anderida by the South Saxons.

492.
Election of Pope Gelasius I.

493.
Surrender of Odoacer at Ravenna;
his murder;
Theodoric king of Italy.

494. Landing of Cerdic and his band of Saxons in Britain. *

496.
Defeat of the Alemanni at Tolbiac by Clovis, king of the Franks;
baptism of Clovis.

{1434 moved here for continuity}

SIXTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

* Uncertain date.

A. D. 504.
Expulsion of the Alemanni from the Middle Rhine by the Franks.

505.
Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.

507.
Overthrow of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse by Clovis.

511.
Death of Clovis;
partition of the Frank kingdom among his sons.

Monophysite riot at Constantinople.

512.
Second Monophysite riot at Constantinople.

515.
Publication of the monastic rule of Saint Benedict.

518.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Anastasius, and accession of
Justin I.

519.
Cerdic and Cynric become kings of the West Saxons.

525.
Execution of Boethius and Symmachus by Theodoric, king of
Italy.

526.
Death of Theodoric and accession of Athalaric.

Great earthquake at Antioch.

War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.

527.
Accession of Justinian in the Eastern Empire.

528.
Conquest of Thuringia by the Franks.

529.
Defeat of the Persians, at Dara, by the Roman general
Belisarius.

Closing of the schools at Athens.

Publication of the Code of Justinian.

531.
Accession of Chosroes, or Nushirvan, to the throne of Persia.

532.
End of War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.

Nika sedition at Constantinople.

533.
Overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in Africa by Belisarius.

Publication of the Pandects of Justinian.

534.
Conquest of the Burgundians by the Franks.

535.
Recovery of Sicily from the Goths by Belisarius.

536.
Rome taken from the Goths by Belisarius for Justinian.

537.
Unsuccessful siege of Rome by the Goths.

539.
Destruction of Milan by the Goths.

Invasion of Italy by the Franks.

540.
Surrender of Ravenna to Belisarius;
his removal from command.

Invasion of Syria by Chosroes, king of Persia;
storming and sacking of Antioch.

Formal relinquishment of Gaul to the Franks by Justinian.

Vigilius made Pope.

541.
Gothic successes under Totila, in Italy.

End of the succession of. Roman Consuls.

Defense of the East by Belisarius.

542.
Great Plague in the Roman Empire.

543.
Surrender of Naples to Totila.

Death of Saint Benedict.

Invasion of Spain by the Franks.

544.
Belisarius again in command in Italy.

546.
Totila's siege, capture and pillage of Rome.

547.
The city of Rome totally deserted for six weeks.

Founding of the kingdom of Bernicia (afterward included in
Northumberland) in England.

Subjection of the Bavarians to the Franks.

548.
Death of the Eastern Empress, Theodora.

549.
Second siege and capture of Rome by Totila.

Beginning of the Lazic War.

552.
Totila defeated and killed by the imperial army under Narses.

553.
End of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy;
restoration of the imperial sovereignty.

Fifth General Council of the Church, at Constantinople.

Establishment of the Exarch at Ravenna, representing the
Emperor at Constantinople.

555.
Pelagius I. made Pope.

558.
Reunion of the Frank empire under Clothaire I.

560.
John III. made Pope.

563.
Founding of the monastery of Iona, in Scotland, by Saint Columba.

565.
Death of Belisarius and of the Eastern Emperor Justinian;
accession of Justin II.

566.
Conquest of the Gepidæ in Dacia by the Lombards and Avars.

567.
Division of the Frank dominion into the three kingdoms of
Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy.

568.
Invasion of Italy by the Lombards;
siege of Pavia.

570.
Birth of Mahomet. *

572.
Renewed war of the Eastern Empire with Persia.

573.
Murder of Alboin, king of the Lombards.

Subjugation of the Suevi by the Visigoths in Spain.

574.
Benedict I. made Pope.

578.
Accession of the Eastern Emperor Tiberius Constantinus.

Pelagius II. made Pope.

582.
Accession of Maurice, Emperor in the East.

588.
Kingdom of Northumberland, in England, founded by the union of
Bernicia and Deira under Æthelric.

589.
Abandonment of Arianism by the Goths in Spain.

590.
Gregory the Great elected Pope.

591.
Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.

597.
Mission of Saint Augustine to England.

Death of Saint Columba.

---------End of moved pages 1433 and 1434----------

{1436}

GERMANY: A. D. 687-800.
Rise of the Carolingians and the Empire of Charlemagne.

"Towards the close of the Merovingian period, ... the kingdom
of the Franks ... was divided into four great districts, or
kingdoms as they were called: Austrasia, or the eastern
kingdom, from the river Rhine to the Meuse, with Metz as its
principal city; Neustria, or the western kingdom, extending
from Austrasia to the ocean on the west, and to the Loire on
the south; Aquitaine, south of that river to the foot of the
Pyrenees; and Burgundy, from the Rhone to the Alps, including
Switzerland. These four kingdoms became, before the extinction
of the Merovingian race, consolidated into two,--viz., Austrasia
and Neustria, Eastern and Western Francia,--modern Germany
and modern France, roughly speaking,--of which the first was
to gain the pre-eminence, as it was the seat of the power of
that race of Charlemagne which seized upon the kingdoms of the
Merovingians. But in these kingdoms, while the family of
Clovis occupied them, the royal power became more and more
feeble as time went on, a condition which is illustrated by
the title given in history to these kings,--that of 'rois
fainéants.'... The most powerful officer of a Frankish king
was his steward, or, as he was called, the mayor of his
palace. ... In Austrasia the office had become hereditary in
the family of Pepin of Landen (a small village near Liège),
and under its guidance the degenerate children of Clovis in
that kingdom fought for the supremacy with those equally
degenerate in Neustria, at that time also under the real
control of another mayor of the palace, called Ebroin. The
result of this struggle, after much bloodshed and misery, was
reached in the year 687 at the battle of Testry, in which the
Austrasians completely defeated the Neustrians. ... The
Merovingian princes were still nominally kings, while all the
real power was in the hands of the descendants of Pepin of
Landen, mayors of the palace, and the policy of government was
as fully settled by them as if they had been kings de jure as
well as de facto. This family produced in its earlier days
some persons who have become among the most conspicuous
figures in history:--Pepin, the founder; Pepin le Gros, of
Héristal; Charles, his son, commonly called Martel, or the
Hammerer; Pepin le Bref, under whom the Carlovingian dynasty
was, by aid of the Pope, recognized as the lawful successor of
the Merovingians, even before the extinction of that race;
and, lastly, Charles, surnamed the Great, or Charlemagne, one
of the few men of the human race who, by common consent, have
occupied the foremost rank in history. ... The object of Pepin
of Héristal was two-fold,--to repress the disposition of the
turbulent nobles to encroach upon the royal authority, and to
bring again under the yoke of the Franks those tribes in
Germany who had revolted against the Frankish rule owing to
the weakness of the Merovingian government. He measurably
accomplished both objects. ... He seems to have had what
perhaps is the best test at all times of the claims of a man
to be a real statesman: some consciousness of the true nature
of his mission,--the establishment of order. ... His son and
successor, Charles Martel, was even more conspicuous for the
possession of this genius of statesmanship, but he exhibited
it in a somewhat different direction. He, too, strove to hold
the nobles in check, and to break the power of the Frisian and
the Saxon tribes; and he fought besides, fortunately for his
fame, one of the fifteen decisive battles in the history of
the world, that of Poitiers, in 732, by which the Saracens,
who had conquered Spain, and who had strong hopes of gaining
possession of the whole of Western Europe, were driven back
from Northern France, never to return. ... His son, Pepin le
Bref, is equally conspicuous with the rest in history, but in
a somewhat different way. He continued the never-ending wars
in Germany and in Gaul with the object of securing peace by
the sword, and with more or less success. But his career is
noteworthy principally because he completed the actual
deposition of the last of the Merovingian race, whose nominal
servants but real masters he and his predecessors, mayors of
the palace, had been, and because he sought and obtained the
sanction of the Church for this usurpation. ... The Pope's
position at this time was one of very great embarrassment.
Harassed by the Lombards, who were not only robbers, but who
were also Arians, and who admitted none of the Catholic clergy
to their councils,--with no succor from the Emperors at
Constantinople (whose subject he nominally was) against the
Lombards, and, indeed, in open revolt against them because as
bishop and patriarch of the West he had forbidden the
execution of the decree against the placing of images in the
churches,--for these and many such reasons he sorely needed
succor, and naturally in his necessity he turned to the
powerful King of the Franks. The coronation of Pepin le Bref,
first by St. Boniface, and then by the Pope himself, was the
first step in the fulfilment of the alliance on his part.
Pepin was soon called upon to do his share of the work. Twice
at the bidding of the Pope he descended from the Alps, and,
defeating the Lombards, was rewarded by him and the people of
Rome with the title of Patrician. ... On the death of Pepin,
the Lombards again took up arms and harassed the Church's
territory. Charlemagne, his successor, was called upon to come
to the rescue, and he swept the Lombard power in Italy out of
existence, annexing its territory to the Frankish kingdom, and
confirming the grant of the Exarchate and of the Pentapolis
which his father had made to the Popes. This was in the year
774. ... For twenty-five years Charlemagne ruled Rome
nominally as Patrician, under the supremacy, equally nominal,
of the Emperor at Constantinople. The true sovereign,
recognized as such, was the Pope or Bishop of Rome, but the
actual power was in the hands of the mob, who at one time
towards the close of the century, in the absence of both
Emperor and Patrician, assaulted the Pope while conducting a
procession, and forced him to abandon the city. This Pope,
Leo, with a fine instinct as to the quarter from which succor
could alone come, hurried to seek Charlemagne, who was then in
Germany engaged in one of his never-ending wars against the
Saxons. The appeal for aid was not made in vain, and Charles
descended once more from the Alps in the summer of 799, with
his Frankish hosts. On Christmas day, A. D. 800, in the Church
of St. Peter ... Pope Leo, during the mass, and after the
reading of the gospel, placed upon the brow of Charlemagne,
who had abandoned his northern furs for the dress of a Roman
patrician, the diadem of the Cæsars, and hailed him Imperator
Semper Augustus, while the multitude shouted, 'Carolo, Augusto
a Deo coronato magno et pacifico Imperatori Vita et Victoria.'
In that shout and from that moment one of the most fruitful
epochs of history begins."

_C. J. Stillé,
Studies in Mediæval History,
chapter 3._

See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

{1437}

GERMANY: A. D. 800.
Charlemagne's restoration of the Roman Empire.

"Three hundred and twenty-four years had passed since the last
Cæsar of the West resigned his power into the hands of the
senate, and left to his Eastern brother the sole headship of
the Roman world. To the latter Italy had from that time been
nominally subject; but it was only during one brief interval,
between the death of Totila the last Ostrogothic king and the
descent of Alboin the first Lombard, that his power had been
really effective. In the further provinces, Gaul, Spain,
Britain, it was only a memory. But the idea of a Roman Empire
as a necessary part of the world's order had not vanished: it
had been admitted by those who seemed to be destroying it; it
had been cherished by the Church; was still recalled by laws
and customs; was dear to the subject populations, who fondly
looked back to the days when slavery was at least mitigated by
peace and order. ... Both the extinction of the Western Empire
in [A.D. 476] ... and its revival in A. D. 800 have been very
generally misunderstood in modern times. ... When Odoacer
compelled the abdication of Romulus Augustulus, he did not
abolish the Western Empire as a separate power, but caused it
to be reunited with or sink into the Eastern, so that from
that time there was, as there had been before Diocletian, a
single undivided Roman Empire. In A. D. 800 the very memory of
the separate Western Empire, as it had stood from the death of
Theodosius till Odoacer, had, so far as appears, been long
since lost, and neither Leo nor Charles nor anyone among their
advisers dreamt of reviving it. They, too, like their
predecessors, held the Roman Empire to be one and indivisible,
and proposed by the coronation of the Frankish king, not to
proclaim a severance of the East and West, but to reverse the
act of Constantine, and make Old Rome again the civil as well
as the ecclesiastical capital of the Empire that bore her
name. ... Although therefore we must in practice speak during
the next seven centuries (down till A. D. 1453, when
Constantinople fell before the Mohammedan) of an Eastern and a
Western Empire, the phrase is in strictness incorrect, and was
one which either court ought to have repudiated. The
Byzantines always did repudiate it; the Latins usually;
although, yielding to facts, they sometimes condescended to
employ it themselves. But their theory was always the same.
Charles was held to be the legitimate successor, not of
Romulus Augustulus, but of Basil, Heraclius, Justinian,
Arcadius, and all the Eastern line. ... North Italy and Rome
ceased for ever to own the supremacy of Byzantium; and while
the Eastern princes paid a shameful tribute to the Mussulman,
the Frankish Emperor--as the recognised head of
Christendom--received from the patriarch of Jerusalem the keys
of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of Calvary; the gift of
the Sepulchre itself, says Eginhard, from Aaron king of the
Persians [the Caliph Haroun el Rashid]. ... Four centuries
later, when Papacy and Empire had been forced into the mortal
struggle by which the fate of both was decided, three distinct
theories regarding the coronation of Charles will be found
advocated by three different parties, all of them plausible,
all of them to some extent misleading. The Swabian Emperors
held the crown to have been won by their great predecessor as
the prize of conquest, and drew the conclusion that the
citizens and bishop of Rome had no rights as against
themselves. The patriotic party among the Romans, appealing to
the early history of the Empire, declared that by nothing but the
voice of their senate and people could an Emperor be lawfully
created, he being only their chief magistrate, the temporary
depositary of their authority. The Popes pointed to the
indisputable fact that Leo imposed the crown, and argued that
as God's earthly vicar it was then his, and must always
continue to be their right to give to whomsoever they would an
office which was created to be the handmaid of their own. Of
these three it was the last view that eventually prevailed."

_J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 4-5._

ALSO IN:
_J. I. Mombert,
History of Charles the Great,
chapter 14._

See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

GERMANY: A. D. 805.
Conquest of the Avars.
Creation of the Austrian March.

See AVARS, and AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.

GERMANY: A. D. 814-843.
Division of the Empire of Charlemagne.

"There was a manifest conflict, during his later years, in the
court, in the councils, in the mind of Charlemagne [who died
in 814], between the King of the Franks and the Emperor of the
West; between the dissociating, independent Teutonic
principle, and the Roman principle of one code, one dominion,
one sovereign. The Church, though Teutonic in descent, was
Roman in the sentiment of unity. ... That unity had been
threatened by the proclaimed division of the realm between the
sons of Charlemagne. The old Teutonic usage of equal
distribution seemed doomed to prevail over the august unity of
the Roman Empire. What may appear more extraordinary, the
kingdom of Italy was the inferior appanage: it carried not
with it the Empire, which was still to retain a certain
supremacy; that was reserved for the Teutonic sovereign. It
might seem as if this were but the continuation of the Lombard
kingdom, which Charlemagne still held by the right of
conquest. It was bestowed on Pepin; after his death entrusted
to Bernhard, Pepin's illegitimate but only son. Wiser counsels
prevailed. The two elder sons of Charlemagne died without
issue; Louis the third son was summoned from his kingdom of
Aquitaine, and solemnly crowned [813] at Aix-la-Chapelle, as
successor to the whole Empire."

_H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

{1438}

"Instead of being preoccupied with the care of keeping the
empire united, Louis divided it in the year 817 by giving
kingdoms to his three sons. The eldest, Lothaire, had Italy;
Louis, Bavaria; Pepin, Aquitaine. A nephew of the emperor,
Bernard, imagined himself wronged by this partition, and took
up arms to hold Italy. Vanquished without striking a blow, he
delivered himself up to his uncle, who caused his eyes to be
put out. He expired under that torture. Louis reproached
himself later for that cruel death, and to expiate it,
subjected himself to a public penance. In 823, there was born
to him a fourth son. To make him a sharer of his inheritance,
the emperor, annulling in 829 the partition of 817, gave him
Germany, thus depriving his elder sons of part of the
inheritance previously assigned them. This provoked the
resentment of those princes; they rose in rebellion against
their father, and the rest of the reign of Louis was only a
succession of impious contests with his turbulent sons. In
833, he deposed Pepin, and gave his kingdom of Aquitaine to
his youngest born, Charles. Twice deposed himself, and twice
restored, Louis only emerged from the cloister, for which he
was so well fitted, to repeat the same faults. When Louis the
Good-natured died in 840, it was not his cause only which he
had lost through his weakness, but that of the empire. Those
intestine quarrels presaged its dismemberment, which ere long
happened. The sons of Louis, to serve their own ambition, had
revived the national antipathies of the different races.
Lothaire placed himself at the head of the Italians; Louis
rallied the Germans round him, and Charles the Bald the Franks
of Gaul, who were henceforward called Frenchmen. Those three
peoples aspired to break up the union whose bond Charlemagne
had imposed upon them, as the three brothers aspired to form
each for himself a kingdom. The question was decided at the
great battle of Fontanet, near Auxerre, in 841. Lothaire, who
fought therein for the preservation of the empire and of his
authority, was conquered. By the treaty of Verdun [843--see
VERDUN, TREATY OF] it was decided that Louis should have
Germany to the east of the Rhine; Charles, France to the west
of the Scheld, the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone; finally,
Lothaire, Italy, with the long range of country comprised
between the Alps and the Cevennes, the Jura, the Saone, the
Rhine, and the Meuse, which from his name was called
Lotharingia. This designation is still to be traced in one of
the recently French provinces, Lorraine."

_S. Menzies,
History of Europe from the Decadence of
the Western Empire to the Reformation,
chapter. 13._

GERMANY: A. D. 843.
Accession of Louis II.

GERMANY: A. D. 843-962.
Treaty of Verdun.
Definite separation from France.
The kingdom of the East Franks.

The partition of the empire of Charlemagne among his three
grandsons, by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, gave to Charles
the Bald a kingdom which nearly coincided with France, as
afterwards existing under that name, "before its Burgundian
and German annexations.

See VERDUN, TREATY OF;
also, FRANKS: A. D. 814-962.

It also founded a kingdom which roughly answered to the later
Germany before its great extension to the East at the expense
of the Slavonic nations. And as the Western kingdom was formed
by the addition of Aquitaine to the Western Francia, so the
Eastern kingdom was formed by the addition of the Eastern
Francia to Bavaria. Lewis of Bavaria [surnamed 'the German']
became king of a kingdom which we are tempted to call the
kingdom of Germany. Still it would as yet be premature to
speak of France at all, or even to speak of Germany, except in
the geographical sense. The two kingdoms are severally the
kingdoms of the Eastern and of the Western Franks. ... The
Kings had no special titles, and their dominions had no
special names recognized in formal use. Every king who ruled
over any part of the ancient Francia was a king of the Franks.
... The Eastern part of the Frankish dominions, the lot of
Lewis the German and his successors, is thus called the
Eastern Kingdom, the Teutonic Kingdom. Its king is the King of
the East-Franks, sometimes simply the King of the Eastern men,
sometimes the King of Germany. ... The title of King of
Germany is often found in the ninth century as a description,
but it was not a formal title. The Eastern king, like other
kings, for the most part simply calls himself' Rex,' till the
time came when his rank as King of Germany, or of the
East-Franks, became simply a step towards the higher title of
Emperor of the Romans. ... This Eastern or German kingdom, as
it came out of the division of 887 [after the deposition of
Charles III., called Charles the Fat,. who came to the throne
in 881, and who had, momentarily reunited all the Frankish
crowns, except that of Burgundy], had, from north to south,.
nearly the same extent as the Germany of later times. It
stretched from the Alps to the Eider. Its southern boundaries
were somewhat fluctuating. Verona and Aquileia are sometimes
counted as a German march, and the boundary between, Germany
and Burgundy, crossing the modern Switzerland, often changed.
To the north-east the kingdom hardly stretched beyond the
Elbe, except in the small Saxon land between the Elbe and the
Eider [called 'Saxony beyond the Elbe'--modern Holstein]. The
great extension of the German power over the Slavonic lands
beyond the Elbe had hardly yet begun. To the southeast lay the
two border-lands or marks; the Eastern Mark, which grew into
the later duchy of, Oesterreich or the modern Austria, and to
the south of it the mark of Kärnthen or Carinthia. But the
main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of
Saxony, Eastern Francia, Alemannia, and Bavaria. Of these the
two names of Saxony and Bavaria must be carefully marked as
having widely different meanings from those which they bear on
the modern map. Ancient Saxony lies, speaking roughly, between
the Eider, the Elbe, and the Rhine, though it never actually
touches the last-named river. To the south of Saxony lies the
Eastern Francia, the centre and kernel of the German kingdom.
The Main and the Neckar both join the Rhine within its
borders. To the south of Francia lie Alemannia and Bavaria.
This last, it must be remembered, borders on Italy, with
Bötzen for its frontier town. Alemannia is the land in which
both the Rhine and the Danube take their source; it stretches
on both sides of the Bodensee or Lake of Constanz, with the
Rætian Alps as its southern boundary. For several ages to
come, there is no distinction, national or even provincial,
between the lands north and south of the Bodensee."

_E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 6, section 1._

ALSO IN:
_Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
volumes 1-2._

On the indefiniteness of the name of the Germanic kingdom in
this period,

See FRANCE: 9TH CENTURY.

GERMANY: A. D. 881.
Accession of Charles III. (called The Fat), afterwards King of
all the Franks and Emperor.

GERMANY: A. D. 888.
Accession of Arnulf, afterwards Emperor.

GERMANY: A. D. 899.
Accession of Louis III. (called The Child).

GERMANY: A. D. 911.
Election of Conrad I.

{1439}

GERMANY: A. D. 911-936.
Conrad the Franconian and Henry the Fowler.
Beginning of the Saxon line.
Hungarian invasion.
The building of towns.