The Evolution of States Part 23

[Footnote 463: Because of his contempt for the religious controversies to which the literature of his time mainly ran.]

[Footnote 464: See Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_, B. ii, Kap.

2, as to his constant concern for culture and established usage.]

[Footnote 465: Ca.s.siodorus, 1. i, c. 34; iii, 44; iv, 5, 7. Cp. Finlay, ed. cited, i, 236, _note_. At the same time it is to be remembered that the population was in some districts greatly reduced. See below, p. 194.

And there were, of course, Italian scarcities from time to time.

Ca.s.siodorus, v, 35; x, 27; xi, 5.]

[Footnote 466: Cp. Gibbon, ch. 39 (Bohn ed. iv, 270-71), as to the general care of the administration and the prosperity of agriculture.]

[Footnote 467: "Gross war Ruhm und Glanz seines [Theodoric's] Reiches; die inneren Schaden und Gefahren desselben blieben damals noch verhullt, kaum etwa dem Kaiser und den Merovingen erkennbar" (F. Dahn, _Urgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Volker_, in Oncken's _Allg. Gesch._ 1881, i, 246).]

[Footnote 468: Machiavelli points out (_Istorie Fiorentine_, 1. i) that this was the result of their having, at the death of their tyrant Clef, suspended the election of kings and set up the system of thirty dukes or marquises--an arrangement unfavourable to further conquest.]

[Footnote 469: See Guizot, _Essais sur l'histoire de France_, 7e edit.

pp. 185, 189, 195. But cp. pp. 198-201 as to the rise of hereditary feudality. Cp. also the _Histoire de la civilisation en France_, 13e edit. iii, 103; iv, 77-79.]

[Footnote 470: Cp. Sismondi, _Republiques italiennes_, ed. cited, i, 85.]

[Footnote 471: Guizot, _Histoire de la civilisation en France_, ii, 134, 162; Bryce, _Holy Roman Empire_, 8th ed. pp. 71-74.]

[Footnote 472: See Guizot's table, pp. 130-32.]

[Footnote 473: For a favourable view of the case see Schroder's _Geschichte Karl's des Grossen_, 1869, Kapp. 15, 16; Bryce, as cited, pp. 71-74; and Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_, B. v, Kap. i, -- 2. Gregorovius (p. 20) calls Charlemagne "the Moses of the Middle Ages, who had happily led mankind through the wilderness of barbarism"--a proposition grounded on race-pride rather than on evidence.]

[Footnote 474: Cp. Poole, _Ill.u.s.trations of the History of Medieval Thought_, 1884, pp. 15-16, 22.]

[Footnote 475: There is reason to infer that the very movement of theological thought which marks the ninth century was due to Moslem contacts. These might have been more fruitful under peace conditions than under those of Charlemagne's campaigns.]

[Footnote 476: _Republiques_, i, 91. "The Holy Roman Empire, taking the name ... as denoting the sovereignty of Germany and Italy vested in a Germanic prince, is the creation of Otto the Great" (Bryce, _Holy Roman Empire_, p. 80). Gregorovius, instead of giving Otto some such praise as he bestows on Karl, p.r.o.nounces this time that "the Roman Empire was now regenerated by the German _nation_" (B. vi, Kap. iii, -- 1).]

[Footnote 477: Guizot, _Civilisation_, iii, 103; Sismondi, _Republiques_, i, 87. In his _Essais_, however (p. 238, etc.), Guizot speaks of the "belle mais sterile tentative de Charlemagne." See the problem discussed in the author's essay on Gibbon, in _Pioneer Humanists_, p. 335 sq.]

[Footnote 478: Sismondi, _Republiques_, i, 95. See below, pp. 198-99.]

[Footnote 479: _E.g._ Wieseler, _Die deutsche Nationalitat der kleinasiatischen Galater_, 1877; Holtzmann, _Kelten und Germanen_, 1855.]

[Footnote 480: _History of Rome_, bk. ii, ch. iv.]

[Footnote 481: The author has examined a later deliverance of Mommsen's on the subject in _The Saxon and the Celt_, pt. iii, -- 1.]

[Footnote 482: In a later pa.s.sage (bk. v, ch. 7) Mommsen credits the Celts with "unsurpa.s.sed fervour of national feeling." His History abounds in such contradictions.]

[Footnote 483: In the pa.s.sage cited in the last note, the historian a.s.serts that the Celts were unable "to attain, or barely to tolerate ...

any sort of fixed military discipline." Such is the consistency of malice.]

[Footnote 484: Cp. Elton, _Origins of English History_, 2nd ed. 1890, p.

115.]

[Footnote 485: Tacitus, _Germania_, c. 26; Caesar, _Bell. Gall._ vi, 21.]

[Footnote 486: See Virchow, as cited in Penka's _Die Herkunft der Arier_, 1886, p. 98.]

[Footnote 487: "Never was there a more rapid conquest than that of the vast kingdom of the Vandals" (Sismondi, _Fall of the Roman Empire_, Eng.

tr. i. 221).]

[Footnote 488: U.R. Burke, _History of Spain_, Hume's ed. i. 115. The special explanation of the Visgothic decadence is held by this historian to lie (1) in the elective character of the monarchy, which left the king powerless to check the extortions of the n.o.bles who degraded and enfeebled the common people, and (2) in the ascendency of the Church.]

[Footnote 489: Burke, as cited, i. 119.]

[Footnote 490: Cp. Prof. Paul Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, 1892, pp. 10-11, 17.]

[Footnote 491: Guizot (_Hist. de la Civ. en France_, i, 2e lecon) has an extraordinary pa.s.sage to the effect that while German and English civilisation was German _in origin_, that of France is _romaine des ses premiers pas_. As if there had not been a primary Gallic society as well as a Germanic. If Mommsen be right, the Galli before their conquest were much more advanced in civilisation than the Germani. In point of fact, the Celtae of Southern France had commercial contact with the Greeks before they had any with the Romans. And in the very pa.s.sage under notice, Guizot goes on to say that the life and inst.i.tutions of _northern_ France had been essentially _Germanic_. The theorem is hopelessly confused. The plain facts are that German "civilisation" came from Italy and Romanised Gaul, albeit later, as fully as did that of Gaul from Italy.]

[Footnote 492: Cp. Prof. Butler, _The Lombard Communes_, 1906, pp. 23, 28-30.]

[Footnote 493: Poole, _Ill.u.s.trations_, as cited, p. 11.]

[Footnote 494: For a pleasing attempt to retain the credit for Teutonism, on the score that German invaders had "determined the character of the population" in the region of Paris, where the new architecture arose, see Dr. E. Richard's _History of German Civilisation_, New York, 1911, pp. 203-4. It is not explained at what stage the German responsibility for French evolution ceased.]

[Footnote 495: Burke, as cited, i, 118. On the "Gothic mania," cp.

Michelet, _Hist. de France_, vii--_Renaissance_: Introd. -- 10 and note in App.]

[Footnote 496: Sismondi, _Fall of the Roman Empire_, as cited, i, 35, 172, 238.]

[Footnote 497: Gibbon, ch. 36, _end_.]

[Footnote 498: Above, pp. 188.]

[Footnote 499: Citations in Gibbon, ch. 36; Bohn ed. iv, 105. For a somewhat fuller sketch than Gibbon's see Manso, _Geschichte des ost-gothischen Reiches in Italien_, 1824, ---- 73-79. Cp. Spalding, _Italy_, i, 398-400. It is possible that Gelasius and Ambrose were thinking mainly of the disappearance of the landowners, and were overlooking the serfs. Deserted villas would give the effect of desolation while the ma.s.s of the common people remained.]

[Footnote 500: Sismondi, _Fall_, i, 236. Cp. Gibbon, ch. 43; Bohn ed.

iv, 536.]

[Footnote 501: Sismondi, _Fall_, i, 240; Gibbon, ch. 45, ed. cited, v.

116-18.]

[Footnote 502: Gibbon, as cited, v, 118.]

[Footnote 503: Sismondi, _Fall_, i, 241. The movement, as Sismondi notes, extended to Spain, to Africa, to Illyria, and to Gaul.]

[Footnote 504: Butler, _The Communes of Lombardy_, p. 45.]

[Footnote 505: Sismondi, _Fall_, i, 259. The historian decides that "the race of the conquerors took root and throve in the soil, without _entirely_ superseding that of the conquered natives, _whose language still prevailed_," but gives no proofs for the first proposition. The uncritical handling of these questions in the histories leaves essential problems still unsolved. Cp. Hodgkin, _Italy and her Invaders_, 2nd ed.

vi (bk. vii), 579-93; vii (bk. viii), 384, 385. Mr. Boulting does not try to solve the problem.]

[Footnote 506: This is again Sismondi's generalisation (_Histoire des republiques italiennes_, ed. 1826, i, 21; _Short History_, p. 14; Boulting-Sismondi, p. 60). He has been followed by Procter (Perceval's _History of Italy_, 1825, 2nd ed. 1844, p. 9); by Dunham (_Europe in the Middle Ages_, i, 23); by Symonds (_Renaissance in Italy_, 2nd ed. i, 48); and by Prof. W.F. Butler (_The Communes of Lombardy_, p. 46). It is noteworthy that at the same period Henry the Fowler encouraged free cities in Germany for the same reason.]

[Footnote 507: Butler, pp. 40-43; Boulting-Sismondi, pp. 23-27.]