Freyr, sea gods, and Loke. Of the goddesses the chief were Frigga, wife of Odin, Freyja, goddess of love, Saga, goddess of history. Above all the gods were the Nornes, or fates. Below the gods were elves, trolls, witches, etc. Exploits of the gods. Especially famous were the dealings of Thor with the giants. After the creation followed a golden age when all was well in Godheim, but after a time evil crept in personified as Loke. Death of Baldur, killed through the contrivance of Loke by his brother Hödur with a sprig of mistletoe, Frigga having bound all other created things not to hurt Baldur. Loke's children were the Fenris-wolf, chained until the coming of Ragnarok, the Midgard-serpent, and Hel. Binding of Loke. Finally comes the end of the world, Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods. Battle of the Asa-gods with the Midgard-serpent, Loke, and the Fenris-wolf, who have broken their chains. The good and the bad alike perish in the combat. Surt consumes Yggdrasil and the whole world in flames. Vidar, Vale, Hödur, Baldur, and the sons of Thor survive. A new earth and a new heaven are created.

According to the belief of the Northmen, all good men and all who died in battle crossed over the bridge Bifroust (the rainbow) to Valhal, where they spent their days feasting and fighting, until Ragnarok when they passed to Gimle. Cowards and evil-doers were punished in Helheim, and after Ragnarok in Naostrand.1

Civilization: It is probable that the Germans had not completed the transition from a pastoral to an agricultural people, when they arrived in central Europe. They were certainly in a low stage of civilization when they became known to the Romans, a stage not unlike that reached by the most advanced of the American Indians, the Iroquois. Cities were unknown to them; they seem to have settled for the most part each individual apart, each tribe separated from the other by a broad strip of mark-land. Orders: 1. Nobles, who derived their descent from the gods, but were entitled to no political privileges because of their nobility. 2. Freemen, that is, land-owners, men born to arms, the work upon whose land was done by their bondmen; out of this class developed later the lower nobility. 3. Freedmen (liti, lassen), or half-freemen, renters bound to military service, but excluded from the ownership of land, from the popular assembly, and from the courts. 4. Servants or bondmen, in part serfs bound to the soil (gleba adscripti), in part actual slaves. The latter two classes formed the majority of the population.

Custom of comradeship (gasindi leudes), out of which the feudal system developed after the occupation of the Roman provinces and the division of land among the faithful (fideles), and under the influence of the Christian religion. Feudal superior (suzerain). Vassen, vassals, or men; fief (feudum or beneficium), held on tenure of service, distinct from allodium, property in fee simple.

1 The relation of these myths to Christianity, the extent to which they have been influenced by acquaintance with the Scriptures, is a subject of active inquiry, but nothing can as yet be said to be definitely determined. See Bugge, Entstehung der Nördischen Götter.

2 Whoever desires to become involved in that most hopeless of all historical questions, the social and political organization of the ancient Germans, is referred to Waitz, Verfassungsgeschichte, where references will be found.

History: I. The date of the first arrival of Teutons in Europe is wholly unknown. Pytheas of Massalia, who visited the amber coasts of the Baltic about 350 B. C., met with German tribes. From that time on only the bare introduction of the word Germani in the Roman annals for 225 B. C. hints at any knowledge of the Teutons until the close of the second century B. C., when the tribes of the Cimbri and Teutones left their homes at the base of the Danish peninsula (driven from them by a flood?) and, after humiliating the Roman arms in Gaul, found their death on the fields of Aquæ Sextiæ and Vercellæ (102, 101, B. C., p. 127). The terrors of the invasion died away, but the Romans did not come again into contact with the Germans until Cæsar's invasion of Gaul brought on a contest with the Suevian prince Ariovistus which ended in the latter's defeat (58 B. C.). Subjugation of the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine. Cæsar's two expeditions across the Rhine (58, 55, p. 139).

Under Augustus, systematic attempt to subjugate Germania magna. Conquest of Ratia and Noricum by Drusus (15), of Pannonia and Vindelicia. Expeditions of Drusus from the Rhine: 1. With the fleet on the Ems (12); 2. Against the Cherusci on the Weser, foundation of the citadel Aliso (11); 3. Along the Main to the Werra and Elbe (9). Legend of the "white woman." Death of Drusus. His successor Tiberius, reduced all the tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe to submission and began the active construction of fortresses and colonies. The folly of Tiberius' successor, Varus, alienated the Germans and led to revolt. Under Arminius, one of the nobles of the Cherusci, three Roman legions were annihilated in the three days' battle in the Teutoburg Forest 1 (9 A. D. ?). Augustus gave up the hope of subjugating the Germans, and later emperors did not revive it. Expeditions of Germanicus in revenge for the Teutoburg massacre, 14, 15, 16. Thenceforward the Romans were contented with maintaining their borders against the free tribes, and with colonizing the land south of the Main and the Danube. Line of fortifications from Aschaffenburg, on the Main, to Regensburg, on the Danube (Pfahlgraben, Teufelsmauer). Along this line Roman soldiers were settled on land for the rent of which they paid a tenth of the produce, hence agri decumates. Foundation of colonies: Curia Rætorum (Chur) in Rætia; Juvenum (Salsburg) in Noricum; Vindobonum (Vienna) in Pannonia; Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg), Castra regina (Regensburg) in Vindelicia. Active intercourse between Rome and Germany. Germans served both as privates and as officers in the Roman army (so Arminius). Traffic in amber.

Of the internal affairs of the free Germans we are but scantily informed. In the first century B. C. a portion of the Hermunduri, the Marcomanni, had invaded Bohemia, driven out the Celtic Bo (who took refuge in Pannonia, where they were gradually exterminated by the Roman arms) and established a state which, under Marbod (Maroboduus), grew to formidable proportions. Intended expedition of Tiberius against Marbod frustrated by the Pannonian revolt (8). Feuds between the German tribes fostered by the Romans. Arminius expelled Marbod from his kingdom, but was himself mur1 The locality has not been satisfactorily made out.

dered under suspicion of aiming at supreme power. The Cherusci, Hermunduri and Bructeri were nearly exterminated in internecine strife. Revolt of the Batavians under Civilis (p. 151). War of Marcus Aurelius with the Marcomanni (p. 154).

In process of time a change came over the political organization of the Germans. The multitude of small tribes disappeared and we find in their stead a smaller number of more extensive tribes. At the same time the Slavs began to press upon the eastern Germans and urge them westward. The Germans increased in power and population, and became better and better trained in the arts of war and political intrigue as they came more and more into intimate connection with Rome. The provincial armies were largely German ; German officers rose to high distinction and great influence in Rome. So Rome grew weaker and her foes stronger until at least the impulse of the invading Huns in the east set all the tribes in motion.

II. Scandinavia: Northern annalists present an historical Odin, probably no less mythical than Odin the god. According to these tales (which, like some other mythical history, may have greater historical value than the present credits them with), Odin was the leader of the Asas who dwelt in Asia between the Black Sea and the Caspian. Attracted to the falling fortunes of Mithridates, he was driven from his kingdom by Pompeius. He conducted the Asas westward to Scandinavia where he subdued Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and gave these countries to his sons; Denmark to Skjold, Sweden to Yngave, Norway to Saming. Odin ended his days in Sweden.

The history of Scandinavia as far as ascertained belongs to the next period, and will be found on page 207.

III. British Isles. For the history of the Teutonic invasion of England see p. 176.

§ 5. SLAVS AND LITHUANIANS. Aryan.

These closely related peoples belong to the northern branch of the European Aryans, and their westward migration followed that of the

Teutons.

The Slavs were known to the late Roman geographers under the name Veneda (hence Wends) as inhabiting the region beyond the Vistula, which bore the general name of Sarmatia, from the nomadic Sarmatians who inhabited it, interspersed with the Slavs, from whom they differed in language and descent.

In the fifth century A. D. the Slavs occupied the country between the Baltic and the Black Sea, between the Carpathians and the Don. They dwelt in the steppes of Russia as far north as Novgorod on the Volga, and their westernmost limit lay between the Vistula and the Oder. In the sixth century the Slays began to extend themselves south and west, a movement which resulted in the permanent occupation of Bohemia and of the Balkan peninsula, while their settlement extended east to Tyrol. In 623 A. D. temporary formation of a Slavic monarchy of great extent under Samo in Bohemia, which endured thirty-five years. The conquests of the Slavs came to an end with the seventh century, and the separate kingdoms of Poland, Bohemia, Russia, were gradually formed.

Of the religion of the Slavs little is known with certainty, owing to the diversity of nomenclature among the various divisions of this wide-spread people, and to the lack of trustworthy authorities. Among the Slavs of the Baltic, who had a class of priests and built temples, occur the names Svatovit or Svantovit, god of light or of the air, with a temple at Arkona; Triglath, the three-headed god, worshipped in Pomerania (Stettin); Radigost, Rugevit or Ranovit (in Rügen), Jarovit, all gods of war; Zcerneboh, "the black god," an evil deity. The Russians worshipped Khors, Volos, or Veles, god of the herds (St. Blaise); Koupalo, god of the harvest; Jarylo, god of generation; Stribog, god of the winds; Lada, goddess of love and passion. The gods were worshipped by offerings of fruit and animals, seldom by human sacrifices.

The Slavs were a pastoral and agricultural people. All inhabitants of the same district were kinsmen, bearing a common name, living under the rule of an elected elder, and holding property in common. A union of such districts formed a tribe; a union of tribes formed a people.

The Lithuanians play no part in history before the thirteenth century. In the wider sense the name includes the Letts and the ancient Prussians, who were known to the Romans as Estui. In the narrower sense it is limited to the inhabitants of the region between the Memel and the Finnish Esthonians.

II. MEDIEVAL HISTORY.

FIRST PERIOD.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE MIGRATIONS OF THE NORTHERN TRIBES TO THE TREATY OF VERDUN1 (375-843).

§ 1. MIGRATIONS OF THE NORTHERN PEOPLES.

Habitations of the Germanic tribes in the fourth century A. D. Alani, whose German descent is, however, not certain, on the lower Volga; East Goths in southern Russia; West Goths in Dacia (eastern Hungary, Roumania); Vandals in Pannonia (southwestern Hungary); Suevi in Moravia, Bohemia, and Bavaria; Burgundians on the Neckar and the Rhine, with Worms as their capital (compare p. 164); Alamanni (or Alemanni) on the Rhine, between the Main and the Alps, partly along the Roman boundary wall (agri decumates); Ripuarian Franks on both sides of the lower Rhine (capital at Colonia Agrippina); Salic Franks on the mouths of the Rhine (in Meergau, "district on the sea," the Meruwe, hence Merowingians ;) 2 Saxons from the Elbe almost to the Rhine; Thuringians south of the Saxons; Langobards on the lower Elbe.

The peoples which appear in the so-called migrations of the peoples were generally heterogeneous armed bands under the command of a leader or king chosen for his military prowess (Heerkönig).

375. Beginning of the migration of the Teutonic tribes.

Period of migrations and invasions.

The Huns, a Mongolian race, crossed the Volga.
The Huns, joined by the Alani, whom they had defeated, fell upon
the East Goths (king Ermanaric or Hermanric, of the family
of the Amali), and, in union with these, upon the West Goths.
That part of the West Gothic race which had remained heathen
took refuge in the Carpathians; the Christians, and those who

3

1 Assmann, Geschichte des Mittelalters, 2d edition, by E. Meyer.

2 According to other scholars the name was a patronymic.

8 A Gothic bishop (Theophilus) took part in the council of Nicea (325). Wulfila (Ulfilas), bishop of the West Goths (348-388), translator of the Bible; cf. Dahn, Die Könige der Germanen, VI. 41.