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A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance
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Historical SummaryONE of the most important steps in the expansion of the Roman Republic was the conquest of Gaul by Julius Cæsar just before the middle of the first century B.C. Through this conquest Rome entered deliberately upon the policy of extending her dominion northward from the Mediterranean and the Alps into the regions of western and central Europe known to us to-day as France and Germany. By their wars in this direction the Romans were brought into contact with peoples concerning whose manner of life they had hitherto known very little. There were two great groups of these peoples—the Gauls and the Germans—each divided and subdivided into numerous tribes and clans. In general it may be said that the Gauls occupied what we now call France and the Germans what we know as Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Germany, and Austria. The Rhine marked a pretty clear boundary between them. During the years 58–50 B.C., Julius Cæsar, who had risen to the proconsulship through a long series of offices and honors at Rome, served the state as leader of five distinct military expeditions in this country of the northern barbarians. The primary object of these campaigns was to establish order among the turbulent tribes of Gauls and to prepare the way for the extension of Roman rule over them. This great task was performed very successfully, but in accomplishing it Cæsar found it necessary to go somewhat farther than had at first been intended. In the years 55 and 54 B.C., he made two expeditions to Britain to punish the natives for giving aid to their Celtic kinsfolk in Gaul, and in 55 and 53 he crossed the Rhine to compel the Germans to remain on their own side of the river and to cease troubling the Gauls by raids and invasions, as they had recently been doing. When (about 51 B.C.) he came to write his Commentaries on the Gallic War, it is very natural that he should have taken care to give a brief sketch of the leading peoples whom he had been fighting, that is, the Gauls, the Britons, and the Germans. There are two places in the Commentaries where the Germans are described at some length. At the beginning of Book IV. there is an account of the particular tribe known as the Suevi, and in the middle of Book VI. there is a longer sketch of the Germans in general. This latter is the passage translated below. Of course we are not to suppose that Cæsar’s knowledge of the Germans was in any sense thorough. At no time did he get far into their country, and the people whose manners and customs he had an opportunity to observe were only those who were pressing down upon, and occasionally across, the Rhine boundary—a mere fringe of the great race stretching back to the Baltic and, at that time, far eastward into modern Russia. We may be sure that many of the more remote German tribes lived after a fashion quite different from that which Cæsar and his legions had an opportunity to observe on the Rhine-Danube frontier. Still, Cæsar’s account, vague and brief as it is, has an importance that can hardly be exaggerated. These early Germans had no written literature and but for the descriptions of them left by a few Roman writers, such as Cæsar, we should know almost nothing about them. If we bear in mind that the account in the Commentaries was based upon very keen, though limited, observation, we can get out of it a good deal of interesting information concerning the early ancestors of the great Teutonic peoples of the world to-day.
CHAPTER I. The Early Germans
1. A Sketch by Cæsar
Source—Julius Cæsar, De Bello Gallico ["The Gallic War"], Bk. VI., Chaps. 21–23.
Their religion
21. The customs of the Germans differ widely from those of the Gauls;1 for neither have they Druids to preside over religious services,1 nor do they give much attention to sacrifices. They count in the number of their gods those only whom they can see, and by whose favors they are clearly aided; that is to say, the Sun, Vulcan,2 and the Moon. Of other deities they have never even heard. Their whole life is spent in hunting and in war. From childhood they are trained in labor and hardship. . . .
Their system of land tenure
22. They are not devoted to agriculture, and the greater portion of their food consists of milk, cheese, and flesh. No one owns a particular piece of land, with fixed limits, but each year the magistrates and the chiefs assign to the clans and the bands of kinsmen who have assembled together as much land as they think proper, and in whatever place they desire, and the next year compel them to move to some other place. They give many reasons for this custom—that the people may not lose their zeal for war through habits established by prolonged attention to the cultivation of the soil; that they may not be eager to acquire large possessions, and that the stronger may not drive the weaker from their property; that they may not build too carefully, in order to avoid cold and heat; that the love of money may not spring up, from which arise quarrels and dissensions; and, finally, that the common people may live in contentment, since each person sees that his wealth is kept equal to that of the most powerful.
Leaders and officers in war and peace
23. It is a matter of the greatest glory to the tribes to lay waste, as widely as possible, the lands bordering their territory, thus making them uninhabitable.3 They regard it as the best proof of their valor that their neighbors are forced to withdraw from those lands and hardly any one dares set foot there; at the same time they think that they will thus be more secure, since the fear of a sudden invasion is removed. When a tribe is either repelling an invasion or attacking an outside people, magistrates are chosen to lead in the war, and these are given the power of life and death. In times of peace there is no general magistrate, but the chiefs of the districts and cantons render justice among their own people and settle disputes.1 Robbery, if committed beyond the borders of the tribe, is not regarded as disgraceful, and they say that it is practised for the sake of training the youth and preventing idleness. When any one of the chiefs has declared in an assembly that he is going to be the leader of an expedition, and that those who wish to follow him should give in their names, they who approve of the undertaking, and of the man, stand up and promise their assistance, and are applauded by the people. Such of these as do not then follow him are looked upon as deserters and traitors, and from that day no one has any faith in them.
German hospitality
To mistreat a guest they consider to be a crime. They protect from injury those who have come among them for any purpose whatever, and regard them as sacred. To them the houses of all are open and food is freely supplied.
1 In chapters 11–20; immediately preceding the present passage, Cæsar gives a comparatively full and minute description of Gallic life and institutions. He knew more about the Gauls than about the Germans, and, besides, it was his experiences among them that he was writing about primarily.
1 The Druids were priests who formed a distinct and very influential class among the Gauls. They ascertained and revealed the will of the gods and were supreme in the government of the tribes. Druids existed also among the Britons.
2 By Vulcan Cæsar means the German god of fire.
3 Of the Suevi, a German tribe living along the upper course of the Danube, Cæsar says: "They consider it their greatest glory as a nation that the lands about their territories lie unoccupied to a very great extent, for they think that by this it is shown that a great number of nations cannot withstand their power; and thus on one side of the Suevi the lands are said to lie desolate for about six hundred miles. "—Gallic War, Bk. IV., Chap. 3.
1 This statement is an instance of Cæsar’s vagueness, due possibly to haste in writing, but more likely to lack of definite information. How large these districts and cantons were, whether they had fixed boundaries, and how the chiefs rendered justice in them are things we should like to know but are not told.
Contents:
Chicago: Julius Caesar, "Chapter 1. The Early Germans," A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance in A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance, ed. Frederic Austin Ogg (1878-1951) (New York: American Book Company, 1908), 19–22. Original Sources, accessed December 4, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=BN6MY5DS8TZK9PT.
MLA: Caesar, Julius. "Chapter 1. The Early Germans." A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance, in A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance, edited by Frederic Austin Ogg (1878-1951), New York, American Book Company, 1908, pp. 19–22. Original Sources. 4 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=BN6MY5DS8TZK9PT.
Harvard: Caesar, J, 'Chapter 1. The Early Germans' in A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance. cited in 1908, A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance, ed. , American Book Company, New York, pp.19–22. Original Sources, retrieved 4 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=BN6MY5DS8TZK9PT.
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