Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/712

 the first partition of Poland (1772), he was uniting together once more the dominions of the Order, sundered since 1466; and it is the kings of Prussia who have inherited the Order’s task of maintaining German influence on the banks of the Vistula.

TEUTONIC PEOPLES, a comprehensive term for those populations of Europe which speak one or other of the various Teutonic languages, viz., the English-speaking inhabitants of the British Isles, the German-speaking inhabitants of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland, the Flemish-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, the Scandinavian-speaking inhabitants of Sweden and Norway and practically all the inhabitants of Holland and Denmark. To these we have to add small German and Flemish-speaking communities in Italy and France and somewhat larger German and Swedish populations in Russia. Outside Europe we have to include also the very numerous populations in America, Africa, Australasia, &c., which have emigrated from the same countries. The statement that the Teutonic peoples are those which speak Teutonic languages requires a certain amount of qualification on one side. In the British Isles, especially Ireland, there is (in addition to the Celtic-speaking elements) a considerable population which claims Celtic nationality though it uses no language but English; and further all Teutonic communities contain to a greater or less degree certain immigrant (especially Semitic) elements which have adopted the languages of their neighbours. On the other hand there does not appear to be any considerable population anywhere which claims Teutonic nationality without using a Teutonic language. We know indeed that France, Spain, Italy, &c., contained within historical times large populations which were Teutonic both by origin and by language, but these have now been completely absorbed. Similarly, there is no doubt that the inhabitants of England and of the German-speaking regions of the Continent are descended very largely from peoples which two thousand years ago spoke non-Teutonic languages. Yet on the whole the definition given above may be accepted as generally true for the present time.

It is to be observed that the term “Teutonic” is of scholastic and not of popular origin, and this is true also of the other terms (“Germanic,” “Gothic,” &c.) which are or have been used in the same sense. There is no generic term now in popular use either for the languages or for the peoples, for the reason that their common origin has been forgotten. In Tacitus’s time, however, when the area occupied by the Teutonic peoples was, of course, considerably less than now, a consciousness of their relationship to one another was fully retained. He cites native poems which declared that the Inguaeones, Hermiones and Istaeuones—the three main branches of the Germani (see below)—were sprung from three sons of a certain Mannus (perhaps “Man”), who was himself the son of the god Tuisto the son of Earth; and in a Frankish document at least four centuries later we hear again of three brothers named Erminus, Inguo and Istio, from whom many nations were descended. In English documents also we find eponymous national ancestors grouped together in genealogical trees, and there is reason to believe that the common origin of the various Teutonic peoples was remembered to a certain extent until comparatively late in the middle ages.

The linguistic characteristics of the various Teutonic peoples have been dealt with under. In regard to physical features they present at the present time very many varieties both of stature and of pigmentation, though on the whole they are probably the tallest and fairest of European peoples. These characteristics are noted by a number of ancient writers in language which seems to show that they must at that time have been at least as pronounced as among any of the present Teutonic peoples. Moreover, the tallness and dolichocephaly which now specially mark the more northern peoples of the group appear very prominently in cemeteries of the migration period in Switzerland and other neighbouring countries. On the whole, however, the skeletons found in German and Scandinavian tombs dating even from the earliest period do not show any very remarkable differences from those of the present day. But whether we are justified in speaking of a Teutonic race in the anthropological sense is at least doubtful, for the most striking characteristics of these peoples occur also to a considerable extent among their eastern and western neighbours, where they can hardly be ascribed altogether to Teutonic admixture. The only result of anthropological investigation which so far can be regarded as definitely established is that the old Teutonic lands in northern Germany, Denmark and southern Sweden have been inhabited by people of the same type since the neolithic age, if not earlier.

The results of investigations in prehistoric archaeology are treated in the articles and. As no Teutonic inscriptions are extant from before the 3rd or 4th centuries, it cannot be stated with absolute certainty what types of objects are characteristic of Teutonic civilization in the bronze and earliest iron ages. Yet throughout the bronze age it is possible to trace a fairly well-defined group of antiquities covering the basin of the Elbe, Mecklenburg, Holstein, Jutland, southern Sweden and the islands of the Belt, and archaeologists have conjectured with much probability that these antiquities represent the early civilization of the Teutonic peoples. The civilization was, of course, not wholly of native growth. Strong foreign influence, first Aegean and later Etruscan, can be distinguished; but the types introduced from the south have generally undergone considerable modification and expansion. The somewhat surprising degree of wealth and artistic skill of which many of even the earliest antiquities give evidence is probably to be explained by the importance of the amber trade. Both in eastern and in western Germany the objects found are of somewhat different types and seem to point to a lower standard of civilization. What peoples inhabited these regions can only be conjectured, but there is a certain amount of evidence from place-names—not altogether satisfactory—that the Celtic peoples at one time extended eastwards throughout the basin of the Weser. With the beginning of the iron age (perhaps c. 500–400 ) Celtic influence becomes apparent everywhere. By this time, however, the great Celtic movement towards the south-east had probably begun, so that the Teutonic peoples were now cut off from direct communication with the centres of southern civilization.

1. History.—The first recognition that the inhabitants of Germany, Holland, &c., were a people distinct from their Celtic neighbours dates from about the middle of the 1st century, when Caesar’s conquest of Gaul rendered a knowledge of northern Europe more generally accessible to the Romans. Certain notices relating to individual Teutonic tribes come down from still earlier times. Thus there can be little doubt that the (q.v.) and their allies, who invaded Illyricum, Gaul and Italy in the last years of the preceding century, were for the most part of Teutonic nationality. The Bastarnae also, who in the 3rd century invaded and settled in the regions between the Carpathians and the Black Sea, are said by several ancient writers to have been Teutonic by origin, though they had largely intermarried with the native inhabitants. Again, individual travellers from the time of Pytheas onwards had visited Teutonic countries in the north. In none of the early records, however, do we get any clear indication that the