Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/491

Rh GE1-lMANY PART I[.—HISTORY OF GERMANY. 473 By J AMES Sum. Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1879, by .'lnA:.x J: Cn.uz:.es BLACK, Edinburgh, Scotland, in the oﬂice of the .llim'ster of Agriculture. Aizcient Times. The people whom we call “ the Germans,” and who call themselves “die Deutschen,” are a branch of the Teutonic race, which, again, belongs to the great Aryan family. At what time the Teutons broke away from their Aryan kinsfolk we have no means of knowing. In the 4th century B.C., when they are first mentioned, they were settled along the shores of the Baltic Sea; but long before that time the race must have scattered itself far and wide over the countries now known as Scandinavia and Germany, aml the Scandinavians and the Germans were gradually marked off from each other by important differences in language, in customs, and in institutions. At the time of Tacitus, whose G’-ermania is our chief authority as to the condition of ancient Germany, central Europe was in the possession of a large number of German tribes. These tribes did not call themselves by a common name. The word “ German” is of Celtic origin, meaning, ac- cording to some philologers, “ shouters,” according to others, “ neighbours.” It seems to have been applied by the Gauls in the ﬁrst instance to a particular German tribe with which they were in conflict, and afterwards to the whole people. The word “ Deutsch ” (Gotl1., T/Liuclct, the people) does not occur till the 9th century, and was not used in the sense now given to it for some time later. Although without a common name, the ancient Germans believed that they had a common origin, all of them regarding as their forefather Mannus, the ﬁrst man, the son of the god T uisco. Mannus was supposed to have had three sons, from whom had sprung the Istazvones, the Ingaevones, and the Herminones. These groups were without political signiﬁcance, but they seem to have marked real distinctions. The Istzevones were the tribes with whom the Romans were brought most into contact, occupying, as they did, both banks of the Rhine. The lands held by those of them on the left bank were divided by the Romans into “Germania Superior” and “ Germania Inferior,” the chief tribe of the latter being the U bii, who had an important settlement on the site of what is now Cologne. On the right bank, from the Lippe to the Ruhr, were the Usipetes and Tencteri, and to the north of them the Sicambri and the Bructeri; the land now called Hesse appears to have been inhabited by the Chatti. On the island formed by the Meuse and an arm of the Rhine were'the Batavi. The second great group, the Ingzevones, among whom were the Frisii, the Chauci, and the Cherusci, were settled along the shores of the North Sea, and inland along the banks of the Veser and the Ems. The Herminones were much more numerous than either of the two other groups ; they held the greater part of central and eastern Germany, reaching as far as the Vistula and the Carpathians. Most prominent among them were the Suevi, a great confederation of tribes which included the Mar- comanni, the dwellers in what is now Bohemia, and the Semnones, who held what is now Lusatia and Brandenburg. Other Herminones were the Hermunduri, in and around the Thuringian forest; the Lombards, at the mouth of the Elbe ; the Vandals, at the upper parts of the same river; the Heruli, to the west of the Vistula; and the Quadi, in what is now Moravia. War and the chase were the favourite occupations of the men; and when engaged neither in ﬁghting nor in hunting they often lay idly by the hearth, leaving peaceful work to women and to males incapable of bearing arms. They liked social gatherings, but after a time conversation usually gave place to drunkenness, quarrelling, or excessive gambling. Although violent and cruel in moments of excitement, they were rarely treacherous, and in the ordinary intercourse of life they appear to have been kindly and considerate. They cherished the memory of illustrious ancestors, and listened often and with delight to songs celebrating their famous deeds. The bulk of the people were f reemen, who alone exercised Social re- They inherited their position, and the sign l=1ti0n='- political rights. of their dignity was that they always carried arms. A limited class of freemen were nobles, whose sole privilege seems to have been that they were more respected on account of their birth than their neighbours, and more easily acquired a leading place in public life. Each freeman had slaves, who were chiefly prisoners of war and their offspring, and persons condemned to slavery for crime. They had no legal rights as against their owners, but in practice they were well treated. The Liti, composed mostly of freedmen, stood between freemen and slaves. A freeman necessarily either possesserl land or was a member of a family that did; the Liti could only hold land of a superior with whom they shared the produce. If any one killed a noble, a free- man, or one of the Liti, he had to pay to the relatives a ﬁne called afterwards the wcrgeld, and the amount was determined by the class to which the murdered man be- longed. Great importance was attributed to family relations. Instead of the bridegroom looking for a dowry, he was expected to present his bride with a valuable gift which should remain her property throughout life. The wife was completely subject to her husband, and if she proved un- faithful, custom allowed him to c11t off her hair and to whip her through the village in which she lived; but this punish- ment had seldom to be inﬂicted, the German women being famous for their chastity. They were treated as friends by their husbands, who had a high respect for their judgment, and whom they often accompanied in distant expeditions. Thechildren, over whom the fatherhadabsolute control, were hardily trained, boys being early taught the use of weapons, and girls devoting themselves to domestic duties. Relatives were held in great esteem, and, when the head of a house- hold died, it was considered their duty to guard the interests of his family. Many freemen lived apart from all others with their po]iu¢a1 families and dependants, but the majority were grouped c0u_Sti- in villages. The land around a village-—its “mark”— t“t‘°“' originally belonged to the community, and was periodically divided among the inhabitants. About the beginning of the Christian era, however, the arable la11d was mostly in the possession of individual freemen, the forests and waste places being almost the only common property. A number of villages made a hundred, and the “ gau,” if the word existed so early, may have been a higher division, although it was more probably the name for the whole land of the The ancient Germans were a tall anrl vigorous race, with l tribe. Each village had its chief, elected by the freemen, long fair hair and what Tacitus calls “ﬁercely blue eyes.” I but the important chiefs were the heads of the hundreds They wore mantles of fur or of coarse woollen stuff, thrown over the shoulders and fastened by a thorn or a pin. Their dwellings were wooden huts of slight construction, and the head of the tribe, whom the freemen also appointed. Some tribes had kings, but their power had no other source than that of other chiefs, nor was it more extensive; their the inner walls of which they roughly coloured, and in only distinction was that they were chosen from particular which cattle were sometimes accommodated with the family. noble families supposed to have sprung from the gods. .-—6o