Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/564

 528 FRANCE [HISTORY. not a Latin origin. Gradually, however, the life-giving ideas and doctrines of Christianity spread abroad among the Gauls, and churches sprang up at Autun, Dijon, BesanQon, and other towns within comparatively easy reach of Lyons. Roman Christendom, however, did little for Gaul till the middle of the 3d century (244 A.D)., when seven Latin bishops were sent thither, and formed new centres of Christian life in the land at Limoges, Tours, and even Paris, whither came Dionysius with a little company of brethren in 251. Henceforward Christianity spread swiftly; and though in the next century St Martin of Tours still found heathen temples to overthrow and multitudes of country pagans to convert, still we may say generally that in three generations from the time of the Roman mission [of 244 A.D. all Gaul had embraced the Christian faith. These were also the days of what is called &quot; the Gallo- Roman empire&quot;; of the provincial emperors who strove to sever the Eastern from the Western world. Along her northern frontier also Gaul saw the establishment of the two Germanies, districts on the left bank of the Rhine, where German warriors held their lands by feudal tenure of the sword. Thus as Gaul herself languished under the loss of her independence and the influence of the moral corruption of Rome, she began to become aware of the two powers which were destined to mould her character the Christian Church, and the fierce Germans. They advance upon her from south and north ; when they meet, the Gaul bows the head before them, and in new union the feudalism of the Teuton and the Christianity of the Latins begin their task of education. The combina tion of the institutions of Germany with those of the church forms the basis on which the history of France is reared. The The Germans, who now began to overrun the soil of Germans. Gaul, were a very different race from those with whom they came into contact. Stronger and larger in frame, they were also more stable and enduring than the Gauls. Far back they claimed the same ancestry ; in language and in personal characteristics alike we can trace the connexion. Yet, thanks to climate and circumstances, the two races were by this time completely severed, alien in speech, ideas, institutions, and tastes. The German was a hunter, a man of independence of character ; the Gaul lived in his clan, and shrank from personal freedom ; slaves were un known in Germany, while they swarmed in Gaul ; the Gaul had an organized faith, a regular hierarchy between him and the supernatural ; the German worshipped, inde pendent and alone, without human mediator, in the depths of his forests. The fighting-men who grouped themselves round a German chief were his free comrades, connected with him only by a personal tie, each prepared to act independently if his time came, and to build up for himself a lordship of his own. On many sides these men now began to press into Gaul. The Goths, after wandering apparently from Scandinavia to the Black Sea and thence into western Europe, settled down, the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Visigoths in Spain and southern France. The Burgundian Vandals, from Low Germany about the Elbe and Vistula, now began to stream over into eastern Gaul, giving their name to a large district of the country ; the Franks, an aggregate of northern tribes, Low Germans of the centre and the west, were destined to be the chief conquerors of the land, the authors of her modern name. Church But before the German had become master of Gaul, the organiza- Christian Church had already firmly established itself. Thanks to the support he received from Christianized Gaul, Constantino was enabled (312 A.D.) to enter Rome in triumph, and to assure the victory to the church in her struggle against paganism. Henceforth the chu.rch, which had always endeavoured in her organization to copy the civil power, was officially modelled on the lay institutions tion. of the later empire ; her dioceses corresponded in position and extent to those of the civil administration ; the chief clergy became important magistrates. The bishop of each city with his clergy took the place of the older curials, the members of the civil municipality ; the old relations of church and state were profoundly modified by the rise of the bishop of Rome to the position of supreme pontiff, a title given up by the emperor. In the downfall of Roman society in the fourth century, the clergy alone retained some power, and showed promise of the future. The lay power struggled hard for a while against the German in vasion, specially against the Franks ; the church stayed in the cities, secure and growing stronger against the day when she too would have to face the invader, and to con vert him from a heathen foe into a firm ally and friend. In the 5th century the Germans ceased to plunder and ravage, and began to settle; it is the age in which Gaul exchanges her Latin for her Teutonic masters. Early in the century a vast horde crossed the Rhine on the ice in mid-winter, and streamed over northern, central, even southern Gaul, passing thence a little later into Spain. In 412 Ataulf the Visigoth settled down in the valley of Th the Rhone, and allied himself with Rome ; the Burgundians go also occupied the Sequanian lands. These two tribes were friendly towards the older inhabitants, and were recog nized as peaceable settlers by the imperial power ; they showed that they deserved well of the falling empire by the gallant and successful resistance with which in 450 the Visigoths and Gallo-Romans defeated the terrible hordes of Attila at Chalons-sur-Marne. Yet the empire thus saved for a time could not be saved from internal decay; confusion reigned throughout Gaul, the Germans and the Gallo-Romans struggling as it were in the dark for possession ; and when in 476 the empire of the West finally went under, Ewarik (or Euric), the prudent Visigoth, was left as master of all that had belonged to Rome beyond the Alps towards the west. The Arian Goths, with Toulouse as their capital, might have .secured their authority over all France if the church had accepted the views of Ewarik, and if that vigorous prince had lived. He died, however, in 485, leaving behind him only a weak boy as his successor ; and far to the north the fierce Frankish warriors had already taken as their chief the youthful Hlodowig (Clovis). The Franks, a loose con- T federation of Germanic tribes, were in existence in the third F lla century on the right bank of the Rhine, and for a long time showed no wish to migrate into Gaul. By degrees one of these tribes, the Salians, headed by a family called the Merewings or Merwings (the Merovingians), began to take the lead ; they soon made themselves formidable by their incursions on northern Gaul, and established them selves masters of the left bank of the lower Rhine. As the Roman power declined along that district, their authority increased ; early in the 5th century they had spread from the Rhine to the Somme. Another leading tribe of Franks, the Ripuarians, whose home lay on the Rhine about Cologne, less tempted towards Gaul, seemed to hold themselves in reserve for the future. In 481 Hilderic, chief of the Salian Franks died, I leaving behind him a boy of fifteen, Hlodowig or Clovis. * This youth, endowed with unusual vigour and fierceness, soon won a great reputation among the Franks, and in 486 broke in on the only Roman power now left in northern Gaul, the degenerate legions commanded by the patrician Syagrius of Soissons. These were swept away like the autumn leaves before the wind, and Hlodowig settled down in the lands which he had won. Here he at once came into contact with Christianity ; Remigius bishop of Rheims becoming his friend and adviser long before he adopted the Christian faith. It was probably through his