Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/162

140 more mobile aggregates took place. The obscure revolutions occurring in Central Europe in the second, third, and fourth centuries do not indicate social progress, but rather retrogression from an almost agricultural state toward stages of migratory unrest. We have already noted the fortunes of those tribes that helped to barbarize and disrupt the Roman Empire, and lost themselves among the Romance populations of Italy, Gaul, and Spain. We are here concerned with those that preserved their native speech and qualities, and as Teuton peoples became contributories to the currents of mediaeval evolution.

When the excellent Apollinaris Sidonius, writing in the middle of the fifth century to a young friend about to enter the Roman naval service off the coasts of Gaul, characterized the Saxon pirates as the fiercest and most treacherous of foes, whose way is to dash upon their prey amid the tempest, and for whom shipwreck is a school, he spoke truly, and also illustrated the difference that lies in point of view. Fierce they were, and hardy seamen, likewise treacherous in Roman eyes, and insatiate plunderers. From the side of the sea they represented the barbarian disorder threatening the world. The Roman was scarcely interested in the fact that these men kept troth among themselves with energy and sacrifice of life. The Saxons, Angles, Jutes, whose homes ashore lay between the Weser and the Elbe and through Sleswig, Holstein, and Denmark, possessed interesting qualities before they landed in Britain, where under novel circumstances they were to develop their character and institutions with a rapidity that soon raised them above the condition of their kin who had stayed at home. Bands of them had touched Britain before the year 411, when the Roman legions were withdrawn. But it was only with the landing of Hengest and Horsa in 449 that they began to