Teutonic About the Angles and Saxons in their old land we know next to nothing; a few scattered references to them are all that we can find. But about those Teutons who institutions. dwelt nearer the borders of the Roman empire good accounts have been given us by Roman writers, and we have every reason to believe that what is said of their laws and customs is true of those of our own forefathers, only bearing in mind that these latter were more backward and barbarous. What we know of them after their settlement in Britain agrees generally with the accounts given of their German kinsfolk, and much of what is still wanting can be gathered from the Old-English laws and poems. We naturally think of the Angles and Saxons as a very fierce and warlike people. So they were, when they had to fight for their lives against the Roman Empire in front, and against the pressure of other barbarian nations behind. But I believe that if they had one quality more distinguishing than another, it was their capacity for peace, for order and government, and that this, and not their warlike qualities, has been the real secret of their success in the world. were then, as they are now, a law-abiding people. The Mark. They They I have already said that clanhood was the prevailing organisation of all the Northern nations at the time when the Teutons conquered the Roman Empire. occupied their native seats in clans. The country was divided into small districts called marks, very like our parishes, and, like them, of varying size. These marks were each possessed in common by people of one kindred, whom we may look upon either as very large families or as very small clans. Such a thing as private property in land was, if not unknown, at least confined entirely to the homestead, the cottage with its garden and croft, which belonged to each household. The ploughland was divided every year into lots, one lot being given to each freeman to till for himself and his household. On the wastes and in the woods the flocks of the markmen fed in common. The mark grew all the corn and meat which the clan required; the women spun and wove the wool. The markmen had their regular meetings, in which they managed their common affairs. But the organisation of clanhood appears to have made great advances among the Teutons. These little clans, though so independent, were parts of a larger clan, or even of a nation. Besides the marks, there were larger divisions of the land, which appear to have been the same as what were called in England the hundred and the shire. These divisions had also their meetings for public business, especially for judicial matters. And no laws could be made, The National nor any great affairs settled, except at the great Assembly. meetings of the nation, at which every man had a right to attend, unless he had forfeited his freedom. At these meetings, the nobles proposed certain measures; the common freemen, if they liked what was proposed, gave their assent by clashing their spears; if they liked it not, they groaned, and the proposal was rejected. So that at these various popular meetings, they helped in making and they helped in carrying out their own laws, They were in fact to some extent a free people. Another point in which the Teutons were remarkably free was that, instead of the chief having the patriarchal power which he held in the Keltic clans, the family appears to have formed a self-governing community, in which the noble was only an influential member. All men, however, were not equal among the old Teutons. There were three classes of men, more distinctly marked off than classes are now: nobles, freemen, and slaves Aristocracy (in Old-English, Eorlas, Ceorlas, and Theowas). and Royalty.. In the most ancient societies, we always find that some families are considered to be of better blood than others; among the Teutons, the kings and princes were supposed to be descended from the god Woden. It is said by Bede that the Saxons had no kings in their old land, but only nobles, who had equal power among themselves. This may have been originally the case with all the Teutonic nations. In time of peace very likely these nobles were only the leading men in the mark, who were accustomed to preside at the meetings, and to take the lead in public business. But war is the great means through which aristocracy and royalty are developed. In time of war there must be a leader, and the leader must be obeyed. And the wars in which the Teutonic nations were involved with each other and with the tribes which pressed on them from behind, had already wrought this change in such of them as became known to the Romans. Their kings or nobles had gained a position of great authority, though they were not allowed to trample on the rights of the freemen. Wherever clanhood prevails, there it will be found that vengeance for the blood of a kinsman is considered the duty Blood-re- of all the kindred. It is difficult for us, who have venge. policemen, judges, and prisons, a complete public machinery for carrying out justice, to understand that in the beginning the only way to get justice done was to do it yourself. Public justice had its first beginning in family justice, in the duty of every member of a family to avenge the death of any member who had been slain, and in the responsibility of the family for the faults committed by any of its members. The duty of revenge was the most sacred and binding possible. In the ancient poem of Beowulf, which some scholars think was written before the English left their old land, and while they were still heathens in Schleswig, the singer says: 'Each of us must abide the end of worldly life; let him that may, work doom before his death; that will afterwards be best for the warrior, when he no longer lives.' By working doom he means executing justice, by avenging the death of his kinsman. But all the Teutonic nations had already found out that if everybody's death was to be avenged by slaying somebody else, there would be no end to it; so they had made laws fixing a price on everyone's blood-so much for a noble, so much for a freeman-to be paid by the murderer to the kindred.1 This price was called the wergild. If the kinsmen accepted it, they were to cease from bearing the feud, as it was called, that is, from keeping up the quarrel.2 Álmost any offence could thus be atoned for in money, or in what was used instead of money before money became Family responsibility. common-a certain number of cattle or horses. The family, moreover, was responsible for its members; if a kinsman did wrong it was the duty of the kindred to bring him to justice. As all causes were tried and 1 A part of it was paid, according to Tacitus, to the king or the State. This in the Old-English laws we find separated from the Wergild, and called the man-bote; it was the fine due for the breach of peace. 2 It was doubtless at first optional to the kindred whether they would accept the fine or have their revenge. See Palgrave's 'Proofs and Illustrations,' Eng. Comm., p. cxii. judgment given in those popular meetings already spoken of, it is plain that some sort of public justice did exist among our forefathers. followers. It was war which first brought in another bond of society than the tie of blood. Although in early times the clan system was carried out even in war, and the hosts The chiefof the Teutons were arranged according to clans, tain and his every man fighting among his own kindred, and under his own family chief; yet when war became a glory and an adventure, the chieftains and nobles who announced their intention of seeking their fortune in war, were followed by bands of volunteers, who were not of necessity their blood relations. They were young men of spirit, who followed the chief for the sake of glory and reward; they swore to fight under him, and he in his turn was to reward them with the spoils of war. Here we have a new beginning of order, faithfulness to a chosen lord, who is not of necessity a blood relation. It cannot be too carefully noted; for it was destined to be the great bond of society in Europe for more than a thousand years. When once the feeling of duty has been stretched beyond the narrow bounds of the actual family, a great step in civilisation has been taken. But this new relationship was modelled on that of the family. The companions of the chief were in the position of kinsmen to him, even when not really his kinsmen; they formed part of his household in time of peace, as they were his followers in To avenge the death of their lord was as urgent a duty as to avenge the death of a kinsman. In the poem of Beowulf, a warrior says: 'I had far liefer die in the fire where my lord's body is burnt, he who gave me gold, than bear back my shield to my own land, if I have not slain the foe, and defended the life of my lord.' No disgrace could be greater than to come alive out of a battle where the chieftain had been slain. war. The same old singer, when he wishes to praise his nation, calls them ‘a people steady both toward friend and foe.' lt was his idea of a man that he should both love well and hate well-be faithful in defence, and faithful in revenge. Treason and desertion were punished with death; so was theft, if the thief were taken in the act, for theft was a breach of faithfulness to the tribe. We are told that the unwarlike and slothful were put under a hurdle and drowned in a swamp. Slavery. Slavery existed in the forests of Germany, the slaves being either captives taken in war or those who had forfeited their liberty in punishment for their crimes or their folly. When the Teutons became a warlike nation they left the tilling of their fields to slaves, and agriculture came to be looked upon as an unworthy occupation for a freeman. This was no doubt one great cause why in all Teutonic countries the men of peaceful dispositions, who preferred tilling their fields to following some warlike chief, fell more and more into an inferior position, and were at last obliged to put themselves wholly under the protection and authority of some noble. But of this more hereafter. It is important to remember that in old Teutonic society, as we first become acquainted with it, almost the only workers were the women and slaves; the only honourable work for a free man was fighting or hunting. Women. Tacitus tells us that the Teutonic peoples paid a remarkable respect to women; they believed that something godlike, some spirit of foresight, dwelt in women, and they always listened to their counsels. But for all this the wife among the Teutons was bought from her parents or kindred, and was entirely in the power of her husband. and civilisa Teutons. Among the Teutons there does not seem to have been any separate intellectual class, such as the Druids formed in Intellectual the Keltic nations. We hear of priests, and even development of priestesses, but they evidently did not form tion of the a very important class, still less did they engross the functions of judges. The singer or story-teller was an important person, and the great deeds of the heroes of old were sung to the harp at feasts. Some very interesting fragments of ancient English poems have come down to us which bear traces of having been composed at least in heathen times, if not before the English left their first abode. We may be sure that the race from whom came the poem of Beowulf, and from whom sprang afterwards Shakspeare and Milton, were not a people without imagination.1 1 The great superiority of the Old-English poem of Beowulf to those fragments of ancient Welsh poetry which have come down to us, has surely been overlooked by those who contend that English poetic genius is due to intermixture with Keltic blood. |