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History for ready reference, Volumes 1 to 5

Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 60)

Reading edition

J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 14.

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514, page 260.

GENOA: A. D. 1527-1528. French dominion momentarily restored and then overthrown by Andrew Doria. The republic revived.

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

GENOA: A. D. 1528-1559. The conspiracy of Fiesco and its failure. Revolt and recovery of Corsica.

"Sustained by the ability of Doria, and protected by the arms of Charles V., the Republic, during near nineteen years subsequent to this auspicious revolution, continued in the enjoyment of dignified independence and repose. But, the memorable conspiracy of Louis Fiesco, Count of Lavagna, the Catiline of Liguria, had nearly subverted Genoa, and reduced it anew to the obedience of France, or exposed it once more to all the misfortunes of anarchy. The massacre of Doria and his family constituted one of the primary objects of the plot; while the dissimulation, intrepidity, and capacity, which marked its leader … have rendered the attempt one of the most extraordinary related in modern history. It was accompanied with complete success till the moment of its termination. Jeannetin Doria, the heir of that house, having perished by the dagger, and Andrew, his uncle, being with difficulty saved by his servants, who transported him out of the city, the Genoese Senate was about to submit unconditionally to Fiesco, when that nobleman, by a sudden and accidental death, at once rendered abortive his own hopes and those of his followers. The government, resuming courage, expelled the surviving conspirators; and Doria, on his return to the city, sullied the lustre of his high character, by proceeding to acts of cruelty against the brothers and adherents of the Count of Lavagna. Notwithstanding this culpable and vindictive excess, he continued invariably firm to the political principles which he had inculcated, for maintaining the freedom of the Commonwealth. Philip, Prince of Spain, son of Charles V., having visited Genoa in the succeeding year, attempted to induce the senate, under specious pretences of securing their safety, to consent to the construction of a citadel, garrisoned by Spaniards. But he found in that assembly, as well as in Doria, an insurmountable opposition to the measure, which was rejected with unanimous indignation. The island of Corsica, which had been subjected for ages to Genoa, and which was oppressed by a tyrannical administration, took up arms at this period [1558-1559]; and the French having aided the insurgents, they maintained a long and successful struggle against their oppressors. But the peace concluded at Cateau between Philip, King of Spain, and Henry II., in which the Spanish court dictated terms to France, obliged that nation to evacuate their Corsican acquisitions, and to restore the island to the Genoese.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

Soon afterwards [1559], at the very advanced age of ninety, Andrew Doria expired in his own palace, surrounded by the people on whom he had conferred freedom and tranquillity; leaving the Commonwealth in domestic repose and undisturbed by foreign war."

Sir N. W. Wraxall, History of France, 1574-1610, volume 2, pages 43-44.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, Studies from Genoese History, chapter 1-3.

GENOA: A. D. 1625-1626. Unsuccessful attack by France and Savoy.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

GENOA: A. D. 1745. The republic sides with Spain and France in the War of the Austrian Succession.

See ITALY: A. D. 1745.

GENOA: A. D. 1746-1747. Surrendered to the Austrians. Popular rising. Expulsion of the Austrian garrison. Long siege and deliverance of the city.

See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.

GENOA: A. D. 1748. Territory secured by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748.

GENOA: A. D. 1768. Cession of Corsica to France.

See CORSICA: A. D. 1729-1769.

GENOA: A. D. 1796. Treaty of peace with France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (OCTOBER).

GENOA: A. D. 1797. Revolution forced by Bonaparte. Creation of the Ligurian Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

GENOA: A. D. 1800. Siege by the Austrians. Masséna's defense. Surrender of the city.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

GENOA: A. D. 1805. Surrender of independence. Annexation to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

GENOA: A. D. 1814. Reduction of the forts by English troops. Surrender of the French garrison.

See ITALY: A. D. 1814.

GENOA: A. D. 1814-1815. Annexation to the kingdom of Sardinia.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE); and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

—————GENOA: End—————

GENOLA, Battle of (1799).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).

{1423}

GENS, GENTES, GENTILES.

"When Roman history begins, there were within the city, and subordinate to the common city government, a large number of smaller bodies, each of which preserved its individuality and some semblance of governmental machinery. These were clans [gens], and in prehistoric times each of them is taken to have had an independent political existence, living apart, worshiping its own gods, and ruled over by its own chieftain. This clan organization is not supposed to have been peculiar at all to Rome, but ancient society in general was composed of an indefinite number of such bodies, which, at the outset, treated with each other in a small way as nations might treat with each other to-day. It needs to be noted, however, that, at any rate, so far as Rome is concerned, this is a matter of inference, not of historical proof. The earliest political divisions in Latium of which we have any trace consisted of such clans united into communities. If they ever existed, separately, therefore their union must have been deliberate and artificial, and the body thus formed was the canton ('civitas' or 'populus'). Each canton had a fixed common stronghold ('capitolium,' 'height,' or 'arx'—cf. 'arceo' —'citadel') situated on some central elevation. The clans dwelt around in hamlets ('vici' or 'pagi') scattered through the canton. Originally, the central stronghold was not a place of residence like the 'pagi,' but a place of refuge … and a place of meeting. … In all of this, therefore, the clan seems to lie at the very foundation. … Any clan in the beginning, of course, must have been simply a family. When it grew so large as to be divided into sections, the sections were known as families ('familiæ') and their union was the clan. In this view the family, as we find it existing in the Roman state, was a subdivision of the clan. In other words, historically, families did not unite to form clans, but the clan was the primitive thing, and the families were its branches. Men thus recognized kinship of a double character. They were related to all the members of their clan as 'gentiles,' and again more closely to all the members of their branch of the clan at once as 'gentiles' and also as 'agnati.' As already stated, men belonged to the same family ('agnati') when they could trace their descent through males from a common ancestor who gave its name to the family, or, what is the same thing, was its eponym. Between the members of a clan the chief evidence of relationship in historical times was tradition. … We have thus outlined what is known as the patriarchal theory of society, and hinted at its application to certain facts in Roman history. It should be remembered, however, that it is only a theory, and that it is open to some apparent and to some real criticism."

A. Tighe, Development of the Roman Constitution, chapter 2.

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 5.

"The patricians were divided into certain private associations, called Gentes, which we may translate Houses or Clans. All the members of each Gens were called gentiles; and they bore the same name, which always ended in -ius; as for instance, every member of the Julian Gens was a Julius; every member of the Cornelian Gens was a Cornelius, and so on. Now in every Gens there were a number of Families which were distinguished by a name added to the name of the Gens. Thus the Scipios, Sullas, Cinnas, Cethegi, Lentuli, were all families of the Cornelian Gens. Lastly, every person of every Family was denoted by a name prefixed to the name of the Gens. The name of the person was, in Latin, prænomen; that of the Gens or House, nomen, that of the Family, cognomen. Thus Caius Julius Cæsar was a person of the Cæsar Family in the Julian Gens; Lucius Cornelius Scipio was a person of the Scipio Family in the Cornelian Gens; and so forth."

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 3.

"There is no word in the English language which satisfactorily renders the Latin word 'gens.' The term 'clan' is apt to mislead; for the Scotch Highland clans were very different from the Roman 'gentes.' The word 'House' is not quite correct, for it always implies relationship, which was not essential in the 'gens'; but for want of a better word we shall use 'House' to express 'gens,' except where the spirit of the language rejects the term and requires 'family' instead. The German language has in the word 'Geschlecht' an almost equivalent term for the Latin 'gens'."

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 13, foot-note.

ALSO IN: Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City, book 2, chapter 10.

On the Greek gens, see PHYLÆ.

GENSERIC AND THE VANDALS.

See VANDALS: A. D. 429-439.

GENTILES.

See GENS.

GENUCIAN LAW, The.

A law which prohibited the taking of interest for loans is said to have been adopted at Rome, B. C. 342, on the proposal of the tribune Genucius; but modern historians are skeptical as to the actual enactment of the law.

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 3, chapter 5.

GEOK TEPE, Siege and capture of (1881).

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1869-1881.

GEOMORI, OR GAMORI, The.

"As far as our imperfect information enables us to trace, these early oligarchies of the Grecian states, against which the first usurping despots contended, contained in themselves more repulsive elements of inequality, and more mischievous barriers between the component parts of the population, than the oligarchies of later days. … The oligarchy was not (like the government so denominated in subsequent times) the government of a rich few over the less rich and the poor, but that of a peculiar order, sometimes a Patrician order, over all the remaining society. … The country-population, or villagers who tilled the land, seem in these early times to have been held to a painful dependence on the great proprietors who lived in the fortified town, and to have been distinguished by a dress and habits of their own, which often drew upon them an unfriendly nickname. … The governing proprietors went by the name of the Gamori, or Geomori, according as the Doric or Ionic dialect might be used in describing them, since they were found in states belonging to one race as well as to the other. They appear to have constituted a close order, transmitting their privileges to their children, but admitting no new members to a participation. The principle called by Greek thinkers a Timocracy (the apportionment of political rights and privileges according to comparative property) seems to have been little, if at all, applied in the earlier times. We know no example of it earlier than Solon."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 9.

GEONIM, The.

See JEWS: 7TH CENTURY.

GEORGE I., King of England (first of the Hanoverian or Brunswick line), A. D. 1714-1727.

George II., King of England," 1727-1760.

George III., King of England, 1760-1820.

George IV., King of England, 1820-1830.

George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, 1458-1471.

George William, Elector of Brandenburg, 1619-1640.

—————GEORGE: End—————

{1424}

GEORGIA: The Aboriginal Inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APALACHES, MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY, CHEROKEES.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1539-1542. Traversed by Hernando de Soto.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1629. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1663. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Monk, Clarendon, and others.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739. Oglethorpe's colony.

"Among the members of Parliament during the rule of Sir Robert Walpole was one almost unknown to us now, but deserving of honour beyond most men of his time. His name was James Oglethorpe. He was a soldier, and had fought against the Turks and in the great Marlborough wars against Louis XIV. In advanced life he became the friend of Samuel Johnson. Dr. Johnson urged him to write some account of his adventures. 'I know no one,' he said, 'whose life would be more interesting: if I were furnished with materials I should be very glad to write it.' Edmund Burke considered him 'a more extraordinary person than any he had ever read of.' John Wesley 'blessed God that ever he was born.' Oglethorpe attained the great age of ninety-six, and died in the year 1785. … In Oglethorpe's time it was in the power of a creditor to imprison, according to his pleasure, the man who owed him money and was not able to pay it. It was a common circumstance that a man should be imprisoned during a long series of years for a trifling debt. Oglethorpe had a friend upon whom this hard fate had fallen. His attention was thus painfully called to the cruelties which were inflicted upon the unfortunate and helpless. He appealed to Parliament, and after inquiry a partial remedy was obtained. The benevolent exertions of Oglethorpe procured liberty for multitudes who but for him might have ended their lives in captivity. This, however, did not content him. Liberty was an incomplete gift to men who had lost, or perhaps had scarcely ever possessed, the faculty of earning their own maintenance. Oglethorpe devised how lie might carry these unfortunates to a new world, where, under happier auspices, they might open a fresh career. He obtained [A. D. 1732] from King George II. a charter by which the country between the Savannah and the Alatamaha, and stretching westward to the Pacific, was erected into the province of Georgia. It was to be a refuge for the deserving poor, and next to them for Protestants suffering persecution. Parliament voted £10,000 in aid of the humane enterprise, and many benevolent persons were liberal with their gifts. In November the first exodus of the insolvent took place. Oglethorpe sailed with 120 emigrants, mainly selected from the prisons—penniless, but of good repute. He surveyed the coasts of Georgia, and chose a site for the capital of his new State. He pitched his tent where Savannah now stands, and at once proceeded to mark out the line of streets and squares. Next year the colony was joined by about a hundred German Protestants, who were then under persecution for their beliefs. … The fame of Oglethorpe's enterprise spread over Europe. All struggling men, against whom the battle of life went hard, looked to Georgia as a land of promise. They were the men who most urgently required to emigrate; but they were not always the men best fitted to conquer the difficulties of the immigrant's life. The progress of the colony was slow. The poor persons of whom it was originally composed were honest but ineffective, and could not in Georgia more than in England find out the way to become self-supporting. Encouragements were given which drew from Germany, from Switzerland, and from the Highlands of Scotland men of firmer texture of mind—better fitted to subdue the wilderness and bring forth its treasures. With Oglethorpe there went out, on his second expedition to Georgia [1736], the two brothers John and Charles Wesley. Charles went as secretary to the Governor. John was even then, although a very young man, a preacher of unusual promise. … He spent two years in Georgia, and these were unsuccessful years. His character was unformed; his zeal out of proportion to his discretion. The people felt that he preached 'personal satires' at them. He involved himself in quarrels, and at last had to leave the colony secretly, fearing arrest at the instance of some whom he had offended. He returned to begin his great career in England, with the feeling that his residence in Georgia had been of much value to himself, but of very little to the people whom he sought to benefit. Just as Wesley reached England, his fellow-labourer George Whitefield sailed for Georgia. … He founded an Orphan-House at Savannah, and supported it by contributions—obtained easily from men under the power of his unequalled eloquence. He visited Georgia very frequently, and his love for that colony remained with him to the last. Slavery was, at the outset, forbidden in Georgia. It was opposed to the gospel, Oglethorpe said, and therefore not to be allowed. He foresaw, besides, what has been so bitterly experienced since, that slavery must degrade the poor white labourer. But soon a desire sprung up among the less scrupulous of the settlers to have the use of slaves. Within seven years from the first landing, slave-ships were discharging their cargo at Savannah."

R. Mackenzie, America: A History, book 1, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: T. M. Harris, Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe, chapters 1-10.

R. Wright, Memoir of General James Oglethorpe, chapters 1-9.

For text of charter, etc., see in

G. White, Historical Collections of Georgia, pages. 1-20.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1734. The settlement of the Salzburgers.

"As early as October the 12th, 1732, the 'Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge' expressed to the Trustees a desire 'that the persecuted Salzburgers should have an asylum provided for them in Georgia.' … These Germans belonged to the Archbishopric of Salzburg, then the most eastern district of Bavaria; but now forming a detached district in upper Austria, and called Salzburg from the broad valley of the Salzer, which is made by the approximating of the Norric and Rhetian Alps. Their ancestors, the Vallenges of Piedmont, had been compelled by the barbarities of the Dukes of Savoy, to find a shelter from the storms of persecution in the Alpine passes and vales of Salzburg and the Tyrol, before the Reformation; and frequently since had they been hunted out by the hirelings and soldiery of the Church of Rome. … {1425} The quietness which they had enjoyed for nearly half a century was now rudely broken in upon by Leopold, Count of Firmian and Archbishop of Salzburg, who determined to reduce them to the Papal faith and power. He began in the year 1729, and, ere he ended in 1732, not far from 30,000 had been driven from their homes, to seek among the Protestant States of Europe that charity and peace which were denied them in the glens and fastnesses of their native Alps. More than two-thirds settled in the Prussian States; the rest spread themselves over England, Holland, and other Protestant countries. Thrilling is the story of their exile. The march of these Salzburgers constitutes an epoch in the history of Germany. … The sympathies of Reformed Christendom were awakened on their behalf, and the most hospitable entertainment and assistance were everywhere given them." Forty-two families, numbering 78 persons, accepted an invitation to settle in Georgia, receiving allotments of land and provisions until they could gather a harvest. They arrived at Savannah in March, 1734, and were settled at a spot which they selected for themselves, about thirty miles in the interior. "Oglethorpe marked out for them a town; ordered workmen to assist in building houses; and soon the whole body of Germans went up to their new home at Ebenezer."

W. B. Stevens, History of Georgia, book 2, chapter 2 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: F. Shoberl, Persecutions of Popery, chapter 9 (volume 2).

E. B. Speirs, The Salzburgers (English History Review, October, 1890).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1735-1749. The Slavery question. Original exclusion and subsequent admission of negro slaves.

Among the fundamental regulations of the Trustees was one prohibiting negro slavery in the colony. "It was policy and not philanthropy which prohibited slavery; for, though one of the Trustees, in a sermon to recommend charity, declared, 'Let avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance in humanity against buying and selling, and regarding those of our own species as our wealth and possessions'; and though Oglethorpe himself, speaking of slavery as against 'the gospel as well as the fundamental law of England', asserted, 'we refused, as Trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime'; yet in the official publications of that body its inhibition is based only on political and prudential, and not on humane and liberal grounds; and even Oglethorpe owned a plantation and negroes near Parachucla in South Carolina, about forty miles above Savannah. … Their [the Trustees'] design was to provide for poor but honest persons, to erect a barrier between South Carolina and the Spanish settlements, and to establish a wine and silk-growing colony. It was thought by the Trustees that neither of these designs could be secured if slavery was introduced. … But while the Trustees disallowed negroes, they instituted a system of white slavery which was fraught with evil to the servants and to the colony. These were white servants, consisting of Welch, English, or German, males and females—families and individuals—who were indented to individuals or the Trustees, for a period of from four to fourteen years. … On arriving in Georgia, their service was sold for the term of indenture, or apportioned to the inhabitants by the magistrates, as their necessities required. … Two years had not elapsed since the landing of Oglethorpe before many complaints originated from this cause; and in the summer of 1735 a petition, signed by seventeen freeholders, setting forth the unprofitableness of white servants, and the necessity for negroes, was carried by Mr. Hugh Sterling to the Trustees, who, however, resented the appeal as an insult to their honour. … The plan for substituting white for black labour failed through the sparseness of the supply and the refractoriness of the servants. As a consequence of the inability of the settlers to procure adequate help, the lands granted them remained uncleared, and even those which the temporary industry of the first occupants prepared remained uncultivated. … There accumulated on the Trustees' hands a body of idle, clamourous, mischief-making men, who employed their time in declaiming against the very government whose charity both fed and clothed them. … For nearly fifteen years from 1735, the date of the first petition for negroes, and the date of their express law against their importation, the Trustees refused to listen to any similar representations, except to condemn them," and they were supported by the Salzburgers and the Highlanders, both of whom opposed the introduction of negro slaves. But finally, in 1749, the firmness of the Trustees gave way and they yielded to the clamor of the discontented colony. The importation of black slaves was permitted, under certain regulations intended to diminish the evils of the institution. "The change in the tenure of grants, and the permission to hold slaves, had an immediate effect on the prosperity of the colony."

W. B. Stevens, History of Georgia, book 2, chapter 9 (volume 1).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743. War with the Spaniards of Florida. Discontents in the colony.

"The assiento enjoyed under the treaty of Utrecht by the English South Sea Company, the privilege, that is, of transporting to the Spanish colonies a certain number of slaves annually, … was made a cover for an extensive smuggling trade on the part of the English, into which private merchants also entered. … To guard against these systematic infractions of their laws, the Spaniards maintained a numerous fleet of vessels in the preventive service, known as 'guarda costas,' by which some severities were occasionally exercised on suspected or detected smugglers. These severities, grossly exaggerated, and resounded throughout the British dominions, served to revive in England and the colonies a hatred of the Spaniards, which, since the time of Philip II., had never wholly died out. Such was the temper and position of the two nations when the colonization of Georgia was begun, of which one avowed object was to erect a barrier against the Spaniards, among whom the runaway slaves of South Carolina were accustomed to find shelter, receiving in Florida an assignment of lands, and being armed and organized into companies, as a means of strengthening that feeble colony. A message sent to St. Augustine to demand the surrender of the South Carolina runaways met with a point blank refusal, and the feeling against the Spaniards ran very high in consequence. … Oglethorpe … returned from his second visit to England [Sept. 1738], with a newly-enlisted regiment of soldiers, and the appointment, also, of military commander for Georgia and the Carolinas, with orders 'to give no offense, but to repel force by force.' Both in Spain and England the administrators of the government were anxious for peace. … The ferocious clamors of the merchants and the mob … absolutely forced Walpole into a war.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.—THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR.

{1426}

Travelling 300 miles through the forests, Oglethorpe held at Coweta, on the Chattahoochee, just below the present site of Columbus, a new treaty with the Creeks, by which they confirmed their former cessions, acknowledged themselves subject to the King of Great Britain, and promised to exclude from their territories all but English settlers. After finishing the treaty, Oglethorpe returned through the woods by way of Augusta to Savannah, where he found orders from England to make an attack on Florida. He called at once on South Carolina and the Creeks for aid, and in the mean time made an expedition, in which he captured the Fort of Picolata, over against St. Augustine, thus securing the navigation of the St. John's, and cutting off the Spaniards from their forts at St. Mark's and Pensacola. South Carolina entered very eagerly into the enterprise. Money was voted; a regiment, 500 strong, was enlisted, partly in North Carolina and Virginia. This addition raised Oglethorpe's force to 1,200 men. The Indians that joined him were as many more. Having marched into Florida, he took a small fort or two, and, assisted by several ships of war, laid siege to St. Augustine. But the garrison was 1,000 strong, besides militia. The fortifications proved more formidable than had been expected. A considerable loss was experienced by a sortie from the town, falling heavily on the Highland Rangers. Presently the Indians deserted, followed by part of the Carolina regiment, and Oglethorpe was obliged to give over the enterprise. … From the time of this repulse, the good feeling of the Carolinians toward Oglethorpe came to an end. Many of the disappointed Georgia emigrants had removed to Charleston, and many calumnies against Oglethorpe were propagated, and embodied in a pamphlet published there. The Moravians also left Georgia, unwilling to violate their consciences by bearing arms. Most unfortunately for the new colony, the Spanish war withdrew the Highlanders and others of the best settlers from their farms to convert them into soldiers."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 25 (volume 2).

"After the late incursion into Florida, the General kept possession of a southern region which the Spaniards had claimed as their own; and, as they had taken encouragement from the successful defence of St. Augustine, and the well-known dissensions on the English side, it was to be expected that they would embrace the earliest opportunity of taking their revenge. … The storm, which had been so long anticipated, burst upon the colony in the year 1742. The Spaniards had … fitted out, at Havana, a fleet said to consist of 56 sail and 7,000 or 8,000 men. The force was probably not quite so great; if it was, it did not all reach its destination," being dispersed by a storm, "so that only a part of the whole number succeeded in reaching St. Augustine. The force was there placed under the command of Don Manuel de Monteano, the Governor of that place. … The fleet made its appearance on the coast of Georgia on the 21st of June"; but all its attempts, first to take possession of the Island of Amelia, and afterwards to reduce the forts at Frederica, were defeated by the vigor and skill of General Oglethorpe. After losing heavily in a fight called the Battle of the Bloody Marsh, the Spaniards retreated about the middle of July. The following year they prepared another attempt; but Oglethorpe anticipated it by a second demonstration on his own part against St. Augustine, which had no other result than to disconcert the plans of the enemy.

W. B. O. Peabody, Life of Oglethorpe (Library of American Biographies, 2d series, volume 2), chapters 11-12.

"While Oglethorpe was engaged in repelling the Spaniards, the trustees of Georgia had been fiercely assailed by their discontented colonists. They sent Thomas Stevens to England with a petition containing many charges of mismanagement, extravagance, and peculation, to which the trustees put in an answer. After a thorough examination of documents and witnesses in committee of the whole, and hearing counsel, the House of Commons resolved that 'the petition of Thomas Stevens contains false, scandalous, and malicious charges'; in consequence of which Stevens, the next day, was brought to the bar, and reprimanded on his knees. … Oglethorpe himself had been a special mark of the malice and obloquy of the discontented settlers. … Presently his lieutenant colonel, a man who owed everything to Oglethorpe's favor, re-echoing the slanders of the colonists, lodged formal charges against him. Oglethorpe proceeded to England to vindicate his character, and the accuser, convicted by a court of inquiry of falsehood, was disgraced and deprived of his commission. Appointed a major general, ordered to join the army assembled to oppose the landing of the Pretender, marrying also about this time, Oglethorpe did not again return to Georgia. The former scheme of administration having given rise to innumerable complaints, the government of that colony was intrusted to a president and four counselors."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter. 25 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: C. C. Jones, History of Georgia, chapters 17-22 (volume 1).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1743-1764. Surrender to the Crown. Government as a royal province.

"On Oglethorpe's departure [1743], William Stephens, the secretary, was made President, and continued in office until 1751, when he was succeeded by Henry Parker. The colony, when Stephens came into office, comprised about 1,500 persons. It was almost at a stand-still. The brilliant prospects of the early days were dissipated, and immigration had ceased, thanks to the narrow policy and feeble government of the Trustees. An Indian rising, in 1749, headed by Mary Musgrove, Oglethorpe's Indian interpreter, and her husband, one Bosomworth, who laid claim to the whole country, came near causing the destruction of the colony, and was only repressed by much negotiation and lavish bribes. The colony, thus feeble and threatened, struggled on, until it was relieved from danger from the Indians and from the restrictive laws, and encouraged by the appointment of Parker, and the establishment of a representative government. This produced a turn in the affairs of Georgia. Trade revived, immigration was renewed, and everything began to wear again a more hopeful look. Just at this time, however, the original trust was on the point of expiring by limitation. {1427} There was a party in the colony who desired a renewal of the charter; but the Trustees felt that their scheme had failed in every way, except perhaps as a defence to South Carolina, and when the limit of the charter was reached, they turned the colony over to the Crown. … A form of government was established similar to those of the other royal provinces, and Captain John Reynolds was sent out as the first Governor." The administration of Reynolds produced wide discontent, and in 1757 he was recalled, being "succeeded by Henry Ellis as Lieutenant-governor. The change proved fortunate, and brought rest to the colony. Ellis ruled peaceably and with general respect for more than two years, and was then promoted to the governorship of Nova Scotia. In the same year his successor arrived at Savannah, in the person of James Wright, who continued to govern the province until it was severed from England by the Revolution. The feebleness of Georgia had prevented her taking part in the union of the colonies, and she was not represented in the Congress at Albany. Georgia also escaped the ravages of the French war, partly by her distant situation, and partly by the prudence of Governor Ellis; and the conclusion of that war gave Florida to England, and relieved the colony from the continual menace of Spanish aggression. A great Congress of southern Governors and Indian chiefs followed, in which Wright, more active than his predecessor, took a prominent part. Under his energetic and firm rule, the colony began to prosper greatly, and trade increased rapidly; but the Governor gained at the same time so much influence, and was a man of so much address, that he not only held the colony down at the time of the Stamp Act, but seriously hampered its action in the years which led to revolution."

H. C. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies in America, chapter 9.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1760-1775. Opening events of the Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775, to 1775.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1775-1777. The end of royal government. Constitutional organization of the state."

The news of the battle of Lexington reached Savannah on the night of the 10th of May, 1775, and produced intense excitement among all classes. On the night of the 11th, Noble Wimberly Jones, Joseph Habersham, Edward Telfair, and a few others, impressed with the necessity of securing all military stores, and preserving them for colonial use, took from the King's magazine, in Savannah, about 500 pounds of powder. … Tradition asserts that part of this powder was sent to Boston, and used by the militia at the battle of Bunker Hill. … The activity of the Liberty party, and its rapid increase, … gave Governor Wright just cause for alarm; and he wrote to General Gage, expressing his amazement that these southern provinces should be left in the situation they are, and the Governors and King's officers, and friends of Government, naked and exposed to the resentment of an enraged people.' … The assistance so earnestly solicited in these letters would have been promptly rendered, but that they never reached their destination. The Committee of Safety at Charleston withdrew them from their envelopes, as they passed through the port, and substituted others, stating that Georgia was quiet, and there existed no need either of troops or vessels." The position of Governor Wright soon became one of complete powerlessness and he begged to be recalled. In January, 1776, however, he was placed under arrest, by order of the Council of Safety, and gave his parole not to leave town, nor communicate with the men-of-war which had just arrived at Tybee; notwithstanding which he made his escape to one of the King's ships on the 11th of February. "The first effective organization of the friends of liberty in the province took place among the deputies from several parishes, who met in Savannah, on the 18th January, 1775, and formed what has been called 'A Provincial Congress.' Guided by the action of the other colonies, a 'Council of Safety' was created, on the 22d June, 1775, to whom was confided the general direction of the measures proper to be pursued in carrying out resistance to the tyrannical designs of the King and Parliament. William Ewen was the first President of this Council of Safety, and Seth John Cuthbert was the Secretary. On the 4th July, the Provincial Congress (now properly called such, as every parish and district was represented) met in Savannah, and elected as its presiding officer Archibald Bulloch. This Congress conferred upon the 'Council of Safety,' 'full power upon every emergency during the recess of Congress.'" Soon finding the need of a more definite order of government, the Provincial Congress, on the 15th of April, 1776, adopted provisionally, for six months, a series of "Rules and Regulations," under which Archibald Bulloch was elected President and Commander-in-chief of Georgia, and John Glen, Chief Justice. After the Declaration of Independence, steps were taken toward the settling of the government of the state on a permanent basis. On the proclamation of President Bulloch a convention was elected which met in Savannah in October, and which framed a constitution that was ratified on the 5th of February, 1777.

W. B. Stevens, History of Georgia, book 4, chapter 2, and book 5, chapter 1 (volume 2).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1776-1778. The war in the North. The Articles of Confederation. The alliance with France.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A.D. 1776, to 1778.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1778-1779. Savannah taken and the state subjugated by the British.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1779. Unsuccessful attack on Savannah by the French and Americans.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1779 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1780. Successes of the British arms in South Carolina.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1780-1783. Greene's campaign in the South. Lafayette and Washington in Virginia. Siege of Yorktown and surrender of Cornwallis. Peace.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A. D. 1780, to 1783.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1787-1788. The formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787, and 1787-1789.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1802. Cession of Western land claims to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786 and MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1798-1804.

GEORGIA: A. D. 1813-1814. The Creek War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1816-1818. The First Seminole War.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.

{1428}

GEORGIA: A. D. 1861 (January). Secession from the Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1861 (October-December). Savannah threatened. The Union forces in possession of the mouth of the river.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA-GEORGIA).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1862 (February-April). Reduction of Fort Pulaski and sealing up of the port of Savannah by the National Forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: GEORGIA-FLORIDA).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1864 (May-September). Sherman's campaign against Atlanta. The capture of the city.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: GEORGIA), and (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1864 (September-October). Military occupation of Atlanta. Removal of the inhabitants. Hood's Raid to Sherman's rear.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: GEORGIA).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1864 (November-December). Destruction of Atlanta. Sherman's March to the Sea.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER: GEORGIA).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1865 (March-May). Wilson's Raid. Capture of Jefferson Davis. End of the Rebellion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).

GEORGIA: A. D. 1865-1868. Reconstruction.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), and after, to 1868-1870.

—————GEORGIA: End—————

GEOUGEN, The.

See TURKS: SIXTH CENTURY.

GEPIDÆ, The.

See GOTHS: ORIGIN OF; HUNS; LOMBARDS: EARLY HISTORY; and AVARS.

GERALDINES, The.

The Geraldines of Irish history were descendants of Maurice and William Fitzgerald, two of the first among the Anglo-Norman adventurers to engage in the conquest of Ireland, A. D. 1169-1170. Their mother was a Welsh princess, named Nest, or Nesta, who is said to have been the mistress of Henry I. of England, and afterwards to have married the Norman baron, Gerald Fitz Walter, who became the father of the Fitzgeralds. "Maurice Fitzgerald, the eldest of the brothers, became the ancestor both of the Earls of Kildare and Desmond; William, the younger, obtained an immense grant of land in Kerry from the McCarthys, indeed as time went on the lordship of the Desmond Fitzgeralds grew larger and larger, until it covered nearly as much ground as many a small European kingdom. Nor was this all. The White Knight, the Knight of Glyn, and the Knight of Kerry were all three Fitzgeralds, all descended from the same root, and all owned large tracts of country. The position of the Geraldines of Kildare was even more important, on account of their close proximity to Dublin. In later times their great keep at Maynooth dominated the whole Pale, while their followers swarmed everywhere, each man with a 'G' embroidered upon his breast in token of his allegiance. By the beginning of the 16th century their power had reached to, perhaps, the highest point ever attained in these islands by any subject. Whoever might be called the Viceroy in Ireland it was the Earl of Kildare who practically governed the country."

Hon. E. Lawless, The Story of Ireland, chapter 14.

See, also, IRELAND: A. D. 1515; and for some account of the subsequent rebellion and fall of the Geraldines, see IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553.

GERALDINES, League of the.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.

GERBA, OR JERBA, The disaster at. (1560).

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.

GEREFA.

"The most general name for the fiscal, administrative and executive officer among the Anglosaxons was Gerefa, or as it is written, in very early documents geroefa: but the peculiar functions of the individuals comprehended under it were further defined by a prefix compounded with it, as scirgerefa, the reeve of the shire or sheriff: tungerefa, the reeve of the farm or bailiff. The exact meaning and etymology of this name have hitherto eluded the researches of our best scholars."

J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England, book 2, chapter 5 (volume 2).

See, also, SHIRE; and EALDORMAN.

GERGESENES, The.

One of the tribes of the Canaanites, whose territory is believed by Lenormant to have "included all Decapolis and even Galilee," and whose capital he places at Gerasa, now Djerash, in Perea.

F. Lenormant and E. Chevallier, Manual of Ancient History, book 6, chapter 1 (volume 2).

GERGITHIAN SIBYL.

See CUMÆ.

GERGITHIANS, The.

See TROJA; and, ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES.

GERGOVIA OF THE ARVERNI.

"The site of Gergovia of the Arverni is supposed to be a hill on the bank of the Allier, two miles from the modern Clermont in Auvergne. The Romans seem to have neglected Gergovia, and to have founded the neighbouring city, to which they gave the name Augustonemetum. The Roman city became known afterwards as Civitas Arvernorum, in the middle ages Arverna, and then, from the situation of its castle, clarus mons, Clermont."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 12 (volume 2, page 20, foot-note).

For an account of Cæsar's reverse at Gergovia of the Arverni,

See GAUL: B. C. 58-51.

GERGOVIA OF THE BOIANS.

See BOIANS.

GERIZIM.

"The sacred centre of the Samaritans is Gerizim, the 'Mount of Blessings.' On. its summit a sacred rock marks the site where, according to their tradition, Joshua placed the Tabernacle and afterwards built a temple, restored later by Sanballat on the return of the Israelites from captivity. On the slope of the mountain the Feast of the Passover is still celebrated in accordance with the injunctions of the Law."

C. R. Conder, Syrian Stone Lore, chapter 4.

GERMAN, High and Low.

The distinction, made between High German and Low German is that resulting from differences of language, etc., between the Germanic peoples which dwelt anciently in the low, flat countries along the German Ocean and the Baltic, and those which occupied the higher regions of the upper Rhine, Elbe and Danube.

GERMAN EAST AFRICAN AND WEST AFRICAN ASSOCIATIONS.

See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1889.

GERMAN EMPIRE, The Constitution of the new.

See CONSTITUTION OF GERMANY.

————————————————— A Logical Outline of German History

Ethnological Social and political. Intellectual, moral and religious. Foreign.

IN WHICH THE DOMINANT CONDITIONS AND INFLUENCES ARE DISTINGUISHED BY COLORS.

3d-5th Centurles. The Wanderinag of the nations.

Germany was slow in finding the definite place in geography and history that belongs to it at the present day. It was no more at first than a name, applied with large vagueness to the country beyond the Rhine and the Danube, where many restless tribes, of kindred language and character, were unstably distributed. In time, the tribes crowded one another into wide wandering movements, were pushed and pressed together into confederacies and nations, and went swarming over the Danube and the Rhine into Roman provinces, to take possession of them and to be the new masters of the European world; but it was the Germans, not Germany, who began then to be historic.

5th-9th Centuries—Empire of the Franks.

As a fact in history, Germany emerged first with the Franks, out of the dust-clouds of the wandering time and the darker clouds of the Gallic conquest. Fast seated on the great dividing river, the Rhine, the Franks reached backward into the land which gave them birth, and forward into the land which took their name, and gathered a broad empire out of both. But always the two parts of it refused to be held together. Neither by Clovis, the first conqueror, nor by Charlemagne, after three hundred years, were the Kingdom of the East Franks and the Kingdom of the West Franks bound fast into one. Under Charlemagne's successors, the Kingdom of the East Franks began to be Germany, in the growing of the fact as well as the name.

A. D. 962.—The Holy Roman Empire.

But no sooner had a Kingdom of Germany been created than it was strangely deprived of the distinctness needful to the making of a nation. The adventurous Otho, its second Saxon king, who reclaimed Italy and revived the imperial sovereignty of Charlemagne, diminished the weight and dignity of his Germanic realm as much as he advanced himself and his successors in title and rank. By that elevation of its kings to a pseudo-Roman throne, Germany lost its own proper place in history, and was obscured by the shadow of an empire which soon existed as a shadow only. Its elective kings, forsaking the title of Kings of Germany, and calling themselves Kings of the Romans, even while they waited for an imperial coronation at the hands of the Pope, made the nationalizing of Germany, as France was being nationalized, by its monarchy, impossible.

10th-18th Centuries.—Contests In Italy.

For three centuries, the ambitions and the interests of the imperialized monarchy were ultramontane. Its Teutonic seat was a mere resting-place between Italian expeditions. Its quarrels with the Popes cast all questions of German politics into the background. It took no root in German feeling, rallied no national sentiment, gathered no increase of authority, sent out from itself no centralizing influences, judicial or administrative, to resist the dissolving forces of feudalism. And nowhere else in Europe was the action of those forces so destructive of political unity. That great Fatherland of the German peoples, where the slow solidification of a nation should have been going on as surely as in France, was crumbled by them into petty principalities, which time only hardened in their separateness.

A. D. 1273-1440—Rise of the House of Hapsburg.

When, at last, the crown came to be settled in one fast-rooted and enduring House, it was not fortunately placed. Territorially the Hapsburgs were planted on the verge of the Teutonic land, where they fronted the Hungarians and the Svavs and were threatened by the approaching Turks. Speaking figuratively, they stood with their backs to Germany, facing their greater dangers and their greater opportunities, east and south.

Their personal dominions were acquired for the most part outside of the Teutonic line. Their immediate subjects were of many alien races, with a few of Greman blood. Their kingship of Hungary was more substantial in its political weight than any Germanic sovereignty that they held. From the beginning of its remarkable dynastic career, the House of Austria was in all respects quite at one side of the great people whose crown had unhappily passed to its keeping. The emperor-kings, throned with less reality at Vienna than at Presburg and Prague, lost more and more their German character, receded more and more from the range of German influence. Thus Germany was robbed again of the centralizing constraints which a vigorous, rising monarchy of the true stamp, not falsified by a fictitious imperialization, would have brought to bear upon it, for the unifying of a great nation.

A. D. 1477-1496.—Burgundian and Spanish marriages.

The marriagcs which linked the Austrian House with the sovereign families of Burgundy and Spain only drew it still farther away, and made it more alien than before to the people of the German North. The imperial government was brought then under influences from Spain which opposed every tendency of their feeling and thought. While the strong Teutonic mind worked its slow way towards personal freedom,—towards fearless inquiry and independent belief,—a contrary movement went on in the Austrian court. Between Germany at large and the circle in which Vienna stood really a center and a capital, a widening inteliectual breach began when the Hapsburg brain was narrowed by the astringent blood of Castile. This appeared, not alone in the rupture of the religious Reformation, but in all the advances that were made, from the sixteenth century down, in science, philosophy, literature and art.

Some advance was always made; but the modern impulses which woke early in the German race were wastefully spent, during many generations, for want of any national concentration. No large channel opened to them; no worthy spirit directed them. The pettiness of petty politics and courts belittled in most ways, for a lamentable time, the workings of German energy and genius.

A. D. 1618.—Brandenburg—Prussia.

The Thirty Years War made chaos in Germany complete. No semblance of substance in the empire remained. The Kaiser had become a sovereign less honored than the King of France, and Vienna a capital less considered than Paris. But the first nucleus of nationality took form in that chaos, when Brandenburg drew Prussia to itself, in the union which produced a new kingdom at the North. The rise of Prussia was the rise of German nationality. It brought to bear on the German people the first centralizing influence that had acted upon them since their kings took the crown of Rome. For the first time in their history they felt the pull of a force which drew them towards common lines of action.

A. D. 1740-1786.—Frederick the Great. A. D. 1800-1813.—Struggle with Napoleon.

The aggrandizement of Prussia by Frederick the Great, though iniquitous when considered in itself, was splendid work for Germany. It prepared, for the perils of the next generation, a power which Napoleon could humble at the moment, but which he could not crush. It gave footing for the great heroic rally of the Germanic people, whereby they conquered their place in the world and secured their future.

A. D. 1866.—The Seven Weeks War A. D. 1870-1871.—The Franco-German War. A. D. 1871.—The Empire.

In all that has come to pass since Leipsic and Waterloo, the logical sequence is plainer than history is wont to show it. From men of the first decade in this century, who put the school and the camp side by side in Prussian training, there came more than from Bismarck or Moltke of the power which triumphed at Sadowa and Sedan, which has constructed a new and true Empire of Germany, with its capital at Berlin, and which has dismissed Austria from German reckonings as mistress or as rival, but to make of her an ally and a friend.

Within the last third of the nineteenth century, the Germans may be said to have opened a great national career, such as the English, their kinsmen, had entered upon nearly two hundred years before. The energies of their powerful race have been centered at last, and are acting with new potency, in commerce and colonization, abroad, and in all modes of human advancement, at home.

—————End: A Logical Outline of German History ———

{1429}

GERMAN FLATS: A. D.1765. Treaty with the Indians.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

GERMAN FLATS: A. D. 1778. Destruction by Brant.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JUNE-NOVEMBER).

GERMAN NATIONS, The wandering of.

See GOTHS; FRANKS; ALEMANNI; MARCOMANNI; QUADI; GEPIDÆ; SAXONS; ANGLES; BURGUNDIANS; VANDALS; SUEVI; LOMBARDS.

GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

GERMANIA.

"On the origin of the name Germania see Waitz D. V. G. i. 24; he rejects all German derivations and concludes that it is originally Gallic, the name given (as Tacitus indicates) by the Gauls first to the Tungri, and afterwards to all the kindred tribes. The meaning may be either 'good shouters' (Grimm), or, according to other writers, 'East-men,' or 'neighbours.'"

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, volume 1, page 17, note.

GERMANIANS, The.

See CARMANIANS.

GERMANIC CONFEDERATION, The First.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820.

The Second.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1870 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

GERMANIC DIET, The.

See DIET, GERMANIC.

GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE ALEMANNIC LEAGUE.

See ALEMANNI: A.-D. 213.

GERMANICUS, Campaigns of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 14-16.

GERMANTOWN, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).

GERMANY: The national name.

"The nations of the Germania had no common name recognised by themselves, and were content, when, ages after, they had realised their unity of tongue and descent, to speak of their language simply as the Lingua Theotisca, the language of the people (theod). … Whence the name 'Deutsch.' Zeuss derives it rather from the root of 'deuten,' to explain, so that 'theotisc' should mean 'significant.' But the root of 'theod' and 'deuten' is the same. … The general name by which the Romans knew them [Germani] was one which they had received from their Gallic neighbours."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, volume 1, chapter 3, and foot-note.

"In Gothic we have 'thiuda,' people; 'thiudisks,' belonging to the people. … The High-German, which looks upon Sanskrit 't' and Gothic 'th' as 'd,' possesses the same word, as 'diot,' people; 'diutisc,' popularis; hence Deutsch, German, and 'deuten,' to explain, literally to Germanize."

F. Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, 2d series, lecture. 5.

The account which Tacitus gives of the origin of the name Germany is this: "The name Germany … they [the Germans] say, is modern and newly introduced, from the fact that the tribes which first crossed the Rhine and drove out the Gauls, and are now called Tungrians, were then called Germans. Thus what was the name of a tribe, and not of a race, gradually prevailed, till all called themselves by this self-invented name of Germans, which the conquerors had first employed to inspire terror."

Tacitus, Germany; translated by Church and Brodribb, chapter 2.

"It is only at the mouth of the Elbe that the Germany of the really historical period begins: and this is a Germany only in the eyes of scholars, antiquarians, and generalizing ethnologists. Not one of the populations to whom the name is here extended would have attached any meaning to the word, except so far as they had been instructed by men who had studied certain Latin writers. There was no name which was, at one and the same time, native and general. There were native names, but they were limited to special populations. There was a general name, but it was one which was applied by strangers and enemies. What this name was for the northern districts, we know beforehand. It was that of Saxones and Saxonia in Latin; of Sachsen and Sachsenland in the ordinary German. Evidence, however, that any German population ever so named itself is wholly wanting, though it is not impossible that some unimportant tribe may have done so: the only one so called being the Saxons of Ptolemy, who places them, along with several others, in the small district between the Elbe and the Eyder, and on three of the islands off the coast. … The Franks gave it its currency and generality; for, in the eyes of a Frank, Saxony and Friesland contained all those parts of Germany which, partly from their difference of dialect, partly from their rudeness, partly from their paganism, and partly from the obstinacy of their resistance, stood in contrast to the Empire of Charlemagne and his successors. A Saxon was an enemy whom the Franks had to coerce, a heathen whom they had to convert. What more the term meant is uncertain."

R. G. Latham, Introduction to Kemble's "Horæ Ferales."

See, also, TEUTONES.

GERMANY: As known to Tacitus.

"Germany is separated from the Galli, the Rhæti, and Pannonii, by the rivers Rhine and Danube; mountain ranges, or the fear which each feels for the other, divide it from the Sarmatæ and Daci. Elsewhere ocean girds it, embracing broad peninsulas and islands of unexplored extent, where certain tribes and kingdoms are newly known to us, revealed by war. The Rhine springs from a precipitous and inaccessible height of the Rhætian Alps, bends slightly westward, and mingles with the Northern Ocean. The Danube pours down from the gradual and gently rising slope of Mount Abnoba, and visits many nations, to force its way at last through six channels into the Pontus; a seventh mouth is lost in marshes. The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For, in former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean beyond us, is seldom entered by a sail from our world. And, besides the perils of rough and unknown seas, who would leave Asia, or Africa, or Italy for Germany, with its wild country, its inclement skies, its sullen manners and aspect, unless indeed it were his home? {1430} In their ancient songs, their only way of remembering or recording the past, they celebrate an earth-born god, Tuisco, and his son Mannus, as the origin of their race, as their founders. To Mannus they assign three sons, from whose names, they say, the coast tribes are called Ingævones; those of the interior, Herminones; all the rest, Istævones. Some, with the freedom of conjecture permitted by antiquity, assert that the god had several descendants, and the nation several appellations, as Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi, Vandilii, and that these are genuine old names. The name Germany, on the other hand, they say, is modern and newly introduced."

Tacitus, Germany: translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, chapters 1-2.

GERMANY: B. C. 12-9. Campaigns of Drusus.

The first serious advance of the Roman arms beyond the Rhine was made in the reign of Augustus, by the emperor's step-son, Drusus. Cæsar had crossed the river, only to chastise and terrify the tribes on the right bank which threatened Gaul. Agrippa, some years later, repeated the operation, and withdrew, as Cæsar had done. But Drusus invaded Germany with intentions of conquest and occupation. His first campaign was undertaken in the spring of the year 12 B. C. He crossed the Rhine and drove the Usipetes into their strongholds; after which he embarked his legions on transport ships and moved them down the river to the ocean, thence to coast northwards to the mouth of the Ems, and so penetrate to the heart of the enemy's country. To facilitate this bold movement, he had caused a channel to be cut from the Rhine, at modern Arnheim, to the Zuyder Zee, utilizing the river Yssel. The expedition was not successful and retreated overland from the Frisian coast after considerable disaster and loss. The next year, Drusus returned to the attack, marching directly into the German country and advancing to the banks of the Weser, but retreating, again, with little to show of substantial results. He established a fortified outpost, however, on the Lippe, and named it Aliso. During the same summer, he is said to have fixed another post in the country of the Chatti. Two years then passed before Drusus was again permitted by the emperor to cross the Rhine. On his third campaign he passed the Weser and penetrated the Hercynian forest as far as the Elbe,—the Germans declining everywhere to give him battle. Erecting a trophy on the bank of the Elbe, he retraced his steps, but suffered a fall from his horse, on the homeward march, which caused his death. "If the Germans were neither reduced to subjection, nor even overthrown in any decisive engagement, as the Romans vainly pretended, yet their spirit of aggression was finally checked and from thenceforth, for many generations, they were fully occupied with the task of defending themselves."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 36.

GERMANY: B. C. 8-A. D. 11. Campaigns of Tiberius.

The work of Roman conquest in Germany, left unfinished by Drusus, was taken up by his brother Tiberius (afterwards emperor) under the direction of Augustus. Tiberius crossed the Rhine, for the first time, B. C. 8. The frontier tribes made no resistance, but offered submission at once. Tiberius sent their chiefs to Augustus, then holding his court at Lugdunum (Lyons), to make terms with the emperor in person, and Augustus basely treated them as captives and threw them into prison. The following year found the German tribes again under arms, and Tiberius again crossed the Rhine; but it was only to ravage the country, and not to remain. Then followed a period of ten years, during which the emperor's step-son, dissatisfied with his position and on ill terms with Augustus, retired to Rhodes. In the summer of A. D. 4, he returned to the command of the legions on the Rhine. Meantime, under other generals,—Domitius and Vinicius,—they had made several campaigns beyond the river; had momentarily crossed the Elbe; had constructed a road to the outposts on the Weser; had fought the Cherusci, with doubtful results, but had not settled the Roman power in Germany. Tiberius invaded the country once more, with a powerful force, and seems to have crushed all resistance in the region between the lower Rhine and the Weser. The following spring, he repeated, with more success, the movement of Drusus by land and sea, sending a flotilla around to the Elbe and up that stream, to a point where it met and co-operated with a column moved overland, through the wilderness. A single battle was fought and the Germans defeated; but, once more, when winter approached, the Romans retired and no permanent conquest was made. Two years later (A. D. 6), Tiberius turned his arms against the powerful nation of the Marcomanni, which had removed itself from the German mark, or border, into the country formerly occupied, by the Boii—modern Bohemia. Here, under their able chief Marbod, or Maroboduus, they developed a formidable military organization and became threatening to the Roman frontiers on the Upper Danube. Two converging expeditions, from the Danube and from the Rhine, were at the point of crushing the Marcomanni between them, when news of the alarming revolt, in Pannonia and Dalmatia, called the "Batonian War," caused the making of a hasty peace with Maroboduus. The Batonian or Pannonian war occupied Tiberius for nearly three years. He had just brought it to a close, when intelligence reached Rome of a disaster in Germany which filled the empire with horror and dismay. The tribes in northwestern Germany, between the lower Rhine and the Elbe, supposed to be cowed and submissive, had now found a leader who could unite them and excite them to disdain the Roman yoke. This leader was Arminius, or Hermann, a young chief of the Cherusci, who had been trained in the Roman military service and admitted to Roman citizenship, but who hated the oppressors of his country with implacable bitterness. The scheme of insurrection organized by Arminius was made easy of execution by the insolent carelessness and the incapacity of the Roman commander in Germany, L. Quintilius Varus. It succeeded so well that Varus and his army,—three entire legions, horse, foot and auxiliaries,—probably 20,000 men in all,—were overwhelmed in the Teutoburger Wald, north of the Lippe, and destroyed. Only a few skulking fugitives reached the Rhine and escaped to tell the fate of the rest. This was late in the summer of A. D. 9. In the following spring Tiberius was sent again to the Rhine frontier, with as powerful a levy of men and equipments as the empire could collect. He was accompanied by his nephew, Germanicus, son of Drusus, destined to be his successor in the field of German conquest. {1431} But dread and fear were in the Roman heart, and the campaign of Tiberius, delayed another twelve months, until A. D. 11, was conducted too cautiously to accomplish any important result. He traversed and ravaged a considerable region of the German country, but withdrew again across the Rhine and left it, apparently, unoccupied. This was his last campaign. Returning to Rome, he waited only two years longer for the imperial sovereignty to which he succeeded on the death of Augustus, who had made him, by adoption, his son and his heir.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapters 36-38.

ALSO IN: T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 1.

Sir E. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, chapter 5.

T. Smith, Arminius, part 1, chapters 4-6.

GERMANY: A. D. 14-16. Campaigns of Germanicus.

Germanicus—the son of Drusus—was given the command on the Rhine at the beginning of the year 13 A. D. The following year, Augustus died and Tiberius became emperor; whereupon Germanicus found himself no longer restrained from crossing the river and assuming the offensive against Arminius and his tribes. His first movement, that autumn, was up the valley of the Lippe, which he laid waste, far and wide. The next spring, he led one column, from Mentz, against the Chatti, as far as the upper branches of the Weser, while he sent another farther north to chastise the Cherusci and the Marsi, surprising and massacring the latter at their feast of Tanfana. Later in the same year, he penetrated, by a double expedition,—moving by sea and by land, as his father had done before,—to the country between the Ems and the Lippe, and laid waste the territory of the Bructeri, and their neighbors. He also visited the spot where the army of Varus had perished, and erected a monument to the dead. On the return from this expedition, four legions, under Cæcina, were beset in the same manner that Varus had been, and under like difficulties; but their commander was of different stuff and brought them safely through, after punishing his pursuers severely. But the army had been given up as lost, and only the resolute opposition of Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, had prevented the Roman commander at Vetera, on the Rhine, from destroying the bridge there, and abandoning the legions to their supposed fate. In the spring of A. D. 16, Germanicus again embarked his army, 80,000 strong, at the mouth of the Rhine, on board transports, and moved it to the mouth of the Ems, where the fleet remained. Thence he marched up the Ems and across to the Weser, and was encountered, in the country of the Cherusci, by a general levy of the German tribes, led by Arminius and Inguiomerus. Two great battles were fought, in which the Romans were victorious. But, when returning from this campaign, the fleet encountered a storm in which so much of it perished, with the troops on board, that the disaster threw a heavy cloud of gloom over the triumph of Germanicus. The young general was soon afterwards recalled, and three years later he died,—of poison, as is supposed,—at Antioch. "The central government ceased from this time to take any warm interest in the subjugation of the Germans; and the dissensions of their states and princes, which peace was not slow in developing, attracted no Roman emissaries to the barbarian camps, and rarely led the legions beyond the frontier, which was now allowed to recede finally to the Rhine."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 42.

ALSO IN: T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 1.

T. Smith, Arminius, part 1, chapter 7.

GERMANY: 3d Century. Beginning of the "Wandering of the Nations."

"Towards the middle of the third century, … a change becomes perceptible in the relations and attitude of the German peoples. Many of the nations, which have been celebrated in the annals of the classical writers, disappear silently from history; new races, new combinations and confederacies start into life, and the names which have achieved an imperishable notoriety from their connection with the long decay and the overthrow of the Roman Empire, come forward, and still survive. On the soil whereon the Sigambri, Marsi, Chauci, and Cherusci had struggled to preserve a rude independence, Franks and Saxons lived free and formidable; Alemanni were gathered along the foot of the Roman wall which connected the Danube with the Rhine, and had, hitherto, preserved inviolate the Agri decumates; while eastern Germany, allured by the hope of spoil, or impelled by external pressure, precipitated itself under the collective term of Goths upon the shrinking settlements of the Dacia and the Danube. The new appellations which appear in western Germany in the third century have not unnaturally given rise to the presumption that unknown peoples had penetrated through the land, and overpowered the ancient tribes, and national vanity has contributed to the delusion. As the Burgundians … were flattered by being told they were descendants of Roman colonists, so the barbarian writers of a later period busied their imaginations in the solitude of monastic life to enhance the glory of their countrymen, by the invention of what their inkling of classical knowledge led them to imagine a more illustrious origin. … Fictions like these may be referred to as an index of the time when the young barbarian spirit, eager after fame, and incapable of balancing probabilities, first gloated over the marvels of classical literature, though its refined and delicate beauties eluded their grosser taste; but they require no critical examination; there are no grounds for believing that Franks, Saxons, or Alemanni, were other than the original inhabitants of the country, though there is a natural difficulty arising from the want of written contemporary evidence in tracing the transition, and determining the tribes of which the new confederacies were formed. At the same time, though no immigration of strangers was possible, a movement of a particular tribe was not unfrequent. The constant internal dissensions of the Germans, combined with their spirit of warlike enterprise, led to frequent domestic wars; and the vanquished sometimes chose rather to seek an asylum far from their native soil, where they might live in freedom, than continue as bondmen or tributaries to the conqueror. Of such a nature were the wanderings of the Usipites and Teuchteri [Tenchteri] in Cæsar's time, the removal of the Ubii from Nassau to the neighbourhood of Cöln and Xanthen; and to this must be ascribed the appearance of the Burgundians, who had dwelt beyond the Oder, in the vicinity of the Main and the Necker. Another class of national emigrations, were those which implied a final abandonment of the native Germany with the object of seeking a new settlement among the possessions of the sinking empire. {1432} Those of the Goths, Vandals, Alans, Sueves, the second movement of the Burgundians, may be included in this category; the invasions of the Franks, Alemanni, and Saxons, on the contrary, cannot be called national emigrations, for they never abandoned, with their families, their original birthplace; their outwanderings, like the emigrations of the present day, were partial; their occupation of the enemy's territory was, in character, military and progressive; and, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain, their connection with the original stock was never interrupted. In all the migrations of German peoples spoken of from Cæsar downwards, the numbers of the emigrants appear to be enormously exaggerated. The Usipites and Teuchteri are estimated by Cæsar at 430,000 souls. How could such a multitude find nourishment during a three years' wandering? If 80,000 Burgundian Wehrmen came to the Rhine to the assistance of Valentinian, as Cassiodorius, Jerome, and other chroniclers state, the numbers of the whole nation must have approached 400,000, and it is impossible to believe that such a mass could obtain support in the narrow district lying between the Alemanni, the Hermunduri, and the Chatti. In other cases, vague expressions, and still more the wonderful achievements of the Germans in the course of their emigrations, have led to the supposition of enormous numbers; but Germany could not find nourishment for the multitudes which have been ascribed to it. Corn at that period was little cultivated; it was not the food of the people, whose chief support was flesh. … The conquests of the barbarians may be ascribed as much to the weakness of their adversaries, to their want of energy and union, as to their own strength. There was, in fact, no enemy to meet them in the field; and their domination was, at least, as acceptable to the provincial inhabitants as that of the imbecile, but rapacious ministers of the Roman government. … It was not the lust of wandering, but the influence of external circumstances which brought them to the vicinity of the Danube: at first the aggressions of the Romans, then the pressure of the Huns and the Sclavonic tribes. The whole intercourse of Germany with Rome must be considered as one long war, which began with the invasion of Cæsar; which, long restrained by the superior power of the enemy, warmed with his growing weakness, and only ended with the extinction of the Roman name. The wars of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, were only a continuance of the ancient hostility. There might be partial truce, or occasional intermission; some tribes might be almost extirpated by the sword; some, for a time, bought off by money; but Rome was the universal enemy, and much of the internal restlessness of the Germans was no more than the natural movement towards the hostile borders. As the invasion of northern Germany gave rise to the first great northern union, so the conquest of Dacia brought Goths from the Vistula to the south, while the erection of the giant wall naturally gathered the Suevic tribes along its limits, only waiting for the opportunity to break through. Step by step this battle of centuries was fought; from the time of Caracalla the flood turned, wave followed wave like the encroaching tide, and the ancient landmarks receded bit by bit, till Rome itself was buried beneath the waters. … Three great confederacies of German tribes, more or less united by birth, position, interest, or language, may be discerned, during this period, in immediate contact with the Romans—-the Alemanni, the Goths, and the Franks. A fourth, the Saxons, was chiefly known from its maritime voyages off the coast of Gaul and Britain. There were also many independent peoples which cannot be enumerated among any of the political confederacies, but which acted for themselves, and pursued their individual ends: such were the Burgundians, the Alans, the Vandals, and the Lombards."

T. Smith, Arminius, part 2, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: R. G. Latham, Nationalities of Europe, volume 2, chapter 21.

See, also, ALEMANNI; MARCOMANNI; QUADI; GOTHS; GEPIDÆ; SAXONS; ANGLES, FRANKS; BURGUNDIANS; VANDALS; SUEVI; LOMBARDS; and, also, Appendix A, volume 1.

GERMANY: A. D. 277. Invasion by Probus.

The vigorous emperor Probus, who, in the year 277, drove from Gaul the swarms of invaders that had ravaged the unhappy province with impunity for two years past, then crossed the Rhine and harried the country of the marauders, as far as the Elbe and the Neckar. "Germany, exhausted by the ill success of the last emigration, was astonished by his presence. Nine of the most considerable princes repaired to his camp and fell prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was humbly received by the Germans as it pleased the conqueror to dictate." Probus then caused a stone wall, strengthened at intervals with towers, to be built from the Danube, near Neustadt and Ratisbon, to Wimpfen on the Neckar, and thence to the Rhine, for the protection of the settlers of the "Agri Decumates." But the wall was thrown down, a few years afterwards, by the Alemanni.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 12.

GERMANY: 5th Century. Conversion of the Franks.

See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.

GERMANY: A. D. 481-768. Acquisition of supremacy by the Franks.

The original dominions of Clovis, or Chlodwig—with whose reign the career of the Franks as a consolidated people began—corresponded nearly to the modern kingdom of Belgium. His first conquests were from the Romans, in the neighboring parts of Gaul, and when those were finished, "the king of the Franks began to look round upon the other German nations settled upon its soil, with a view to the further extension of his power. A quarrel with the Alemanni supplied the first opportunity for the gratification of his ambition. For more than a century the Alemanni had been in undisturbed possession of Alsace, and the adjoining districts; Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Strasburg, Basel, Constanz, Bregenz, lay within their territory. … The Vosegen range was a bulwark on the side of Gaul, waste lands separated them from the Burgundians, who were settled about the Jura and in the south-west part of Helvetia, and the Moselle divided them from the Ripuarian Franks. It is unknown whether they formed a state distinct from their brethren on the right of the Rhine; probably such was the case, for the Alemanni, at all times, were divided into separate tribes, between which, however, was generally a common union; nor is it certain whether the Alsatian Alemanni were under one or several Adelings; a single king is mentioned as having fallen in the battle with Chlodwig, who may have been merely an elected military leader.

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{1435} Equally obscure is the cause of their war with Chlodwig, though it has been assumed, perhaps too hastily, by all recent historians, that the Frank king became involved in it as an ally of the Ripuarians. The Ripuarian Franks were settled, as the name imports, upon the banks of the Rhine, from the Moselle downwards; their chief seat was the city of Cologne. It is probable that they consisted of the remains of the ancient Ubii, strengthened by the adventurers who crossed over on the first invasion, and the name implies that they were regarded by the Romans as a kind of limitanean soldiery. For, in the common parlance of the Romans of that period, the tract of land lying along the Rhine was called Ripa, in an absolute sense, and even the river itself was not unfrequently denominated by the same title. Ripuarii are Ripa-wehren, Hreop, or Hrepa-wehren, defenders of the shore. About the close of the fifth century these Ripuarii were under the government of a king, named Sigebert, usually called 'the lance.' The story told by modern writers is, that this Sigebert, having fallen into dispute with the Alemanni, called upon Chlodwig for assistance, a call which the young king willingly listened to. The Alemanni had invaded the Ripuarian territory, and advanced within a short distance of Cologne, when Chlodwig and his Franks joined the Ripuarii; a battle took place at Zülpich, about twenty-two English miles from Cologne, which, after a fierce struggle, ended in the defeat of the Alemanni. … Chlodwig was following up his victory over the Alemanni, perhaps with unnecessary ferocity, when he was stopped in his course by a flattering embassy from the great Theodorich. Many of the Alemanni had submitted, after the death of their chief, on the field of battle. 'Spare us,' they cried, 'for we are now thy people!' but there were many who, abhorring the Frank yoke, fled towards the south, and threw themselves under the protection of the Ostrogothic king, who had possessed himself of the ancient Rhætia and Vindelicia."

T. Smith, Arminius, part 2, chapter 4.

The sons of Clovis pushed their conquests on the Germanic as well as on the Gallic side of the Rhine. Theodoric, or Theuderik, who reigned at Metz, with the aid of his brother Clotaire, or Chlother, of Soissons, subjugated the Thuringians, between A. D. 515 and 528. "How he [Theuderik] acquired authority over the Alemans and the Bavarians is not known. Perhaps in the subjugation of Thuringia he had taken occasion to extend his sway over other nations; but from this time forth we find not only these, but the Saxons more to the north, regarded as the associates or tributaries of the Eastern or Ripuarian Franks. From the Elbe to the Meuse, and from the Northern Ocean to the sources of the Rhine, a region comprising a great part of ancient Germany, the ascendency of the Franks was practically acknowledged, and a kingdom was formed [Austrasia—Oster-rike—the Eastern Kingdom] which was destined to overshadow all the other Mérovingian states; The various tribes which composed its Germanic accretions, remote and exempt from the influences of the Roman civilization, retained their fierce customs and their rude superstitions, and continued to be governed by their hereditary dukes; but their wild masses marched under the standards of the Franks, and conceded to those formidable conquerors a certain degree of political supremacy." When, in 558, Clotaire, by the death of his brothers, became the sole king of the Franks, his empire embraced all Roman Gaul, except Septimania, still held by the Visigoths, and Brittany, but slightly subjected; "while in ancient Germany, from the Rhine to the Weser, the powerful duchies of the Alemans, the Thuringians, the Bavarians, the Frisons, and the Saxons, were regarded not entirely as subject, and yet as tributary provinces." During the next century and a half, the feebleness of the Merovingians lost their hold upon these German tributaries. "As early as the time of Chlother II. the Langobards had recovered their freedom; under Dagobert [622-638], the Saxons; under Sighebert II. [638-656], the Thuringians; and now, during the late broils [670-687], the Alemans, the Bavarians and the Frisons." But the vigorous Mayors of the Palace, Pepin Heristal and Karl Martel, applied themselves resolutely to the restoration of the Frank supremacy, in Germany as well as in Aquitaine. Pepin "found the task nearly impossible. Time and again he assailed the Frisons, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Alemans, but could bind them to no truce nor peace for any length of time. No less than ten times the Frisons resumed their arms, while the revolts of the others were so incessant that he was compelled to abandon all hope of recovering the southern or Roman part of Gaul, in order to direct his attention exclusively to the Germans. The aid which he received from the Christian missionaries rendered him more successful among them. Those intrepid propagandists pierced where his armies could not. … The Franks and the Popes of Rome had a common interest in this work of the conversion of the Germans, the Franks to restrain irruptions, and the Popes to carry their spiritual sway over Europe." Pepin left these unfinished German wars to his son Karl, the Hammer, and Karl prosecuted them with characteristic energy during his first years of power. "Almost every month he was forced into some expedition beyond the Rhine. … The Alemans, the Bavarians, and the Frisons, he succeeded in subjecting to a formal confession at least of the Frankish supremacy; but the turbulent and implacable Saxons baffled his most strenuous efforts. Their wild tribes had become, within a few years, a powerful and numerous nation; they had appropriated the lands of the Thuringians and Hassi, or Catti, and joined to themselves other confederations and tribes; and, stretching from the Rhine to the Elbe, offered their marshes and forests a free asylum to all the persecuted sectaries of Odhinn, to all the lovers of native and savage independence. Six times in succession the armies of Karl penetrated the wilderness they called their home, ravaging their fields and burning their cabins, but the Saxon war was still renewed. He left it to the energetic labors of other conquerors, to Christian missionaries, … to break the way of civilization into those rude and darkened realms." Karl's sons Pepin and Karloman crushed revolts of the Alemans, or Suabians, and the Bavarians in 742, and Karloman humbled the Saxons in a great campaign (744), compelling them in large numbers to submit to Christian baptism. After that, Germany waited for its first entire master—Charlemagne.

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapters 12-15.

ALSO IN: W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapters 2-6.

See, also, FRANKS, and AUSTRASIA.

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FIFTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

* Uncertain date.

A. D. 402. Defeat of Alaric by Stilicho.

Birth of Phocion* (d. 317).

404. Removal of the capital of the Western Empire from Rome to Ravenna.*

Banishment of the Patriarch, John Chrysostom, from Constantinople; burning of the Church of Saint Sophia.

406. Barbarian inroad of Radagaisus into Italy.

Breaking of the Rhine barrier by German tribes; overwhelming invasion of Gaul by Vandals, Alans, Suevi, and Burgundians.

407. Usurpation of Constantine in Britain and Gaul.

408. Death of the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, and accession of Theodosius II.

Execution of Stilicho at Ravenna; massacre of barbarian hostages in Italy; blockade of Rome by Alaric.

409. Invasion of Spain by the Vandals, Suevi, and Alans.

410. Siege, capture and pillage of Rome by Alaric; his death.

Abandonment of Britain by the Empire.

The barbarian attack upon Gaul joined by the Franks.

412. Gaul entered by the Visigoths

Cyril made Patriarch of Alexandria.

414. Title of Augusta taken by Pulcheria at Constantinople.

415. Visigothic conquest of Spain begun.

Persecution of Jews at Alexandria; death of Hypatia.

418. Founding of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse in Aquitaine.

422. War between Persia and the Eastern Empire partition of Armenia.

423. Death of Honorius, Emperor in the West; usurpation of John the Notary.

425. Accession of the Western Emperor, Valentinian III., under the regency of Placidia; formal and legal separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.

428. Conquests of the Vandals in Spain.

Nestorius made Patriarch of Constantinople.

429. Vandal conquests in Africa begun.

430. Siege of Hippo Regius in Africa; death of Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo.

431. Third General Council of the Church, held at Ephesus.

433. Beginning of the reign of Attila, king of the Huns. *

435. Nestorius exiled to the Libyan desert.

439. Carthage taken by the Vandals.

440. Leo the Great elected Pope.

441. Invasion of the Eastern Empire by Attila and the Huns.

443. Conquest and settlement of Savoy by the Burgundians.

446. Thermopylæ passed by the Huns; humiliating purchase of peace with them by the Eastern Emperor.

449. Landing in Britain of the Jutes under Hengist and Horsa.* Meeting of the so-called Robber Synod at Ephesus.

450. Death of the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II., and accession of Pulcheria.

451. Great defeat of the Huns at Chalons; retreat of Attila from Gaul.

Fourth General Council of the Church, held at Chalcedon.

452. Invasion of Italy by Attila; origin of Venice.

453. Death of Attila; dissolution of his empire.

Death of Pulcheria, Empress in the East.

455. Murder of Valentinian III., Emperor in the West; usurpation of Maximus.

Rome pillaged by the Vandals.

Birth of Theodoric the Great (d. 526).

456. Supremacy of Ricimer, commander of the barbarian mercenaries, in the Western Empire; Avitus deposed.

457. Marjorian, first of the imperial puppets of Ricimer, raised to the throne of the Western Empire.

Accession of Leo I., Emperor in the East.

461. Marjorian deposed; Severus made Emperor in the West.

Death of Pope Leo the Great and election of Pope Hilarius.

467. Anthemius made Emperor in the West.

472. Siege and storming of Rome by Ricimer; death of Anthemius, and of Ricimer; Olybrius and Glycerius successive emperors.

473. Ostrogothic invasion of Italy diverted to Gaul.

474. Julius Nepos Emperor in the West; accession of Zeno in the Eastern Empire.

475. Romulus Augustulus made Emperor in the West.

476. Romulus Augustulus dethroned by Odoacer: extinction for more than three centuries of the Western line of emperors.

477. Beginning of Saxon conquests in Britain.

480. Birth of Saint Benedict (d. 543).

481. Founding of the Frank kingdom by Clovis.

486. Overthrow of the kingdom of Syagrius, the last Roman sovereignty in Gaul.

488. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, commissioned by the Eastern Emperor to invade Italy.

489. Defeat of Odoacer by Theodoric at Verona.

491. Accession of Anastasius, Emperor in the East.

Capture of Anderida by the South Saxons.

492. Election of Pope Gelasius I.

493. Surrender of Odoacer at Ravenna; his murder; Theodoric king of Italy.

494. Landing of Cerdic and his band of Saxons in Britain. *

496. Defeat of the Alemanni at Tolbiac by Clovis, king of the Franks; baptism of Clovis.

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SIXTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

* Uncertain date.

A. D. 504. Expulsion of the Alemanni from the Middle Rhine by the Franks.

505. Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.

507. Overthrow of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse by Clovis.

511. Death of Clovis; partition of the Frank kingdom among his sons.

Monophysite riot at Constantinople.

512. Second Monophysite riot at Constantinople.

515. Publication of the monastic rule of Saint Benedict.

518. Death of the Eastern Emperor, Anastasius, and accession of Justin I.

519. Cerdic and Cynric become kings of the West Saxons.

525. Execution of Boethius and Symmachus by Theodoric, king of Italy.

526. Death of Theodoric and accession of Athalaric.

Great earthquake at Antioch.

War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.

527. Accession of Justinian in the Eastern Empire.

528. Conquest of Thuringia by the Franks.

529. Defeat of the Persians, at Dara, by the Roman general Belisarius.

Closing of the schools at Athens.

Publication of the Code of Justinian.

531. Accession of Chosroes, or Nushirvan, to the throne of Persia.

532. End of War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.

Nika sedition at Constantinople.

533. Overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in Africa by Belisarius.

Publication of the Pandects of Justinian.

534. Conquest of the Burgundians by the Franks.

535. Recovery of Sicily from the Goths by Belisarius.

536. Rome taken from the Goths by Belisarius for Justinian.

537. Unsuccessful siege of Rome by the Goths.

539. Destruction of Milan by the Goths.

Invasion of Italy by the Franks.

540. Surrender of Ravenna to Belisarius; his removal from command.

Invasion of Syria by Chosroes, king of Persia; storming and sacking of Antioch.

Formal relinquishment of Gaul to the Franks by Justinian.

Vigilius made Pope.

541. Gothic successes under Totila, in Italy.

End of the succession of. Roman Consuls.

Defense of the East by Belisarius.

542. Great Plague in the Roman Empire.

543. Surrender of Naples to Totila.

Death of Saint Benedict.

Invasion of Spain by the Franks.

544. Belisarius again in command in Italy.

546. Totila's siege, capture and pillage of Rome.

547. The city of Rome totally deserted for six weeks.

Founding of the kingdom of Bernicia (afterward included in Northumberland) in England.

Subjection of the Bavarians to the Franks.

548. Death of the Eastern Empress, Theodora.

549. Second siege and capture of Rome by Totila.

Beginning of the Lazic War.

552. Totila defeated and killed by the imperial army under Narses.

553. End of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy; restoration of the imperial sovereignty.

Fifth General Council of the Church, at Constantinople.

Establishment of the Exarch at Ravenna, representing the Emperor at Constantinople.

555. Pelagius I. made Pope.

558. Reunion of the Frank empire under Clothaire I.

560. John III. made Pope.

563. Founding of the monastery of Iona, in Scotland, by Saint Columba.

565. Death of Belisarius and of the Eastern Emperor Justinian; accession of Justin II.

566. Conquest of the Gepidæ in Dacia by the Lombards and Avars.

567. Division of the Frank dominion into the three kingdoms of Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy.

568. Invasion of Italy by the Lombards; siege of Pavia.

570. Birth of Mahomet. *

572. Renewed war of the Eastern Empire with Persia.

573. Murder of Alboin, king of the Lombards.

Subjugation of the Suevi by the Visigoths in Spain.

574. Benedict I. made Pope.

578. Accession of the Eastern Emperor Tiberius Constantinus.

Pelagius II. made Pope.

582. Accession of Maurice, Emperor in the East.

588. Kingdom of Northumberland, in England, founded by the union of Bernicia and Deira under Æthelric.

589. Abandonment of Arianism by the Goths in Spain.

590. Gregory the Great elected Pope.

591. Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.

597. Mission of Saint Augustine to England.

Death of Saint Columba.

————-End of moved pages 1433 and 1434—————

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GERMANY: A. D. 687-800. Rise of the Carolingians and the Empire of Charlemagne.

"Towards the close of the Merovingian period, … the kingdom of the Franks … was divided into four great districts, or kingdoms as they were called: Austrasia, or the eastern kingdom, from the river Rhine to the Meuse, with Metz as its principal city; Neustria, or the western kingdom, extending from Austrasia to the ocean on the west, and to the Loire on the south; Aquitaine, south of that river to the foot of the Pyrenees; and Burgundy, from the Rhone to the Alps, including Switzerland. These four kingdoms became, before the extinction of the Merovingian race, consolidated into two,—viz., Austrasia and Neustria, Eastern and Western Francia,—modern Germany and modern France, roughly speaking,—of which the first was to gain the pre-eminence, as it was the seat of the power of that race of Charlemagne which seized upon the kingdoms of the Merovingians. But in these kingdoms, while the family of Clovis occupied them, the royal power became more and more feeble as time went on, a condition which is illustrated by the title given in history to these kings,—that of 'rois fainéants.'… The most powerful officer of a Frankish king was his steward, or, as he was called, the mayor of his palace. … In Austrasia the office had become hereditary in the family of Pepin of Landen (a small village near Liège), and under its guidance the degenerate children of Clovis in that kingdom fought for the supremacy with those equally degenerate in Neustria, at that time also under the real control of another mayor of the palace, called Ebroin. The result of this struggle, after much bloodshed and misery, was reached in the year 687 at the battle of Testry, in which the Austrasians completely defeated the Neustrians. … The Merovingian princes were still nominally kings, while all the real power was in the hands of the descendants of Pepin of Landen, mayors of the palace, and the policy of government was as fully settled by them as if they had been kings de jure as well as de facto. This family produced in its earlier days some persons who have become among the most conspicuous figures in history:—Pepin, the founder; Pepin le Gros, of Héristal; Charles, his son, commonly called Martel, or the Hammerer; Pepin le Bref, under whom the Carlovingian dynasty was, by aid of the Pope, recognized as the lawful successor of the Merovingians, even before the extinction of that race; and, lastly, Charles, surnamed the Great, or Charlemagne, one of the few men of the human race who, by common consent, have occupied the foremost rank in history. … The object of Pepin of Héristal was two-fold,—to repress the disposition of the turbulent nobles to encroach upon the royal authority, and to bring again under the yoke of the Franks those tribes in Germany who had revolted against the Frankish rule owing to the weakness of the Merovingian government. He measurably accomplished both objects. … He seems to have had what perhaps is the best test at all times of the claims of a man to be a real statesman: some consciousness of the true nature of his mission,—the establishment of order. … His son and successor, Charles Martel, was even more conspicuous for the possession of this genius of statesmanship, but he exhibited it in a somewhat different direction. He, too, strove to hold the nobles in check, and to break the power of the Frisian and the Saxon tribes; and he fought besides, fortunately for his fame, one of the fifteen decisive battles in the history of the world, that of Poitiers, in 732, by which the Saracens, who had conquered Spain, and who had strong hopes of gaining possession of the whole of Western Europe, were driven back from Northern France, never to return. … His son, Pepin le Bref, is equally conspicuous with the rest in history, but in a somewhat different way. He continued the never-ending wars in Germany and in Gaul with the object of securing peace by the sword, and with more or less success. But his career is noteworthy principally because he completed the actual deposition of the last of the Merovingian race, whose nominal servants but real masters he and his predecessors, mayors of the palace, had been, and because he sought and obtained the sanction of the Church for this usurpation. … The Pope's position at this time was one of very great embarrassment. Harassed by the Lombards, who were not only robbers, but who were also Arians, and who admitted none of the Catholic clergy to their councils,—with no succor from the Emperors at Constantinople (whose subject he nominally was) against the Lombards, and, indeed, in open revolt against them because as bishop and patriarch of the West he had forbidden the execution of the decree against the placing of images in the churches,—for these and many such reasons he sorely needed succor, and naturally in his necessity he turned to the powerful King of the Franks. The coronation of Pepin le Bref, first by St. Boniface, and then by the Pope himself, was the first step in the fulfilment of the alliance on his part. Pepin was soon called upon to do his share of the work. Twice at the bidding of the Pope he descended from the Alps, and, defeating the Lombards, was rewarded by him and the people of Rome with the title of Patrician. … On the death of Pepin, the Lombards again took up arms and harassed the Church's territory. Charlemagne, his successor, was called upon to come to the rescue, and he swept the Lombard power in Italy out of existence, annexing its territory to the Frankish kingdom, and confirming the grant of the Exarchate and of the Pentapolis which his father had made to the Popes. This was in the year 774. … For twenty-five years Charlemagne ruled Rome nominally as Patrician, under the supremacy, equally nominal, of the Emperor at Constantinople. The true sovereign, recognized as such, was the Pope or Bishop of Rome, but the actual power was in the hands of the mob, who at one time towards the close of the century, in the absence of both Emperor and Patrician, assaulted the Pope while conducting a procession, and forced him to abandon the city. This Pope, Leo, with a fine instinct as to the quarter from which succor could alone come, hurried to seek Charlemagne, who was then in Germany engaged in one of his never-ending wars against the Saxons. The appeal for aid was not made in vain, and Charles descended once more from the Alps in the summer of 799, with his Frankish hosts. On Christmas day, A. D. 800, in the Church of St. Peter … Pope Leo, during the mass, and after the reading of the gospel, placed upon the brow of Charlemagne, who had abandoned his northern furs for the dress of a Roman patrician, the diadem of the Cæsars, and hailed him Imperator Semper Augustus, while the multitude shouted, 'Carolo, Augusto a Deo coronato magno et pacifico Imperatori Vita et Victoria.' In that shout and from that moment one of the most fruitful epochs of history begins."

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