The Historians' History of the World 07

A modern Italian historian (Botta), totally unacquainted with the manners of the north, expresses great surprise at this act of Alboin: La naturale ferocia pel vino e per la vittoria a oltraggio fatta insolente, lo menava a tal atto di cui non è memoria nelle storie delle piu barbare nazioni, etc. The thing was common enough, as abundantly appears from the Scandinavian records.]

CHAPTER III

THE FRANKS TO THE TIME OF CHARLES MARTEL

[55 B.C.-732 A.D.]

It is well known that the name of “Frank” is not to be found in the long list of German tribes preserved to us in the Germania

of Tacitus.b Little or nothing is heard of them before the reign of Gordian III. In 240 A.D. Aurelian,[119] then a tribune of the sixth legion stationed on the Rhine, encountered a body of marauding Franks near Mogontiacum, and drove them back into their marshes. The word “Francia” is also found at a still earlier date, in the old Roman chart called the Charta Peutingeria, and occupies on the map the right bank of the Rhine from opposite Coblenz to the sea. The origin of the Franks has been the subject of frequent debate, to which French patriotism has occasionally lent some asperity. At the time when they first appear in history, the Romans had neither the taste nor the means for historical research, and we are therefore obliged to depend in a great measure upon conjecture and combination. It has been disputed whether the word “Frank” was the original designation of a tribe, which by a change of habitation emerged at the period above mentioned into the light of history, or that of a new league, formed for some common object of aggression or defence by nations hitherto familiar to us under other names.

We can in this place do little more than refer to a controversy, the value and interest of which has been rendered obsolete by the progress of historical investigation. The darkness and void of history have as usual been filled with spectral theories, which vanish at the challenge of criticism and before the gradually increasing light of knowledge.

[55 B.C.-12 A.D.]

We need hardly say that the origin of the Franks has been traced to fugitive colonists from Troy; for what nation under heaven has not sought to connect itself, in some way or other, with the glorified heroes of the immortal song? Nor is it surprising that French writers, desirous of transferring from the Germans to themselves the honours of the Frankish name, should have made of them a tribe of Gauls, whom some unknown cause had induced to settle in Germany, and who afterwards sought to recover their ancient country from the Roman conquerors. At the present day, however, historians of every nation, including the French, are fairly agreed in considering the Franks as a powerful confederacy of German tribes, who in the time of Tacitus inhabited the northwestern parts of Germany bordering on the Rhine. And this theory is so well supported by many scattered notices, slight in themselves but powerful when combined, that we can only wonder that it should ever have been called in question. Nor was this aggregation of tribes under the new name of Franks a singular instance; the same took place in the case of the Alamanni and Saxons.

The actuating causes of these new unions are unknown. They may be sought for either in external circumstances, such as the pressure of powerful enemies from without, or in an extension of their own desires and plans, requiring the command of greater means, and inducing a wider co-operation of those whose similarity of language and character rendered it most easy for them to unite. But perhaps we need look no further for an efficient cause than the spirit of amalgamation which naturally arises among tribes of kindred race and language, when their growing numbers, and an increased facility of moving from place to place, bring them into more frequent contact. The same phenomenon may be observed at certain periods in the history of almost every nation, and the spirit which gives rise to it has generally been found strong enough to overcome the force of particular interests and petty nationalities.