EMIGRANTS A THOUSAND YEARS AGO

The Middle Ages. It was more than a thousand years from the time of Constantine to the time of Columbus. This period is called "Mediaeval," or the "Middle Ages." During these long centuries the ancient civilized world of the Roman Empire was much changed. The Roman or Greek cities on the southern shores of the Mediterranean were captured by Arabs or Moors. The Moors conquered the larger part of Spain. The eastern lands of Palestine and Asia Minor fell into the hands of the Turks. The Turks, the Moors, and the Arabs were followers of the "prophet" Mohammed, who died in the year 632. The Mohammedans were enemies of the Christians.

Western Europe. The other part of the European world was also changed. The countries on the shores of the Atlantic were now more important than those on the shores of the Mediterranean. The names of the different countries were changed. Instead of Gallia or Gaul, there was France; instead of Britannia, England; for Hispania, Spain; for Germania, Deutschland or Germany. Italy, the center of the old empire, was finally divided into several states--city republics like Genoa and Venice, provinces ruled by the pope, and other territories ruled by dukes, princes, or kings.

Fate of Civilization. The most important question to ask is, How much of the manner of living or civilization of the Greeks and the Romans did the later Europeans still retain? The answer is found in the history of the Middle Ages. In this history is also found what men added to that which they had learned from the Greeks and the Romans. The emigrants to America were to carry with them knowledge which not even the wisest men of the ancient world had possessed.

Mediaeval German Emigrants. The first part of the history of the Middle Ages explains how the German peoples from whom most of our forefathers were descended began to move from the northern forests towards the borders of the Roman Empire. Many thousand men had already crossed the Rhine and the Danube to serve in the Roman armies. Sometimes an unusually strong and skilful warrior would be made a general. Germans had also crossed the Rhine to work as farmers on the estates of the rich Gallic nobles. Other Germans, called Goths, worked in Constantinople and the cities of the East as masons, porters, and water-carriers. The Romans had owned so many slaves that they had lost the habit of work and were glad to hire these foreigners.

Story of Ulfilas. Many of the Goths who lived north of the Danube had forsaken their old gods and become Christians. They were taught by Bishop Ulfilas, once a captive among them, afterward a missionary. He translated the Bible into the Gothic language, and this translation is the most ancient specimen of German that we possess. Many of the other German tribes learned about Christianity from the Goths, and although they might be enemies of the Roman government, they were not enemies of the Church.

The Goths invade the Roman Empire. The Roman emperors tried to prevent the northern tribes from crossing the frontier in great numbers, because, once across, if they did not find work and food, they became plunderers. Not many years after Constantine's death, a million Goths had passed the Danube and had plundered the country almost to the walls of Constantinople. This was not like the invasion of a regular army, which comes to fight battles and to arrange terms of peace.

The Goths, and the Germans who soon followed their example, moved as a whole people, with their wives and children, their cattle, and the few household goods they owned. Wherever they wished to settle they demanded of the Romans one third, sometimes two thirds, of the land. They soon learned to be good neighbors of the older inhabitants, although at first they were little better than robbers. Alaric, one of the leaders of the Goths, led them into Italy and in the year 410 captured Rome. Alaric did not injure the buildings much, and he kept his men from robbing the churches. Some of the other barbarous tribes who roamed about plundering villages and attacking cities did far greater damage. The Roman government grew weaker and weaker, until one by one the provinces fell into the hands of German kings.

Beginnings of England, France, and Germany. Britain was attacked by the Angles and Saxons from the shores of Germany across the North Sea. (See map[12]) They drove away the inhabitants or made slaves of them and settled upon the lands they had seized. The country was then called Angle-land or England, and the people Anglo-Saxons or Englishmen.

The Roman provinces in Gaul were gradually conquered by the Franks from the borders of the Rhine, and they gave the name France to the land.

At about the same time the other German tribes that had remained in Germany united under one king.

The Result of Barbarian Attacks. The part of the ancient world which lay about Constantinople was less changed than the rest during the Middle Ages. The walls of Constantinople were high and thick, and they withstood attack after attack until 1453. Within their shelter men continued to live much as they had lived in Ancient Times. A few delighted to study the writings of the ancient Greeks. In Italy and the other countries of western Europe most of the cities were in ruins. The ancient baths, amphitheaters, aqueducts, and palaces of Rome crumbled and fell. The mediaeval Romans also used huge buildings like the Colosseum as quarries of cut stone and burned the marble for lime. This was done in every country where Roman buildings existed.

The amphitheater at Arles in southern France had a still stranger fortune. It was used at one time as a citadel, at another as a prison and gradually became the home of hundreds of the criminals and the poor of the city. "Every archway held its nest of human outcasts. From stone to stone they cast their rotting beams and plaster and burrowed into the very entrails of the enormous building to seek a secure retreat from the pursuit of the officers of the law."

Few persons traveled from Constantinople to Italy or France, and few from western Europe visited Constantinople. The men of Italy and France and England did not know how to read Greek. Many of them also ceased to read the writings of the ancient Romans.

The English become Christians, 597 A.D. Christianity had spread throughout the Roman Empire, and it became the religion of all the tribes who founded kingdoms of their own upon the ruins of the Empire. The Angles and Saxons, when they invaded Britain, were still worshipers of the gods Wodan and Thor. They had never learned from the Goths of Ulfilas anything about Christianity.

One day in the slave market at Rome three fair-haired boys were offered for sale. Gregory, a noble Roman, who had become a monk and was the abbot of his monastery, happened to be passing and asked who they were. He was told they were Angles. "Angels," he cried, "yes, they have faces like angels, and should become companions of the angels in heaven." When this good abbot became pope, he sent missionaries to Angle-land and they established themselves at Canterbury.

Missionaries to the Germans and the Slavs. The conversion of the English helped in the spread of Christianity on the Continent, for Boniface, an English monk, was the greatest missionary to the Germans. He won thousands from the worship of their ancient gods and founded many churches. The Slavs, who lived east of the Germans, were taught by missionaries from Constantinople instead of from Rome.

The Educated Men of the Middle Ages. The missionaries and teachers of the Church had been educated like the older Romans. They read Roman books, and tried to preserve the knowledge which both Greeks and Romans had gathered. Influenced by them, the emigrants and conquerors from the north also tried to be like the Romans. Educated men, and especially the priests of the Church, used Latin as their language. In this way some parts of the old Roman and Greek civilization were preserved, although the Roman government had fallen and many beautiful cities were mere heaps of ruins.

The Vikings. The emigration of whole peoples from one part of Europe to another did not stop when the Roman Empire was overrun. New peoples appeared and sought to plunder or crowd out the tribes which had already settled within its boundaries and were learning the ways of civilization.

One of these peoples came from the regions now known as Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. They were called Danes by the English, and Northmen or Normans by other Europeans. They had another name, Vikings, which was their word for sea-rovers.

It was their custom to sail the seas and rivers rather than march on the land. They were a hardy and daring people, who liked nothing better than to fight and conquer and rob in other countries. There was not a land in western Europe, even as far south as Sicily, that they did not visit. Wherever they went they plundered and burned and murdered, leaving a blackened trail.

The Danes in England. The Danes ravaged the eastern and southern shores of England, and after they were tired of robbery, partly because there was little left to take, they began to settle in the land. Alfred, the greatest of the early English kings, was driven by them into the swamps for a while, but in the year 878 A.D. he conquered an army of them in battle and persuaded one of their kings to be baptized as a Christian. Alfred was obliged to allow them to keep the eastern portion of England, a region called Danelaw, because the law of the Danes was obeyed there.

The Danes become Normans. No more Danes or Northmen came to trouble England for a time, but instead they crossed the Channel to France and rowed up the Seine and tried to capture Paris. A few years later a Frankish king gave them the city of Rouen, further down the Seine, and the region about it which was called Normandy. These Normans also accepted Christianity.

The Vikings become Discoverers. Before another hundred years had passed the Northmen performed a feat more difficult than sailing up rivers and burning towns. They were the first to venture far out of sight of land, though their ships were no larger than our fishing boats. These bold sailors visited the Orkney and the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland, and finally reached Iceland. In Iceland their sheep and cattle flourished, and a lively trade in fish, oil, butter, and skins sprang up with the old homeland and with the British islands.

Before long one of the settlers, named Eric the Red, led a colony to Greenland, the larger and more desolate island further west. He called it Greenland because, he said, men would be more easily persuaded to go there if the land had a good name. This was probably in the year 985.

Discovery of Vinland. Eric had a son, called Leif Ericson, or Leif the Lucky, who visited Norway and was well received at the court of King Olaf. Not long before missionaries had persuaded Olaf and his people to give up their old gods and accept Christianity, and Leif followed their example. Leif set out in the early summer of the year 1000 to carry the new religion to his father, Eric the Red, to his father's people, and to his neighbors. The voyage was a long one, lasting all the summer, for on the way his ship was driven out of its course and came upon strange lands where wild rice and grape-vines and large trees grew. The milder climate and stories of large trees useful for building ships aroused the curiosity of the Greenlanders.