NOTE VIII. THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CELTIC AND SLAVONIC HEROIC AGES.

In the last three chapters we have confined our attention almost exclusively to the Teutonic and Greek Heroic Ages. It is not to be overlooked however that similar phenomena occur elsewhere. The closest and most interesting parallels, at least in Europe, are probably to be found in the history of the ancient Gauls.

It has been mentioned above that Gaulish literature has entirely perished. We are dependent therefore for our information upon a few scattered references in the works of Greek and Roman writers. These however are sufficient to show that the Gauls possessed a well-known and influential class of professional minstrels (??d??), whose chief occupation seems to have been the composition of heroic poetry[629]. Like the minstrels of the Teutonic and Greek Heroic Ages these persons were attached to the courts of kings, and their poems dealt with the praises of living princes as well as with the deeds of heroes of the past[630]. With the disappearance of kingship, early in the first century (B.C.), their standing seems to have been impaired. At all events they are never mentioned by Caesar, who has so much to say about the Druids.

It is probable therefore that by this time what may be termed the Gaulish Heroic Age was already at an end. How long it had lasted we cannot tell, since all the stories have perished. We may certainly note however that the accounts of Gaulish life which have come down to us from the time before the nation became Romanised show a most striking resemblance to the conditions described in Teutonic and Greek heroic poetry. The longest of these accounts is the one given by Diodoros (V 26 ff.), where their customs are described with a considerable amount of detail. The picture which he draws of their methods of fighting, their love of boasting[631], their habits in entertaining strangers[632] and many other particulars furnishes a parallel to Homeric life closer perhaps than may be found even in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

The principle of personal allegiance seems to have been developed among the Gauls to a very high degree, although our information dates chiefly from times when kingship had almost entirely disappeared. We have scarcely sufficient evidence for determining whether the development of this principle had been accompanied by a relaxation of the bonds of kindred. But Caesar's statement (Gall., VI 11) regarding the universal prevalence of party spirit points in this direction[633]; and it is perhaps worth noting that attempts were made upon the lives of more than one of the princes who had submitted to him. There is reason for suspecting that among the Celtic peoples, as among the Teutonic, the organisation of the kindred had undergone a change, probably at no very remote period. The Picts adhered to succession in the female line, at all events in the royal family, down to the eighth century; and there are said to be traces of the same type of succession in Ireland. It is commonly assumed that the Pictish succession was a pre-Celtic institution; but no evidence worth consideration has been adduced in favour of this view. We need not doubt the existence of pre-Celtic inhabitants in Scotland. But the same remark applies to the rest of the British Isles and at least a considerable part of Gaul, and I see no reason why in Scotland alone (or Scotland and Ireland) so important a change should have been taken over from the aborigines. In Gaul succession certainly passed in the male line in the first century (B.C.). But in the earliest Gaulish tradition of which we have record the title to sovereignty seems to go, as among the Picts, to the sons of the king's sister[634].

The political organisation of the Gauls appears to have been similar to that of the Teutonic peoples, though kingship was dying out in the first century. We find a considerable number of comparatively small nations (ciuitates), each of which apparently possessed a royal family of its own. From time to time one of these acquired a position of supremacy over all or many of the others. Sometimes too sections of the same nation appear in widely different regions. Thus we find Senones and Lingones both in Gaul and Italy, Boii in Bavaria (Bohemia) and Italy, Volcae Tectosages in Germany and the south of Gaul—Tectosages also in Galatia. There is little doubt that in such cases one of these sections is an offshoot from the other and owes its origin to some military expedition.

In regard to religion Caesar (ib., VI 21) draws a striking contrast between the Gauls and the Germans, though his account of the latter in this respect will not hold good for the Heroic Age. Gaulish religion was polytheistic and highly anthropomorphic; it would seem also that the gods were regarded as forming an organised community. The method employed in the disposal of the dead was cremation; and here too this practice was associated with a vivid conception of immortality. In all these respects Gaulish religion seems to have differed little from the types which we find in the Teutonic and Greek Heroic Ages, although apparently the belief in immortality largely took the form of metempsychosis. Only in one particular can we detect a really important difference between Gaulish religion and the others, namely in the influence of the priesthood. This feature however seems to have been peculiar to Gaul itself and Britain; at all events we hear nothing of Druids elsewhere. Indeed according to Caesar (VI 13) the institution was believed to have originated in Britain; and it is by no means impossible that some of its characteristic features may have developed in this country. More than this we cannot safely say, since there is an obvious—and probably by no means superficial—resemblance between Druidism and the priesthood of the Prussians and Lithuanians.

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In previous Notes (p. 101 ff.) we spoke of two other Heroic Ages—those of the Bosnian Mohammedans, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and of the Cumbrian Welsh, about a thousand years earlier. In Note VII we discussed briefly one of the leading incidents in the (Christian) Servian Heroic Age, of the fourteenth century. In all these cases the question of religion is better left out of account; for though the form taken by Christianity or Mohammedanism was doubtless influenced to some extent by national characteristics, the two religions were essentially of foreign origin.

Among the Bosnians however the influence of Mohammedanism affected also the organisation of society, while the government was in the hands of pashas sent from Constantinople. On the whole the conditions appear to have little in common with those of the Teutonic and Greek Heroic Ages. Even the principle of personal allegiance is not much in evidence.

On the other hand this principle is very prominent in the Christian Servian poems, at all events in those which deal with the battle of Kossovo. It is exemplified both in the relations of squires (such as Vaistina) with their lords and in those of the latter with the king. In the poem on the banquet (Karadic, II 50 iii), which we have discussed above (p. 315), it is to this principle alone that Lazar appeals, when he reproaches MiloŠ for his suspected disloyalty; and though the latter in his reply does mention that he intends to die for the Christian faith, he too evidently regards loyalty to his king as his primary duty. My knowledge of this subject is unfortunately not sufficient to enable me to form an opinion as to whether the growth of the bond of allegiance was accompanied by a relaxation of the bonds of kinship. In the lower ranks of society however the kindred has preserved down to the present time perhaps greater vitality among the Servians than in any other European nation. The type of government which we find prevailing in the fourteenth century is far removed from that democratic system which Procopius (Goth., III 14) ascribes to the Slavs some six centuries previously. The governors whom DuŠan appointed in various parts of his dominions became practically independent princes after his death, although their principalities rested apparently on no national basis. Both in Servia proper and elsewhere the control of affairs seems to have been very largely in the hands of the royal family.

For the Cumbrian Heroic Age our information is sadly deficient. The evidence of the poems leaves no doubt as to the potency of the force of personal allegiance. With regard to the kindred I know of no evidence, unless we take account of the Welsh laws, which belong to a different region and to a period several centuries later. The kingdoms seem to have been fairly numerous, and there is nothing to show that their organisation differed much from that of Teutonic kingdoms of the Heroic Age. Whether they rested on any national basis we cannot tell; but it is to be noted that practically all their territories had once been included within the Roman frontiers[635].

Both these cases then appear to show a number of the features which characterise the Teutonic and Greek Heroic Ages, though scarcely to the same degree as is the case with the civilisation of the ancient Gauls. Analogies may also be found in the French and Russian Heroic Ages; but I am not aware that either of these presents any remarkable characteristics which do not occur in one or other of those with which we have dealt. On the other hand I have no doubt that many interesting features are to be found in the Irish Heroic Age (or rather perhaps Heroic Ages[636]). This subject however is beset with such extreme difficulties of every kind that I dare not touch it.