In the summer of 1939, the richest find of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever discovered was unearthed on an estate in East Anglia. The owner of the estate was curious about a group of barrows, or burial mounds, on her property. She arranged for a local archeologist to investigate. The early results were disappointing; three small mounds showed signs of having been robbed. The largest mound, however, proved to be the magnificent, undisturbed burial chamber of a powerful chieftain.
An entire ship, 86 feet long, had been buried in the large barrow, and inside it was a chamber that contained armor.
Weapons, bowls, drinking vessels, and a large quantity of gold and garnet jewelry. This mound, too, would have been robbed, had it not been for plowing in the later Middle Ages that removed much of one end. When treasure-hunters dug into the mound in the 16th century, they dug into the center as it then existed thinking that it would contain treasure, but were misled by the missing part. Although no doubt disappointed, the would-be looters apparently stopped to eat a meal before leaving, as evidenced by pottery and part of a cook-fire found during the 1939 excavation.
Among the treasures in the Sutton Hoo burial is a finely worked shoulder clasp for a leather tunic. The fine workmanship in gold, glass, and garnets indicates the level of skill that Germanic artisans possessed.
Monster came to the mead hall that night and ate a Geat, Beowulf tore off his arm, and Grendel retreated to his lair to die. The Geats rejoiced in the prince’s victory until the next night, when Grendel’s mother came seeking revenge and killed one of the king’s men. Beowulf then pursued her into a cave at the bottom of a sea, where he killed her.
Beowulf s return to Sweden with rich rewards was brief The king of the Geats died, and Beowulf returned and served as their king for 50 years. But his story ended as it began, fighting a monster. The aged Beowulf again killed the enemy, but this time was mortally wounded. The story of Beowulf provides a sense of the tribes’ wandering and minghng even before they moved into Roman territory. It also shows that they viewed nature as containing threatening, hostile elements, compared with the Roman’s view of nature as providing an abundance of food for their benefit.
Germanic society was organized according to both family ties and a social hierarchy of kings and war chiefs under whom the warriors served. Below these groups were slaves. War chiefs attracted a warrior band, or commitatus (literally, a group of fighters who have gathered together), by their prowess in fighting and by their success in taking plunder, which they distributed to theirfoUowers. Family groups and the commitatus formed loose units, but they coalesced into a tribe under the leadership of a king, particularly when they faced an external threat.
The tribes near the Roman Empire’s borders were partially romanized. They knew something of the Roman economy, which was based on money rather than barter. They also had some knowledge of the Latin language and Roman military organization and law. Despite this exposure, however, the Germanic tribes preserved their own language and laws. Their laws dealt mainly with violence in interpersonal relationships. Because family honor was an important value, when a family member was killed, his or her relatives were bound to kill the murderer or one of his relatives in revenge. Such vendettas between families were obviously disruptive to the peace of the whole group.
So laws evolved calling for murderers to pay wergeld (human payment), or money compensation, to their victims’ families. The amount depended on the value of the person killed. For instance, the murder of a king or a woman of childbearing age demanded very high wergeld. Other losses—such as the loss of limbs, teeth, and virginity—also required monetary compensation. The compensation for knocking out a front tooth was greater than for a molar because of its iU effect on a person’s looks. Likewise, a thumb was worth a great deal more than a little finger.
Other laws governed theft, rape, adultery, and treason. Even relations with the Roman population were incorporated into the laws as the tribes moved across the empire’s borders. A Frankish (the Franks invaded northern Gaul) law read: “If anyone has assaulted and plundered a free person, and it be proved on him, he shall be sentenced to 2500 denars, which make 63 shillings. If a Roman has plundered a Frank, the above law shall be observed. But if a Frank has plundered a Roman, he shall be
Sentenced to 35 shillings.”
The Germanic tribes had already begun to move into the western empire by the early fifth century. By that time, the Anglo-Saxons had setded permanently in Britain, and the Franks had crossed the Rhine into Gaul. But this migration occurred with greater speed and urgency when a completely unromanized tribe, the Huns, forced the Germanic tribes to seek protection within the empire. The Huns were a nomadic people who traveled swiftly on horseback. Like other tribes, they tended to splinter into smaller groups, but they moved as a “horde” when poor pastures in central Asia drove them to migrate. Jordanes, a thoroughly romanized Goth, described the Huns as “small, foul and skinny; their faces were seamed with gashes, their noses broad and flat. They dressed in coarse hnen tunics, which they never changed until they rotted; on their heads they wore a sort of helmet made with skins of wild rats patched together.” He also said that they carried raw meat under their saddles all day and then ate it raw for supper as a sort of early version of steak tartare. Their drink was fermented mare’s milk.
Jordanes had good reason to dislike the Huns. In time, the Huns so completely dominated the Gothic tribes of central Europe that they became indistinguishable from them. One small, remaining group of Goths, known as the Visigoths or west Goths, begged to be allowed into the Balkans. Thinking that they would be a useful buffer between the empire and the Huns, the Byzantine emperor setded them south of the Danube in 376. The emperor also agreed to pay the Visigoths for fighting, but when he reneged, they moved on into Italy under the leadership of their king, Alaric.
The emperor in the west, a young man named Honorius, panicked at the Visigoths’ arrival, and retreated to the marshes of Ravenna, thereby allowing them to sack Rome in 410. Alaric gave his army three days to plunder the city; they then moved on with their booty and hostages. The image of a defeated, overrun Rome had a profound influence at the time and long after. St. Jerome wrote of his despair: “My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth and sobs choke my speech.” The animosity the Romans felt toward Alaric was so great that.
When he died, his followers feared his grave would be defiled. Legend holds that they diverted a stream and had captives bury him under its hed. They then killed the captives and redirected the stream, Alaric’s body lying beneath it. To this day, no one knows where Alaric is buried.
The Visigoths chose Athaulf as Alaric’s successor. The new king decided to move the tribe west through Gaul and into Spain, where they eventually established the Visigothic kingdom. Among the hostages they took with them was GaUa Placidia, sister ofEmperor Honorius. In fulfilment of an old prophesy, “the queen of the south married the king of the north” in January 414. At their Roman wedding Athaulf deferred to his bride, letting her lead the procession. Her lavish wedding gifts probably came from the sack of Rome.
Tradition has it that Galla Palacidia consented to the marriage and had a strong influence on her husband. She supposedly led him to accept Christianity and to become a defender of the Roman Empire rather than its invader. Certainly, his policy changed as he tried to form an aUiance and friendship with his brother-in-law, Honorius. When Athaulf was murdered in Barcelona, GaUa Placidia returned to Rome and married a Roman. She concluded her eventful life by ruling in the name of her infant son, who was made emperor.
The Huns continued to harass the Germanic tribes and threatened to invade the empire. Their leader from 433 to 453 was Attila, whose reputation for brntahty is firmly planted in western European culture. At the time he was called the “Scourge of
God. ” Attila had his sights set on Rome. He claimed that he was coming to liberate Honoria, a Roman princess who had been disciplined for having an affair. She sent a ring to Attila proposing marriage. A Roman-Visigothic army forced him to retreat, but within a year he was plundering his way toward Rome, where only the city’s bishop stood in his way. Again, probably because of plague in his army, Attila retreated. Taking yet another wife to join the many he had already, he died on his wedding night, perhaps of a surfeit of food and drink.
The Hunnish incursions again moved Germanic peoples to regroup into invading tribes. The Vandals moved through Gaul and Spain to set up a kingdom centered in Carthage, in North Africa. Augustine died only months before Hippo feU to them. The Vandals took to the sea as pirates, and in 455 they too sacked Rome. Their raiding left a permanent legacy in the English language—the word vandalism. Their name also remains as Andalusia, a province in southern Spain.
Once again Italy lay open to attack. The group that moved in this time was the Ostrogoths (or east Goths). The parts of Gaul that were not controlled by the Visigoths were invaded by the Burgundians and Franks, whose story will be told in the next chapter.
By the end of the fifth century, Rome, the founding city of the empire, had been sacked and its earlier prominence superseded by Constantinople. The Roman Empire had fragmented into a number of smaller kingdoms dominated by tribal lead
Ers. However, the eastern part of the empire, including Constantinople, remained wealthy and powerful, and its emperors came to resemble eastern potentates. Also during this period, the Christian church gained considerable stature and power among the Roman population. It had preserved Latin, the language of Roman culture, and in the west bishops increasingly took on the roles of Roman officials. They effectively governed cities and the surrounding countryside (called dioceses) for their Germanic overlords. With so much change taking place in the space of a century, the lives of people caught up in the new religious enthusiasms and in the myriad invasions and settlements also changed dramatically.
The Vandals quickly assumed the comfortable life of the upper-class Romans, adopting their dress and living habits in northern Africa. They even learned to use Roman ships, and with a fleet they attacked and destroyed Rome in 455.
World History
