GERMANY AND THE WESTERN EMPIRE

The period with which we have to deal is more than most periods what is sometimes called transitional; but this only means that it is more difficult than other periods to treat by itself. History is always changing and transitional, but keeps its own continuity even when we find it hard to discern. Breaches of continuity are rare, although in this period we have two of them: one, the establishment of the Moors in Spain, and the other, more widely diffused and less restricted locally, the inroads of the Northmen ending in the establishment of the Normans, whose conquest of England, as the beginning of a new era, is kept for a later volume. In many other periods some histories of states or institutions cease to be significant or else come to an end. Of this particular age we can say that it is specially and peculiarly one of beginnings, one in which older institutions and older forms of thought are gradually passing into later stages, which sometimes seem to be altogether new. The true significance, therefore, of the age can only be seen when we look ahead, and bear in mind the outlines of what in coming volumes must be traced in detail. This is especially true of the Feudalism which was everywhere gradually growing up, and, therefore, to understand its growth it is well to look ahead and picture for ourselves the system which forms the background for later history, although even here it is in process of growth and its economic and military causes are at work.
The dissolution of the Carolingian Empire ends its first stage with the Treaty of Verdun, following the Oath of Strasbourg. The oath is in itself a monument of the division between Romance and Teutonic languages, a linguistic difference which soon joined itself to other differences of race and circumstance. At Verdun Louis the German took most of the imperial lands in which a Teutonic tongue was spoken: Charles took mainly lands in which Romance prevailed. This difference was to grow, to become more acute and to pass into rivalry as years went by, and the rivalry was to make the old Austrasia into a debatable land; so that, for the later France and Germany, the year 843 may be taken as a convenient beginning in historic record of their separate national lives. Henceforth we have to follow separate histories, although the process of definite separation is gradual and slow.
At Tribur in 887 rebels deposed Charles the Fat, and next year the Eastern Kingdom proclaimed Arnulf; when his son Louis the Child died in 911, election and recognition by Frankish, Saxon, Alemannian (or Swabian), and Bavarian leaders made Conrad the first of German kings. In this process, unity, expressed by kingship, and disunion, expressed by the great tribal duchies which shared in later elections, were combined. And through many reigns, certainly throughout our period, the existence of these tribal duchies is the pivot upon which German history turns. To the king his subjects looked for defence against outside enemies: the Empire had accepted this task, and Charlemagne had well achieved it. But his weaker successors had neglected it, and as they made default, local rulers, and in Germany, the tribal dukes, above all, took the vacant place. But the appearance on all hands of local rulers, which is so often taken as a mere sign of disunion, as a mere process of decay, is, beneath this superficial appearance, a sign of local life, a drawing together of scattered elements of strength, under the pressure of local needs, and, above all, for local defence. If on a wider field of disorder the appearance of great kings and emperors made for strength and happiness, precisely the same was afterwards the case in the smaller fields. Here too the emergence of local dynasties also made for strength and happiness.