. A history of mediaeval and modern Europe for secondary schools. soil and reasonable taxes. Sometimes the reverse was the case; the invasionsmeant blood, sack, slavery— the ruin, in short, of all the artsof peace, of all civilized life. At best the fifth century was atime when men of intelligent instincts must have believed thereal progress of the world turned backward, all the accumu-lated refinements and learning of the past centuries almosthopelessly lost. To trace the progress of these invasions in a few words isdifficult, indeed. One can only name and locate the principalGermanic kingdom
. A history of mediaeval and modern Europe for secondary schools. soil and reasonable taxes. Sometimes the reverse was the case; the invasionsmeant blood, sack, slavery— the ruin, in short, of all the artsof peace, of all civilized life. At best the fifth century was atime when men of intelligent instincts must have believed thereal progress of the world turned backward, all the accumu-lated refinements and learning of the past centuries almosthopelessly lost. To trace the progress of these invasions in a few words isdifficult, indeed. One can only name and locate the principalGermanic kingdoms which spring into view after the periodof wandering and warfare is somewhat over. Besides theVisigoths in Spain and South Gaul, the Vandalsl (a veryuntamed and oppressive folk) seized northern Africa and spreadtheir piratical naval power over the Mediterranean. In eastcentral Gaul settled the Burgundians, in North Gaul the Franks(of whom more hereafter). For a little while the old Roman Government held on in 1 From them, of course, comes the term i4 HISTORY OF EUROPE Italy and in part of Gaul. It had still strength enough to joinforces with the Visigoths, and when Attila, the terrible leaderof the Hunnish hordes, led his destroying horsemen into Gaul,Roman and German united against him and defeated him inthe famous battle of Chalons (45i),1 saving western Europefrom a second devastation infinitely more terrible than thefirst. This was the last gleam of success, however. In 476, Odoacer(a German of the Herul tribe), commander of the Imperial Guard, deposed Romulus Au-gustulus, the last of the weak-ling Western Emperors. Abarbarian himself, he darednot take the imperial a transparent fiction heGermanic hunting-horn called himself Patrician of Italy, and pretended to rulethe land as deputy for the Emperor at Constantinople. Nonethe less the Roman Empire of the West was ended. 7. Theodoric the Ostrogoth and the later Germanic king-doms. Odoacer did not rule
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