The world: historical and actual . ex-tant, preserved in thelibrary at Upsala, Swe-den. He was nut perse-cuted, nor were his fel-low workers in the cause. The old Germans, liketheir descendants of to-day, were religious was an Arian, or Unitarian, and althoughRome adopted the Athanasian doctrine of the Trin-ity, Germany always leaned strongly towards hetero-doxy. After the invention of a Gothic alphabet byUlfila, we hear no more, says Bayard Taylor, of awritten German language until the eighth was at least none accessible to the Latin was cultivated a l
The world: historical and actual . ex-tant, preserved in thelibrary at Upsala, Swe-den. He was nut perse-cuted, nor were his fel-low workers in the cause. The old Germans, liketheir descendants of to-day, were religious was an Arian, or Unitarian, and althoughRome adopted the Athanasian doctrine of the Trin-ity, Germany always leaned strongly towards hetero-doxy. After the invention of a Gothic alphabet byUlfila, we hear no more, says Bayard Taylor, of awritten German language until the eighth was at least none accessible to the Latin was cultivated a little in connection withpolitics and religion. By the year 570, Europe, outside of Germany, was very generally Christian-ized, but the greater part of the Germans were stillPagans. Their final and complete evangelizationwas the result of military necessity, dictated bypolitical expediency, rather than the triumph of theCross upon its merits. So many pagan customswere retained, under a change of name, that the transition was almost. % wm THE BATTLE OF TOURS imperceptible. As western Europeemerged from the obscur-ity of barbarism, the vastregions now known asGermany and Francewere inseparable. Clovis,who founded the Mero-vingian dynasty in thelast years of the fifthcentury, ruled over bothas one. That dynastycontinued from 48G t >638, a century and a half,during which the Franksor French were speciallyconspicuous. It was asickening succession ofcrowned criminals. Thepeople were the victimsof a family feud runningthrough generations. TheNibelungen Lied, theIliad of Germany, to bereferred to more especial-ly hereafter, celebratedin rude song the horriblestory of Merovngianatrocities. These kingsand queens (for thewomen were as bad as the men) practiced all hea-thenish vices while professing the Christian tells us that during the long and bloodyfeuds of the Merovingian kings the system of free-dun i and equality which the Germanic races had solong possessed, was shake
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectworldhistory, bookyea
