France . zingmovement, which succeeded in supplanting the memoryof pagan gods by the names and emblems of Christiansaints,* and occupying Roman and Celtic shrines inrocks and woods, by lakes and fountains, with Christianfanes and the cells of Christian hermits. The organization of the Church was developed dmingthe fourth and fifth centuries. The country was dividedinto bishoprics, which recognized the preponderatingpower of the Bishops of Rome. The Bishops, elected bythe people under the direction of their confreres, and sup- * So Venus Victrix became ; Bacchus, St. Bacchus;etc. 14
France . zingmovement, which succeeded in supplanting the memoryof pagan gods by the names and emblems of Christiansaints,* and occupying Roman and Celtic shrines inrocks and woods, by lakes and fountains, with Christianfanes and the cells of Christian hermits. The organization of the Church was developed dmingthe fourth and fifth centuries. The country was dividedinto bishoprics, which recognized the preponderatingpower of the Bishops of Rome. The Bishops, elected bythe people under the direction of their confreres, and sup- * So Venus Victrix became ; Bacchus, St. Bacchus;etc. 14 FRANCE ported by an ecclesiastical hierarchy of priests, deacons,acolytes, etc., began to acquire temporal power by virtueof the spiritual authority they wielded, and before whicheven Emperors bowed. And with increasing wealth andpower those vices of avarice, greed, and simony, in monksand Bishops alike, began to creep in, which roused theindignation of satirists and reformers from St. Martin GAUL DNDBR THE KOMANS. n THE FRANKISH 250—510 A PERIOD of profound peace and prosperity, during whichGaul became more and more Roman and civilized, closedwith an era of military anarchy, civil war, barbarianinvasion, and the dismemberment of the Empire. Thediscipline of the Roman armies which guarded thefrontiers had weakened as their political power increased,and as the Emperors came to depend upon their numberswere lessened, owing to the need of economy,at the very time when the danger of a German invasionwas becoming more ominous. New peoples, aU drawingfrom the Baltic coast — Goths, Vandals, Langobards,Burgundians, Quadi, Suebi, Marcomanni, Alemanni,Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Thuringians—were beginning topress upon the frontiers of the Danube and the 253 the Franks (Franci, the Free), who were estab-lishing themselves in the territory stretching from theNorth Sea to Mayence on the right bank of the Rhine,and the confederacy of Alema
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1913