Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (43 page)

PEOPLES

Tribes

The belief in the existence of different peoples is very old and can be found in the writings of ancient historians such as Herodotus, as well as in the Bible. The problem is to understand what this meant to those involved, because the words employed have acquired additional associations over time. This is especially true of the parts of Europe occupied by the Empire and which were the subject of intense study by nineteenth-and twentieth-century German ethnographers and archaeologists who
used the terms ‘tribe’ (
Stamm
) and ‘people’ (
Volk
). Tribes were usually regarded as subdivisions of a common people, with the Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Frisians and Alemanni all being considered ‘Germanic’.
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The writers generally romanticized their subjects as repositories of ‘authentic’ national culture, regarding history as a constant struggle to preserve cultural ‘purity’ in the face of foreign intrusions, as well as expansion through the merger of tribes on the basis of alleged common characteristics. Most argued that this process culminated in a national ‘awakening’ around 1800 as people became more self-aware of their commonalities. A typical example is the way in which linguists traced the history of their ‘national’ language by identifying common root words and describing how tribal tongues were gradually reduced to dialects before these too were eradicated through standardized spelling and pronunciation facilitated by printing and universal schooling.

The German word
Volk
was in fact rarely used before the eighteenth century, and then only to denote a specific group, particularly soldiers (
Kriegsvolk
).
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Early writers like the etymologist Isidore of Seville and the Frankish historian Regino, abbot of Prüm, used Latin terms.
Populus
meant ‘people’ in the general sense of humans or inhabitants, especially the politically active section.
Gens
were people related by common descent, while
natio
usually denoted common origins more narrowly defined by birth. Nonetheless, medieval commentators – like their present-day counterparts – were often imprecise and ambiguous in their employment of such terms. Identity was usually multilayered and frequently expressed differently according to the situation, despite most writers’ conviction that geography and climate imparted ‘fixed’ characteristics.

The term
natio
could be employed to identify a group that later writers called a ‘tribe’. ‘Nations’ were originally ‘barbarians’, those who lay beyond Roman civilization, and it was not until the thirteenth century that the term acquired more positive attributes with the growing acceptance that Christendom was split into different sovereign peoples. Initially it was foreign students studying in Paris or Bologna who were identified as ‘nations’ according to common origins. The delegates at church councils were grouped this way after 1215, but the designations changed frequently and were inconsistent with later ideas. For example, ‘Bohemians’ at Prague University after 1348 included not just Czechs, but Hungarians, southern Slavs and German-speakers from Bohemia,
while ‘Bavarians’ encompassed all central, western and southern Germans, with northern Germans and all Scandinavians being called ‘Saxons’.
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Even in the eighteenth century, ‘nation’ continued to be used flexibly, with the Viennese and Prussian soldiers variously constituting ‘nations’ according to some authors. However, from the sixteenth century, ‘nation’ assumed many of the characteristics once associated with
populus
, especially in the mouths of those claiming to represent the nation politically, whereas
populus
became more debased as the ‘common’ sort.

Identity Markers

Early writers already recognized the need for criteria to distinguish between tribes and peoples, but – like the terms used – these categories also shifted over time. Language (
lingua
) was already widely touted in the ninth century as an important distinguishing mark, but in practice the huge variance amongst vernaculars hindered actual understanding. Customs (
mores
) were also cited and often expanded into generalized characteristics. Thietmar of Merseburg identified cunning Swabians, greedy Bavarians who lived in poverty, quarrelsome Lorrainers prone to rebellion, and loyal Saxons who allowed their ruler to abuse their trust – the latter comment clearly motivated by his own dissatisfaction at Otto II’s dissolution of his beloved bishopric. Common descent (
genus
) proved equally vague in practice, as it was applied variously to kinship groups and entire populations.

Myths of origins often proved more attractive because they combined various elements within a story that could serve many, especially political, agendas. Most myths identified one or more founding figures usually associated with victory or conquest, especially of the area their people currently inhabited. The martial aspect was important during the development of these stories in the early Middle Ages, an era when most of the population was enslaved. The myths thus legitimated the elite of free warriors and their self-identification with alleged characteristics like prowess, moral fibre and their supposedly unique political institutions. Myths were portable; indeed many contained stories of a shared migration, or that the current people emerged from the mingling of earlier groups including conquered and conquerors. The Franks considered themselves descended from Priam, the last king of Troy,
who wandered westwards into central Europe, but they also believed they were a fusion of many tribes, initially each under its own king, before united by Clovis in the late fifth century. They distinguished themselves as an imperial
populus
, carrying a general civilization, rather than simply an individual
gente
(tribe), and – thanks to Clovis’s conversion – they considered themselves ‘God’s people’ (
populus Dei
).
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However, even in their core homeland, the Franks formed only 15–25 per cent of the population and were too few to establish themselves exclusively as a ruling class throughout the Carolingian realm. They generally merged with other elites through marriage or expropriation of land, with assimilation working in both directions depending on circumstances: some conquered elites considered themselves Franks, while elsewhere Frankish conquerors identified themselves at least partly with the areas they now controlled. The Franks sought to preserve their distinctiveness by continuing the late Roman practice of expressing separated identities through law codes. This aspect should not be over-exaggerated as most laws remained unwritten, while the distinction between law and custom was far from clear. Nonetheless, law assumed significance as a defining marker of identity when combined with other factors encouraging a sense of community; hence the significance of the use of expulsion as punishment for major transgressions, since this cast the wrongdoer from the tribe or people.
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The Franks wrote laws for each subject people incorporated within their realm from the late eighth century, often fabricating tradition by claiming these derived from earlier ones. The Alemanni, Bavarians, Frisians, Lombards, Saxons and Thuringians all had (or acquired) their own
Lex
distinct from the
Lex Francorum
(Salic law) reserved for the Franks. Paradoxically, this eroded the Franks’ own self-belief as an imperial people, since they became just one group among many, even if their elite remained primarily the group in charge. In turn, this imparted the lasting sense of the Empire as inhabited by a variety of peoples, rather than as an exclusive, superior people standing apart and above those they ruled, as in the case of the British and Ottoman empires.

Other Frankish policies further eroded any sense of their being the Empire’s exclusive rulers.
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Rapid Christianization of the elites between 780 and 820 removed religion as a potential marker of difference – another contrast with British and Ottoman experience. Old power structures broke up, at least outside Saxony, southern Italy and, to an
extent, also Bavaria. Continued redistribution of land and offices by later monarchs further reduced the differences amongst the elites – differences that were now socially and politically far less significant than those between the free and unfree populations.
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Population growth from the eleventh century, together with migration after about 1100, eroded old identities whilst adding new ones.

Belief in tribal identities nonetheless persisted, because their original lack of clarity allowed later generations to shape them to suit their own purposes. For example, there was no direct link between the
Lex Saxonum
of 802 and the
Sachsenspiegel
of about 1224, but the existence of these two law codes served to substantiate claims of a continuous Saxon identity.
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Identities were still sufficiently sharp in the early tenth century for some to criticize the Saxon Ottonians as being the ‘wrong’ people to replace the Frankish Carolingians as German kings in 919. The Ottonian chronicler Widukind of Corvey placed great emphasis on the story of the dying Conrad I, the last Carolingian, symbolically passing the Empire to the Saxons by allegedly designating Henry I, the first Ottonian, as his successor. By this point, Conrad and Henry were clan or family leaders, rather than tribal chiefs.
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The sense of distinct peoples increasingly mattered less than other, more focused identities.

ESTATES, CLASSES AND FAMILIES

Estates Society

Tribes were never regarded as composed of equals. There was already a sense of the individual during the early Middle Ages. Each person had specific duties and was responsible for their own actions and salvation. However, prior to the eighteenth century, most commentators were more concerned with how horizontal and vertical divisions stratified society internally. Personal aspects, like interests, abilities or appearance, were all considered less important in identifying an individual than their membership of one or more of society’s subgroups. The Empire was not unique in how social stratification reinforced political hierarchies, but the specific form of this interaction nonetheless contributed to its governance becoming increasingly multilayered and territorialized. A key factor in this development was that social
distinctions were never fully transportable, at least partly rooting an individual’s identity to place as well as person.

Frankish society recognized two fundamental social distinctions. The first identified free people, whom most writers considered the
populus
, and a much larger number of unfree people, mainly slaves born as such or obtained by raiding or conquering pagans. The second distinguished laity from clergy, the latter drawn overwhelmingly from the free population. However, a more complex, three-way functional division was also recognized, especially by 1000. Morality remained a key determinant, but writers were less bound by references to specific biblical passages and more interested in adapting earlier social categories to keep pace with the demographic and economic expansion experienced from the eleventh century.
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These wider changes eroded the earlier Christian idea of freedom as a natural state, with servitude as the consequence of sin. New forms of agricultural production resulted in around 85 per cent of the population living as
laboratores
in some form of servitude as the ‘commons’, or third social Estate, whose function was to provide for the material needs of others. Whereas previously all free male laity had been considered warriors,
bellatores
were now restricted to the second Estate, which was evolving as hereditary nobility more concerned with controlling and exploiting land than fighting. Nonetheless, their programmatic function as society’s defenders was used to legitimate their special privileges. The clergy (
oratores
) formed the senior Estate, placed first thanks to their function of praying for everyone’s salvation.

All commentators were convinced that social structure was hierarchical as a necessary and fundamental feature of human existence. How hierarchy was rationalized changed over time, but always included the argument that humans possessed varying qualities and abilities. Those in authority developed lengthy justifications for their elevated status, generally emphasizing some form of asymmetrical reciprocity whereby duties and obligations were distributed unevenly throughout society. However, hierarchy was neither absolute nor fully clear. The sharp dividing line between free and unfree had been replaced by more complex graduations. All, including those in servitude, possessed rights relating to their Estate’s function. The ideal was an interlocking system in which all should accept their allotted place, because all derived benefits from the functions performed by others on their behalf.

The reality was necessarily messier and less consensual. Status was neither exclusively self-determined nor simply imposed from above according to a rational blueprint, but instead depended heavily on how far individuals and groups could secure recognition from others. Although the ideal was presented as stable, status remained a process of constant negotiation. It was accepted that each Estate was internally stratified into various subgroups, but their precise interrelationship was often unclear. For example, the Latin term
milites
(soldiers) had associations with personal freedom during the early Middle Ages, but by the eleventh century it applied to a new group of unfree knights also known as
ministeriales
. A century later it had become inconceivable for a knight not to be both free and on the lower rung of hereditary nobility. Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’ promoted the knightly ideal after 1180, drawing on the new ethos of chivalry imported from France to bridge the widening gulf amongst the nobility caused by the emergence of a princely elite. Later, the nobility’s continued and growing internal stratification raised questions whether its senior ranks could still be considered knights. Individuals could subvert conventions, as long as they enjoyed unimpeachable social credentials. Emperor Maximilian I placed himself in the front rank of his mercenary infantry (the
Landsknechte
) in an effort to raise their social status as warriors. Two centuries later, Prussia’s king Frederick William I banned the use of the word
Miliz
(deriving from
miles
) for professional soldiers, because he wanted to distinguish his army from part-time militiamen.
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