§3. THE NATIONS OF MEDIAEVAL CHRISTIANITY.
North of Scotland, embraced the Protestant Reformation in its Calvinistic rigor, and are among its sternest and most vigorous advocates. The course of the Keltic nations had been anticipated by the Galatians, who first embraced with great readiness and heartiness the independent gospel of St. Paul, but were soon turned away to a Judaizing legal ism by false teachers, and then brought back again by Paul to the right path.
3. The GERMANIC1 or TEUTONIC2 nations followed the Keltic migration in successive westward and southward waves, before and after Christ, and spread over Germany, Switzerland, Hol land, Scandinavia, the Baltic provinces of Russia, and, since the Anglo-Saxon invasion, also over England and Scotland and the northern (non-Keltic) part of Ireland. In modern times their descendants peacefully settled the British Provinces and the greater part of North America. The Germanic nations are the fresh, vigorous, promising and advancing races of the middle age and modern times. Their Christianization began in the fourth century, and went on in wholesale style till it was com pleted in the tenth. The Germans, under their leader Odoacer in 476, deposed Romulus Augustulus — the shadow of old Romu lus and Augustus — and overthrew the West Roman Empire, thus fulfilling the old augury of the twelve birds of fate, that Rome was to grow six centuries and to decline six centuries. Wherever they went, they brought destruction to decaying insti tutions. But with few exceptions, they readily embraced the religion of the conquered Latin provinces, and with childlike docility submitted to its educational power. They were predes tinated for Christianity, and Christianity for them. It curbed their warlike passions, regulated their wild force, and developed
1 The word is of uncertain origin. Some derive it from a Keltic root, garm or gairm, i. c. noise; some from the old German gere (guerre), a pointed weapon, spear or javelin (so that German would mean an armed man, or war-man, Wehrmann) ; others, from the Persian irman, erman, L e. guest.
2 From the Gothic thiudisco, gentilis, popularis; hence the Latin teutonicus, and the German deutsch or teutsch (which may also be connected with diutan, deuten, deutlich). In the English usage, the term German is confined to the Germans proper, and Dutch to the Hollanders; but Germanic and Teutonic apply to all cognate races.
10 MEDIEVAL CHURCH HISTORY.
their nobler instincts, their devotion and fidelity, their respect for woman, their reverence for all family-relations, their love of personal liberty and independence. The Latin church was to them only a school of discipline to prepare them for an age of Christian manhood and independence, which dawned in the six teenth century. The Protestant Reformation was the emancipa tion of the Germanic races from the pupilage of mediaeval and legalistic Catholicism.
Tacitus, the great heathen historian, no doubt idealized the barbarous Germans in contrast with the degenerate Romans of his day (as Montaigne and Rousseau painted the savages " in a fit of ill humor against their country ") ; but he unconsciously prophesied their future greatness, and his prophecy has been more than fulfilled.
4. The SLAVONIC or SLAVIC races, or Slavs1 in the East and North of Europe, including the Bulgarians, Bohemians (Czechs), Moravians, Slovaks, Servians, Croatians, Wends, Poles, and Russians, were mainly converted through Eastern missionaries since the ninth and tenth century. The Eastern Slavs, who are the vast majority, were incorporated with the Greek Church, which became the national religion of Russia, and through this empire acquired a territory almost equal to that of the Roman Church. The western Slavs, the Bohemians and Poles, became subject to the Papacy.
The Slavs, who number in all nearly 80,000,000, occupy a very subordinate position in the history of the middle ages, and
1 The term Slav or Slavonian is derived by some from slovo, word; by others ? from slava, glory. From it are derived the words slave and slavery (Selave, esdave), because many Slavs were reduced to a state of slavery or serfdom by their German masters. Webster spells slave instead of slav, and Edward A. Freeman, in his Historical Essays (third series, 1879), defends this spelling on three grounds: 1) No English word ends in v. But many Russian words do, as Kiev, Yaroslav, and some Hebrew grammars use Tav and Vav for Tau and Van. 2) Analogy. We write Dane, Swede, Pole, not Dan, etc. But the a in Slav has the continental sound, and the tendency is to get rid of mute vowels. 3) The form Slave perpetuates the etymology. But the etymology (slave=^oi)?,of) is uncertain, and it is well to distinguish the national name from the ordinary slaves, and thus avoid offence. The Germans also distinguish between Slaven, Sdaven.