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CHAPTER IV.

THE BARBARIANS.

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AMONG the crowd of barbarous nations who shared in the spoil at the final break up of the Western Empire, the Franks were the most pre-eminently warlike. A warrior of this race will therefore afford the reader a fair type of the "barbarian," and, to this end, I cannot do better than quote the incomparable description of the historian Gibbon. "The love of freedom and of arms was felt, with conscious pride, by the Franks themselves, and is observed by the Greeks with some degree of amazement and terror. "The Franks,' says the Emperor Constantine, are bold and valiant to the verge of temerity, and their dauntless spirit is supported by the contempt of danger and death. In the field and in close onset they press to the front, and rush headlong against the enemy, without deigning to compute either his numbers or their own. Their ranks are formed by the firm connexions of consanguinity and friendship, and their martial deeds are prompted by the desire of saving or revenging their dearest companions. In their eyes retreat is a shameful flight, and flight is indelible infamy.' A nation endowed with such

high and intrepid spirit must have been secure of victory, if these advantages had not been counterbalanced by many weighty defects. In the

age which preceded the institution of knighthood, the Franks were rude and unskilful in the service of cavalry; and in all perilous emergencies, their warriors were so conscious of their ignorance, that they chose to dismount from their horses and fight on foot. Unpractised in the use of pikes, or of missile weapons, they were encumbered by the length of their swords, the weight of their armour, the magnitude of their shields, and, if I may repeat the satire of the meagre Greeks, by their unwieldy intemperance. Their independent spirit disdained the yoke of subordination, and abandoned the standard of their chief if he attempted to keep the field beyond the term of their stipulation or service. On all sides they were open to the snares of an enemy, less brave, but more artful than themselves. They might be bribed, for the barbarians were venal; or surprised in the night, for they neglected the precautions of a close encampment or vigilant sentinels. The fatigues of a summer's campaign exhausted their strength and patience, and they sunk in despair if their voracious appetite was disappointed of a plentiful supply of wine and of food."

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Tacitus wrote of the German barbarians as having omne robur in pedite," and this was equally applicable to all the other nations except the Vandals and Sarmatians. From the time of Tacitus, A. D. 100,

to the consolidation of the Frankish rule under Clovis, and even to the days of Charles Martel, immediately preceding the age of chivalry, infantry continued to form the bulk of the barbarian forces, the cavalry consisting only of a small mounted escort for the chief. The passage that I have quoted from Gibbon would lead the reader to suppose that the Franks wore defensive armour, but the testimony of most writers goes to prove that the barbarians, particularly the Franks, rarely used body armour, and therein they afforded a striking contrast to their descendants, who carried the mania for steel panoply to an absurd degree. According to the authorities of the time, the Franks seem in general to have worn tight-fitting garments, sometimes skins of animals, and even, in some cases, the minimum of dress. They seldom wore any covering on the head, and their red hair was gathered up in a knot on the top of the head, and floated like a horse's tail down their backs. Their weapons were a long sword, a two-edged axe, called a Francisca, and a javelin. The point of this latter was barbed, and its shaft plated with iron, to protect it from being cut in two. The attack was commenced by hurling this javelin against the enemy, who generally received it on his shield, which was penetrated and dragged down by the weight. The Frank, rushing in, planted his foot on the trailing javelin, thereby uncovering his opponent, whom he immediately attacked with his Francisca. The Frankish infantry, like that of the

Germans and other barbarous tribes, fought in the phalangial order generally, and also, sometimes, in a wedge-like formation, the latter being little more than a deep, close column. The assault, accompanied by the most appalling and discordant yells, was delivered with a rapidity and impetuosity that are still highly characteristic of the modern French infantry, and remind one of the onslaughts of the wild Highland clansmen. There is reason to believe that the Franks, among other things, must have borrowed the agmen quadratum (the square) from the Romans, as it was in some such formation that they withstood for seven days the fiery charges of the Saracens at Tours in 732. In this battle Charles Martel, "a valiant man of war from his youth up," with the aid alone of his infantry, arrayed in massive and serried columns, repulsed for ever the menacing tide of Moslem invasion; and it was this success that drew forth from the monkish chronicler the pious and oft-quoted comment that, "Dieu fût pour ses gros bataillons."

From the battle of Tours may be dated the relapse of military science, and the decline and abasement of infantry. Science in war slumbered during the feudal period, and in its place were substituted the martial ignorance and arrogance of chivalry. The trained constancy and decisive tactics of the "big battalions," which had, in the words of Gibbon, "rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbours of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of

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