Of what Nation Charles the Great was.
6. The greatest part of the German Writers have very fondly [anxiously] endeavoured to have it believed he was their Countryman, as being born at Ingelheim, a Town in the Bishoprick of Mentz, but now under the Elector Palatine; and in an ancient Charter of the Abby of Fuld [a], the Lands upon the River UNSTRUT in Thuring, are call’d The Lands of his Conception: And that he us’d the German Tongue,a is apparent by the names of the Months used in his time, which {are still retained in Germany, and} are thought to have been introduced by him.
A Frank
By his Father,
And born in France.
But |[if the Germans would suffer me, (a Foreigner) to pass my judgment in this [their] Affair, tho’ I am not at all disposed to favour the French in their other pretences[, to the damage of the Germans]+; yet I would perswade them here freely and willingly to renounce their Pretences to Charles the Great, and the rather, because it can bring no injury [fraudi] to their present Empire. For it is certain, the Franks placed the Seat of their Empire in Germany [Gallia]]|;a and it is no less certain, that the Father of Charles the Great was King of France [Franciae], and all his Progenitors had for many Ages lived in great Honour, and managed great Employments in that Kingdom. Besides, those parts of Germany, <8> which lie on the West of the Rhine,b and were then subject to the Crown of France, were possess’d by them [only] as Accessions acquired to that Kingdom by Conquest, and were looked upon as conquered Provinces. And every man is esteemed to be of the same Nation his Father was, and in which he has placed the Seat of his Fortunes and Hopes after [passed down by] his Father and Ancestors.19 The sole consideration, That a man was born in this or that Country [locus], will hardly be allowed to make a man of a different Nation from his Father; |[unless we can [really] believe, that if the present King of Sweden had been born in Prussia, he had to have been esteemed a Prussian, and not a Swede]|.c Nor was that part of Germany which lieth on the West of the Rhine, esteemed a part of France, till under Charles the Great it was united to that Kingdom: [And in the first times that followed],d when his Posterity had divided their Ancestor’s Dominions amongst them, the Historians [also] frequently [begin to] distinguish between the Latin or Western France, and the German or Eastern France, which is the same with [Greater] Germany:e And it is observed [Although it seems], that after the times of the Otho’s,20 that name of Germany, by degrees, grew out of use.
Tho’ he used the German Tongue.
The objection made on the account of the use of the German Language by Charles the Great, may be thus easily answered. The Gauls having been long subject to the Romans, by degrees lost their own Tongue, and embraced that of their Conquerors; so that at last there were scarce any footsteps of the old Celtick left amongst <9> them: But then the Franks [, when they entered Gaul,] brought their German [Teutonicam] Tongue along with them, and without doubt did not presently forget it. But then, as the Franks neither destroyed nor expelled the [ancient] Gauls; but only assumed the Government and Soveraignity of the Country, [from whence it]a came to pass, that those who were descended of the Franks, were employed in the great Affairs, and the [ancient] Gauls, as a conquered People, were kept under. But then as two Rivers of different colour, uniting in one stream, may for some time preserve each his proper colour, [but at length the greater stream will certainly change the lesser into its own colour];b so in the beginning the Gauls had their Tongue, and the Franks theirs, till in length of time a third was made out of both mixed and twisted together, in which yet the Latin is the predominant. The plain cause of which is, That the Gauls were more numerous than the Franks, and it was much harder for them to learn the German, than it was for the Franks to learn the Gallick Latin{; for with what difficulty Foreigners learn the German Tongue, I my self know by experience}. From hence it proceeds, that [the most ancient Writers of this Nation]c call the vulgar Latin the Rustick or Countryman’s Tongue, because the Nobility and Gentry still used the German, whilst the Countrymen and the rest of the [ancient] Gauls had no knowledge of any other than the Latin. And thus we see it is in our own times, in Livonia and Curland, where the old Inhabitants are by the Germans <10> reduced into the condition of meer Rusticks; for all the Nobility, and the Inhabitants of the Cities, speak the Sclavonian [rusticanam] Tongue, and the German, but the Countrymen do scarce understand one German word of ten.
Thus Charles the Great might easily understand the German Tongue, because the Franks, [who were a German Nation,]+ had not quite laid aside the use of it; and also because the Franks, before his time, had conquered a great part of Germany, and he went on with the work, and reduced all the rest under his Dominion. Nor was it possible in that unlearned Age to converse with the Germans in any other than their own Language.
|[But then he that observes, that [here] there is [are] two very different Questions confounded into one [by most people], will very accurately determine this Controversie]|;a for if the Question be, Whether Charles the Great were of a Gallick or a German Original? without doubt it will be answered, That he was not a Gaul but a German, or which is all one, a FRANK. But if the Question be, [What Countryman]b he was? France [Gallia], and not Germany, is to be assigned him, and therefore in this respect he was no German, but a Gaul, or [rather a] Gallo-Frank.
{I fear I shall make the Reader think I take him for a stupid person, if I should dwell any longer on so plain a thing; and yet I will presume to give the Germans a known example:} If you fall upon a Nobleman of Livonia [among them], and ask him what Countryman [cujas] he is, he will reply a Livonian, and not a German; but then, if you still insist, and ask him of what Lineage, <because Livonia is inhabited by two nationalities [duplex natio],> <11> he will say, he is descended of the Germans, and not of the Livonians.
The Titles of Charles the Great to his several Dominions.
7. This Prince (Charles the Great) had under him divers Nations [regiones], which he had acquired by very different Titles: He enjoy’d France as his Inheritance, devolved to him from his Father by [right of] Succession. For though we read in their Histories, that the ancient Franks had lodged in the Nobility and People of that Nation, some Authority in the constituting their Kings; yet I conceive, it was rather [like] a solemn Ina[u]guration, and an acknowledgment of their Loyalty and Obedience to the new King, than a Free Election;21 for they rarely departed from the Order of a Lineal [sanguinis] Succession, but when there were Factions, or the next Heir in the Line was wholly unfit for Government.
A part of Germany was, before this time, united [by Conquest]+ to the Crown of France, and the rest of it was subdued by the victorious Arms of Charles the Great. Whether any part of this Country freely and willingly submitted to him out of Reverence to his Greatness, is very uncertain. He also by his Arms conquered the Kingdom of the Lombards in Italy, the Pope of Rome affording him a Pretence for it; after which, he was by the Pope and People of Rome saluted Emperor of Rome, and Augustus. Now, what he gain’d by this Title, we shall by and by inform you.22
Germany a part of the Kingdom of France.
8. Thus, under Charles the Great, Germany became a part of the Kingdom of France,