THE FOUNDATIONS OF EUROPEAN UNITY The People.—Since prehistoric days the inhabitants of Europe have belonged to the same white race, whose branches are also to be found in western Asia and northern Africa. Anthropologists, in classifying the population of Europe according to anatomical characteristics, have distinguished three principal types living in three distinct zones : in southern Europe on the coasts of the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean type with very dark skin, black eyes and hair, and long heads (dolichocephalous) ; in central Europe the Alpine type with light brown skin, brown hair and eyes, and round heads (brachycephalous) ; and in northern Europe the tall Nordic type with white skin, golden hair, blue eyes and long heads. The peoples of Europe are essentially the products of the long cross breeding of these types; they show a mixture of the characteristics of each type, and individuals of a single pure type are rarely found except in small isolated groups. This min gling of characteristics remains the most typical characteristic of the European population. See RACES OF MANKIND.
From prehistoric days this people has possessed a common primitive civilization which, in its origin, goes back to the Neolithic age. Its principal occupation was the cultivation of crops and the raising of cattle; its cattle were used in the processes of cultiva tion, and their manure was used upon the fields. These primitive peoples grew wheat, rye and barley which have remained the staple foodstuffs in Europe until the end of the 1 gth century; their domestic animals—cows, sheep, pigs and goats—were the same as those of modern times.
The languages spoken throughout Europe, with the exception of Basque, are all derived from a mother-tongue (called by philol ogists Indo-European). This language can accurately be called European, for the Aryan languages outside this region, such as Iranian in Persia and the Indian Sanskrit, were those of peoples who passed from Europe into Asia.
Throughout Europe political organization developed along similar lines. The tribes were divided into small independent communities, each of which acknowledged the authority of war rior chiefs, whose office was nearly always hereditary but who were possessed of scanty material resources. No single chief was powerful enough to make his authority run throughout a wide territory, nor to compel his subjects to render to him the servile obedience shown to an oriental despot. Until the days of the Roman empire no great autocratic monarchy arose in Europe, but while maintaining the independence of their local sovereign ties, the European peoples preserved also a sense of unity among themselves and an interest in public affairs at a time when the Governments of the autocratic empires had destroyed the senti ments among the peoples of the East.
The possession of a common racial and linguistic origin and of similar customs and political institutions, created in the Euro • pean races certain common characteristics which facilitated the attainment of European unity. Not that the peoples could be alive to these profound affinities; as yet they showed no sense of brotherhood or solidarity. Each man saw an enemy in his nearest neighbour; war was a normal condition, not only between groups that differed one from another in customs and language (as for example, the Greeks, Thracians, Latins, Samnites, Gauls and Ger mans) but also, and even more frequently, between little neigh bouring tribes who were conscious of a common origin like the Spartans and Athenians, the Romans and the Albans, the Aedui and the Arverni.
The European peoples were brought together voluntarily by commerce and the spread of science and art, forcibly by military conquest and by the barbarian invasions. The unity of Europe had been prepared between the 5th century B.c. and the 8th cen tury A.D. by three great events : the diffusion of Greek culture throughout the Mediterranean seaboard; the establishment of the Roman domination, first in the Roman empire and, later, in the Roman Church ; and the invasion of the Germanic barbarians, which destroyed the social and political organization of the empire.
Greek civilization, preceded from the 18th to the 15th century B.c. by the Aegean civilization, was estab lished between the 6th and 4th century B.C. in the Greek cities as a result of the reaction of the Greek intellect on the material culture or the old civilizations of Egypt and Asia. It reached its widest extent from the 3rd to the 1st century B.C. in the Hellen ized kingdoms founded by the successors of Alexander the Great. It was this later civilization known as Hellenism, and not the pure Greek civilization, that gradually spread over the Roman empire and hence throughout Europe. It was, above all, of an intellectual character and it was in the spheres of art and science that it left its most permanent traces upon European civilization. For example, in all European languages, as spoken in the loth century, words derived from the Greek are still used for many forms of art— music, poetry, lyric, epic, tragedy, comedy, drama, theatre; while the same is true of scientific terms—mathematics, arithmetic, geometry, mechanics, astronomy, physics, optics, chemistry, biology, botany, geology, philosophy, rhetoric, grammar ; and also of mental science—method, logic, dialectic, critic, empiric, autopsy. The whole of modern science is permeated with the Hellenic spirit—the spirit of reason, observation and criticism, and free from the trammels of religious mysticism and tradition, which have killed the intellectual life of other peoples.
Having conquered the Mediterranean peoples and those on the shores of the Atlantic, the Romans sub jected them to a permanent domination known by the significant term Imperium (military authority) . The Roman empire in the 2nd century A.D. extended throughout northern Africa and western Asia, and in Europe over all the Mediterranean countries, and over Spain, France and southern Britain. Throughout its immense ex tent inter-tribal warfare was stopped and the pax romana estab lished, while, as a defence against the still barbarian peoples, it maintained permanent garrisons along the entire length of its frontiers, marked in Europe by the Rhine and the Danube. It is true that the greater part of Europe remained outside the empire, but this external region was only thinly populated by barbarian tribes—Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, Austria and Russia. The whole civilized and settled part of Europe was united under a unique authority, which lasted for three centuries, and accustomed the whole population to a single political and social organization. The empire, although becoming little by little an autocratic centralized monarchy, yet left a large local autonomy to the cities that were governed after the Roman model by a local aristocracy of landed proprietors. But the continuous action of the central power, exercised by his delegates in the name of the emperor, ended by bringing the whole of Europe within the same economic, political and legal civilization which, under the name of Roman, was an international conflation of the customs and ideas of all the peoples of antiquity.
Roman civilization survived the empire and became a common European possession. It survived in the Latin language, which in its vulgar form gave birth to all the Romance languages (Italian, Provencal, French, Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan, Rumanian) and in its literary form survived until the 17th century as the common intellectual tongue of Europe. It survived in political terminology where words of Latin origin are still used (suffrage, scrutiny, vote). It survived in the language of building construction—mortar, arch, door, bridge, road (strata), castle (castellum). It further endowed Europe with a system of weights and measures and a currency based on the combined employment of gold and silver, and it gave her a calendar, oriental in origin but reformed by Caesar, and hence known as the Julian calendar, containing the names of the 12 months and the seven days of the week, which in the Romance lands still preserves the memory of the Roman gods, Mars, Mer cury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, for some of which were substi tuted in the Teutonic countries the names of the Germanic gods, Woden, Thor and Freya.
But the principal gift of Roman civilization to Europe has been the system of Roman law (q.v.), a system very different from that of the old tribal law of the Roman people, for it arose from the precedents created by the Roman judges charged with trying the suits of foreigners in Rome. Hence it became a kind of inter national law, derived from the mingling of the legal customs of the civilized peoples of the whole empire, elaborated and organ ized into a legal system in the 3rd century A.D. by the Roman jurists who were disciples of the Greek philosophers. This Roman law, permeated by the Greek spirit, rational, logical, lucid, precise, humane, which has sometimes been designated la raison ecrite, has been preserved in the Roman countries in the guise of cus tomary law, while it has been adopted by the Germanic peoples in the form of written law. Above all, it has become in questions of ownership and contract the source of the principle of common law throughout Europe.
Despite its extent, the Roman empire was a single State form ing a single political entity under the authority of a single emperor. At the end of the 3rd century A.D., Diocletian, finding that the task of defending the frontiers was too arduous for one man, invited the assistance of a colleague, and the two emperors divided up between them the task of government without, however, destroying the essential unity of the empire. When he became sole emperor, Constantine transferred the seat of government to Byzantium which became Constantinople (q.v.). After the death of Theodosius in 395 the empire was divided between his two sons, and although its unity was maintained in official language, the division became permanent. Henceforth there were two emperors : the one in Italy who ruled over the Latin-speaking countries ; the other in Constantinople who ruled over the Greek speaking countries. The Balkan peninsula, which became attached to the Byzantine empire, was from that time cut off from Europe; it remained separated until the i9th century.
It was under the Roman empire that the Christian religion, which was born in Asia, penetrated into Europe. Christianity had been organized in the Greek-speaking countries of the Near East ; "Christ" and "Christians" are Greek words, and its sacred books were written in Greek. Moreover, its teaching, elaborated by the doctors and synods of Asia Minor, was called by a Greek name—dogma. Christian institutions and officers in the Christian Church bore Greek titles—baptism, catechism, hymn, eucharist, church, synod, diocese, alms, parish, bishop, priest, deacon—words which still endure in popular forms in the European languages. So long as it was opposed by the official authorities, Christianity did not make many converts in Europe outside the towns, at least among the Greek-speaking peoples. A very large majority of the popula tion, especially the peasants, remained unaffected by it. It was not until the emperor had declared himself a Christian that the mass of his subjects followed his example, at first voluntarily, and later by his command. Before the end of the 4th century Christianity had become obligatory and the old pagan cults were forbidden. The priesthood had become an official body and formed part of the officialdom of the empire. The Church was organized within the framework of the empire and a bishop was appointed to each city. The Church adopted the Roman procedure and the official lan guage of the empire, namely Latin ; it became a Latin Church.
Christianity, as a religion strange to Europe and of urban origin, was for long confined to the towns, and only very gradually penetrated into the depths of the country districts. An ignorant population was not interested in assimilating doctrines inspired by the spirit of Eastern Hellenism and far too subtle for their comprehension. While they adopted the Christian rites they pre served old pagan customs in the form of the cult of local sanctu aries and of pilgrimages to holy places where miraculous cures were effected. The clergy themselves were little interested in theological studies. But, at least after the disappearance of the empire, it was they who maintained in Europe the memory and the love of Roman unity.
The inhabitants of central Europe, loosely attached to the soil, which they cultivated with difficulty, now and then emigrated with their families towards the south and sought to obtain lands from the Roman authorities, either by persuasion or by force. Until the 4th century, Roman leaders had always been successful in repelling these invasions. But it became increasingly difficult to maintain the strength and to pay the armies that defended the frontiers of the empire, both because silver had become too scarce to be used as pay and because the citizens of the empire had become unsuited for the profession of arms. In order to recruit its armies the empire took into its serv ice bands of barbarian warriors; little by little the imperial armies became filled with such soldiers to such an extent that the word barbarus became synonymous with miles (a soldier). In the 5th century the armies were commanded by barbarian chiefs like Arbogast, Stilicho, Aetius, Ricimer. Certain barbarian peoples who had entered nominally into the service of the emperor, finally ended by establishing themselves within the empire ; their chiefs, who bore the title of kings, conducted themselves as sovereigns ; but there always remained an emperor in Italy. This confusion lasted for at least ioo years.
The year 376 has often been taken as marking the beginning of the barbarian invasions which opened in the history of Europe ; a period known as the middle ages. In that year the Visigoths, fleeing before the Huns (q.v.) took refuge on the south side of the Danube, within the frontiers of the empire. At the battle of Adrianople of 378, in which the emperor Valens was killed, they destroyed a great Roman army. In 41 o Alaric, their king, captured and sacked Rome. Then they passed on into Gaul, where their king, establishing himself in Toulouse, extended his power over Spain.
Other Teutonic races invaded the empire by way of the Rhine. The Vandals (q.v.) crossing Spain, at first established themselves in Andalusia, and later passed over into Africa, where their king established his capital at Carthage. The Burgundians, established in Savoy, in 435 extended their power over the country on the east bank of the Rhone. The Franks (q.v.), who owed allegiance to numerous petty kings, overran the north-eastern part of Gaul. German tribes coming from the shores of the North sea, Jutes, Saxons and Angles, settled in the south and east of Britain.
In 476, Odovocar, the leader of the Barbarian war riors of the Imperial Guard, decided against the creation of an emperor, and returned the imperial insignia to the Eastern em peror. The European territory of the empire was divided up be tween the Germanic kings, among whom succession by right of primogeniture was customary. These lordships, scarcely meriting the name of States, differed in extent, according to the fortunes of war and the changes within the ruling families. The most ex tensive were those of the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Visigoths in Spain (see GoTHs), the Vandals in Africa and the Franks in Gaul. The most enduring was the kingdom of the Franks, founded by Clovis (q.v.), 486-511, which was handed down for more than two centuries in the Merovingian family, which ruled all Gaul except Languedoc, and even exerted its authority beyond the Rhine over certain tribes, in Germany. In the 6th century the emperor Jus tinian (q.v.) destroyed the Vandal and Ostrogoth kingdoms and re-established the imperial suzerainty in Africa and Italy. But a Germanic people, the Lombards (q.v.), overthrew it again in 568 and established their power in northern Italy and in Tuscany up to• the walls of Rome.
In the 7th century a barbarian people of different origin—the Arabs—united under the religious and military com mand of the prophet' Mohammed (q.v.), rapidly conquered north ern Africa and western Asia, then Spain and a part of southern Gaul reaching to the Rhone. Out of this conquest arose the Arab empire, which developed an eastern civilization called Arabian, unified by the Mohammedan religion, and the Arabic language and literature. Henceforth the unity of the Mediterranean world was finally broken ; Africa and Mohammedan Asia remained cut off from Christian Europe. (See also ARABIA ; CALIPHATE; ISLAM;
