GINN NGS A lODERN El ROPEAN s, The power of Charles the Great's successors was undermined by the growing independence of the magnates, particularly of those who held the offices of count or of margrave. These ollives,. as well as the domains that went with them, coining to be regarded as fiefs, and, like other fiefs, were becoming hereditary. Sonic magnates whose feudal authority extended over many coun tries were coming to be called dukes. In the German territories some of these dukes ruled whole tribes, like the Bavarians and the Saxons, and were in a sense successors of the tribal kings whom the Franks had suppressed. The great prelates, too, were becoming independent, and in many cases bishops and abbots received the secu lar powers of counts. The Empire was weakened also by the attacks of Slays and other barbarians on its eastern frontier, of Arabs in Italy, and of Scandinavian pirates on all its coasts. The im mediate cause, however, of the disruption of the Empire was the right of all the sons of the Frankish King to succeed to the royal authority. In order to maintain as far as possible the unity of the Empire. a compromise was proposed: Ar rangements were made by which each son should receive as King a part of the Empire. but a larger part with a superior authority should go to the eldest son as Emperor. Wars; followed, and in these the old Frankish principle triumphed. In 843 the Empire was divided into three approxi mately equal shares. (See VERDUN, TREATY OF.) Although this division lasted but twenty-seven years, the name of the middle kingdom, Lotharin gia, still survives in the modern Lorraine. Some forty years after the partition of Verdun. all the Carolingian territories were for a short time re united under Charles the Fat; but after 887, when Charles the Fat was deposed. France and Germany were permanently separated: there were two independent Burgundian kingdoms and there was a separate but not a united Italy. In the north of Italy there were kings. some of whom were crowned emperors; in the middle were the possessions of the Papacy; in the south Lom bards, Greeks, and Arabs were fighting for su premacy. In France and in Germany descendants of Charles the Great reigned for a time; hut in the tenth century other Icings, not of the Carolin gian stock, were set up by the territorial mag nates. Of these new kingdoms Germany was by far the strongest. The pirates were beaten off from its coasts, and the Panes were pushed back into .Jutland. The Hungarians. who had kept central Europe in turmoil during the first half of the tenth century, were defeated and confined to the territory which they still occupy. The Slavic kingdom of Poland recognized Ger man suzerainty; the Slavic peoples of Bohemia and Carinthia were incorporated into Germany. The debatable land to the west of the Rhine (Lor raine) and the greater part of Italy were brought under the overlordship of the German kings in the tenth century: Burgundy was annexed in the eleventh. With the re4stablishment of German authority in Italy (0(12) the German kings as sumed the Imperial title. See HOLY ROMAN
EMPIRE.
Second only to Germany's influence dnring these centuries was that of the Scandinavians. In the latter half of the ninth century the Swede Rurik established among the eastern Slays the kingdom which became Russia. and the Danes conquered nearly half of England. In the tenth century the Norsemen obtained possession of a part of northern France. founding there the Duchy of Normandy. In the first half of the eleventh century the Danish King emit reigned for a few years orer a northern empire which in cluded all England and the greater part of Scan dinavia; and England escaped from the rule of the Danes only to fall, within a score of years, under that of the Normans. In the same century wandering Norman knights gained control of southern Italy and Sicily. (See NORMANS; VA R.ANGIANS GUISCARD.) Of all the national States that were in process of formation at the dose of the eleventh century, England alone had a strong central government, and this only after the Norman Conquest. France and Germany each had a king, but the king was only the first among his peers; the real power was in the hands of the great nobles and prelates. The same was true in Italy, and in the Christian States that were taking form in northern Spain; and in neither of these countries was there even the nominal unity of a single national kingship. In Spain and in Italy, however, as in France, separate and fairly homogeneous nationalities were developing. Goths and Franks, Burg,undians and Lombards had intermarried with the Roman provincials and had adopted their speech ; and on the basis of the vulgar Latin of each province, new national languages had already been formed. The Scandi navian conquerors also, who came five centuries later, lost their racial identity and became French in France, Italians • in Italy, Slays in Russia. In all the larger countries of western and southern Europe, however, there were marked local differences in dialect and in cus toms, and broader differences between the north ern and southern districts. In general, through out the Middle Ages, national feeling was weak. The strongest ties were those of locality and of class, and the classes were not national, but Euro pean. At the close of the eleventh century the peoples of northern and eastern Europe were coining under the influence of Christian civiliza tion. The only important regions not already reclaimed from heathenism at the end of the cen tury were those south and east of the Baltic. in habited by Pomeranians, Prussians, Lithuanians, Livnnians, etc. The Scandinavians, the Western Slays (Poles and Bohemians), and the Hunga rians received Christianity from the Roman Church, and were thus drawn into the West-Euro pean body of nations. The Seryians, Bulgarians., and Russians, on the other hand, were converted by Greek missionaries, and constitute to this day, with the Greeks, a distinct East-European group.