People of endemic European extraction are classified as Caucasoid, thought to have originated in the Caucasus between the Caspian and Black Seas, spreading through Europe in pre-history.
By the 3rd millennium BC they had developed into the Beaker People, developing in the Lower Rhine. Subsistence farmers who drank from inverted-bell shaped vessels, they are thought to be the last to work on megalithic sites such as Stonehenge.
EARLY PEOPLES
Using copper for weapons, they buried their dead in earth mounds. Further migrations came, of Celts and Gauls. Adopting iron, they were gifted craftsmen and ferocious fighters.
From about 2500BC further migrations began from Scandinavia – what the Romans called the ‘womb of nations’. They spoke a common derivation of language known as Indo-European, which, much earlier than the Caucasus migrations, had sent people into Europe and India.
Latin comes from this group of languages, and has similarities to Sanskrit in India. From the 5th century AD, elements of this group of peoples became known as Germanic, and formed the thrust of the barbarian migrations that over-ran Rome and populated Europe.
MYTHOLOGY
These people had a rich mythology. When Romans invaded Britain they discovered the Celtic Druids, shaman-like priests who worshipped trees, animism still important to tribal peoples.
The Germanic tribes who followed them retained this animism but had added new ideas, as detailed in Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson’s 13th century handbook ‘prose Edda.’
They worshipped Odin, the sky god who lived in Asgard at the top of the world-tree, in a great hall called Valhalla. When warriors were slain in battle, divine maidens, Valkyries, carried their souls to Valhalla.
Odin’s son was Thor, god of thunder, who defended men from demons. Odin’s wife was Freya, goddess of love and hearth. Here we have man, the glorious warrior, and woman, the basis of society with her role in love and the home.
An earlier Anglo-Saxon Odin was Woden, and these gods give us our days – Wednesday (Woden), Thursday (Thor) and Friday (Freya). The O1d English epic poem Beowulf predates the Saxons and tells the story of a warrior slaying the monster Grendel and becoming king.
Such mythologies speak of a fierce warrior race who glorify death in battle as they fight the animism of nature. And when we look at later stories such as St George slaying the Dragon, we can see how such pagan mythologies filtered into the Christian ideal.
KING ARTHUR
This is best seen in King Arthur, most likely a remembrance of the Celt’s struggle against the Saxons in the 5th century, but formulating in the late Medieval into the story we know, depicted in ‘Morte d’Arthur’ by Sir Thomas Malory.
Becoming king by grasping a magic sword, Arthur transforms the people and land through heroism in battle and wisdom in taking up Christianity. Earlier he is pagan, influenced by Merlin, but is turned to Christ by his search for human perfection in the Holy Grail.
It is the story of the Christianisation of Europe, taking with it the pagan ideal of the warrior. Finally, Arthur is laid to rest in Avalon, a new Valhalla , where he becomes Christ-like and ready to return when needed.
The legend laid the basis of Medieval chivalry, a Christianity tied to its pre-Christian warrior culture, infused with Christian purpose. It was to be a potent, world-changing force.
FLEDGLING NATIONS
The Germanic migrations brought about the Dark Ages, between the fall of Rome and the instigation of a clear, Christianised Europe which heralded the Middle Ages. And in their movements, the peoples of modern Europe were defined.
The Celts had been conquered by the Romans, pushed to the western fringes of Ireland Wales, Scotland and Brittany. The Slavs, known to the Romans as the Scythians, moved in to south east Europe, with the Magyars moving from Russia to Hungary in the 9th century.
The Huns caused havoc in present-day Germany before being driven into the Indian sub-continent. In North Africa, the Vandals became predominant, whilst a whole series of Germanic kingdoms were set up in western Europe – the Visigoths in Spain, Ostrogoths and Lombards in northern Italy, the Franks in France and western Germany, and the Anglo-Saxons in England.
THE VIKINGS
One final Germanic migration came from the 8th – 12th centuries. A warrior race with poetic mythologies and their famous longships, these were the Scandinavian traders and pirates known as the Vikings.
Believed to have discovered Newfoundland in Canada (Vinland), they invaded Ireland and Britain, raided coastal continental Europe, fought the Arabs in the Mediterranean and sailed down the rivers of Russia.
Often bought off to save conflict, they settled in two non-Scandinavian areas, northern England and Normandy in France, their descendants becoming the Normans.
MISSIONARIES
Prior to this migration, Ireland was converted to Christianity by St Patrick about 454AD. Relatively free from invasion, a distinctly Celtic Church arose, producing the ‘Book of Kells’, an illuminated manuscript of the gospels.
Monastic and evangelical, this beacon of Christianity sent out missionaries to convert the pagan Germanic tribes. These included St Columba who went to Scotland, and St Columbanus who travelled through France and northern Italy.
Gaining in influence, the Celtic Church differed from Roman Catholicism and to combat the trend, Gregory sent St Augustine to England. With 40 monks, he landed at Thanet and eventually converted Ethelbert, king of Kent, to Christianity. Given a residence at Canterbury, he became its first Archbishop.
EARLY ENGLAND
By 664 a synod was held at Whitby in present-day Yorkshire, the Roman system being accepted and the Celtic Church absorbed. However, in 793 the Vikings sacked the monastery at Lindisfarne, beginning their invasion. England became split between the Danish Danelaw to the north and Anglo-Saxon Wessex to the south.
In 871 Alfred the Great became king of Wessex, forming a standing army and network of fortified centres to stave off further losses. However, he also translated many Latin works into an early English language.
Beginning a great revival of religion and learning, he allied nationalism with the greater cause of God, pulling people together as a nation, subjugating the Danelaw, and leading to a unified England.
One important system also arose at this time with the Witan, meaning ‘moot’, or meeting. Made up of local dignitaries and bishops, this gathering guaranteed that no king would have absolute power.
Discussing matters of taxation, law, defence and foreign policy, succession itself could be disagreed by the Witan. Tying the duties of the king to the people, it signified the beginning of future Parliamentary systems of government.
© Anthony North, July 2007
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