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any writers in western Europe during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries.

      A long period of gloom now begins. Between the time of Theodoric and that of Charlemagne three hundred years elapsed, during which scarcely a writer was to be found who could compose, even in the worst of Latin, a chronicle of the events of his day.[15] Everything conspired to discourage education. The great centers of learning—Carthage, Rome, Alexandria, Milan—were partially destroyed by the barbarians or the Arabs. The libraries which had been kept in the temples of the gods were often annihilated, along with the pagan shrines, by Christian enthusiasts, who were not sorry to see the heathen literature disappear with the heathen religion. Shortly after Theodoric's death the eastern emperor withdrew the support which the government had hitherto granted to public teachers and closed the great school at Athens. The only important historian of the sixth century was the half-illiterate Gregory, Bishop of Tours (d. 594), whose whole work is unimpeachable evidence of the sad state of intellectual affairs. He at least heartily appreciated his own ignorance and exclaims, in incorrect Latin, "Woe to our time, for the study of letters has perished from among us."

      Justinian destroys the kingdoms of the Vandals and the East Goths.

      12. The year after Theodoric's death one of the greatest of the emperors of the East, Justinian (527–565), came to the throne at Constantinople.[16] He undertook to regain for the Empire the provinces in Africa and Italy that had been occupied by the Vandals and East Goths. His general, Belisarius, overthrew the Vandal kingdom in northern Africa in 534, but it was a more difficult task to destroy the Gothic rule in Italy. However, in spite of a brave defense, the Goths were so completely defeated in 553 that they agreed to leave Italy with all their movable possessions. What became of the remnants of the race we do not know. They had been too few to maintain their control over the mass of the Italians, who were ready, with a religious zeal which cost them dear, to open their gates to the hostile armies of Justinian.

      The Lombards occupy Italy.

      The destruction of the Gothic kingdom was a disaster for Italy. Immediately after the death of Justinian the country was overrun anew, by the Lombards, the last of the great German peoples to establish themselves within the bounds of the former Empire. They were a savage race, a considerable part of which was still pagan, and the Arian Christians among them appear to have been as hostile to the Roman Church as their unconverted fellows. The newcomers first occupied the region north of the Po, which has ever since been called Lombardy after them, and then extended their conquests southward. Instead of settling themselves with the moderation and wise statesmanship of the East Goths, the Lombards chose to move about the peninsula pillaging and massacring. Such of the inhabitants as could, fled to the islands off the coast. The Lombards were unable, however, to conquer all of Italy. Rome, Ravenna, and southern Italy continued to be held by the Greek empire. As time went on, the Lombards lost their wildness, accepted the orthodox form of Christianity, and gradually assimilated the civilization of the people among whom they lived. Their kingdom lasted over two hundred years, until it was overthrown by Charlemagne.

      The Franks; their importance and their method of conquest.

      13. None of the German peoples of whom we have so far spoken, except the Franks, ever succeeded in establishing a permanent kingdom. Their states were overthrown in turn by some other German nation, by the Eastern Empire, or, in the case of the West-Gothic kingdom in Spain, by the Mohammedans. The Franks, to whom we must now turn, were destined not only to conquer most of the other German tribes but even to extend their boundaries into districts inhabited by the Slavs.

      When the Franks are first heard of in history they were settled along the lower Rhine, from Cologne to the North Sea. Their method of getting a foothold in the Empire was essentially different from that which the Goths, Lombards, and Vandals had adopted. Instead of severing their connection with Germany and becoming an island in the sea of the Empire, they conquered by degrees the territory about them. However far they might extend their control, they remained in constant touch with the barbarian reserves behind them. In this way they retained the warlike vigor that was lost by the races who were completely surrounded by the enervating influences of Roman civilization.

      In the early part of the fifth century they had occupied the district which constitutes to-day the kingdom of Belgium, as well as the regions east of it. In 486, seven years before Theodoric founded his Italian kingdom, they went forth under their great king, Clovis (a name that later grew into Louis), and defeated the Roman general who opposed them. They extended their control over Gaul as far south as the Loire, which at that time formed the northern boundary of the kingdom of the West Goths. Clovis then enlarged his empire on the east by the conquest of the Alemanni, a German people living in the region of the Black Forest.[17]

       A Frankish Warrior

      Conversion of Clovis, 496, and its consequences.

      The battle in which the Alemanni were defeated (496) is in one respect important above all the other battles of Clovis. Although still a pagan himself, his wife was an orthodox Christian convert. In the midst of the conflict, as he saw his line giving way, he called upon Jesus Christ and pledged himself to be baptized in His name if He would help the Franks to victory over their enemies. He kept his word and was baptized together with three thousand of his warriors. His conversion had the most momentous consequences for Europe. All the other German peoples within the Empire were Christians, but they were all Arian heretics; and to the orthodox Christians about them they seemed worse than heathen. This religious difference had prevented the Germans and Romans from inter-marrying and had retarded their fusion in other ways. But with the conversion of Clovis, there was at least one barbarian leader with whom the Bishop of Rome could negotiate as with a faithful son of the Church. It is from the orthodox Gregory of Tours that most of our knowledge of Clovis and his successors is derived. In Gregory's famous History of the Franks, the cruel and unscrupulous king appears as God's chosen instrument for the extension of the Catholic faith.[18] Certainly Clovis quickly learned to combine his own interests with those of the Church, and the alliance between the pope and the Frankish kings was destined to have a great influence upon the history of western Europe.

      Conquests of Clovis.

      To the south of Clovis' new acquisitions in Gaul lay the kingdom of the Arian West Goths, to the southeast that of another heretical German people, the Burgundians. Gregory of Tours reports him as saying: "I cannot bear that these Arians should be in possession of a part of Gaul. Let us advance upon them with the aid of God; after we have conquered them let us bring their realms into our power." So zealous was the newly converted king that he speedily extended his power to the Pyrenees, and forced the West Goths to confine themselves to the Spanish portion of their realm. The Burgundians became a tributary nation and soon fell completely under the rule of the Franks. Then Clovis, by a series of murders, brought portions of the Frankish nation itself, which had previously been independent of him, under his scepter.

      Character of Frankish history.

      14. When Clovis died in 511 at Paris, which he had made his residence, his four sons divided his possessions among them. Wars between rival brothers, interspersed with the most horrible murders, fill the annals of the Frankish kingdom for over a hundred years after the death of Clovis. Yet the nation continued to develop in spite of the unscrupulous deeds of its rulers. It had no enemies strong enough to assail it, and a certain unity was preserved in spite of the ever-shifting distribution of territory among the members of the royal house.[19]

      Extent of the Frankish kingdoms in the sixth century.

      The Frankish kings succeeded in extending their power over pretty nearly all the territory that is included to-day in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, as well as over a goodly portion of western Germany. By 555, when Bavaria had become tributary to the Frankish rulers, their dominions extended from the Bay of Biscay to a point east of Salzburg. Considerable districts that the Romans had never succeeded in conquering had been brought into the developing civilization of western Europe.

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