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Farther north and to the east was a tribe of people who were considered by both the Romans and the Germanic tribes to be very fierce. They were called Huns. They lived far off in the eastern forests, in a part of the world that no one then knew much about.
Even the Germans themselves, fierce fighters though they were, feared the Huns, and it was chiefly because they were afraid of them and wanted to get away from them as far as they could that the Germans went over the borders into the Roman Empire. It was much easier to fight the Romans than it was to fight the Huns.
The leader of the Huns, named Attila, boasted that nothing ever grew again where his horse had trod. He and his Huns had conquered and laid waste the country all the way from the East almost to Paris. At last a Roman-Germanic army made a stand against them and fought a great battle at a place not so very far from Paris, a place called Châlons.
The Germans fought desperately; they fought madly; and the Huns were beaten. It was lucky they were beaten, for if they had won, these wild barbarians might have conquered and ruled the world. So the battle of Châlons, 451 A.D., is written in history in capital letters and large figures—CHÂLONS, 451.
After Attila and his Huns had been beaten at Châlons, they then went after the Romans. Turning back they went down into Italy, where there was no one able to stop them. They destroyed everything as they moved on. The people of the country didn’t even attempt to fight. They thought the Huns were monsters and simply fled before them. On to Rome the Huns went.
Now, there was in Rome at this time a pope named Leo I which means Lion. Leo, of course, was neither a soldier nor a fighting man, but he and his cardinals and bishops went out from Rome to meet Attila. They were not clad in armor, and none of them carried any weapons with which to fight. The pope and those with him were dressed in gorgeous robes and richly colored garments. It seemed as if they must be slaughtered by Attila and his Huns like lambs before wolves.
Something strange happened when Attila and the pope met; exactly what no one knows. Perhaps Attila was awed by the pomp and splendor of those Christians. Perhaps he feared what heaven might do to him if he destroyed those holy beings who had come out to meet him as if from heaven. At any rate, he did not destroy them, nor did he enter Rome, but turned about and left Italy, left it for good and all, and he and his Huns returned to the unknown land to the north from which they had come.
Now that the dreaded Attila was out of the way, the Vandals in Africa saw their chance to attack Rome. Attila had barely left Italy before the Vandals crossed over from Africa and sailed up the Tiber to Rome. They captured the city without any difficulty, helped themselves to everything they wanted, and carried away all Rome’s treasures.
Poor old Rome! The Eternal City was at last beaten, beaten for good! It had been the champion for a great many years. But now all Rome’s strength was gone. The city was no longer able to defend itself. Rome’s last emperor had the high-sounding name Romulus Augustulus , the same name as the first king, Romulus, with the addition of Augustulus, which means the little Augustus. But in spite of his high-sounding name, Romulus Augustulus could do nothing.
It was in the year 476 that Rome was beaten. The western half of the empire, of which Rome had been the capital, broke up into pieces, and the pieces were ruled over by various Germanic rulers. Like Humpty Dumpty, Rome had had a great fall, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put it together again. Only the eastern part, of which Constantinople was the capital, still went on. This eastern half was not conquered by the barbarians, and it still kept going for nearly a thousand years longer until—but wait till we come to that time in history.
People speak of this date, 476, as the end of Ancient History. A date like 476 is very convenient and definite, and people like definite dates, but of course Ancient History didn’t come to a sudden end the way one year comes to an end on December 31 and another year begins at once. You might say that Ancient History began to fade away long before 476 and that a new era began to fade in over a long period of time both before and after 476. Still, 476 is a good date to remember.
This new era, called the Middle Ages or the medieval period, began, then, in 476 and lasted until 1453. What happened in 1453? You will learn that later.
During the early part of the Middle Ages, till, about the year 1000, the Germanic peoples were the chief people in Europe. They were quick to learn many things from the Romans whom they had conquered. Even before they had conquered Rome, most of them had already become Christians. They also learned Latin.
Without the unity of the Roman Empire, people no longer traveled very much or very far. This meant that people from places like Spain and Italy and Gaul didn’t talk to each other very often. Over the years they began to use different expressions and to pronounce words differently. As centuries passed, the common people no longer spoke the old classical Latin but spoke what were really the new languages of Spanish, Italian, and French. These were different from Latin and different from each other, too. However, because they all grew out of Latin, they have a lot of words that are very much alike.
In Britain, the Anglo-Saxons would have nothing to do with the Romans and would not use the Roman language but kept their own language. After a while this language of the Anglo-Saxons was called English. The Anglo-Saxons also kept their own religion until about one hundred years later, or about 600 A.D.
At that time some English slaves were being sold in the slave-market in Rome. They were very handsome. The pope saw them and asked who they were.
“They are Angles,” he was told.
“Angles!” exclaimed he, “They are handsome enough to be ‘angels,’and they should certainly be Christians.”
Rome sent some missionaries to England to convert the English: to change Angles to angels. So at last the English, too, became Christians.