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Throughout the peninsula the old Roman institutions were rather quickly abandoned and among the first to be dispensed with were those of law and medicine. For some reason not entirely clear, non-clerical physicians just ceased to exist. The Benedictine monks encouraged care of the sick but only through prayer could cure come, so St. Benedict forbade the study of medicine. (Ref. 49 , 125 )

Central europe

Germany and austria

The Slavic Wends had pushed into Germany as far as the Elbe River. West of the Elbe and Saal rivers were the surviving German tribes in the following locations, each retaining its own identity:

(a) Saxons in the north central region.

(b) East Franks along the lower Rhine.

(c) Thuringians between the Saxons and Franks.

(d) Marcomanni (Bavarians) along the middle Danube. They had migrated from Bohemia in this 6th century into an area of collapsing Ostrogoths.

(e) Suevi (Swabians) along and between the upper Rhine and upper Danube and along the northern Alps.

Of these tribes, the Franks were culturally of the greatest significance. Reinhardt (Ref. 177 ) says that this culture stands out as the fountainhead and pattern of the future German civilization. There is some disagreement concerning the language changes. Wells (Ref. 229 ) writes that the Franks were akin to the Anglo-Saxons in speaking a "low German" which later developed into Dutch and Flemish, but Reinhardt does not agree, stating that the Franks, Alemanni and Bavarians from A.D. 500 to 800 had the high German sound shift ("p" to "pf" or "f"; "t" to "ts", "z" or "s"; and "k" to "ch"), while Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, Flemish (Walloon) kept the original low or north German sounds. Clovis ruled the Franks until 511 and more about this dynasty will be found below under FRANCE.

By A.D. 560, Clovis' sons and grandsons had extended Frankish rule to take over dominance of Thuringia, Bavaria, Rhaetia and Alamannia in Germany as well as the Burgundian kingdom in Switzerland and southern France. There was little displacement of the native popuIations, however, and German and French developed as separate languages while the government remained in the hands of bishops and counts from the old Gallo-Roman aristocracy. The real power, however, remained with the Frankish army.

The migrating and raiding Avars (See HUNGARY and CENTRAL AND NORTHERN ASIA, this chapter) came in contact with the Franks on the Elbe in 562 at which time the Avar Khanate was perhaps one-half as large in north-south and east-west dimensions as the previous Hun Empire, but by A.D. 600 the Avars domain was almost as great as the Hunnish one, as they took over Hungary and most of Austria from the Gepids and the Lombards. By this time the Marcomanni had also reached lower Austria.

It is of some interest that falconry, although known from the Persian court as far back as 400 B.C., was really perfected in Europe by the Visigoths and Franks and became an important part of the hunting culture as well as an aristocratic pastime. (Ref. 122 )

Hungary

History does repeat itself in Hungary. Just as the Huns had previously set up headquarters in Hungary now a new war band, fleeing from upheavals in central Asia and known as "Avars", established themselves on the Hungarian plain and launched raids far and wide, pushing the Lombards into Italy, the Slavs into the Balkans and allowing the Bulgars (another nomad tribe) to come along the lower Danube. These Avars, who raided Constantinople as well as western Europe from this base, were a mixture of Mongolian Juan Juan, pushed west by the Blue Turks, and various nomad Turkish or Hunnish tribes which they had picked up on their journey through northern Iran and the Russian steppe. (Ref. 8 )

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Source:  OpenStax, A comprehensive outline of world history. OpenStax CNX. Nov 30, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10595/1.3
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