18.3 Europe: a.d. 301 to 400  (Page 4/6)

By the end of this century, although written Latin had not changed its appearance, spoken Latin had developed a new sound pattern. Stressed vowels were drawled; unstressed vowels were dulled, weakened and often dropped. As the great civilization which had been unified by the Latin language collapsed, what Freeman Dyson (Ref. 56 ) calls a "clade" of new Latin-derived languages - French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and a few lesser ones, grew and developed in relatively rapid fashion. At most, 20 generations separate unified Roman Europe from the Europe of well-established local languages. (Ref. 168 , 56 )

Central europe

This century saw the beginning of "Die Volkerwanderungen", meaning "peoples' migrations". The Alemans were on the upper Rhine while the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians were along the North Sea. The Vandals, related to the Goths, were on the upper reaches of the Oder River moving (or perhaps being pushed by Goths) from the area of modern Prussia and possibly Denmark, south to the Danube in the area of Pannonia, a portion of modern Hungary. The Lombards lived between the Oder and Vistula in modern Poland and also on the lower Elbe in Germany. The Burgundians drifted westward to the Main River and the Thuringians held their ancient, central position in Bavaria and northward. All these tribes for the most part were antagonistic to each other.

In the early 370s Ostrogoths, led by Athanaric, migrated from the Balkans into Pannonia and after the Fritigen led Ostrogoths had their great victory at Adrianople, they also plundered Pannonia. The Huns were following closely and they set up camps in Pannonia also by 378, enslaving the Gepids (related to the Goths) in the process. The Huns with their flocks now occupied pasture land extending from the Caspian Sea to Hungary. In 383 Juthungi Germans invaded Austria, perhaps with permission of Maximus, but in 384 Hunnic horsemen rode through them on their way to Gaul. General Bauto, of the Roman forces, persuaded the Huns to attack the Germans and they obligingly crushed them in one great sweep before continuing on toward Gaul. Bauto then apparently got nervous about their advance and bought off the Huns with gold and they retreated to their base in Hungary. Thereafter individual Hun tribes pillaged Hungary at will. By 396 a group of Visigoths, headed by Alaric, had settled in Illyrium, the western part of present day Yugoslavia. (Ref. 139 , 127 , 136 ) In Bohemia the Germanic tribes were slowly being pushed west throughout all these early Christian centuries by the Slavs, moving in from Russia. Switzerland remained quiet under the Roman yoke.

Western europe

Spain and portugal

The Iberian Peninsula remained under Roman rule, but somewhat restlessly and occasionally the emperor had to send out expeditionary forces to put down uprisings of rebellious peasants. The Catholic church was recognized to be on equal footing with other religions, but there were many local heresies. By the end of the century there were about 9,000,000 people in this area. (Ref. 127 , 196 )