Lawyers could represent real parties in interest at hearings and could call witnesses to testify and question them; causes of action could be assigned to third parties, who could then litigate the cases on their own.
A system of probate law existed whereby the estates of decedents were distributed to their heirs in an equitable manner; a placeholder called “Jon” was used by Norse lawyers, just as lawyers today use “John Doe” for unknown parties.
Husbands and wives could sue one another for divorce, indicating relative gender equality compared to Middle Eastern cultures;
The elected “lawspeaker” would publish all laws by orally reciting them in public.
Finally, there was a relatively well understood body of laws, rights, legal procedures, and specific penalties for criminal offenses.
How Ethnically Cohesive Were Germanic Groups in
Late Classical and Early Medieval Europe?
Current scholarly opinion tends to de-emphasize the ethnic coherence of the various Germanic groups that succeeded the Roman Empire in Europe. Part of this is political correctness (an extreme version of which is Patrick J. Geary’s The Myth of Nations, explicitly motivated by the wish to rationalize current displacement-level immigration to Europe[121]). Nevertheless, given the basic model of I-E conquest and subjugation of native populations by male military groups, as described above, it would not be at all surprising to find that these groups were not ethnically cohesive, at least originally. However, given the assimilative tendencies of I-Es and the prospects of upward mobility depending on personal accomplishment, and given that the original conquests were completed by ca. 4500ybp, there would have been enough time to create significantly cohesive ethnic groups even in cultures originally dominated by alien ruling elites.
Peter Heather’s The Goths is unusual in that it attempts to answer the fundamental issue of the ethnic cohesiveness of the various groups within and near the Roman Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era.[122] It is now more or less universal among scholars to reject the idea that groups like the Goths were cohesive ethnic groups as represented, for example, in the work of Tacitus. An ethnic group in the strong sense would be united by having common ancestors and originating in a particular place.
Heather rejects a purely instrumental theory of ethnicity, such as that of Frederick Barth,[123] in which people can easily change their ethnicity and are free to choose it; in this view, ethnic barriers are socially constructed rather than based on binding ties resulting from biological relatedness. This general view is typically combined with the idea that elites often foster ideologies of ethnicity “to create a sense of solidarity in subject peoples bound to them.”[124]
On the opposite end of the theoretical spectrum, primordialists emphasize that ethnicity is not easily changeable, nor is it typically seen as changeable. Heather takes a middle view that different theories of ethnicity are needed to apply to particular situations and that only empirical research can resolve which perspective best fits a particular situation—a view that I find quite sensible but which, apart from Heather’s work, is rarely applied.
The traditional view is that Goths originated in Scandinavia, spread south to Poland and the Baltic, and split into two separate groups, the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, that were led by two royal families, the Balthi and the Amals respectively. Heather suggests that the evidence is compatible with a few Gothic aristocratic clans migrating from Scandinavia to northern Poland.[125] But, since this remains doubtful, he begins Gothic history with a group settled by the Vistula in northern Poland in the first century ad. In a comment illustrating Indo-European migrations of Männerbünde, he notes that “a whole series of armed groups left northern Poland to carve new niches for themselves, east and south-east of the Carpathians... . At least some of the action was carried forward by warbands: groups of young men on the make... . Tacitus signals that the warband was a standard feature of first-century Germanic society and it was still common in the fifth.”[126]
Despite the central role of the Männerbünde, Heather proposes, based on archeological remains, that women and children formed part of the migration.[127] Further, these groups exemplified aristocratic individualism as described above:
Processes of social differentiation had created, by the fourth century, a powerful political elite among the Goths, composed of a freeman class among whom there were already substantial differentials in wealth. These may have been both wide and rigid enough for us to think of greater freemen as at least quasi nobility. Controlling these men was far from easy. The best sources portray fourth-century Gothic leaders “urging” and “persuading” their followers rather than just issuing orders, and leaders’ counsels could be overruled.[128]
By the fourth century, then, there was a “well-entrenched elite” in Germanic societies and among the Goths in particular.[129] We can see the typical I-E pattern: writing in the first century ad, Tacitus notes that chiefs had “retinues of young men of military age”[130]—private armies; the main body for enforcement was, however, public—the comitatus composed of adult males and with military, judicial, and political functions. By the fourth century, Heather suggests a shift toward armies dominated by leaders with great social power rather than the comitatus.[131]
Critically, Heather argues that the politically significant class among Goths in the fifth century “amounted to at least one-fifth (and perhaps rather more) of the total male population of 25,000–30,000.”[132] This group is probably the freeman group referred to in the Germanic law codes of the early medieval period. This is no small inner circle but a fairly substantial group: “Power was not solely the preserve of a very restricted group of families.”[133]
Consistent with much other data reviewed above, there were three broad classes across a wide range of Germanic groups, free, freed or half-free, and slaves.[134] “The groups were, notionally at least, closed off from one another by strict laws against intermarriage, and the unfree classes were considerably disadvantaged. Characteristically they received heavier punishments for the same offense, and lacked legal autonomy.”[135]
In discussing an influential view that group identity was carried by a “very restricted group of dominant noble clans,”[136] Heather agrees that that is the case in the sixth and seventh centuries but doubts it for the fourth century which he characterizes as dominated by “an elite that “remained relatively numerous: a broad social caste of emergent nobles and freemen, rather than a very restricted noble class,”[137] estimating the “fully enfranchised” Goths at between 5,000–10,000 in each generation.[138] This fully enfranchised class had a much greater stake in the system: in their war with Byzantium (535–554 ad), the Goths got little help from the Romans, and non-elite Goths surrendered, but only when their women and children were captured did the elites become less motivated.
This suggests that as we move toward the Middle Ages, groups become more dominated by narrow clan-like elites ruling over others not considered part of the clan—that is, we find family-based elites which tend toward exploitation because they do not see themselves as connected to the rest of the people. Thus, by the seventh century in Visigothic Spain, this broad-based elite was replaced by a “dominant nobility with deeply entrenched rights.”[139] Parallel processes occurred throughout the successor states in the Western Roman Empire: “By the end of the seventh century, the ‘Franks’ of Neustria were a cluster of a half-dozen or so interrelated clans.”[140]
Thus, in the emerging societies of the Middle Ages, dominant elites seem to have operated as clans in opposition to the rest of society, the latter having no separate identity. “It is even possible that the division of Gothic society into distinct castes was itself the result of the processes of migration and conquest... . The conquering migrants, for instance, could have transformed themselves into an elite freeman caste by turning conquered indigenous populations, or elements of them, into subordinates, whether slave or freed.”[141]
This contrasts with the situa
tion when the Huns, an Asian people, dominated the Goths. Non-Hunnic groups remained separate and subordinate while still maintaining their group identity, presumably because of the genetic and cultural difference between Huns and Germanic peoples, and the relatively lesser tendency for the Huns, as a non-European people, to assimilate.
Heather proposes that being a Goth in the fourth century was open to anyone who accepted the rules. Goths were less like a people and more like an army; a common view among historians is that these groups tended to be predominantly (but not exclusively) male, but “were composed of a wide mixture of ethnic elements, not just Goths.”[142] Citing evidence that women and children were in these groups, Heather notes that “this evidence makes it very difficult not to see [Gothic king] Theoderic’s following as a broadly based social group engaged in a large-scale migration of more or less the traditionally envisaged kind.”[143]
Thus, fourth-century Gothic kingdoms
were already multi-ethnic... . They probably consisted of a defining migrant elite of quasi-nobles and freemen, the basic carriers of “Gothicness.” These migrants coexisted, however, with a whole series of subordinates, and boundaries between the groups were liable to fluctuation... . The fact that survival and profit in the face of Roman power provided a huge impetus to the creation of the new supergroups in part argues against the importance of pre-existing Gothic ethnicity. Belonging to a large group was what really mattered, not its composition. We might also expect the shared experiences of the Migration Period to have generated a degree of homogenization, i.e., the absorption of subordinates into the elite. Groups needed to stick together to survive.[144]
I think it likely ... that there was a layer of common Gothic identity within Gothic individuals of the fourth century who enjoyed the crucial status of freemen. It was submerged, however, beneath other layers of identity of a more particular and separate kind (Tervingi, Greuthungi, etc.). Only when Huns and Romans had, between them, destroyed these outer layers, could a more general sense of Gothicness, given added point by circumstances of danger and opportunity, be utilized to help create the new supergroups. Even so, Gothicness was not such an exclusive concept that other would-be recruits were refused. The “Gothicness” of the new supergroups was thus a complicated mixture of claimed and recognized social status, pre-existing similarity, and the overriding press of circumstance.[145]
Given the openness of Gothic societies to absorbing different groups, it is not surprising that the Goths assimilated with the original Roman landed gentry. At first the Romans turned to church occupations, retreated to libraries, or served in the Goth army, the latter “en masse.” Intermarriage with the Goths began, and there was general assimilation.
For example, in Italy, assimilation was widespread. Ostrogothic Italy was very Roman—King Theoderic (454–526) was enthralled by Roman culture and saw his kingdom as a continuation of the Roman Empire.[146] His family pursued marriage alliances with other elites (among the Vandals, Visigoths, Burgundians) by marrying off female relatives. In Visigothic Spain, Heather argues that by ad 700 “the landowning class of the peninsula—a mixture of migrant Goths and indigenous Romans—had fought and married its way to unity and synthesis under a Gothic flag of convenience.”[147]
As noted elsewhere, the principle of individual accomplishment prevailed over kinship ties: When Theoderic died, the Goths replaced his successor with a non-relative because Theoderic’s grandson Theodahad was a poor leader. “The new king, Wittigus, stressed that he belonged to Theoderic’s dynasty not by blood, but because his deeds were of similar stature.”[148]
As typical of I-E societies, the bottom line for followers was not kinship but whether they would be rewarded by the spoils of conquest—an indication of the continued importance of gift-giving rather than kinship for holding together coalitions: As Heather notes, “a lord distributing due reward to the brave is straight out of Germanic heroic poetry.”[149]
Ethnicity remained important during the early period after conquest. Disputes between Goths and Romans were adjudicated before two judges, one from each group. But intermarriage eventually became common.[150] By the time of Theoderic’s death (ad 526), “the populations were still distinguishable, but a process of cultural fusion was well underway.”
In summary, at their origins the Goths were significantly ethnic—in the fourth century around 20–50 percent being a freeman class with at least a sense of Gothic identity if not of biological kinship (the latter is not clearly addressed by Heather). However, group identity was most important under conditions of threat or expansion. After attaining dominance in Spain, this group identity tended to dissipate, replaced by a class-structured society where elites were composed of both Romans and Goths, with a great deal of intermarriage. Family strategizing related to social class became more important than group identity. This is a good example of the weakness of extended kinship bonds among Western peoples and the tendency to splinter in the absence of threat.
One might view this as a paradigm of what happened with the I-E groups generally. They typically achieved military dominance centered around elite warrior-leaders with a militarily significant group of followers. The elite classes were permeable, so after victory previous elites were allowed to persist and intermarriage occurred (e.g., Hispano-Romans with Goths in seventh-century Spain). Talented people from lower orders could rise into elite status.
Moreover, the original I-E group became less of an identity over time as society evolved to be more class-based. Under more settled circumstances, elites gradually shed their wider kinship connections, and kinship itself became more focused on close relatives. These later elites pursued family strategies where known kinship relations among close relatives were important, but the social structure of the society as a whole did not resemble a clan. By the High Middle Ages, elite family strategies become ossified, enshrining the principle of familial succession rather than succession based on talent and accomplishment.
Conclusion
The Indo-Europeans were an extraordinarily successful group that had by far the most influence on European culture over approximately 4,000 years, into the European Middle Ages and beyond. Armed with cutting edge military and food technology, as well as with a culture that prized military accomplishment above all else and allowed for the upward mobility of the most adept warriors, the Indo-Europeans were an unstoppable force in the ancient world. In Europe, they encountered peoples who shared their individualism, if not other aspects of their culture. However, given that barriers against intermarriage rather quickly broke down, males from the older European peoples were able to rise in the I-E cultural environment. Thus it is that the blond, blue-eyed Viking raiders popularly understood to embody hyper-masculine, aggressive I-E culture were not primarily descended from the relatively dark-haired, dark-eyed steppe people who originally developed that culture.[151]
The I-E contribution to the European genetic and cultural heritage is thus very great, however foreign it may be to the present culture of the West. And foreign it is: whereas I-E culture was intensively hierarchical, the present-day West is determinedly egalitarian, and not simply within an elite aristocratic class. Whereas I-E culture was completely militarized and prized only the warrior virtues, contemporary Western culture values a completely different set of personal qualities—empathy, financial success, and a relatively high position for women. The burden of other chapters of Western Origins and Prospects will be to chart the origins and development of the egalitarian strand of Western origins, its strengths, and its vulnerabilities.
Appendix to Chapter 2:
Roman Culture:
Militarization, Aristocratic Government, and Openness to Conquered Peoples
____________________________________
This appendix aims to show how the Indo-European ethos was instantiated in the Roman Republic. My general view is that by far the main forces influencing post-Roman European culture were the Germanic peoples and the hunter-gatherer culture of nor
thwestern Europe, both of which were influenced by the Indo-European conquests (Chapters 3 and 4), and that Roman influence of European culture was, in the final analysis, much diminished and transmitted through the lens of Christianity, born during the Roman Empire and institutionalized as the Roman state religion early in the fourth century (Chapter 5). By the time of the Western Empire’s fall, the Indo-European ethos that fueled Rome’s rise had disappeared in favor of a culture that prized celibacy, chastity and martyrdom, and believed all humans were equal in the sight of God.
Moreover, during the course of the later Republic and Empire, the original population of Rome was largely replaced due to the decline of the founding stock and the influx of foreign peoples resulting from the policy of assimilation combined with a high population of slaves, many of whom were eventually manumitted. The Western Empire fell to the Germanic peoples who succeeded Rome in the early medieval period; these Germanic tribes, to a much greater extent than Rome after the rise of Christianity, had preserved a variant of the Indo-European cultural heritage.
The following is based mainly on my review of A Critical History of Early Rome by Gary Forsythe.[152] It leaves no doubt that the Roman Republic began as a unique and fascinating Indo-European culture—but one which, possibly like the contemporary West, carried the seeds of its own destruction.
Gary Forsythe has written a critical history of the early Roman Republic—critical in the sense that he casts doubt on much of the received wisdom concerning that history. The picture that remains after he has removed what he regards as the questionable facets of the historical record provides a most welcome portrait of an historically important variant of the Indo-European legacy: an intensely militarized republic with a non-despotic aristocratic government. Roman society during this period (509–264 bc) permitted upward mobility and was open to incorporating recently conquered peoples into the system with full citizenship rights. This openness continued into the later Republic and the Empire.
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