jones_the image of the barbarian in medieval europe

8/12/2019 Jones_The Image of the Barbarian in Medieval Europe

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The Image of the Barbarian in Medieval EuropeAuthor(s): W. R. JonesSource: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct., 1971), pp. 376-407Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/178207

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The Imageof the BarbariannMedievalEuropeW. R. JONESUniversityof New Hampshire

On various occasions civilized man has found himself marching side byside with men at lower (or different)levels of social and cultural develop-ment. The greatcivilizationswere accustomed to comparethemselvesquitefavorably with these barbarianneighbors,whom they viewed with varyingdegrees of condescension, suspicion, scorn, and dread. Civilizedman, withhis urban institutions, his agrarian way of life, his technological andeconomic sophistication, and his conspicuous literaryand plastic artistry,conceived of himself as superior to these other folk with whom he some-times competed for domination of the richer parts of the world. Longbefore the ancient Greeks invented the word 'barbarian' to describe theScythiansand other peoples who differedfrom them in not subscribingtothe ideals of Greek culture, other civilized men had expressed similarsentiments toward alien peoples with whom they came into contact. Thiswas the point that the old Akkadian author was trying to make when hespoke of neighboringtribes as people 'who knew not grain' and who 'hadnever known a city'.1 Subsequently,both in Asia and Europe the spokes-men of a civilized style of life expressed their dislike or distrust of thebarbarianby means of a stereotypedimage of him which was couched interms favorable to civilization. A Chinese chronicler, for example, re-marked of the fierce Hsiung-Nu, who troubled the peace of the MiddleKingdom, that 'their only concern is self-advantage, and they knownothing of propriety and righteousness'.2 After the conversion of theUighurs from nomadism to agriculture,from warfare to peace, and fromheathenism to Manicheanism, a memorialist of his people commentedproudly on his tribe's progress from barbarismto civilization: 'This landof barbarous customs, smoking with blood, was transformed into avegetarianstate, and this land of slaughterbecame a land devoted to good

1S. Piggott, Ancient Europe from the Beginnings of Agriculture to Classical Antiquity(Chicago, 1965), p. 256; S. N. Kramer, The Sumerians:TheirHistory, Culture,and Character(Chicago, 1963), p. 63.2 Recordsof the GrandHistorianof Chinatranslated rom the Shih Chi of Ssu-ma Ch'ien,trans. B. Watson (2 Vols.; New York, 1961-3), II, 155.376


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 377works'.3 Comparable attitudes were displayed by a considerable numberof Greek and Latin authors. The barbarian,whose way of life was viewedas less excellent than that of classical Greece, was frequently libelled byHellenic writers;4and most Roman commentators, following this lead,viewed Germanic and other kinds of barbarismas far too wild and woollyfor their liking.5 Such rhetoric and the prejudices which it embodiedcontributed toward the fashioning of medieval opinion of barbarians.6The concept of 'barbarism', like its antonym, 'civilization', was theinvention of civilized man, who thereby expressed self-approval by con-trasting his condition with that of others whom he assumed to exist atlower levels of material, intellectual, and moral development. The aware-ness of being civilized, that new sense of identity which civilization gave itsparticipants, was as much the product of cultural growth and refinementas the more tangible and visible achievementsof civilized experience.7Theantithesis which opposed civilization to barbarism was a highly usefulclichE,and one which servedequally well as a means of self-congratulationand as a rationalization for aggression.8 Despite occasional efforts toidealize the barbarian and to extoll his real or supposed virtues, hiscivilized admirers were usuallyjust applauding in him what they imaginedto be their own lost innocence-those pristinequalitiesabandonedby theirancestors in theirjourney from simplicity and purity toward the deliciousvices of civilization. The pejorative implications of the word 'barbarian'were almost invariablypresent in its use in Graeco-Latin antiquity and inmedieval Europe and Byzantium, although its precise applications andconnotations reflected changing historical circumstances. The furorbarbaricuswas evoked in civilized minds, whether the word was applied

3 Quoted by R. Grousset,L'Empiredes Steppes (Paris, 1939), p. 174, and cited by C. Daw-son, TheMongol Mission (New York, 1955), p. x, n. 1.4 The authoritative work on the Greek view of the barbarian is J. Juthner, Hellenen undBarbarenaus der Geschichtedes NationalbewusstseinsLeipzig, 1923).s See A. N. Sherwin-White,RacialPrejudice n ImperialRome(Cambridge,1967). The titleof Mr. Sherwin-White's book is misleading, because Roman bias was 'cultural'rather than'racial' in the modern sense.

6 There is nothing in the historiography of the European Middle Ages comparable to K.Lechner's study of the meaning and use of the word in Byzantine literature, Hellenen undBarbaren m Weltbildder Byzantiner(Munich, 1954).7 R. Erwin, 'Civilization as a Phase of World History', American Historical Review,LXXI (1966), 1188-9. In this highly interestingarticle Erwintriesto put civilization in properperspectivewithin the context of world history.8 D. Sinor, 'Les Barbares',Diogene,XVIII (1957), 54, arguesthat the Chinesealwaysviewedthe barbarian as aggressive. See also M. Granet, La CivilisationChinoise(Paris, 1929), pp.86 ff. There are some interestingcomments on nomadism and barbariansapplicableto historyin general in O. Lattimore, Studies in FrontierHistory: CollectedPapers, 1928-58 (London,1962), pp. 415 ff., 469 ff. The Greek poet, Cavafy, speculateson the relationshipof civilizationto barbarism in 'Expecting the Barbarians',which concludes, ' ... night is here but thebarbarianshave not come. Some people arrivedfrom the frontiers,/ and they said that thereare no longer any barbarians./ And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?/Those people were a kind of solution.' Quoted from CompletePoems of Cavafy, trans. R.Dalven (New York, 1961), p. 19, by E. Stillman and W. Pfaff, ThePolitics of Hysteria (NewYork, 1965), p. 5.


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378 w. R. JONESto Cimmerian,Scythian, Celt, German, Tartar, or Turk. It called forthfeelings of dread, distrust, and hatred for a variety of peoples, who wereviewed by their civilized critics as being, to a greateror lesser extent, war-like, unpredictable, and cruel. In Asia, in Greece and Rome, and inmedieval Europe this libel of the barbarianwas a link binding togethermore specific applications of the term. It has been observed that thecivilized bias against barbariansaevitia and crudelitasconstituted a 'moralbarrier'dividing the two cultures and that it seemed to justify the 'coldwar' waged between them historically.9When the ambition or arroganceof civilized man coincided with specific political, military, or religiousobjectives such antagonisms might be concealed behind the idealisticventures of a civilizing or missionizing kind. At other times there was noeffort to hide them. This moral barrier between civilization and barbarismand the cold war which it condoned may, it has been argued, be sufficientto explain the aggressions of both sides by offering opportunities 'forcathartic outbursts of warlike zeal' when 'passion or politics demandedit'.10The progress of modern understandingin history and anthropologymakes scholars hesitate to draw moral distinctions between cultures andencourages them to admit the integrity and usefulness of the variousalternativesto a civilizedstyle of life.1lSuchobjectivityanddispassionwere,however, extremely rare among ancient and medieval men, who usuallyviewed the barbarian,whoever he happenedto be, as the very incarnationof perfidyand savagery.I. THE GRAECO-ROMAN BACKGROUNDAlthough the concept was far older, the Greeks were the inventors of theword 'barbarian', which first appeared as an onomatopoeic tag withdistinctly negative, if not pejorative connotations, and which was be-queathed to all subsequentEuropean literatures.12Greek authors appliedthe word indiscriminately to those peoples, principally Asian, whoseunacquaintance with Greek culture distinguished them from those whowere busily engaged in fashioning classical Hellenic civilization. It soonassumed a fierce and strident ethnocentrism directed against alien folk,

9A. Alfoldi, 'The Moral Barrieron Rhineand Danube', Congressof RomanFrontierStudies,ed. E. Birley (Durham, 1952), pp. 1-16.10Piggott, op. cit., p. 256.11The best work recentlyon the cross-culturalapproachto history is P. Bagby, CultureandHistory: Prolegomenato the ComparativeStudyof Civilizations Berkeley, 1959).12 In addition to Jiithner(q.v. supra), see H. Diller, 'Die Hellenen-Barbaren-AntitheseimZeitalterder Perserkriege',FondationHardt, Entretiens VIII (1962), 37-68; G. Murray,FiveStages of GreekReligion(New York, 1930),pp. 59-62; W. Jaeger,Paedeia: the Idealsof GreekCulture 3 Vols.; New York, 1939-44), II, 256-57; L. Edelstein,The Ideaof Progressin Classi-cal Antiquity(Baltimore, 1967), p. 48; H. D. F. Kitto, The Greeks(Chicago, 1964), pp. 7-8(whominimizes the pejorativecontentof the word);A. Pauly, Realencyclopadieder ClassischenAltertumswissenschaft43 Vols.; Stuttgart,1893-1967), s.v. 'Barbaroi';and C. DarembergandE. Saglio, Dictionnairedes AntiquitesGrecqueset Romaines (5 Vols.; Paris, 1877-1913), s.v.'Barbari'.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 379who differed from the Greeks in their lack of appreciation for the polis,the Greek language, and the literary and artistic ideals of the city-state.Greek poets, dramatists, and philosophers usually considered Greekcivilization as the norm, and were fond of portrayingthe barbarian as theoaf, the slave, and the predator. Although a handful of intellectuals likeHerodotus were aware of the accomplishments of non-Greek nations,especially the Egyptiansand Persians,and although a few Stoic and Cynicphilosopherswere preparedto arguefor the natural unity of mankind andthe relativityof alljudgments concerning cultural excellence, nonetheless,the familiar libel of barbariansusually passed unchallenged in the circlesof the intelligentsia. The most that was conceded was that climate andgeography might account for certain differencesbetween peoples and thata degree of objectivity was necessary to judge and evaluate foreign waysof life. The civilized bias against barbarism insofar, that is, as it isreflectedin Hellenic literature,was not significantlyaffectedby the widen-ing horizon of Greek knowledge and experience.Alexander the Great andthe new cultural cosmopolitanismwhich Macedonian imperialism inaugu-rated divorced Greek culture from the Greek race and spread it to formerbarbarianpeoples; but the old antagonismbetween Greek civilization andbarbarism,with its ethical connotations, remained alive and compelling.13The Romans receivedthe word and its messagefrom the Greeks. Duringthe era of imperial expansion they applied it to those various tribes,particularlythe Celts and the Germans,who pressed against theirwideningfrontiers. Cultural pride and contempt for barbarians, reinforced by theGreek example, were sharpenedby actual clashes with such peoples duringthe course of Roman expansion. Like the Greeks, the Romans oftenportrayed the contest of civilization and barbarism in moral terms.Manners and morals, Cicero observed, rather than language constitutedthe principal differencebetween the two cultures.14Although Romanitaswas a cultural rather than a racial phenomenon, to which provincialpeoples could convert by adopting the Latin language, the toga, Romanlaw and religion, and submitting to the Pax Romana, the possibility ofacculturationdid not diminish the presumed opposition of civilization tobarbarism. The two cultures remained vehemently and even violentlyseparate; and a Roman historian could sympathize with the Greek pointof view, that 'with aliens, with barbarians,all Greeks wage and will wageeternalwar, for they are enemies perpetuallyby nature and not for reasonsthat change from day to day'.15Tacitus,who has sometimesbeen viewed as

13 Polybius remarked, in The Histories, XI, 34, that the invasion of nomads threatened aregion with a lapse into barbarism. See the edition by W. R. Paton for the Loeb ClassicalLibrary[LCL](6 Vols.; Cambridge,Mass., 1960), IV, 300-2.14 De Re Publica, I, 37, 58, ed. C. W. Keyes, LCL (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), p. 86.15 Livy, Ab UrbeCondita,XXI, 29, 15-16, ed. B. O. Foster etal., LCL (14 Vols.; Cambridge,Mass., 1967), IX, 86.C


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380 W. R. JONESRousseau's precursoras the champion of barbarianvirtue, was evidentlyusing German manners as a touchstone for some gentle social criticismand nostalgia. Although he wrote admiringly of the virtues which hethought the Germans possessed, 'these were not barbarian virtues ofcourage and toughness ... but those ancient civilized virtues of whichRoman writers had long been deploring their own loss'.16The dichotomy between civilization and barbarismwas not easily erodedeither by humane philosophies like Stoicism or by the new universalisticreligion of Christianity. Christianity, like Stoicism, preacheda message ofcosmopolitanism grounded on notions of spiritual and moral unity. Thisnew spiritualized tribalism offered its communicants a fellowship in areligiouscommonwealth which ignoredthe old boundariesof polis, nation,class, or tribe. Paul and his disciples addressedthemselves impartially toJew, gentile, Greek, Roman, and barbarian.17The third-century SyrianChristian, Bardesanes of Edessa, expressed the hope that all nations,civilized and barbarian, might be reconciled in a common Christianallegiance, as Themistius and Libanius at an earlier time had advocatedthe peaceful incorporation of barbarians into the classical oecumene.l8Paulinus of Nola hoped that the missionary effort of Bishop Nicetas ofRemesiana might result in the pacification of the barbariansof Dacia.19But Christian cosmopolitanism never became the official policy of theRoman state even after the conversion of Constantine and his successorsto the new religion. What happenedwas, rather,the absorption of Christi-anity into Romanitas; and the moral barrier separating civilization andbarbarism stood its ground. The adoption of Christianity by the RomanEmpire merged the faith with the other aspects of Roman culture to suchan extent that they were perfectly equated by the time of the collapse ofRoman rule in the West in the fifth century A.D. The Christian religion,which itself had been denounced by pagan critics like Arnobius as abarbarianrite, was from the fourth century forward identified as simplyanotherattributeof Latincivilization.20To patrioticRomans like Ambrose,the Christianbishop of Milan, the alliance of Christianityand the empireassuredthe triumphof both.21The primitivecosmopolitanismof Christian-

16 Sherwin-White,op. cit., p. 40.17 Colossians, III, ii; and also A. T. van Leeuwen, Christianity n WorldHistory, trans.H. H. Hoskins (London, 1964), pp. 118-33, 197-204.18 S. Mazzarino, The End of the Ancient World,trans. G. Holmes (New York, 1966), p.162; Alfoldi, loc. cit., p. 4.19Poema, XVII, lines 261-4, Patrologiae CursusCompletus .. Series Latina (221 Vols.;Paris, 1844-64), ed. J. P. Migne, LXI, cols. 488-9, which reads, Orbisin mutaregioneper telBarbari discuntresonareChristumlCordeRomano,placidamquecastil Viverepacem. See alsoPoema, XXVII, lines 69-71, col. 650.20 AdversusNationes, II, 66, cited by P. Courcelle, 'Anti-ChristianArgumentsand ChristianPlatonism: from Arnobius to St. Ambrose', TheConflictbetweenPaganismand Christianitynthe FourthCentury.ed. A. Momigliano (Oxford, 1963), p. 155 and n. 56.21C. N. Cochrane, Christianityand Classical Culture:A Study of Thoughtand ActionfromAugustusto Augustine(New York, 1940), p. 350.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 381ity had been drained away by its political success. The vast majority ofChristianRomans identifiedthe goals of the religion as identical with thoseof the state; and the ideals of Christianitywere narrowedsharplyto coin-cide with Roman ethnocentrism.From ancient Greek and Latin sources, with their notion of the intrinsicsuperiority of civilization to barbarism, the European and ByzantineMiddle Ages inherited the concept of the barbarian along with certainspecificprejudicesagainst him. The classical image of the barbarianhad tobe accommodated, however, to the changing historical circumstances ofthe next thousand years. What Marc Bloch once called 'historical seman-tics' might be useful in explainingthe medieval European attitudes towardthe barbarian and in clarifying some of the presuppositions of Europeanmorality, spirituality,and psychology during the same era. Alterations inthe relationshipof civilizationto barbarismoccasionally endowedthe wordbarbaruswith a new meaning and the ancient biases had to be adjustedtonew realities. A description of the uses and meanings of the term in theliterarysources of medieval Europe, together with the study of what con-stituted its antonym at various times duringthe same period, should revealmuch about the preoccupations and anxieties of medieval European man.II. THE GERMANIC BARBARIAN AND THE FALL OF ROME IN THEWESTThe barbarianpar excellence of the fourth and fifth centuriesA.D. was theGermanic invader and occasionally the Hunnish and Alanic nomads whoaccompanied him.22Theodosius' experiment in the political and militaryaccommodation of barbarism to the Roman state succeeded neither insaving the Empire nor in diminishing the antagonism of the majority ofRoman subjects, Christian and pagan alike, toward the barbarian new-comers.23The philosophical cosmopolitanism of his faith, for example, didnot still Ambrose's fear and hatred of peoples whose way of life was sodifferent from what he himself knew and loved. To the bishop of Milanand his contemporaries, Roman civilization and barbarism continued tostand in starkcontrast, divided by a cultural and moral chasm so immensethat Christianity could not bridge it.24 Prudentius, fiercely patriotic,

22 G. Vernadsky emphasized the continuing importance of steppe nomadism withinEuropean history in 'The Eurasian Nomads and their Impact on Medieval Europe', StudiMedievali, ser. terza, IV/2 (1963), 401-34. See for the steppe nomads and Rome, Mazzarino,op. cit., p. 25; G. Walser, Rom, das Reich unddie FremdenVolker in der Geschichtschreibungder FriihenKaiserzeit (Baden, 1951). There has recently developed considerable interest insteppe nomadism, see E. D. Phillips, TheRoyal Hordes: NomadPeoples of the Steppes(NewYork, 1965), and for an appreciation of their art, D. Carter, The Symbol of the Beast: theAnimal-StyleArt of Eurasia(New York, 1957).23Cochrane, op. cit., pp. 345-6. See also M. Pavan, La Politica Gotica di Teodosio nellaPubblicistica del suo Tempo (Rome, 1964).24J.-R. Palanque, Saint Ambroiseet l'EmpireRomaine(Paris, 1933), pp. 330-2, citing DeOfficiis,II, 71.


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382 W. R. JONESinsisted on the irreconcilabilityof civilizationand barbarismand comparedtheir differencewith that separatingChristiansfrom pagans. 'As differentis the Roman from the barbarian as man is differentfrom the animal orthe speaking person from the mute, and as they who follow the teachingsof God differ from those who follow senseless cults and superstitions'.25Augustine of Hippo was typically Roman in his attitude toward the bar-barian. Despite his ingenious effort to elevate contemporarydiscussions ofthe fate of Rome from the merelyhistorical level to the metaphysical,anddespitehis insistenceon the relativeunimportanceof the barbariansackingof Rome against the backdrop of God's plan of redemption,he continuedto contrast Roman civilization and barbarism n the conventional manner.His repetition of the familiar story of the forbearance of the Visigothicwarriorsin sparingthe Christian shrines and their sacred treasuresmerelyreflected his astonishment and gratification that fierce barbarians couldoccasionally display the Roman virtues of piety and mercy.26Although hisfaith was broad enough to encompass such monstrosities as pygmies,Sciopodes, and Cynocephalae within the family of Adam, he viewed thebarbarianin the old way-through the narrowprism of Roman pride.27This cultural antagonism is vividly displayed in the actual indifferenceof Christian Romans toward convertingthe Arian and pagan GermanstotrinitarianChristianityand in the remarksof an Arian Christianapologistof the fifth century,the anonymous author of a commentaryon the gospelof Matthew known as the Opus Imperfectum.28 he reluctance of RomanChristians to undertakethe conversion of the Germanicbarbariansbeforetheir entrance into the Empire is revealed by his insistence upon theinadequacyof Christianityto assuagethe ferocious customs of the invadersand of his opposition to those missionaries who preach to 'unlearned,undisciplined, and barbarian peoples, who neither seek nor hear it withjudgmentandwho havethenameof Christiansbutthemannersof pagans'.29On a few occasions when Christian apologists waxed especially idealisticor hopeful they might, like St. Jerome, wish that Romans and 'savageBessians' would some day raise their voices in unison in praise of Christ.30But as a social and culturalgroup, the Roman intelligentsia,Christian andpagan alike, remained disdainful and distrustful of their Germanic

25 ContraOrationemSymmachi,II, 816-19, ed. H. J. Thomson, LCL (2 Vols.; Cambridge,Mass., 1961-2), II, 70. See also lines 291-3, p. 28.26 De Civitate Dei, I, 1, ed. G. E. McCracken et al., LCL (7 Vols.; Cambridge, Mass.,1960-6), I, 12-14. Augustine attributed (I, 7) this uncustomary mercy of the barbarianstodivine influence since they are naturally fierce and cruel: 'Absit ut prudens quisquamhocferitati inputetbarbarorum.Truculentissimast saevissimasmentesille terruit,ille frenavit, illemirabiliter emperavit....'27 Ibid., XVI, 8 (Vol. V, pp. 47-8).28 E. A. Thompson, 'Christianityand the Northern Barbarians',ConflictbetweenPaganismand Christianity,ed. A. Momigliano, pp. 76-7.29 Quoted in translation, ibid., p. 69 and n. 2.30 Epistolae,LX, 4, ed. F. A. Wright, LCL (Cambridge,Mass., 1963), p. 272.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 383neighbors. Ammianus Marcellinus dedicated his History to arguing thedefense of the Empireand Romanitasagainst the savage forces threateningit within and without.31 Jerome editorialized on the sacking of the capitalin A.D. 410: 'The world sinks into ruin'.32Bishop SidoniusApollinaris, whosniffed his patrician nose at malodorous barbarians(but safely at a dis-tance), bewailed the 'fury' and 'malignity' of his Burgundianand Gothicoppressors.33Romanitas,whether pagan or Christian,was still juxtaposedagainst barbarismduring the later Roman period.34Both Orosius and Salvian, writing in the fifth century, continued tocontrast Roman civilization with barbarism and to apply the old judg-ments about the moral and culturalinferiorityof the barbarian. Neverthe-less, they were forced to recognize the rapidly changing relationshipbetween the two cultures and to propose solutions for or at least explana-tions of the events which preoccupiedtheir contemporaries.When Orosiuscomposed his Seven Books against thePagans as a sort of historical proof-text to Augustine's City of God, it did not yet seem that the situation inEurope was hopeless. Even though the barbarians occupied parts ofEurope, an emperorstill sat at Rome and the possibility of the restorationof Roman power and prestige through an accommodation with the con-querorswas still cherished. Orosius was a typical Roman patriot insofaras he viewed the barbarian with fear and distrust. Yet he was convinced ofthe possibility and desirabilityof assimilatingthe barbariansinto Romansociety through their conversion to the Roman faith. Addressing himselfto the pagan detractorsof Christianity,he insisted 'that it was through themediation of the Christianreligion,which united all peoples in the recogni-tion of a common faith, that those barbarians became subject to theRomans without a conflict'.35The barbarianscould be pacifiedby adoptingthe Christianreligion, which would unite Roman and barbarian in a muchmore permanentand satisfactoryfashion than the old paganism. Orosiushad already seen signs of this reconciliation. Describing the leniency ofbarbarian rule in Spain, in contrast to the former Roman administration,Orosius noted the moral and cultural effects of the Christian Romanenvironment. 'Soon afterward,the barbarianscame to detest their swords,betook themselves to the plough, and are affectionatelytreatingthe rest ofthe Romans as comrades and friends'.36Orosius usually viewed the

31 D. Earl, The Moral and Political Traditionof Rome (Ithaca, 1967), pp. 101-3, 111-15.32 Epistolae, CXXVIII, 5 (p. 478).33Letters, III, 4; Poems, XII, ed. W. B. Anderson, LCL (2 Vols.; Cambridge, Mass.,1963-5), II, 20-2 and I, 212. He speaks of the Gothic 'whirlwind' in Letters, VI, 10 (Vol. II, p.274).34For Venantius Fortunatus' contrast of Romanitas and barbarism,see E. Sestan, Stato eNazione Nell' Alto Medioevo: Richerche sulle OrigineNazionali in Francia, Italia, Germania(Naples, 1952), p. 169.35HistoriarumadversumPaganosLibri VII, I, 16, ed. C. Zangemeister(Leipzig, 1889), p. 29.Translated by I. W. Raymond for the Columbia Records of Civilization (New York, 1936).36Ibid., VII, 41 (p. 296).


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384 W. R. JONESGermanic intruderas the wild brute, distinguishedfrom the peace-lovingand submissive Roman by his intractability and disorderliness. It wasOrosius who reported Athaulf's observation that his hope of turningRomaniainto Gothia had to be abandoned when he discovered that the'unbridled barbarism' (effrenatambarbariem)of his fellow Goths madethem incapable of learning obedience to law. Accordingly, Athaulfdecided to restore and renovate the Empire since he could not be itstransformer.37Orosius also noted that barbarian kings like Athaulf andWallia, who tried to establishsecureand stable barbarianstates, promotedpeace and harmony. Thus, they showed their ability to renounce one ofthe most distinctive and unfortunate faults of barbarism-its belligerencyand disregardfor law and order. In Orosius' view conversionto Christian-ity offered the best hope of this transformation and of the eventualcivilizing of barbarians.The two cultures might ultimately be reconciled,he argued, in their allegiance to a common faith; and the successfulattainment of this goal was assured by virtue of the fact that it coincidedwith God's plan for the salvation of all men.38By the time that Salvian,the priest of Marseilles,composed the Govern-ance of God about the middle of the fifth century, the situation in theRoman West had grown much more serious. Thereno longer seemedto beany hope of accommodating Roman power and the German presence. Itwas impossible to be optimistic about the revival of the Empirein Europe.Pursuing an approach reminiscent of Tacitus, Salvian extolled as thesupposed virtues of barbarism the familiar virtues of civilized man-justice, moral probity, and a sort of rough honesty, which the Roman hadregrettably surrendered in his progress toward power, privilege, andprosperity. In desperation some former subjects of Rome now soughtamong the barbarians what was no longer forthcoming from imperialadministrators.'They seek among the barbariansthe Roman mercy, sincethey cannot endurethe barbarousmercilessnessamong the Romans'.39Onthe ethical level, Salvian insisted, the faults and shortcomings of thebarbarianwerelikewisethose of the Roman; but the Roman cannot excusehimself so easily since his Christian faith should have inspired him topursue a better life. 'The barbariansare unjust and we are also; they areavariciousand so are we; they are faithless and so are we; to sum up, thebarbariansand ourselves arealike guilty of all evils and impurities'.40Whathas sometimes been interpretedas Salvian's idealization of the barbarianwas not such at all. He still assumed that the barbarian representedtheworst in human life; his concept of the barbarianwas the old slanderous

37Ibid.,VII, 43 (p. 300). 38 B. Lacroix,Oroseet ses Idees (Montreal, 1965), pp. 161-73.39 De GubernationeDei Libri VIII,V, 5, in SalvianiPresbyteriMassiliensisOperaOmnia,ed.F. Pauly, Corpus ScriptorumEcclesiasticorum(Vienna, 1883), p. 108. Translated by E. M.Sanford for Columbia Records of Civilization (New York, 1930).40Ibid,, IV, 14 (p. 88).


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 385one. The author of the Governanceof Godwas simply noting the paradoxwhich had arisen as a result of the moral degenerationand spiritualbank-ruptcy of contemporaryRoman society, which had abandoned the distinc-tive attributes of Christian civilization and which had become no betterand even worse than the barbarian. His book had, of course, an ulteriormotive. The Governanceof Godwas an exercise in moral criticism writtenin the form of Christian apologetics and history. Salvian's ostensibletolerance and objectivity were rhetorical devices with specific moral andreligious aims clearly in sight. Fundamentally,he saw the barbarian in theold way, as a deceitful and fractious boor. For him, as for most Romanintellectuals, Latinitas and the Empire appeared as the only acceptablealternativeto a cruel and hostile savagery.41Although Romanitaswas fading in Europe during the sixth century, theold antithesis of Roman and barbarian with the moral labels attached toit was perpetuated.To Pope Gregory I the contrast between the freedomof men of Roman lineage and the servility of barbarian life was stillrelevant.42The EmperorJustinianin a statute addressed to the prefectureof Africa in A.D. 534 made the point that the Arian Vandals were a threatboth to political freedom and the true faith.43The Roman statesman andsophisticate, CassiodorusSenator,who servedthe Gothic king, Theodoric,in severalhigh offices,astutelyavoided applyingthe word to his and Italy'snew masters, although he found it suitable for describingthe bad mannersof the subjects, neighbors, and enemies of the Ostrogothic kingdom.44Inthe Variae,the exquisite letterswhich Cassiodoruscomposed and issued inTheodoric's name, he drew the distinction between the peaceful, law-abiding life demanded by civilitas, civilization, and the senseless, ragingfury of the barbarians. In a letter to the Jews of Genoa, Theodoric or,rather, Cassiodorus, noted that: 'The observance of the law is the sign ofcivilitas... for what is better than that people should wish to live undertherule of justice? For this brings together people from their wild state into acivilized community'.45A proclamationto his Gaulish subjectsurgedthem

41 The Germans were the principalrepresentativesof barbarismduringthis era; althoughtheword was also appliedto soldiers of the Empire.See R. Latouche, Les Grandes nvasionset laCrisedeL'Occident au Ve Siecle (Paris, 1946), pp. 14-15; and the interestingarticleby W. G.Sinnigen, 'Barbaricarii,Barbari,and the Notitia Dignitatum',Latomus,XXII (1963), 806-15.42 Registrum Epistolarum,ed. P. Ewald and L. M. Hartmann, Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica [MGH] (2 Vols.; Berlin, 1891-9), I, 325, line 2.43 RomanState and ChristianChurch:A Collectionof Legal Documentsto A.D. 535, ed. andtrans. P. R. Coleman-Norton (3 Vols.; London, 1966), No. 646. Victor of Vita, HistoriaPersecutionisAfricanae Provinciae,ed. M. Petschenig, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum(Vienna, 1881),p. 103, speaks of the 'barbaraferocitaset heresisArriana'of the Vandals.44As did Jordanes, according to P. Courcelle, Histoire Litteraire des GrandesInvasionsGermaniques Paris, 1948), pp. 172-3. See A. Momigliano, 'Cassiodorusand Italian Cultureof His Time', Proceedingsof the BritishAcademy,XLI (1955), 207-45.45 CassiodoriSenatoris Variae,IV, 33, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH, Auctores Antiquissimorum(Berlin, 1894), p. 128: 'Custodia egum civilitatisest indiciumet reverentiapriorumprincipumnostrae quoquetestatur devotionisexemplum. Quid enim melius quamplebem sub praeceptodegerevelle iustitiae,ut conventusmultorumdisciplinabiliumit adunatiovoluntatum Hoc enimpopulos ab agresti vita in humanaeconversationis egulam congregavit.'


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386 w. R. JONESto 'obey Roman customs' and to relish the 'ancient freedom'by putting off'barbariancruelty'and wrappingthemselves 'with the morals of the toga'.'Dependence on the laws is the solace of human life, a protection for theweak, and a bridle for the powerful.'46Do not dislike the reign of law, headmonishedthem, becauseit is new, afterthe 'aimlesscravingofgentilitas'.To the Gauls, the Burgundians,and his own loyal Goths Theodoric sentexhortations to live according to the laws and to keep the peace-thoseattributesof civilization which most distinguishit from the barbarianwayof life.47True to his own ardent classicism and his admiration for theRoman cultural heritage, Cassiodorus had Theodoric insist on the moraland legal differencesbetween the two cultures-a stock-in-tradenotion oflater antiquity.In reality, however, the old antithesis of Roman and barbarian wasbecoming less and less accurate as a description of prevailing social andcultural conditions in Europe as the two cultures mingled and theiropposition diminished.This transformationwas as much the result of theresurgenceof the older subculturesof Celt, Semite, Berber,and Copt as itwas the product of the introductionfrom without of Germanicbarbarism.Romanitasretreatedas a variety of barbarian cultures revealedthemselveslike islands rising from the sea.48Contemporarycommentators describedthis process of the deterioration of civilization and the triumphof barbar-ism in moral, legal, andliteraryterms. Ammianus Marcellinus,for instance,noted the rise of lawlessness and disorder which characterized the laterpart of the fourth century and which threatened the very existence ofRomanitas.49Sidonius Apollinaris, snickering at the crudities of the bar-barian and playing upon the words, 'barbarian'and 'barbarism',drew anaesthetic contrast between the two cultures.50Rutilius Namatianus, whoidentifiedthe Roman state with the preservationof peace, prosperity, andjustice, assuredhimself that the diminution of these qualities marked onlya temporary retreat;51although Salvian was convinced that the moraldifferencebetween Romanitasand barbarismhad virtually disappeared.52Of course, these views were those of the Roman intelligentsia, to whomthe defeat of Rome seemed to represent a threat to the existence of theworld itself. On lower levels of society, some people preferredthe uncer-tainty of life among the barbariansto the inevitable oppression of Roman

46 Ibid., III, 17 (p. 88).47 Ibid., III, 43 (p. 100): 'Delectamur iure Romanoviverequosarmis cupimusvindicare,necminornobis est cura rerum moraliumquampotest esse bellorum.Quid enimproficit barbaros

removisseconfusos,nisi vivaturex legibus'.See also ibid.,IV, 39 (pp. 131-2).48 This is the argumentof R. MacMullen, Enemiesof the Roman Order:Treason,Unrestand Alienationin the Empire (Cambridge,Mass., 1966),p. 231.49 Earl, op. cit., pp. 103 ff.5sLetters,III, 8; and IV, 17; V, 5 in LCL ed., Vol. II, pp. 32-34, 126, 182.51 De RedituSuo, I, 63-6, 129-40, in MinorLatinPoets, ed. J. W. Duff and A. M. Duff, LCL(Cambridge,Mass., 1961), pp. 768, 774.52 De GubernationeDei, V, 5, in Pauly ed., p. 108.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 387rule. Priscus' story of the Roman renegade, who chose a life at Attila'scourt over that of a subject of the Empire, shows that the ancient notioncontrasting the freedom and justice of civilization with the tyranny ofbarbarismwas no longer a fair assessment of their differences.53III. THE IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN-THE EARLY MIDDLE AGESChanging conditions within Europe during the fifth, sixth, and seventhcenturies blurred the distinction between Romanitas and barbarism andpromoted the adoption of new categoriesof differentiation.The disappear-ance of Roman political power in the West and the disintegration of theimperiallegal, governmental,and educational systemsreduced the Romancontent of western culture at the same time that the triumph of theGermanic invaders was transforming Europe into a barbarian land. TheBurgundian, the Ostrogoth, and the Frank were too successful to bedespised as mere barbarians, and they seldom applied the term to them-selves.54Writing in the sixth century the Frankish historian, Gregory ofTours, rarely used the word and never in referenceto the Franks. In hisbooks of miracles, however, he employedbarbarusas a synonymfor pagan,thereby showing the religious connotation that the word was graduallyassuming.55This transition from a cultural to a religious meaning and thesubstitution of the antithesis of barbarian and Christian for the oldercontrast of barbarianand Roman was completed by the end of the seventhcentury. The principal distinction within the European consciousnessbecame a religious one; and the Catholic Christian was distinguishedfromthe barbarian,who was the heathen or the Arian heretic.The conventionalmoral attributesof barbarism-its ferocity, treachery,and brutality-wereretained. On the other hand, when the word had assumed primarily areligious meaning it could be applied retrospectivelyand without prejudiceby a people to themselves in order to describe a pre-Christian phase oftheir national history.The Salian code of the Franks shows this usage whenit reflected on the heathen condition of the Franks dum adhucritu detiner-eturbarbarico,before, that is, their conversion to Christianity.56The same

53Translatedin TheAge of Attila, ed. C. D. Gordon (Ann Arbor, 1960), pp. 86-7.54See the extremelyhelpful and thorough study of E. Ewig, 'Volkstum and Volksbewusst-sein im Frankenreichdes 7. Jahrhunderts',Caratteride Secolo VII in Occidente . . Settimanedi Studiodel Centro Italiano di Studisull' alto Medioevo,II (Spoleto, 1958), 609-20. An olderwork is F. Thibaut, 'Les Imp6ts Directs', RevueHistoriquede Droit Francaise,XXV (1901),708-9. References to some secondary sources are in L. Musset, Les Invasions: les VaguesGermaniquesParis, 1965), pp. 219-20.55 VitaePatrum, VI, in GregoriiTuronensisOpera, ed. W. Arndt and B. Krusch, MGH,Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum (2 Vols.; Hanover, 1884-5), II, 681. Translated by E.Brehaut for Columbia Records of Civilization (New York, 1916).56Pactus Legis Salicae, GermanenrechteNeue Folge: WestgermanischesRecht, ed. K. A.Eckhardt (2 Vols. in 4 parts; Gottingen, 1954-7), 1/2, 314. The prologue reads: 'Nuperadcatholicam idem conversa,inmunisab herese, dum adhucritu detinereturbarbarico, nspiranteDeo, inquirenscientiaeclavem, uxta morum uorumqualitatemdesiderans ustitiamet custodienspietatem'.


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388 w. R. JONESsource also contrasted the punishments to be imposed on 'Roman','Frank', and 'barbarians iving under the Salic law', by which the Frankswere distinguishedfrom the non-Franks.57Among the clearest and earliestillustrations of the purelyreligious use of the word are those provided bysurviving examples of Celtic penitential literature, which stipulatedpunishmentsfor persons who served as scouts or informersto the heathenand led them to attack their fellow Christians. The perfect identificationof the barbarianand the pagan occurs in the sixth-centuryWelsh compila-tion known as the 'Synod of the Grove of Victory', and it is repeated inlatersources.58A mid-seventh-centuryWelshpenitentialdecreed a penancefor the catholicus (Christian) who dared let his hair grow in barbarianfashion (in morebarbarico).59By the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth centuries theidentification of the barbarian with the pagan was general throughoutEurope, and this usage was continued into the later Middle Ages evenafter alternativeshad been suggested.60During the first several medievalcenturies the word barbarus was applied to Slavs, Magyars, Vikings,Germans, and even Saracens.61To the author of the Chronicleof the Polesthe fierceSilesians,Pomeranians,and Prussians were 'barbarorumentiliumferocissimas nationes'.62The English chronicler, Aethelweard, made thepoint in the tenth century when he noted that Woden had been a formerrex barbarorum,whom, after death, thepaganihad made a god.63In manyearlymedievalsourcesbarbaruss opposed to Christianus,and the religiouscharacter of their struggle is emphasized. The predatory nature of bar-barians continued to be noted. To the Saxon Poet the Huns were a 'wildpeople zealous at war'.64Rudolph of Fulda, the annalist, used barbarieas

57 Ibid., p. 322 (XI, 1): 'Si quis ingenuusFrancumhominemaut barbarumocciderit,qui legeSalica vivit....'58 TheIrishPenitentials,ed. L. Bieler, ScriptoresLatini Hibemiae, V (Dublin, 1963), p. 68:'Qui praebentducatumbarbaris, XIII. annis, tamen si non accideritstragis Christianorum tsanguiniseffusioet dira captivitas.Si autem evenerit,agant residuo vitaepenitentiamreiectisarmis. Si autem volueritet non ad vota sibi barbarosad Christianoseducere,residuovite suaepeniteat'.See also p. 126.59Ibid.,p. 148. 60 Ewig, loc. cit., p. 620.61 See the references in various early medieval sources in MGH, Scriptores, IV, 57, 89,218,510, 592, where the paganidentification s obvious. For the identificationof Slavicpeoplesas barbari,cf., ibid.,pp. 255, 610, 615, 792, 793; for Magyars, ibid.,pp. 67, 268, 402, 403, 454,455; for Northmen, ibid.,pp. 704, 705, 760, 761, 773, 775; and for a strayreference o Saracensas barbari, bid.,pp. 652-4. For an especiallyearlyreference,cf. Migne, LV, cols. 1029 ff.62 MGH, Scriptores,IX, 425.63 The Chronicleof Aethelweard, I, 3, ed. A. Campbell (London, 1962), p. 7. For otherexamples, see I, 4; III, 4 (pp. 9, 31). For a later English example of the equation of bar-

barians and pagans, see William of Malmesbury, De Gestis PontificiumAnglorum LibriQuinque,ed. N.E.S.A. Hamilton, Rolls Series [RS] (London, 1870), pp. 48, 215.64 MGH, Scriptores, I, 244. For a twelfth-centuryexample of the notion of 'tyrannical'barbarism,see Geoffreyof Monmouth, HistoriaRegumBritanniae, d. J. Hammer(Cambridge,Mass., 1951), p. 99. Widukind,RerumGestarumSaxonicarumLibriTres,III, 54, ed. G. Waitzand K. A. Kehr, Scriptorum Rerum Germanicarum(Hanover and Leipzig, 1904), p. 113,gives an especially dramatic description of barbarism: 'Sclavus barbarico morefrendens etmulta convicia evomens'.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 389a synonym for ferociter,65and an eleventh-centurychronicler describingthe earlier depredations committed by Germanic Arian invaders of theWest emphasized the 'savagery of the immense, horrible, and terribleattack'.66

During the early Middle Ages barbaruskept its classical meaning, as theopposite of Roman or Latin, only on the linguistic and literary levels,where it was used to designate the vernacular languages, usually Gothic,or by grammarians o identifycertain faults of Latingrammaror pronunci-ation. The latter comprised the 'barbarous' corruptions, barbarismus,barbarolexis,introduced into pure Latin composition. Readers of Isidoreof Seville were acquainted with 'barbarisms', errors of spelling andspeaking, or the barbarolexis,which was the fault of interjectinga foreignword into classical Latin.67Latin stylists loved to let their fancies play withsuch 'barbarous'mistakes, which were sometimes personified, and whichhelped recall the ancient antithesis of Latinitas and barbarism.68 Thegrammarianskept alive the classical sense of barbarusat a time when mostauthors were stressing its religious implications.69The enthusiasm of thescholars of the Carolingian Renaissance for the Latin classics enhancedtheir awareness of the old distinction. Einhard, who styled himself 'homobarbarus', n the same breath excused his inadequaciesas a Latinist.70Onanother occasion in his biography of Charlemagne he described theemperor's decision to change the names of the days of the week, themonths, and the winds, a reformwhich aimed at strengtheningChristianityby breaking the association of the calendar with pagan worship. Einhardcontrasted the new vernacular names, which had been stripped of theircultic associations, with the former heathen names partim latinis partimbarbaris,which evoked memories of heathen worship.71It was, however,only on these literaryand linguistic levels that the opposition of Latinitasand barbarismsurvived.Either because of the preferencesof his sources or the varyinghistoricalincidents which he sought to describe, the English historian, Bede, used

65 MGH, Scriptores, I, 405. Cf. also MGH, Scriptores, IV, 150, where the TranslatioS.Liborii,spoke of the Saxons as 'barbarae t semipaganaenationi'.Danes are called 'pagan'and'barbarous'by Matthew Paris in the ChronicaMajora,ed. H. R. Luard, RS (7 Vols.; London,1872-83), I, 428. But they are called 'pagans' by Asser, Life of King Alfred together withtheAnnalsof Saint Neots, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904), pp. 49, 54, 69, etc.66 MGH, Scriptores,VIII, 307.67 Isidori HispalensisEpiscopi Etymologiarum ive OriginumLibri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay(2 Vols.; Oxford, 1911), I, 32. Cf. A. Souter, Glossaryof Later Latin to 600 A.D. (Oxford,1957), s.v. 'barbarizo.'68 See the quotations from the HispericaFaminaand Aldhelm in W. F. Bolton, A History ofAnglo-LatinLiterature,597-1066 (2 Vols.; Princeton, 1967), I, 46, 91.69E. R. Curtius,EuropeanLiteratureand the Latin MiddleAges, trans. W. R. Trask (NewYork, 1953), p. 414.70 VitaKarolini,Proem, MGH, Scriptores,II, 443.71 Ibid., p. 458: 'Mensibus etiam iuxta propriam linguam vocabula imposuit, cum ante idtemporisapudFrancospartim latinispartim barbarisnominibuspronunciarentur.'


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390 W. R. JONESthe word 'barbarian' n its linguistic,moral, and religioussensesduringthecourse of writing his EcclesiasticalHistory of the EnglishNation. On oneoccasion he spoke of an Englishprince offendedby the 'barbarous'speechof a foreign preacher;72on another, he denounced pagans 'puffedup withbarbarous folly'.73Nor did Bede forget that the Romans built a wall toprevent the 'barbarous nations' of Picts and Scots from ravaging thesouth.74 Describing the slaughter in Northumbria perpetrated by the'pagan' Penda and the 'barbarous' Cadwalla, Bede evoked the classicalprejudice against the barbarian, who just happened to be a baptizedChristian. 'Cadwalla, although he had the name of a Christian and pro-fessed that life, yet was he in mind and manners so barbarous, that hespared not even the sex of women or the harmless infancy of youngchildren, but delivered them all to death with torments according to hisbeastly cruelty. .. .'75The adoption of Catholic Christianityby most of the nations of Europebanished barbarismto the frontiers. The success of Irish and Anglo-Saxonmissionaryefforts and of Carolingianimperialismbroadenedthe extent ofthe Christiancommunityand endowed it with a unified territorialexistence.The idea of a more or less spirituallyhomogeneous Christendom, sharp-ened by attacks on its peripheryby Avars, Slavs, Vikings, Magyars, and,occasionally, Arabs, evolved as a fact, if not as a name, duringthe eighth,ninth, and tenth centuries.76This closing of the Christian oecumeneagainstheathen barbarians drew vividly the distinction between the lands of theChristians and the barbarous regions without.77During the same periodwhen the barbarian was usually the non-Catholic Christianor heathen, asimilar 'ideological conflation' was associating Romanitasand Christiani-tas.78 The Romani or respublicaRomana had by the eighth and ninthcenturies become equivalentto those personswho submitted themselvestothe Roman or Western Church,although the word, Romani,also retaineda narrowgeographicalsense to describe the citizens of Rome and Italy.79

72 HistoriaeEcclesiasticae,III, 7, in OperaHistorica, ed. J. E. King, LCL (2 Vols.; Cam-bridge, Mass., 1962-63), I, 358.73Ibid., II, 5 (Vol. I, p. 228). 74Ibid.,III, 2; I, 12 (Vol. I, pp. 330, 60).75 bid., II, 20 (Vol. I, p. 316).76 D. Hay, Europe:theEmergenceof an Idea(New York, 1966), pp. 27 ff. Hay has commen-ted on barbarians,pp. 23-4, and nn. See also C. Curcio, Europa:Storia di Un' Idea (2 Vols.;Florence, 1958), I. 113 ff.77 J. Rupp has analyzedthe evolution of a papal theory of Christendomin L'ideede Chre-tientedansla PenseePontificaledes Originesd InnocentIII (Paris, 1939). See also W. M. Daly,'Christian Fraternity, the Crusaders, and the Security of Constantinople, 1097-1204; thePrecariousSurvivalof an Ideal', MediaevalStudies,XXII (1960), 43-91.78 W. Ullmann, The Growthof Papal Governmentn the Middle Ages (2nd ed.; London,1962), p. 61. See also pp. 63, 89, 111, 221-4.79 Ibid.,p. 63; Ewig, loc. cit., p. 614 and n. 79. Ullmann, op. cit., p. 47, quotes in translationa highly interestingletter from Pope GregoryII to the Byzantine emperorwherein the word'barbarian' s used in a cultural sense: 'It is regrettablethat the savages and barbarianshavebecome cultured,whilstyou as a culturedindividual have degraded yourself to the level of thebarbarians. ....'


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 391These important semantic changes, enforced by the drastically alteredpolitical and cultural conditions of Europe, were the result of theredefinition of the very ideas of 'civilization' and 'barbarism'.The identificationof the Christianreligion with the tradition of imperialRoman unity was to have an important part in the formulation of Carolin-gian political theology and diplomacy. In the reign of CharlemagnePopeHadrianI condoned Frankishimperialismby writingto Charlesto expressthe papal hope that the Frankish ruler would vanquish all barbarianpeoples and enemies of the church of God.80In the next generationLouisthe Pious promoted the conversion of the Swedes,who borderedhis realm:'Burning with the ardor of the faith he began to seek how he might beable to constitute an episcopal see in the northern parts, that is, on thefrontiers of his empire;for thence it would be suitable for the bishop seatedthere to go more frequentlyinto those parts in order to preach and thenceall of the barbariannations would be able to take the sacramentof divinemystery more easily and more fully'.81The same point was made in thefamiliar charter of the Emperor Otto II granting to the merchants ofMagdeburg the right to trade 'not only in Christian but in barbarianareas'.82Helmold, the chronicler of the conversion of the Slavs, usuallyidentifiedthe barbarian as the pagan and was acutely aware of the frontierseparating Christendom from barbarian peoples.83 This image of thebarbarian as heathen is also prominentin the Chronicleof thePoles, whichnarrated the struggle in another no-man's land between Christianityandpaganism. 84Despite the survivalof the non-Christianmeaning of the word, barbarus,into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, it implied much more.The furor barbaricus,the qualities of ferocity, belligerency, and cruelty,continued to apply. Writingin the twelfth century,William of Malmesburyused the word in its religious sense to describe the early Anglo-Saxons, but

80 Codex Carolinus,MGH, Epistolae, III, Nos. 52, 53, 55, 61, 62. etc., quoted by R. E.Sullivan, 'The Papacy and Missionary Activity in the Early Middle Ages', MediaevalStudies,XVII (1955), 83 and n. 12.81 Rimbert, VitaAnskarii, 12, ScriptoresRerum Germanicarum,p. 33, quoted by Sullivan,loc. cit., p. 86 and n. 41.82MGH, Diplomatum Regum et ImperatorumGermaniae, II (Hanover, 1888), No. 112(p. 126).83HelmoldiPresbyteriBozoviensis CronicaSlavorum, I, 6, 8, 21, 22, 40, ed. J. M. Lappen-berg and B. Schmeidler,ScriptoresRerum Germanicarum(Hanover and Leipzig, 1909), pp.16-17, 19, 44, 45, 83. Translatedby F. J. Tschan for Columbia Records of Civilization (NewYork, 1935). Adam of Bremen is also accustomed to equate 'barbarian'and non-Christianand is likewise acutely aware of the frontier separatingChristendomand barbarousregions.Cf. Adami GestaHammaburgensisEcclesiaePontificum,II, 25; IV, 8, 23, 29, ed. G. H. Pertz,Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum(Hanover, 1846), pp. 67, 185, 197-8, 203. Translated byF. J. Tschan for Columbia Records of Civilization (New York, 1959). Both authors tend toview the 'barbarian'like pioneers encountering the Indians in the nineteenth century. Bothwere also aware of the classical contrast of Greek and barbarian,q.v. Helmold, op. cit., I, 2(p. 8); Adam of Bremen, op. cit., II, 19 (p. 61).84 MGH, Scriptores, IX, 429, 449, 455, 466.


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392 W. R. JONEShe also noted the effect of theirconversion to Christianity n abolishing thewarlike habits of the English-a distinctive trait of the barbarian. 'In thefirstyears of their arrival,they were barbarians n their look and manners,warlike in their usages, heathens in their rites; but, after embracing thefaith of Christ, slowly, by degrees, because of the peace they enjoyed,putting the exercise of arms in second place, they gave themselvesentirelyto works of religion'.85 To the English historian, Christianity was acivilizing force capable of achieving the moral as well as the spiritualconversion of its adherents.IV. THE IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN-THE LATER MIDDLE AGESThe crusades may have fostered the conceptualization of a geographicalChristendom,but contact with the Moslem enemy did not affect the imageof the barbarianwhich circulated in Europe. The Moslem did not conformto the medieval stereotype of the barbarian, and the word was seldomapplied to the Arab, the Persian, the Seljuk Turk, or, until the fifteenthcentury,the Ottoman. Islam was not viewed as a pagan religion but ratheras a particularly hateful and dangerous corruption of the true faith-apernicious heresy.86Its founder, Mohammed, was customarily describedin European Christiansources as the reprobate,the arch-deceiver,and thefalse prophet. European acquaintance with the wealth and power of theMoslem states and the martial prowess of Arab, Persian,and Seljuk, whowere sometimes viewed as the chivalriccounterpartsof Christianknights,made the conventional image of the barbarianquite irrelevant as an aptdescriptionof them.Christianapologistscreatedamythicalportraitof Islamas a perversionof true religion-the delusion of pawns and dupes. On thepopular level European Christians sometimes stood in awe of Moslempower and success, and often gave the devil his due by endowing theMoslem warriorwith the attributesof Christianchivalryor by discoveringa Trojan ancestryfor the Turks.Onlyinfrequentlywas the word 'barbarian'applied to the Moslem of the crusading era, and then only as a pallidsynonym for non-Christian.Leo II of Armenia, writing to Pope InnocentIII, spoke of the struggle between barbaresnationes and Christianitas,representedby himself and his allies, but this was exceptional.87Humbertof Romans, the fifth minister general of the Dominican order, called abelief in Christ the greatest need of barbariannations, who must receiveit in order to win salvation.88 On another occasion, however, he feltobliged to distinguish among 'schismatici christiani', 'perfidisJudaeis',

85De GestisRegum Anglorum,Libri Quinque;HistoriaeNovellae,LibriTres,ed. W. Stubbs,RS (2 Vols.; London, 1887-9), II, 304.86N. Daniel, Islamandthe West:theMakingof anImage(Edinburgh, 1960),pp. 273, 276.87Rupp, op. cit., pp. 102-3, and nn. 3c, 3e.88 B. Humbertide RomanisQuintiPraedicatorumMagistriGeneralisOperade VitaRegulari,ed. J. J. Berthier(2 Vols.; Rome, 1888-9), II, 377.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 393'Saracenis deceptis', 'paganis', 'idolatris', and 'barbaris et gentibus uni-versis'.89 In the reign of Philip IV of France the royal counsellor and pro-ponent of Christian harmony, Pierre Dubois, urged the establishment ofEuropean peace and cooperation as a necessaryfirst step toward a renewalof the crusading effort and the defeat of the barbarians, including, sup-posedly, the Moslems.90Something approximating the classical view ofbarbarism,but referringto Moslem lands, is contained in a letter of theEmperor Frederick II addressed to the Christian prelates of Europe andattempting to dissuade them from attending a council convened by hisenemy, Pope Gregory IX. An unfortunate accident, an ill wind, the letterstated, could cast their ships on the shore of 'barbarousnations', which areignorant of their laws and languages and where they could expect to sufferperpetual imprisonment.91The imperial scribe was obviously contemplat-ing the hazardous sea voyage through the Mediterranean and the 'bar-barous nations' were the Moslem principalitiesof North Africa. Not untilthe fifteenthcenturyand the Ottoman occupation of Constantinoplewouldthe word be applied with any frequency to the Moslem antagonists ofChristian Europe. At this late date the image of the barbarian had beendrained of much of its religious content, and it was used principally toconnote ferocity, brutality, and cruelty. The 'barbarous'character of theOttoman Turk was apparently a stereotype arising from the Turkishravishmentof the Byzantine capital in 1453,the horrifyingdetails of whichwere reportedto Europeby GreekEmigresand Italian merchants;and thissense of the term was reinforced by Turkish success in the sixteenth andseventeenthcenturies.To Pope Pius II and his contemporaries,who wereattempting to revive the crusading ideal in Europe, the Ottoman was thevery symbol of the rampaging, rapacious barbarian whose ferocity inbattle and whose fanatic hatred of Christianityseemed to place ChristianEurope in direjeopardy.92During the later Middle Ages the territorial concept of barbarism wassomewhat confused by conflictinguses of the term Barbariato signify boththe realm of the Moslem Berbers of North Africa, the modern 'Barbary',and the eastern lands inhabited by ferocious barbarians.At the beginningof the thirteenth century the St. Alban's chronicler, Roger of Wendover,spoke of it as lying beyond the Euphratesand the Red Sea.93Matthew of

89Ibid., p. 492.90De RecuperationeTerreSancte, I, 44, ed. C.-V. Langlois (Paris, 1891),p. 57. TranslatedbyW. I. Brandtfor Columbia Records of Civilization (New York, 1956).91J. L. A. Huillard-Br6holles,Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi ... (6 Vols. in 12;Paris, 1852-61), V/2, 1078: 'Est etiam in mari ventorum abies inevitabilis, mprovisa,que dumRomamapplicarecreditis,repentevos inbarbarasprojicietnationes ubi est linguevestreignoran-tia, legis perversitas,amissio libertatiset captivitatisperpetuedesolamen'.92R. Schwoebel, TheShadowof the Crescent:TheRenaissance mage of theTurk 1453-1517](New York, 1967), pp. 8, 71, 152.93Flores Historiarum,ed. H. G. -Iewlett,RS (3 Vols.; London, 1886-9), I, 179, and also p.


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394 W. R. JONESWestminster,however,placed Barbaria n North Africa, when he describedthe consternation provoked by the arrival of Louis IX in Tunis.94RalphHigden's Polychronicon ocated it in an area bounded by the Tanais, theDanube, and the northern ocean.95African 'Barbary'assumed an ethnicconnotation, although the notion of the land of the Berbers sometimeselided with the sense of 'barbarous' as pagan.96During the later MiddleAges both the Asian and the African sites were accepted-'Barbary' as theland of the Berbersand Asian Barbaria,where the people were heathenbarbarians.97The cessation of pagan attack upon most of Europe by the eleventhcentury made barbarism both less immediate and less painful. WithinChristianEurope the heathen had virtually disappearedas an identifiabletype. On the other hand, the internaltransformation of Europe, or at leastcertain parts of it, as a result of economic and social changes which wereoccurringat this time, encouraged some observers to apply the term 'bar-barian' to otherEuropeanpeoples andplaces. The purelyreligiousmeaningof the word was diminishedwhen it was used to expressthe condescensionof some Europeans toward others who seemed less advanced or refined.The moral, social, and cultural implications of the word re-emergedin thelater Middle Ages as it became less relevant as a denominator of religiousidentification.98This sense of the word was closer to its classicalusage, andits popularity may be due both to the recoveryof classical learningand tothe acceleratedmaterial and intellectual development of certain parts ofEurope as contrasted with others. In any event when a Christian can callanother Christian a 'barbarian' the word no longer reflects real religiousdistinctions. Writing about 1031 the Cluniac monk, William of Volpiano,of the abbey of the Holy Trinity, Fecamp, expressed his disdain for

94Flores Historiarum,ed. H. R. Luard, RS (3 Vols.; London, 1890), III, 20.95Polychronicon,ed. C. Babington and J. R. Lumby, RS (9 Vols.; London, 1865-66), I,170: '... propterbarbarasgentes quascontinetgeneraliterBarbariaappelatur'.96PrimeraCronicaGeneralde Espana,ed. R. Men6ndez Pidal (2 Vols.; Madrid, 1955),I, 27,157; the notion of 'barbarous' or 'heathen' is suggested by Frederick II's letter cited in note91 above.97Sixteenth-centurymaps reproduced n R. A. Skelton,Explorer'sMaps (New York, 1958),figs. 45, 60, place Barbariain North Africa. In the fifteenth century an English source said,'Wytlandia s ... inhabitewithpepleofbarbre worschippengeydoles', NewEnglishDictionary,s.v. 'Barbary'.98There has been considerable doubt concerningthe precise meaning of the word barbarusduring the later Middle Ages in Europe. The contributor to EnciclopediaItaliana di Scienze,Lettereed Arti (36 Vols.; Rome, 1929-39), s.v. 'Barbari',gives a summaryof changinguses inthe later Middle Ages. R. de Mattei, 'Sul Concetto di Barbaro e Barbarie nel Medio Evo',Studi di Storia e Diritto in Onore di Enrico Besta per il XL Anno de Suo Insegnamento, V(Milan, 1939), 495-6, has argued that the classical antithesis of Latinitas and barbaruswaskept duringthe whole of the MiddleAges. For a collection of citations showing the use of theword in the literatureof the later Empireand the early MiddleAges, see Du Cange, GlossariumMediae et InfimaeLatinitatis(10 Vols.; Paris, 1937-8), s.v. 'Barbarus'.218. Adhelm placed it in Scythia, Opera,ed. R. Ehwald, MGH, Auctorum Antiquissimorum(Berlin, 1919), p. 72. Cf. Ralph of Coggeshale, MGH, Scriptores,XXVII, 348-9.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 395Normandy's 'barbarous dukes'.99 The Normans had been converted toChristianityfollowing the settlement of Rollo and his band on Frankishterritoryearly in the tenth century. These Scandinavianpirates were new-comers to Latin Christian civilization, and the memory of their heathenorigins survived for a long time in continental song and legend.100William,a Piedmontese of Swabian ancestry and a luminary of the OttonianRenaissance,may have been expressinghis contempt for a distant, recentlyconverted folk with a somewhat dubious past. A similar use of the wordappearsin the well-known sermonof Pope Urban II delivered to the clergyand laity assembled for the council of Clermont in 1095, which wasreported by the English chronicler,William of Malmesbury.In the courseof his appeal to the Christian nobility of France to take up the task offreeing the holy places of the East from Moslem defilement, Urban con-trasted the relative extent of Christian and infidel dominions throughoutthe world. He observed, 'How small is the part of it inhabited by usChristians for none would term Christian those barbarous peoples wholive on distant islands on the frozen ocean, for they live in the manner ofbrutes (quia more belluino victitat)'.101Urban's contemptuous aside mayhave seemed justified by the relatively recent conversion of most ofScandinavia-the achievement of St. Olaf-and the apparent moral andcultural backwardness of northern Europe as it appeared to a southernEuropean. The same point was made by Pope Paschal II in a letter to theEnglish primate, Archbishop Anselm, in 1102. Paschal admonishedAnselm, 'positusinterbarbaros',not to desist from preachingthe truth, inthis case, the Gregorian interpretation of the investiture of the higherclergy, out of the fear of the 'violence of tyrants', nor out of concern forthreats or blandishments.102n Paschal's letter the non-Christiancontentof the word has been reduced to the extent merely of implying the lack ofpiety and justice.

Medieval European scholars never succeeded in fashioning a generaltheory of cultural development comparable to the work of Ibn Khaldunor a handful of great Moslem and Chinese historians.103Only rarely didthey go beyond the received classical and scripturaltexts to explore morethoroughly and from a secularpoint of view the nature of barbarismor theprecise relationship, as they saw it, between barbarism and civilization.One ratherexceptional and neglected example of retrospectivesociological

99 Liberde revelatione ... Fiscannensis',Acta Sanctorum,VI/I, 353, cited by N. F. Cantor,Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture in England, 1089-1135 (Princeton, 1958), p. 22.100W. P. Ker, The Dark Ages (Edinburgh, 1958), p. 224.101De Gestis Regum, II, 395.102 S. Anselmi Cantauriensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, ed. F. S. Schmitt (5 Vols.; Edin-burgh, 1946-51), IV, 124 (Ep. 222): 'Deo autem gratias quia in te semper episcopalis auctoritasperseverat, et inter barbarospositus non tyrannorum violentia, non potentum gratia, non incensioneignis, non effusione manus a veritatis annuntiatione desistis'. Cited by Cantor, op. cit., pp. 158-9.103 See M. Mahdi, Ibn Khaldun's Philosophy of History (Chicago, 1964), pp. 193-204.D


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396 w. R. JONEScriticismin the Middle Ages is providedby the work of the twelfth-centuryAnglo-Welsh author, Gerald of Wales. It is tempting to underestimateGerald. His gossipy style, his enthusiasmfor Celtic prophecy, his scandal-ous public squabble with the English archbishop, Hubert Walter, forpossession of the see of St. David's, and his racial biases-such do notestablish confidence in his judgment or discretion.104Nonetheless,Gerald's interests were broad. His acquaintance from birth with the twocultures, Celtic and English, and his service to the English king in Walesand Irelandmadehim conscious of issues of comparativesocial and culturaldevelopment which seldom attracted the attention of other Europeanscholars. He composed reports of both Wales and Ireland, and in theTopographiaHibernica he attempted to generalize on those social andattitudinalfactors which differentiatedIrish culture from its more civilizedneighbor. For instance, Gerald contrasted the natural and uncontrivedmethods of child-raisingamong the Irish,which accounted for their vigor,handsomeness, and stamina, with the artificial constraints of civilization.While admittingthe physicalvirtuesof the Irishpeople, Geraldcondemnedtheir lack of cultivation,whichwas so obvious in their mannerof dressandin their attitudes and which stamped them as truly barbarous: 'barbarustamentam barbarumquamvestium,necnonet mentiumcultus,eos nimirumreddit incultos'.105 espite the conversion of the Irish to Christianitylongbefore, Gerald complained of their failure to conform to the basic teach-ings of their faith and of their vicious ignorance. Uncouth and unpredict-able, the Irish bore a clear resemblanceto the barbarian of the Graeco-Latin sources. But Gerald succeeded in going beyond mere slander inevaluatingIrish society and morals, by attemptingto explain the historicaland cultural circumstances-their pastoralism, their isolation from thebenevolent influence of more advanced nations, their marginal way oflife-which condemned them to poverty and underpopulationand helpedexplain their barbarouscondition.This people is a sylvan folk, inhospitable; a people subsisting on cattle only and livingbestially; a people who have not departed from the primitive pastoral life. Mankindgenerally progresses from the forests to the fields and thence to the towns and theconditions of citizens; but this nation, despising agricultural labor, not coveting theriches of cities, and averse to civil laws, follows the same life as their forefathers inforests and open pastures, willing neither to abandon old habits or learn anything new.106All of these ideas were availableto Gerald in Cicero and his other classicalsources.107His remarkableachievementlies not simplyin repeatingthe old

104 For Gerald's life and works, see M. Powicke, The ChristianLife in the MiddleAges andotherEssays (Oxford, 1935), pp. 107-29.105GiraldiCambrensisOpera,ed. J. F. Dimock, RS (8 Vols.; London, 1861-91), V, 150.106 Ibid.,p. 151. For additionaluncomplimentary udgmentsabout the morals and customsof the Irish, see ibid., pp. 165, 168.107 See A. O. Lovejoy and G. Boas, A DocumentaryHistory of Primitivismand RelatedIdeas: Vol. I. PrimitivismandRelatedIdeasin Antiquity Baltimore, 1935), pp. 243 ff.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 397ideas about the barbarian, but, rather, in attempting to fashion a socio-logical and moral critiqueof Irish society. For our purposes, his character-ization of the Irish as barbarians shows how the disappearanceof a realinternal barbarism represented by the pagans of the early Middle Ages,combined with the uneven social development of different Europeanpeoples, could lead to the broadening of the term from one of purelyreligious significance to one of moral and cultural differentiation. Thatdistinction between what Professor Stuart Piggott has called 'conserving'and 'innovating' societies or between barbarism and civilization was alsomeaningful to Gerald.108As Gerald's work clearly reveals, the recovery of much of the corpus ofclassical learning-the achievement of the 'twelfth-centuryRenaissance'-transmitted to medieval Christian scholars classical attitudes about thebarbarian and his primitive way of life. The classical criticism of thebarbarian,which often equated him with the dumb brute, found a placewithin the moral speculation of the Christian scholastics. The 'anti-primitivism'of Cicero, who had applaudedman's progressfrom a state ofnature to a state of civilization, was helpful in formulating medievalpsychological and ethical opinions. The influence of Ciceronianism isevident, for example, in the panegyric composed by the twelfth-centurypoet, Peter of Poitiers, in commemoration of the visit of the Cluniacabbot,Peter the Venerable. It repeatedthe familiarcalumny about the barbarian,in this instance,an unnamed critic of Peter the Venerable:'Barbarecrudelis,homo bestia, livida pestis'.109Peter of Poitiers' 'barbarian' was anotherChristiancleric, who was made the target of literaryrebuke according toclassical sentiments which were then being revived. Much more importantuses were, however, to be made of these ancient sources of information.The Ciceronian idea of savagery pervaded the medieval concept ofbarbarism.The barbarian was viewed as illustrative of the retarded, dis-oriented, irrationalinfancy of mankind, before man had begun to achievebetter things for himself through his submission to law and the exercise ofreason. Albertus Magnus, Aquinas' master, quoted various classicalsources, including Cicero, to support his generalization contrasting thesweet reasonableness and tractabilityof civilized man with the disorderli-ness and irrationality of the barbarian. The barbarian,he observed, washe 'whom neither law, nor civility (civilitas), nor discipline disposes tovirtue'.110As Cicero had truly noted, barbariansare 'sylvestreshomines',

108Piggott, op. cit., pp. 17-18. For another assessment of Ireland'sdeprivation,see Williamof Malmesbury,De Gestis Regum,II, 485.109Migne, CLXXXIX, col. 58. For Peterof Poitiers,see M. Manitius,Geschichteder Latein-ischenLiteratur des Mittelalters(3 Vols.; Munich, 1923-64), III, 901-2."OLiber VII Ethicorum,Tract. I, 1, in B. Alberti Magni RatisbonensisEpiscopi, OrdinisPraedicatorum,Opera Omnia,ed. A. Borgnet (39 Vols.; Paris, 1890-99), VII, 464. For back-ground, see G. Boas, Essays on Primitivismand RelatedIdeas in the MiddleAges (Baltimore,1948); Lovejoy and Boas, Primitivismand Related Ideas in Antiquity,pp. 243 ff.


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398 w. R. JONESsharing the ways of wild beasts and being neither Greek nor Latin. Likebrutes they gorge themselves on human flesh and quaff their bloodybeveragefromhumanskulls. The barbarian,unlikecivilizedman, is 'movedratherby unreasoningfury, lust, and self-delusion'. St. Thomas made thesame point by commenting on the unwillingness or the inability of thebarbarian to submit himself to natural law, good morals, and the rule ofright reason.1' In the course of examiningsome of the problemsconfront-ing the Franciscan missionary the English scholastic, Roger Bacon, con-trasted the barbarian with rational man (quando barbarorum,quandohominumrationabilium).l2 An understanding of the mental and moraldeficiencies of the barbarianway of life would probably have been veryuseful to the Franciscan or Dominican friar engaged in the difficult butvital task of winning souls to Christ. The scholastic idea of the faults ofbarbarismhad, therefore,some value in the scheme of Christianeducationand apologetics. The relevancyof this problemwas being broughthome tomedieval man quite forcefully in the early thirteenth century by the re-appearance of the furor barbaricus n a particularly disturbing and dis-gusting form.The most familiar 'barbarian'of the thirteenthand fourteenth centurieswas the Tartar. European knowledge of this new kind of barbarismwasconsiderably enlarged through the efforts of Dominican envoys such asJohn of Piano de Carpine,William of Rubruck, and others whom variousChristian princes and popes dispatched to the East to discover the realintentions of theMongols, to dissuadethem from furtheraggressionagainstChristianlands, to convertthem to the true faith, and, perhaps,to establishan alliancewith them againstIslam. Well before Marco Polo venturedintoAsia and returnedto tell his thrilling tale of its marvels, Europeans werefairly well informed about this barbarian folk through the missionaryreports, especially John of Piano de Carpine'sbook, which circulated inthe West in the immenselypopular encyclopaedia of Vincent of Beauvais.These accounts reinforcedEuropeanawe, suspicion, and disgust by detail-ing the fierce ways, filthy habits, and repelling diet of the Tartars. Thereport of John of Plano de Carpineexpressedthe 'moral barrier'dividingcivilization and the barbariansby rehearsingthe familiarcomplaintsaboutthem.They break any promises they make as soon as they see that the tide is turned in theirfavour, and they are full of deceit in all their deeds and assurances; it is their object to

111EthicorumLiber VII,Lect. 1 in Sancti ThomaeAquinatisDoctorisAngelici OrdinisPrae-dicatorumOpera Omnia(25 Vols.; New York, 1948-50), XXI, 224: 'Quorumprimusest exconversatione entis, sicut apudbarbarosqui rationabilibusegibusnon utuntur,proptermalamcommunem onsuetudinem liquiincidunt n malitiambestialem'.112 The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, ed. J. H. Bridges (2 Vols.; Oxford, 1897), I, 301:'Receperuntetiam pericula infinita,eo quod nesciveruntquandointraveruntregionesfidelium,quandoschismaticorum,quandoSaracenorum,quandoTartarorum, uandotyrannorum, uandohominumpacificorum,quandobarbarorum, uandohominum ationabilium'.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 399wipe off the face of the earth all princes, nobles, knights and men of gentle birth ... andthey do this to those in their power in a sly and crafty manner: then because it is unfittingthat Christians should be subject to them in view of the abominations they practice andseeing that the worship of God is brought to nought, souls are perishing and bodies areafflicted beyond belief in many ways; it is true at first they speak fair words, but after-wards they sting and hurt like a scorpion....113These and other 'factual' reportsof Tartarsociety seemedto give credenceto an ancient legend, which in the face of real danger from the East, wasbeing carefullyand widely re-studiedduring the thirteenthcentury.114The Tartar threat to civilized Europe during the later Middle Ages wasexpressedin a 'sublimatedmythologizedform'by the legend of Alexander'sinclosure behind the Caspian Gates of the terrible peoples of Gog andMagog.1s5According to this story, which associated the strange andferocious tribes of Gog and Magog cited by Ezekiel and Revelation withthe heroic figure of Alexander as he was portrayed in Jewish, Christian,and Moslem mythology, the Macedonian conqueror had excluded thepeoples of Gog and Magog from the civilized world by building stoutwalls of iron or brass traditionallylocated in the Caucasus at the passes ofDariel or Derbend. Gog and Magog, even before their association withAlexander, had possessed an eschatological significance. The author ofRevelationdescribed the coming of these hordes as a suresign of impendingdoom. It was very easy to identify them with several historical enemies ofcivilization. Ezekiel may have been thinking of the Cimmerians; and theauthor of Revelation probably had the Scythians in mind. The fullydeveloped myth of Alexander and the inclosed nations was doubtlesslyenhancedin its historicalrelevancyby the invasion of the Huns in A.D. 395;and subsequently it circulated throughout the Mediterranean world inSyriac, Greek, and Latin versions.116With only a slight change in theproper names, Gog and Magog could be turned into Goth and Magothand the legend related to the Germanic invasions of the fifth century.117Such ancient and medieval authors as Commodian, Ambrose, Orosius,Isidore, Godfrey of Viterbo, and Ranulph Higden did precisely this.118Geography, physique, and institutions tended, however, to suggest theiridentification with the steppe nomads-Scythians, Huns, Alans, Avars,and Tartars-who occasionally managed to penetrate the defenses of

113 YstoriaMongolorum,VIII, 3, in Sinica Franciscana,ed. A. van den Wyngaert (7 Vols.;Quaracchi-Florence,1929-65), I, 94. Translated in Dawson, op. cit., p. 44.114 Ostensiblyfactual reportswereheavily colored by presuppositionbased on ancientmythand rumor. See the remarks of L. Olschki, MarcoPolo's Precursors(Baltimore, 1943), p. 13.For a recent discussion of European knowledge of Mongol Asia, consult L. Olschki, MarcoPolo's Asia (Berkeleyand Los Angeles, 1960).115 A. R. Anderson,Alexander'sGate,GogandMagog, and the InclosedNations(Cambridge,Mass., 1932), p. 8.116 Ibid., p. 20.117This is the usage of Mandeville's Travels: Texts and Translations,trans. M. Letts,Hakluyt Society, Ser. II, Vols. 101-2 (2 Vols.; London, 1953), II, 380.118 Anderson, op. cit., pp. 9-11.


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400 W. R. JONESEuropean civilization. The identification of Gog and Magog with theTartars and Turks was popularized in Europe through the circulation ofsuch ancient sources as the Revelations of the Pseudo-Methodius,a Latinwork of the seventhcentury,and the Cosmography f Aethicus Ister,whichdates from about the same time.119The gentes inmundas et aspectuorribilis seemed to conform perfectly with the description of the Tartarhorde presented by European missionaries; and such writers as Quin-lichinus of Spoleto, Rudulph of Ems, the author of the RussianPrimaryChronicle, Peter Comestor, Roger Bacon, Ricold of Monte Croce,Albertus Magnus, Vincent of Beauvais, and Marco Polo agreed.120Thethirteenth-centuryEnglishchronicler,Matthew Paris, quoted a letter fromHenry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia and kinsman of St. Elizabeth ofHungary, wherein Mongol bestiality is described in terms reminiscent ofGog and Magog: 'suntenimcorporeterribiles,vultu uriosi, oculis iracundi,manibusrapaces,dentibus anguinolenti,et eorumauces adcarnemhominumcomedendam et humanumsanguinem absorbendumomni tempore suntparatae'.121Another document preservedby the same source, the transcriptof a speech by a Russian archbishopin 1244, seems to reflectthe influenceof Aethicus Ister, the other popular medieval source for the Alexandrianlegend.122From the time of its appearance n the fourth centurythe legendof Alexanderandthe inclosed nations servednot only to identifythe varioushistorical challengers of civilization but also gave hope for the eventualtriumph of Christian civilization over the forces of Antichrist. Theeschatological content of the story of Gog and Magog both satisfiedEuropean curiosity about an astonishing and frightening people, theTartars, and reassured medieval man that they occupied a place in theChristianplan of salvation.123Long before the Italian humanists of the Renaissance expressed theirpride in Latin civilization and their faith that the resiliency of Romanculture had enabled Italy to prevail over the Germanic barbarismwhichhad engulfed Europe a thousand yearsbefore, other Europeancommenta-tors had complimented Italy for its civilizing influence. Bishop Otto of

119The Pseudo-Methodiushas been published by E. Sackur, SibyllinischeTexte und For-schungen(Halle, 1898). Aethicus Ister in his Cosmographiam, d. H. Wuttke (Leipzig, 1853),p. 18, identified the Turks as the descendants of Gog and Magog: 'Gens ignominiosaetincognita,monstruosa, dolatria, ornicaria in cunctisstupriiset lupanariistruculenta,a quo etnomen accepit, de stirpe Gog et Magog. Comedentenim universaabominabiliaet abortivahominum, uvenumcarnes iumentorumquet ursorum,vultorum, tem charadrium c milvorum,bubonumatquevisontium,canumet simiarum'.120 Anderson, op. cit., pp. 46 ff.; for Richardof Monte Croce, see PeregrinatoresMedii AeviQuatuor,ed. J. C. M. Laurent(Leipzig, 1864), pp. 114-18. The Tartars,Magogoli,Mogoli, aresaid to be descended from Gog and Magog (p. 118).121 ChronicaMajora,VI, 77.122 Ibid., IV, 386-9.

123 See G. Cary, The Medieval Alexander(Cambridge,1956), p. 130; and C.-V. Langlois,LaConnaissancede la Nature et du Monde au Moyen Age (Paris, 1911), p. 81, which quotes aFrench source to the effect that the peoples of Gog and Magog are such, 'Qui char d'ommemanjuentcruef Et bestes corngent mescreue'.


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IMAGE OF THE BARBARIAN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 401Freising, memorializing the deeds of his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa,cited as an example of the pacifying and civilizing effect of the Italianenvironment on barbarians the fate of the Lombards, who had occupiedthe peninsula in the seventh century. After their settlement the Lombards'put asidecrude,barbarousferocity,perhapsfrom the fact that whenunitedin marriagewith the natives they begat sons who inherited something ofthe Roman gentleness and keenness from the mothers' blood, and fromthe very quality of the country and climate, retain the refinement of theLatin speech and theireleganceof manners.In the governingof theircities,and in the conduct of public affairs, they still imitate the wisdom of theancient Romans'.124 The clearest sign of this acculturation was theirwillingnessto submitto orderlygovernment,theirlove of liberty,and theirdevotion to peace. On the other hand, the success of Latinitas in resistingbarbarism could be contrasted with Hungarian culture, which even inOtto's day displayed, he said, unmistakable signs of its barbarianorigins.The imprint of Hunnish, Avar, and Magyar occupation is evident in theappearance,customs, and institutions of contemporary Hungary, so that'it is not surprising that the province remains crude and uncultured incustom and in speech'.125 n other words, the process could work bothways. Accidents of history or cultural geography might either stimulatecivilization or impose upon a region an indeliblebarbarism.Through suchrough categories of cultural and ethnological analysis Bishop Ottofashioned a primitive theory of acculturation capable of explaining therelationshipof civilization and barbarismhistoricallyand in his own times.For Italian scholars of the Renaissance humanism was a form ofnationalism.126Like the ancient Roman authors they admired,the human-ists contrasted Romanitaswith barbarism and used this distinction as ameans for expressing a fierce cultural pride and patriotism. Dante, forinstance, hoped that the triumph of Roman imperial power over thepeninsula would vindicate the historical and cultural heritage of theItalian people. In a letter to the Lombardshe urgedthem to lay aside theiracquiredbarbarism(coadductambarbariem)and respond to the challengeaccordingto theirTrojanandLatinancestry.127 or him, Italy'sfuturelay inthe direction of arevivificationof the ancientpolitical and cultural ideals.128

124 Gesta Friderici I Imperatoris,II, 13, ed. G. Waitz, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum(Hanover, 1884),pp. 92-3. Translatedby C. C. Mierow for Columbia Records of Civilization(New York, 1953).125 Ibid., I, 32 (p. 40).126 R. Wallach, Das AbendlandischeGemeinschaftsbewusstseinm Mittelalter (Leipzig,1928), pp. 36-7; for the concept of barbarism in the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance,see D. Hay, 'Italy and BarbarianEurope', Italian RenaissanceStudies: A Tributeto the LateCecilia M. Ady, ed. E. F. Jacob (London, 1960), pp. 48-68.127 In the fifth letter, published in Dantis Alagheri Epistolae: the Letters of Dante, ed. P.Toynbee (Oxford, 1920), p. 52.128 See the seventh letter, ibid.,p. 110, wherein Dante said that God brought under Romanrule 'barbarasnationeset cives'.


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402 W. R. JONESPetrarch is even more ardent in insisting on the recognition of theunique position of his native Italy as the exclusive heir and agent ofcivilization.Foreign intervention in the political life of Italy beginningwiththe arrival of the Emperor Henry VII, followed by French, Spanish, andother German intruders,heightenedthe nostalgia of the Italian humanistsand sharpenedtheir sense of culturalpride. On one occasion Petrarchsaidflatly that all Frenchmen were barbarians,although it did not necessarilyfollow that all barbarians were French.129Appreciation of the clas