easie to determine whether it were of Gallick or of German extraction.13 For, tho’ we should grant that all those Nations which the Greeks comprehended under the title of Celtae, that is, the Illyrians, Germans, Gauls, [Old]+ Spaniards, and Britains, did as it were, flow from the same Fountain, yet it is very notorious [well known], they afterwards much differed each from the others in Language and Manners, so that no man that is any thing versed in Antiquity, can in the least doubt of it.
The foolish Pride of some of the Gauls [i.e., French] occasioned this difference [controversy], who being ignorant that many of the Gallick People in the first Ages had ambitiously boasted they were of German extraction, [did in the later times envy Germany the honour of having been the Mother of the FRANKS].a These men pretend, that great multitudes of men out of Gaule invaded Germany in ancient (but unknown) times [formerly], and passing beyond the Rhine, possessed themselves of all the Countries upon [the area around] the River Mayn, to the Hercynian Forest,14 and that after [this they returned, and conquering the Parts on the West of the <5> Rhine, recovered]b the possession of their ancient Country, but so that a part of their Nation still inhabited on the Mayn, and left their Name15 to that Country [the surrounding region]. For the confirmation of this Opinion, they cite Livy, lib. 5. c. 134. Caesar de bello Gallico, lib. 6. Tacitus de moribus Germanorum, c. 28.16
The Franks were a German People.
1. Trebocci, Alsatia, the chief Towns of which were Breucomagus, (Bruomat) and Elcebus, (Schelstat). 2. Nemetes, the Inhabitants of the Bishoprick of Speyr. 3. Vangiones, the Inhabitants of Worms and Strasburg. 4. Treveri, the Inhabitants of the Archbishoprick of Triers. 5. The Chauci were the Inhabitants of East-Friesland, Groeningen, Breme, Lunenburg, and Hamburg, as they are placed by Ptolemy.
4. But to all this the Germans may truly reply, That the Testimony of these Latin Writers is not without just exceptions, because they testifie very faintly [hesitantly] of a thing which hapned long before their times, and concerning a [foreign] People too whose Antiquities were not preserved in any written Records. Nor is it at all probable, when the (1) Trebocci, (2) Nemetes, (3) Vangiones, & (4) Treveri,17 and some other [People who in those times lived on the West side of the Rhine, and yet owned themselves to be of German extraction; That the Franks should on the contrary pass the Rhine, and out of Gaul, make a Conquest in Germany].c And yet, after all, though we should grant, that the Franks were at first a Gallick Colony, yet seeing they lived about 800 years in Germany, and both in their Language and Customs differed from the Gauls, and in both these agreed exactly with the Germans, they are for that cause to be reckon’d amongst the German Nations<; at least, their descendants have no reason to be ashamed of their German origins>.
This is certain in the mean time, that [till about 300 <6> Years after Christ],a there is scarce any mention of the Franks made in any ancient History. |[From hence there arose two very different Opinions: whilst some believe those People, who are by Tacitus call’d the (5) Chauci, changed that name in after times, and call’d themselves the Franks; [and others]b think, that a number of German People, or some parts [a coalition] of them, united in this name, and [out of a vain affectation of]c Liberty, took up the name of FRANKS: for in the German Tongue FRANK signifies free [a free man]. And to this purpose they produce the Testimonies of Francis I, and Henry II, Kings of France, who in their Letters to the Diet of Germany say, they are of German Extraction. Tho’ it is very well known at the same time, to all wise men, to what purposes such ancient and overworn Relations of Kindred are for the most part pretended.]|d
The Franks conquer Gaul, now France, and after it Germany.
5. But however this [may] be, the Franks for certain first passed the Rhine upon [among] the Ubii, [or Inhabitants of the Archbishoprick of Cologne,]+ and after they had conquered the far greatest part of Gaul, [(now call’d France)]+ <they founded the famous kingdom of France. Its kings, called Merovingians after its first dynasty,> turning as it were the course of their victorious Arms back again, [and having crossed the Rhine once more,] they conquered the greatest part of Germany, and subdued all the Countries between the Mayn and the Danube, and went Northward as far as Thuringia: After this Charles the Great extended his Conquests much further by subduing the Saxons, and Tassilon King of the Bavarians;18 so that not only the Countries possess’d by the old German Nations [populis] were all reduc’d <7> under his Obedience, but all those that lay upon the Baltick Sea, and that part of Poland which lies on the West of the Vistula, which was then inhabited by the Sclaves [Slavs]; for History saith, They also were either Tributaries to that Prince, or majestatem comiter coluisse, [i.e.,] were Homagers to his Crown.
Of what Nation Charles the Great was.
6. The greatest part of the German Writers have very fondly [anxiously] endeavoured to have it believed he was their Countryman, as being born at Ingelheim, a Town in the Bishoprick of Mentz, but now under the Elector Palatine; and in an ancient Charter of the Abby of Fuld [a], the Lands upon the River UNSTRUT in Thuring, are call’d The Lands of his Conception: And that he us’d the German Tongue,a is apparent by the names of the Months used in his time, which {are still retained in Germany, and} are thought to have been introduced by him.
A Frank
By his Father,
And born in France.
But |[if the Germans would suffer me, (a Foreigner) to pass my judgment in this [their] Affair, tho’ I am not at all disposed to favour the French in their other pretences[, to the damage of the Germans]+; yet I would perswade them here freely and willingly to renounce their Pretences to Charles the Great, and the rather, because it can bring no injury [fraudi] to their present Empire. For it is certain, the Franks placed the Seat of their Empire in Germany [Gallia]]|;a and it is no less certain, that the Father of Charles the Great was King of France [Franciae], and all his Progenitors had for many Ages lived in great Honour, and managed great Employments in that Kingdom. Besides, those parts of Germany, <8> which lie on the West of the Rhine,b and were then subject to the Crown of France, were possess’d by them [only] as Accessions acquired to that Kingdom by Conquest, and were looked upon as conquered Provinces. And every man is esteemed to be of the same Nation his Father was, and in which he has placed the Seat of his Fortunes and Hopes after [passed down by] his Father and Ancestors.19 The sole consideration, That a man was born in this or that Country [locus], will hardly be allowed to make a man of a different Nation from his Father; |[unless we can [really] believe, that if the present King of Sweden had been born in Prussia, he had to have been esteemed a Prussian, and not a Swede]|.c Nor was that part of Germany which lieth on the West of the Rhine, esteemed a part of France, till under Charles the Great it was united to that Kingdom: [And in the first times that followed],d when his Posterity had divided their Ancestor’s Dominions amongst them, the Historians [also] frequently [begin to] distinguish between the Latin or Western France, and the German or Eastern France, which is the same with [Greater] Germany:e And it is observed [Although it seems], that after the times of the Otho’s,20 that name of Germany, by degrees, grew out of use.
Tho’ he used the German Tongue.
