The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I would like to present, so to speak, something purely historical. I believe that the 9th century and the 15th century—which I will discuss in a future lecture—can indeed be viewed in such a way that, by examining the cultural content of these two centuries in particular, one can discern important insights from which we can learn much for the present day and for assessing current circumstances. The 9th century represents a significant historical epoch in European life insofar as, in this 9th century, the Western world already appears to us, in a sense, as Christianized—in the very sense in which this came to be the case at all. The earlier centuries were, in fact, centuries in which Christianity was only just becoming integrated into Western life. And in the 9th century—that is, in the period following the century of Charlemagne, for example—we see that Europe has taken on a Christian character, the very Christian character that has since shaped the lives of the people of Europe throughout the centuries. However, the fact that Europe became as Christian as it appears to us in the 9th century is the result of a multitude of factors. And one can only assess how Christianity took root by taking these various prerequisites into account.

[ 2 ] We know, of course, that at the time of Christianity’s emergence, the Roman Empire was just beginning its imperial era—that it was beginning to encompass, under a unified administrative system, essentially the entire known world of that time, or rather, to assert this encompassing authority and truly bring it to life. We know that this was already the period in which Hellenism was in decline as an external political form of existence, though Hellenism had long since penetrated Roman society as a catalyst for education and culture, and we must then focus our attention above all on the fact that, from the beginnings of Christianity—which we are familiar with—this Christianity gradually became integrated into the entire structure of the Roman Empire, into all its administrative and constitutional forms. And we then see how Christianity, developing under the most diverse conditions in Europe, in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd centuries, gradually became integrated into what was then the Roman way of life. We then see, however, how this integration of Christianity was initially linked to a complete descent into anarchy in European life. We know how the Roman Empire, from the very moment in world history when it was at the height of its expansion, already clearly showed the seeds of its decline within itself.

[ 3 ] This question will always occupy the mind of anyone who contemplates these matters: What actually caused the Roman Empire—which had risen to such glory—to collapse during the first three or four centuries of the Christian era? One might believe that the invasions of the northern, Germanic peoples alone are to blame for the downfall of the Roman Empire. One might then attribute part of this blame to the spread of Christianity itself. Yet one would be misinterpreting the deeper basis of the fall of the Western Roman Empire if one were to seek the sole causes of its downfall precisely in these factors. For the Western Roman Empire, in particular, shows—when examined more thoroughly—that such entities do indeed possess a life of their own, that they have, so to speak, a birth, a youth, and a certain age of maturity, and that they must then gradually die out in such a way that one must seek the reasons for their demise within themselves, just as, after all, one must seek the reasons for aging and physical death in an individual organism itself and not in external circumstances. One can, however, perhaps perceive from external phenomena how this gradual aging and eventual demise of such a thing as the Roman Empire came about.

[ 4 ] When considering European development up into the 9th century, one must bear in mind that two phenomena clearly emerge before the eye of the historian. One is the gradual decline of the Roman Empire and everything associated with it; the other, however, is that at the same time, Eastern ways of life were flourishing. We see that in the East, far beyond the territories bordering the Roman Empire to the east, a cultural flourishing developed—albeit an external, material one. In other words, these lands—which the Roman Empire did not even border in terms of cultural flourishing, but rather nominally encompassed—these lands were experiencing a brilliant material cultural flourishing. Without this material cultural flourishing, which took shape on the periphery of the Roman Empire, it would have been impossible for Arab civilization—later, when Islam flourished and Arab civilization asserted itself in the course of historical development—to claim such a large part of the world for itself in such a brilliant manner, extending into the 8th and 9th centuries. We can see, after all, that well into the 8th and 9th centuries, Arab rule, under the spiritual banner of Muhammad, spread as far as Spain; but also in other directions, European life came into clear connection with all that was rising as a cultural flowering all around it. What the Arabs—who later became Europe’s enemies—achieved in Spain, in Sicily, and from the East must have been rooted in wealth and splendid material conditions. Only through this was it possible for the Arab world to carry out such brilliant acts of conquest. Where does this phenomenon come from, one that is more intimately connected than one might think with what was happening in Europe up until the 9th century? Where does this phenomenon stem from—that on the one hand the Roman Empire was in decline, and on the other hand the Eastern civilization experienced a brilliant upswing and exerted an extraordinary influence on the West? For it exerted its influence not only through conquest but also, in an extraordinary way, through the spirit. One cannot even imagine how much of what the Arabs—in part through the Greek education they themselves had first adopted and then interwoven with their own essence—brought to bear on the European West.

[ 5 ] This European West, given the way it developed up to the 9th century, is not characterized by just one current. All of us, insofar as we participate in the formation of the West, have two distinct currents within us. It is a grave mistake to believe that only the Christian current has spread throughout the West; intellectually, what came from the Arabs has also spread very significantly throughout the West. The way of thinking, the mode of imagination, has penetrated deeply into European conditions through Arab culture. In what modern people—and I do not mean those afflicted by the spiritual sciences, but rather people of general education—think about fate, the order of nature, and life in general, there are the most diverse Arab ideas embedded even in the mind of a farmer. And if you examine much of what dominates people’s minds today, you will find that Arab ideas are indeed present within it.

[ 6 ] Among many other things, what can be identified as characteristic of this Arab way of thinking, which spread throughout Europe? One particularly characteristic feature is that this Arab way of thinking is, first and foremost, sophistical and abstract; it dislikes the concrete and therefore prefers to view all worldly and natural conditions in terms of abstractions. Alongside this is a development of the imagination that can be described not merely as flourishing, but as voluptuous. Just consider, alongside the sober, abstract way of thinking—which is evident even in Arab art—the imagination that develops there concerning a kind of paradise, a kind of afterlife, with all the pleasures transferred from the sensual realm into this afterlife. These two parallel phenomena—on the one hand, a sober, materialistic view of nature and world conditions; on the other, a lush imaginative life, naturally accompanied by a certain dulling of the senses and a growing sophistication—is something that has persisted right up to the present day. For if one wishes to present anything from the spiritual world today—indeed, if one presents it in the form of fantasy—then people are still receptive to it. They do not need to believe in it, but can accept it as a figment of the imagination. They tolerate this because, alongside it, they want to have what they call genuine and real. But that must be sober, that must be dry, that must be abstract.

[ 7 ] These two elements, which constitute a second current in the spiritual life of Europe, essentially originated with Arab culture. Although Arab culture has been militarily pushed back in many respects, this way of thinking has penetrated deeply into European life—particularly in southern, western, and central Europe, and to a lesser extent in eastern Europe; yet even there, at least in what is called “education,” it has made some inroads. Consequently, Christianity—which is of a completely different nature with regard to these matters—had to contend with these opposing ideas. Therefore, if one wishes to understand Europe’s development up through the 9th century, one must not overlook the fact that such Arab ideas have penetrated Europe. One would hardly believe how much in Europe is actually close to Turkish culture, close to Muslim culture, in the ideas that Europeans have about life, fate, and so on.

[ 8 ] But how did it come to be that, on the periphery of the Roman Empire, something like this could emerge—or rather, take root—that caused Europe so much trouble? This is precisely linked to the ever-increasing expansion of the Roman Empire. As this Roman Empire spread farther and farther, it was compelled to import many, many goods from the East to meet the needs that arose within this vast empire—and all of these had to be paid for. And as we follow the development of the Roman Empire from the very beginning of our era, we see that a significant feature of its development is that the Romans had to pay so much for what they obtained from the East. In other words, we see that during this period, there was an enormously strong outflow of gold from the Roman Empire toward its periphery. The gold is flowing out. And curiously, no new sources of gold are opening up. The result is that the economic structure of the Roman Empire changes completely; with the development of Christianity, the Roman Empire becomes impoverished in terms of money—that is, gold and silver. This is a fundamentally significant phenomenon. Thus, Christianity spreads throughout the Roman Empire in a region that, in economic terms, is tending more and more toward primitive conditions. For where there is a shortage of money, where there is a shortage of gold—on the physical plane, at least—the necessity very soon arises to return to the primitive forms of a natural economy, to the primitive forms of a kind of barter through the mere exchange of goods. But that would not even be the most significant point. What is significant is that, when such a scarcity of gold sets in, it becomes impossible to create far-reaching and meaningful human connections. People are thereby forced to rely on much closer relationships; in their exchange and coexistence, they are confined within much narrower limits in terms of their needs.

[ 9 ] And so it came to pass that the Roman economy gradually evolved in a way that the Empire was not accustomed to. All the institutions in the Roman Empire—all types of administrative structures, the bureaucracy, and so on, everything that constitutes the relationship between the regions and their authorities—were designed on the assumption that money was available. And now the money was running out. You can see this clearly in one particular area. Of course, as the empire had grown ever larger, the Romans needed more and more legions—especially in the outer regions of the empire—and they needed soldiers. These soldiers had to be paid. It was not always possible to transport endless quantities of goods produced in Italy itself out to the periphery. The soldiers wanted to be paid in gold so that they could then trade with others. But gradually, the gold ran out. It was no longer possible to pay the soldiers. This was the case in many regions. The Roman Empire thus, in a sense, perished because of its own size. And within its vast expanse, on its periphery, a very special form of wealth developed, which naturally also meant that a certain basis, a certain foundation, existed for an intellectual life.

[ 10 ] Now there is something else to add to this: The Romans had gradually reached a point where they could no longer live according to their old customs. Of course, one must not consider individual people, but rather the entire social structure. In the north, however, there were new peoples; their entire way of life and customs were geared toward a subsistence economy. Among them, a natural inclination and drive toward a subsistence economy had gradually developed. They were organized for such conditions also by their deeply rooted, fundamental inclinations and affinities. These Germanic peoples—as they are collectively called, having spread throughout Western and Central Europe and the northern regions of the Roman Empire—had gradually come to be this way over the centuries, both during the period of complete anarchy in the 3rd, 4th centuries, as well as up to the period of complete consolidation in the 9th century—I am not saying that this was always the case in these regions, but that it gradually came to be so—that they found in the natural economy something that corresponded to their customs and habits, as well as their sympathies and inclinations, whereas this was not the case with the Romans. Above all, however, the subsistence economy corresponded in a certain sense to the institutions and the way people lived together in these northern regions.

[ 11 ] One must then turn one’s attention to these northern regions. It is generally said: In the early Christian centuries, there were Germanic peoples there. — We call what spread across the north “Germanic peoples” today essentially only because, when something is far away, it appears uniform. When a swarm of mosquitoes is very far away, it looks like a uniform gray mass. If one were to look at each individual mosquito, it would appear quite differently. And so what spread in the north—while the Roman Empire was decaying due to the circumstances mentioned, the circumstances that characterized that period—cannot be broadly encompassed by the term “Germanic peoples,” as it appears now from the distance of time. For above all, one must consider how what actually emerged—what came into conflict with the Roman Empire from the north in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries—actually took shape. That is what must be considered. Indeed, even when Tacitus observed these northern regions in the first Christian century, the process unfolding there—at a time when there was still little contact with the Roman Empire—had its origins in the fact that all these regions were originally inhabited by a kind of indigenous population which, if one traces the development of Europe back, can be traced in a direct line, at least for Western and Central Europe, can be traced back to the Celts.

[ 12 ] What was cultivated in Europe in earlier times—naturally, before the emergence of Christianity—belongs first and foremost to a certain indigenous Celtic population. This indigenous Celtic population essentially forms the foundation of the entire European population. The descendants of the Celtic people can be found throughout Europe—not only in Western Europe, but above all in Central Europe. There are a great many people in Bavaria, Austria, and Thuringia in whom—if one may speak loosely—the lineage of Celtic blood flows, quite apart from Western Europe. It is even highly probable that less Celtic blood flows in Western Europe than in Central Europe.

[ 13 ] It was only later that something—whose origins, from the perspective of external history, are actually quite unclear—became intertwined with these primordial Celtic conditions. All sorts of theories have already been put forward about this, but the truth is this: Through what is commonly called the Migration Period—which actually unfolded somewhat differently than is usually described in history books—a population group—one cannot even properly call it a single population group, but rather a large number of people from a wide variety of regions, including from Asia via Northern Europe—infiltrated the indigenous Celtic population. And through the intermingling of this incoming ethnic element with the ancient Celtic element—a process that varied in intensity, being stronger in some places and weaker in others, with the Celtic element remaining more prominent in some cases and receding into the background in others—the various nuances of the European population emerged. And from these variations developed, on the one hand, the social conditions that later became the ethnic makeup of Western and Central Europe, but also the conditions that led to the ways of life and the constitutional and administrative systems. There was a time when the Celtic element of the indigenous population lived relatively comfortably—perhaps even very meagerly in some areas—but lived comfortably from year to year, paying little attention to innovations and the like, but simply drifting along, not much differently than you can see today, though increasingly rarely, in some deserted rural area where people simply live from year to year without adopting any innovations. Thus, this Celtic element lived in a certain comfortable tranquility that was actually not at all in keeping with the national character of the Celts, but which had gradually come about. Then came these other masses of people, who actually only gave rise to Germanic culture through their intermingling with the Celts. What emerged next, as I have already indicated, was that in some regions the old element retained the upper hand, while the new element receded—in other regions it was the reverse—and as a result, various nuances of blood emerged.

[ 14 ] But on the other hand, it turned out that the native inhabitants were overwhelmed by the invaders. The invaders became the rulers. They were the ones who disrupted the peace and thereby became the rulers. And from this relationship between the conquering immigrant rulers and the indigenous population that had remained in place, the distinction between the free, the semi-free, and the unfree emerged. The indigenous population was gradually forced into slavery. Those who had immigrated gradually formed the ruling class, and this determined the conditions of life.

[ 15 ] Thus, Europe became populated by a people that emerged in the manner I have described, but within which a distinct configuration took shape: a ruling caste and a sort of serf or slave caste. And it was on this basis that all other social relationships then developed. Through the nuances I have mentioned, the various Germanic branches emerged, primarily toward the west, but also extending into the regions of present-day northern Bavaria, and even into the regions of present-day Hesse, and so on. What is known as the Franks was, in a certain respect, the most active population; in a certain respect, as far as external intellect is concerned, the most intelligent, active, and, in a certain respect, also the most domineering group among the various groups that emerged as distinct peoples. This, then, was the population group that spread further westward—the Frankish element. The word is still present today in the phrase “frank and free”; everyone knows what “frank and free” means in this context, and “Franken” is connected to the word “frank,” which is closely related to the idea of wanting to feel free, independent, outwardly free, and independent.

[ 16 ] In the center remained, for the most part, the population that—if one wishes to use a general term—could be described as the Saxon population, which spread into Thuringia, into the northern regions bordering Thuringia, down the Elbe River, and all the way to the coast. This was the population that, in terms of its traditional character, was the more headstrong; it placed particular value on its original distinctiveness and, in a sense, embodied a human, personal, and conservative sensibility.

[ 17 ] And so there were other groups. It would take us too far afield to list them all. What is important is that the British population developed from the Saxon group—through a complex intermingling, though with a strong predominance of the Saxon group—and that, in terms of its essential origins dating back through these centuries, it belongs, so to speak, to the Saxon tribe.

[ 18 ] Now we must consider what life was actually like for this population, which had developed in this way. This population that lived there was, in comparison to the southern populations—the Roman and Greek populations—a youthful, childlike one. What had grown old in Celtic culture had not actually grown very old at all, but had become senile at an early age. A process of rejuvenation was already taking place as a result of certain ethnic groups pouring in from northern Europe, and indirectly from Asia as well. It was a population that, above all else and in contrast to the southern elements, first and foremost had an affinity for a life close to nature, for a subsistence economy that placed little value on a monetary economy—which, after all, only emerges once a state system has reached a certain level of development.

[ 19 ] Those who, despite the Migration Period—which is, after all, somewhat different from how it is portrayed in history books—developed within this newly emerging European context were, in essence, connected only to their neighbors, their immediate neighbors. But there was also a very distinct peculiarity in the spiritual realm. All these peoples still possessed something that the Greek and Roman populations had long since lost. Even well into the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, they all retained—to a far greater degree than even the most uneducated Greek and Roman populations—a primal, atavistic clairvoyance. These people all lived in connection with certain spiritual beings. For them, there was not merely an external, material nature; for them, there were not merely seasons, wind, and weather—but because they saw it in those states that were more than a dream, there was the god Wotan, whom the people knew. Many at least knew this: they themselves had seen the god Wotan, who moves with the wind, on the wings of the wind.

[ 20 ] People knew this. They were just as familiar, for example, with the god Saxnot, who stood by them in battle whenever they had to fight. When they had fought their battles, or before they fought them, their god Saxnot would appear to them, and so on. They were not merely familiar with the rapidly changing weather conditions in a material sense, but they also had an elemental, spiritual connection to the god Thor, his hammer, and the like. These were real experiences for these people; that was still part of their lives back then. And furthermore, because they knew from their own observations there is a spiritual world—they believed in guidance from the spiritual world. They believed that everything that happens in the days and seasons is guided by spiritual forces and beings. If a tribe was victorious, they knew that the tribal god had stood by them and guided them.

[ 21 ] One could say of a tribal god: He has guided us. — One cannot say of a universal god of humanity that he is the god of battle. One can certainly say that of a tribal god. People were right when they said that their tribal deities had guided them. Of course, at any given moment, any tribe—provided it acknowledges that the deity in question is merely a tribal god—can say that it has been protected and safeguarded by him; but one cannot make the same claim about a god whom one wishes to attribute to all of humanity.

[ 22 ] The priesthoods that emerged—there were, after all, mysteries in these regions, as we have often discussed—were meant, so to speak, to provide guidance in this entire context of humanity’s relationship with the divine-spiritual powers. But this guidance was very specific, because people knew that there were spiritual powers, that there were spiritual forces and beings.

[ 23 ] Outwardly, these people lived in a somewhat primitive way, based on a subsistence economy; inwardly, one might say, they led a kind of spiritual life. There were no educated people there in the sense that there were in Greece and Rome. The priests were leaders; they organized life, which the others were also familiar with. But they were not educated in the same sense as the Greek philosophers or the Roman philosophers, or the Roman poets, or those in Greece and Rome who could read and write and were educated in that sense; for the people knew none of that. Of course, there was no reading or writing. So we are dealing with a population that lived under primitive, subsistence conditions and that, in a certain sense, led a spiritual life.

[ 24 ] Thanks to the revitalization that had come to this Celtic culture, a certain inner strength was present; this was well-suited to the primitive conditions. The southern region, however, was not suited to those primitive conditions. In certain respects, this new, youthful element clashed with what already existed in the south, to the extent that Christianity took root in an empire crumbling under a lack of funds and was adopted in the manner with which you are familiar. And it was specifically in such areas—where the two regions, the one growing old and the one young and rising—clashed—that the Romans were still founding their cities, their frontier towns on the periphery of their empire. Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Strasbourg, Basel, Constance, Salzburg, Augsburg—these were urban centers that had existed since Roman times.

[ 25 ] By now it must be clear to you: the Romans conceived of these urban centers—Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Strasbourg, Constance, Basel, Salzburg, and so on—as a kind of protective fortress against the onrushing masses. But as Roman civilization—not because of external factors, but of its own accord—gradually fell into decline, the cities found themselves in a very peculiar situation. In the countryside, life was good by primitive standards. In the cities, however, life was nothing special by those same primitive standards. And the result was that the cities would have become desolate had they not been put to use in some other way. The emerging Church, which had taken hold of Christianity, was, however, a keen observer that knew: one must hold fast to the cities. And so the bishoprics were relocated to the cities that would otherwise have been deserted. As a result, however, the towns gradually—over the centuries leading up to the 9th century—became focal points for the surrounding people, who were serfs, because the bishoprics were relocated there and because education came to them—for the bishops initially came from the southern regions. The free people had no particular inclination to move into the towns, which would otherwise have gradually fallen into disuse; thus, they followed the bishops and clergy into the towns only to a limited extent. But those who were not free heeded the calls coming from the Church and moved into the towns.

[ 26 ] And if you now consider the fundamental conditions, you will easily understand: the unfree—they were, after all, the stragglers, the descendants of the indigenous population. There was a great deal of Celtic blood in them. What converged in the cities was, in essence, a force that sought to free itself from those who had become the rulers there. This gradually gave the cities that character of medieval striving for freedom. This stemmed essentially—and one is certainly not mistaken in holding this view—from the fact that, in many cases, it was the seething of Celtic blood in the cities that caused them to flourish in the Middle Ages, particularly in the early Middle Ages up through the 9th and 10th centuries.

[ 27 ] One must now accept that all these circumstances were genuine historical necessities. It is hard to believe how little human character could be guided by external, abstract means, especially in earlier times, and yet how easily it could be guided once one had first studied the circumstances and then built upon the concrete reality. Thus we see—and we could cite many examples, though I can only provide a rough outline—how a new element emerges, and how the old element in the South gradually withers away due to its own nature. This withering away can be seen in the fact that, on the one hand, ancient scholarship and the ancient educational tradition in the South do indeed gradually reach their particular zenith, but then reach a dead end, become rigid; they can go no further. In the 6th century, Emperor Justinian abolished the office of consul in Rome, helped condemn the teachings of Origen, and closed the last remnants of the Athenian philosophical schools. The ancient Athenian philosophical schools migrated to Persia. Gondishapur was founded there as an academy. The Athenian philosophers followed the paths taken by gold, settling where intellectual life could develop on the basis of a certain degree of wealth. In Europe, one must reckon with the primitive conditions that have arisen.

[ 28 ] And two factors were initially able to anticipate these primitive conditions. One might say that the other factors were not very good at anticipating them. But two factors knew very well how to adapt to these primitive conditions: namely, the Papacy, which was a keen observer—not only of the bad but also of the good—for in those days the Papacy possessed many fine qualities; and those—who were, in essence, nothing more than large landowners—who gradually asserted themselves within the Frankish tribe as Merovingians, Carolingians, and so on.

[ 29 ] What did the papacy need? The papacy could not simply spread Christianity as a doctrine. It made a thorough—indeed, very thorough—attempt to spread Christianity as a doctrine; but in such matters, one must always take concrete, real-world circumstances into account. Pope Gregory the Great sent fifty missionaries to England and Ireland, and from there the missionaries in turn traveled to Central Europe—including Gallus, who is associated with St. Gallen, and many others. But in those cases, one could count on people who came from a people known for their great powers of persuasion. This was a movement through which Christianity was spread, in a certain sense, in a spiritual way—spread in such a way that it also reached the rural population living under those specific conditions, and churches were built. And Christianity gradually took root around these churches, in such a way that the people who populated these northern regions—the Franks, Saxons, Alemanni, and so on—did not actually change their concept of God all that much. They still held onto this concept of God based on their atavistic clairvoyance. They didn’t change it particularly at all; rather, take any region—a missionary would come, build a small church—in Alsace, for example, this happened over and over again in many areas—near a site where there was an image or a statue of the god Saxnot or something similar. He builds a small church, and he knows how to win over the people. After building his little church with his comrades—who did all the work themselves, being hardworking people as well as scholars—he would go to the people and say: “Look, you have your god right there; he is the rain god. But if you pray to him, nothing will come of it!”

[ 30 ] Such a messenger is able to convince them that the god for whom he built the church is superior. Well, this required persuasion, for the god he called Christ, of course, had shown no direct influence over the rain either. But this was compounded by the fact that the ideas about the gods that had emerged from military campaigns were gradually brought into contact with Christianity. When one tribe was defeated by another that had already converted to Christianity, it turned out that the people would say: “Our god did not help us; their god helped them.” — I merely wish to point out that the Christian God was equated with the individual tribal deities. But the people arrived at no other concept of God than the one they derived from their atavistic clairvoyance. This then gave rise to the necessity—as the Roman Church utilized this to naturalize Christianity—that the old tribal deities had to be eradicated root and branch. For, in a sense, they wanted to substitute the name of God for the other deities.

[ 31 ] As I said, attempts were made to spread Christianity as a doctrine, as a source of spiritual nourishment. But one could say that, due to a wide variety of circumstances, another element was initially more successful, and that was the warlike element of the Franks, who were at first the most enterprising tribe, the most active, and who, through their intellect and wisdom, truly understood: that something could be achieved by adopting what was destined to perish in the Roman Empire—by taking over its institutions and so on. Through these and similar circumstances, a connection arose between the Frankish people and the legacy of the Roman Empire—its institutions and its worldview.

[ 32 ] This began in the 8th century, continued into the 9th century, and the result was that Christianity became associated with elements of conquest. The Saxon tribe, which was conservative and headstrong, was, after all, subdued by conquest; and what had initially arisen from a fusion of the old customs and traditions—regarding the judicial system and human coexistence—with Christianity spread from the west. This blending of the original customs with the southern elements—which came from Christianity but in which Roman culture lived on—is evident in everything. Today, people are no longer even aware of how deeply it is reflected in everything. For example, people believe that a “count” is a particularly Germanic institution, whereas the term “count” is nothing other than something related to “graph,” “stylus,” and writing. Writing and “administration” were adopted from the south. The one who administered was the “Graf.” And in the event of war, he also led the “Gau,” the region. The word “Graf” shares the same root as “graphology” and “Griffel” and is connected to writing. But everything related to writing—penmanship—and everything connected to education came from the southern regions, which found their true life in their own decline. Thus, these two elements interacted well into the 9th century. Precisely through Charlemagne, the Frankish element had become the most powerful; its power rested primarily on the fact that it had absorbed ecclesiastical Christianity and was now reviving the shadow of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne had himself crowned in Rome; the old Caesarian era was to rise again.

[ 33 ] These matters, however, had only an artificial, not a natural, sustaining power in and of themselves. We know, then, that Charlemagne was initially succeeded by the vast territories that he had supposedly held together—territories that were still ruled, like a sort of empire, by Louis the Fool—that is to say, Louis the Pious. And when the force of the original conditions began to assert itself more strongly, as the Germanic-Frankish element came to the fore—for this Frankish element, as I have already said, took shape across a large part of what is today called Germany—when that came to the fore, a division had to take place through the Treaty of Verdun in 843. Why, exactly, did a division have to take place? It had to be divided because holding it together was unnatural. The real glue was Roman, but it was actually effective through the chancery and through what emerged as the first primitive schools and the like, and through what the clergy did, which asserted itself as such. The glue was Romance, but life was not Romance; life was Germanic. People lived together in small groups. At the head of such small groups stood a duke—not by virtue of any law. Laws did not emerge until what had been customary among the Ripuarian Franks was written down in the Lex ripuaria or the Ripuarium, in the Salic Law (Lex salica), and so on. In small communities, the duke was originally the one who brought in the foreigners, who led the army that reduced the settled population to serfdom. He gradually disappeared. The count was installed in the place where a duke had been. One could say that the dukes persisted as far as Bavaria and Thuringia. But the count is installed there; he is installed, adjudicates, and administers where the duke used to be—the man whom the people called “duke” because he led them when they first arrived in the region. The count is installed, and he gradually becomes a landowner as well, gathering the serfs around him and making them his subjects. The feudal system emerges—the origins of which would be very interesting to examine, but we do not have the time for that.

[ 34 ] And we see that it is actually through the interplay of such details that those large landowners emerge. For that is precisely what they are: those large landowners whom we see among the Merovingians and Carolingians. They are large landowners; and they were now entrenched in this system, far removed from following Roman law, for under Roman law, one could not have divided property as was done in the Treaty of Verdun! That is how one divides property when one is the owner and divides it among one’s sons. That was an old custom in which personal relationships played a role. It was correct according to old custom. Roman law, in reality, could not have permitted this.

[ 35 ] These were the elements of dissolution. They were everywhere—these elements of dissolution—so that one can only truly grasp this 9th century, which is so crucial, if one understands that throughout all of Western and Central Europe, it was overwhelming—later this became even more pronounced, we will soon discuss the 14th and 15th centuries, when this will become even clearer—the Romanic essence is overwhelming the folk character. Admittedly, educated people are placed in positions of authority in the form of clergy and so on, but it is the Romanic essence that is overwhelming these regions. But among the people—throughout all of Europe from the 9th century onward, indeed even in England and the British Empire—the Germanic essence lives on. And this Germanic essence finds its most distinct expression, initially, in the Frankish element. It was only through that division of the inheritance—which actually took place according to purely private, arbitrary circumstances—that this tripartite division arose, so that one received this long central strip along the Rhine and Italy, another received what lay to the west of it, and the third received what lay to the east of it. And this then became, starting with the Treaty of Verdun, the basis for the later fragmentation of the German and French identities. And what Lothair received in the intermediate zone created the fortunate foundation for Central and Western Europe to be able to squabble with one another forever! But these things are interconnected.

[ 36 ] Now one must take into account that there are various elements, each with its own significance: the Germanic essence, expressed particularly in this era through the Frankish element; and the Romanic essence, which, however, flits by like a shadow of ancient times, a relic of the past. And within this context—in accordance with the conditions dictated by these essences, whereby the Germanic essence, drawing its strength from the people themselves, that is, from reality, constantly sought to shatter the Romanic illusion—Christianity had to be spread from Rome into this very process of development. One had to take all these conditions into account; one had to reckon with the urban elements, with the rural elements, and one had to try to introduce Christianity in a form that people could understand. It could not be introduced in Rome—despite Constantine and so on—because, although culture had risen to a particular height, it had reached a dead end. It had to be introduced into folk elements that possessed an original, youthful vitality.

[ 37 ] That is why it was necessary to push back toward the East whatever had become rigidly fixed in dogma, whatever sought to remain at a certain stage. And in the West, one had to reckon with a popular element that, in a sense, sought to develop out of the Church—out of all the elements I have alluded to. The papacy, in particular, was already counting on these elements. The Papacy was already actively calculating this when Charlemagne was crowned; for they simply counted on this large landowner, who also allowed himself to be counted on. And from then on, the Papacy’s policy was always, first and foremost, to introduce Christianity in such a way that it was suited to capturing the souls of those who were just emerging from the old, atavistic clairvoyance.

[ 38 ] It is of particular significance that, beginning in the 9th century from Rome—and partly as a result of the separation from Eastern Christianity—European ethnic elements and social conditions were now taken into account in a most eminent way, as under Nicholas I, the great pope, the East began to separate itself from the West within the Christian world. Underlying this separation was, in fact, the necessity to take into account what was rooted in European conditions, just as I have outlined very briefly. If we now consider the 14th, 15th centuries in their fundamental character, we will then, for the period from the 8th to the 14th centuries, once again characterize the interplay of the papal element, the interplay of the Central European element, and the emergence of that European configuration, which only later became something else entirely with the advent of the great discoveries, the Reformation, and the like.

[ 39 ] I just wanted to outline for you, from a purely historical perspective, the factors that reached a certain climax in the 9th century. In European history, one can clearly distinguish the first three Christian centuries, which led to a kind of anarchy. Everything was in disarray during that time. In the 3rd century, things were all jumbled together. But then, due to the natural conditions, a process developed over the next five or six centuries, extending into the 9th century, which can be characterized by saying that Christianity was carried into the circumstances in the manner described—circumstances that were, in fact, determined by people’s way of life.