| ||
Home | Site Index | Heithinn Idea Contest | | ||
Commentary To the Germanic Laws and Medieval Documents
"In all elections by the people, the electors shall vote
viva voce. All free male citizens, who shall have attained to the age of eighteen
years, shall be equally entitled to vote at all public elections."
(10) The same law holds among the Chickasaws,
(11) except the majority is reached at nineteen years.
The Indian, like all primitive races, considers the young man to be mature at
an earlier age than among civilised people, and a viva voce election is imperative
among a tribe consisting chiefly of illiterates. Neither fact entitles one to
the conclusion that it is based on a popular method of election, for the reason
that no elections existed among the Indians, even though they possessed a National
Council and deliberated matters in common. The viva voce vote is of the same
kind as the verbal wills which, by an act of 1876 of the Chickasaw Nation, were
valid, if made in presence of two witnesses. (12)
The late date alone of this enactment shows that we have here no continuance
of an old custom of Indians, who had no use for wills. It is also interesting to note that, like the Germans, the Cherokees
and Chickasaws passed stringent laws against the cutting down of fruit-bearing
trees. "Every person who shall wilfully cut down, kill or destroy any pecan,
walnut, hickory or other fruit or nut-bearing tree, standing and growing upon
the public domain of the Cherokee Nation, or shall cut down for the nuts or
fruit thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor." (13)
Here, again, there is no reference to an Indian custom, but merely the result
of a new source of income from the abundant nut-bearing trees of the lately
acquired domain. This law was incorporated in 1874 in the Cherokee New Code
of Laws and only two years later passed as an Act of the Chickasaw Nation. This
Act is as modern and as unrelated to the past as another Act of the Chickasaws
of the same year establishing a Female Seminary into which no students shall
enter "until they can read well in McGuffey's Fifth Reader," (14)
a statement which a millennium hence will give the historian food for reflection
and theorising. I have carefully selected all the laws which distinctly differ
from those of the United States and which to the uninitiated would seem as an
inheritance from the Indian past, and have shown that in no way do they permit
of such interpretation. There is but one single statement in the Chickasaw laws
which seems to give an indication of a previous custom, and that is the one
which refers to polygamy. "Neither polygamy nor concubinage shall be tolerated
in this Nation, from and after the adoption of this Constitution, "
(15) but as this Act of 1867 is repeated in 1876 as
an Act to prohibit polygamy "from and after the passage of this Act,"
there arises a doubt as to whether we really have here an Indian survival. It
is more likely that the reference is merely to a looseness of manners, common
in any new society, and this is made certain by the Act of 1876, which shows
that chiefly the Whites, and not the Reds, are meant by it, for we are told
that "no right of citizenship whatever shall be acquired by such unlawful
marriages," that is, that White men, who by their marriage to Chickasaw
women could be adopted into the Nation, were to be deprived of this advantage,
if they lived in polygamy, whether by not being divorced from their White wives,
or otherwise. Thus it appears that, while in character and daily habits Cherokees
and Chickasaws may have preserved many ancient traits, they have, since the
establishment of the United States and until their complete amalgamation with
the Whites in 1906, when they were made citizens of the new state of Oklahoma,
changed from the hunting to the agricultural and industrial state, have acquired
the Anglo-Saxon ideas of property, individualism, education, politics, and have
become as thoroughly American as the Franks of Carolingian times were Roman.
Previous to 1906 a stranger resident among the Indians could live by the laws
of the United States, even as in the Frankish Empire one could live by Roman
or Salic or Lombard law. The Indians constantly opposed their far more simple
and less intricate laws to those of the White man, utterly unconscious of the
fact that these simple laws were one and all deduced from those of their neighbors,
nay, that the United States, through its agents, really had framed the laws
for them, either directly or by advising the Indian legislators. Even so the
Franks were utterly unaware of the fact that their simple Salic and Ribuarian
laws were derived from the Roman laws just as much, though not so directly,
as were the Burgundian and Visigothic laws, and were based on the Theodosian
Code and local Roman enactments. THE GOTHIC BIBLE There does not exist the slightest proof that the fragments of
the Gothic Bible, as we now possess it, were part of a translation made by Ulfilas
in the fourth century. The tradition which has grown up in regard to the whole
Gothic question is based on a vicious circle of which the authorship of the
Bible is the initial step. Upon close inspection the whole structure of Germanic
philology, in so far as it rests upon the assumption of a fourth century Gothic
literature, collapses from its own weight, and a new building has to be reared
after the debris have been cleared away. All that we know of the relation of Ulfilas to the Gothic Bible
is based on the statements made by Auxentius, Philostorgius, Socrates, Sozomenus,
Jordanes, Isidor of Seville, and Walafrid Strabo. (16)
Auxentius had been a pupil and close friend of the Gothic bishop Ulfilas, yet
all he had to say about his teacher's Gothic activity was that he had preached
in Gothic and had left behind many tracts and interpretations in Greek, Latin,
and Gothic. (17) No amount of theorising can explain
Auxentius' silence in regard to a translation of the Bible, if it existed. The
only inference we can draw from this statement is this that the Goths may have
possessed in Ulfilas' time brief extracts or discussions on the Bible, such
as were later known under the name of catena or speculum and as may readily
be summed up as "tracts and interpretations." Philostorgius, who died after 425 and therefore wrote fifty or
more years after the probable translation by Ulfilas, informs us that Ulfilas
was the inventor of the Gothic alphabet and that he translated all the Holy
Writ into his native tongue, with the exception of the Book of the Kings, which
he left out because the Goths were warlike and needed a check rather than encouragement
in their martial spirit. (18) But
Ulfilas did not invent a Gothic alphabet, having at best added a few additional
signs to the Greek letters then in use, and the reference to the omission of
the Book of Kings is apocryphal, totally devoid of probability. (19)
We have, therefore, no reason to assume that the statement regarding the translation
of the Bible is more correct. Apparently the unusual activity of the Gothic
bishop had led to exaggerated accounts of his literary accomplishments among
his warlike countrymen, and this legendary lore was seized upon by all the later
writers. Sozomenus quoted Philostorgius almost verbatim (20)
and Socrates merely paraphrased him. (21) The most amazing
thing is the ignorance of the Gothic writers in the sixth and seventh centuries
of any extant translation of the Bible, although it is assumed by all modern
authors that the surviving fragments were written in the sixth century. Jordanes, from whom we get the fullest account of the Goths in
the sixth century, has nothing to tell us beyond the fact that Ulfilas gave
the Minor Goths an alphabet, and that these were in his day reduced to poverty
in Moesia. (22) It does not occur
to him in any way to connect these Minor Goths with the Ostrogoths or Visigoths,
but if, as is assumed, the Bible was written out in the sixth century in Italy,
the Ostrogoths at least must have possessed Ulfilas' Bible. Jordanes' silence
on this matter is ominous. The same unconnectedness of Ulfilas' Gothic with
that of the Visigoths of Spain is assumed by Isidor of Seville, (23)
who certainly would not have missed referring to it, if he had suspected it.
More curious still are the remarks of Walafrid Strabo in the ninth century,
who asserted that Gothic was a Germanic language and that learned Goths had
translated the Bible of which monuments were still extant. At first it would
seem that he was aware of the existence of the Gothic Bible in his time, but
that is at once negatived by his quoting merely from book accounts (ut historiae
testantur) and immediately adding that he had it from the tales of monks that
in Scythia, among the Thomitani, services were still held in that language.
(24) It may be possible that his
reference to extant monuments of the Bible is to be taken as different from
those found among the Thomitani, but then it becomes significant that he does
not speak of a translation by Ulfilas, but by several learned men. If we accept
his statement as correct in so far as it speaks of monuments still in use in
the ninth century, we cannot reject his assertion that the translation was made
by several men, and thus the ascription of the Gothic Bible to Ulfilas is once
more made impossible. With rare exceptions all the modern writers who, since the seventeenth
century, have written on the Gothic Bible have accepted the dictum of those
older authorities as final and have proceeded on the assumption that we have
before us genuine documents of the time of Ulfilas or, at best, of redaction
not more recent than the middle of the sixth century. But a number of important
facts have been overlooked by them or have been so interpreted as to fit in
with the a priori assumption. It, therefore, becomes necessary to reinvestigate
all the Gothic manuscripts, both textually and palaeographically, before any
theory independent of the statement by Philostorgius and the other ancient writers
may be propounded. In a Salzburg-Vienna MS. of an Alcuin text, obviously of the ninth
or tenth century, two Gothic alphabets and a few Gothic sentences with transliteration
and phonetic commentary are recorded. (25)
The alphabets, given approximately in the Latin order, do not materially differ
from those of the codices and the Neapolitan documents respectively, although
a few peculiarities occur. Grimm (26)
sees in the attached names of the letters Anglo-Saxon forms, but the resemblance
is only remote, and such names as pertra, quertra for AS. peord, cweorn makes
an Anglo-Saxon influence untenable. Whatever the case may be, the writer of
the alphabet either knew or copied an alphabet, the pronunciation of whose letters
was still known in the ninth or tenth century. This becomes even more certain
from the appended passage:
1. uuortun otan auar
2. waurþunuþþan. afar
3. euang-eliu. ther Lucan
4. aiwaggeljo þairh Lokan
5. uuorthun auar thuo
6. waurþun afar þo
7. ia chuedant ia chu
atun
8. jah qeþun.
9. ubi dicit /. genuit. j. ponitur
10. ubi gabriel .g. ponunt & alia sim.
11. ubi aspiratione. ut dicitur
12. gah libeda. jah libaida
13. diptongon .ai. pro e longa
14. pro ch .q. ponunt The writer comments upon the phonetic values of
the letters in the present tense (dicit, dicitur, ponitur, ponunt) and compares
them with the current Old High German sounds. It is obvious from this comparison
that no period previous to the eighth century can possibly be assigned to these
comments. Indeed, Grienberger (27)
has shown conclusively that the writing gaar for jer in the alphabet points
to the composition of the whole passage in Burgundy by a Frankish German familiar
with the Gothic of southern France, and that the information or, at least, the
writing of this information cannot be placed before 910, while Massmann had
long ago assumed that Gothic was still understood in the ninth century.
(28) In Spain the Gothic language existed as late as
the year 1091, for it was in that year prohibited by a decree of the Synod of
Leon. (29) In the sixteenth century the fragments of the Bible,
later known as Codex Argenteus, had been described by several men who had seen
it in the monastery at Werden, (30)
and in 1665 they were published in full by Francis Junius at Dortrecht. The
best description of the external appearance of the Codex was given by Ihre and
Zahn. (31) It was executed in silver
letters, the first lines sometimes in gold. The script is uncial neatly written
between two guiding lines on polished purple vellum, but the color of the vellum
varies to violet. The text is included in a rectangle containing twenty lines.
At the inner edge of the page the number of the chapter is given according to
the Eusebian canon, and occasionally notes are added, such as parallel passages
from the Old Testament. The words in the text to which the notes or variants
refer have a line with hooks at the end over them, as have also the nomina sacra.
Zahn thinks (32) that the MS. closely
resembles the Codex Brixianus, hence, that it cannot be a copy of Ulfilas' time,
but must have been written at a later time in Italy. Gabelentz and Loebe (33)
say that it was written at the end of the fifth century, or in the beginning
of the sixth, when the Goths lived in Italy. "The Codex Argenteus"
says Bosworth, (34) "is supposed
to be the work of Italians in their own country at the close of the fifth century,
or the beginning of the sixth. The only MS. in exactly the same style of writing,
is the celebrated Gallican Psalter now in the Abbey of St. Germain-de-Prés.
It is of the sixth century and is said to have belonged to St. Germain, Bishop
of Paris, who died May 28, 576. The vellum is stained of a purple-violet colour,
and the writing is in silver letters, and a few particular words in gold. This
description would serve for the Codex Argenteus, the vellum of which, however,
is purple, of a reddish rather than a violet tint." Streitberg, too, knows
(35) that the MS. resembles the Codex Brixianus and
was written in the 5./6. century. 10. Cherokee Constitution, p. 12. Back 11. Chickasaw Constitution, p. 6. Back 12. Ibid, p. 57. Back 13. Cherokee Constitution, p. 143; Chickasaw Constitution, p. 91. Back 14. Chickasaw Constitution, p. 99. Back 15. Ibid., p. 6. Back 16. W. Streitberg, Die gotische Bibel, Heidelberg, 1908, p. xiii ff. Back 17. "Haec et his similia exsequente quadraginta annis in episcopatu gloriose florens apostolica gratia grecam et latinam et goticam linguam sine intermissione in una et sola ecclesia Cristi predicauit....et haec omnia de diuinis scribturis eum dixisse et nos describsisse, qui legit, intelligat; qui et ipsis tribus linguis plures tractatus et multas interpretationes uolentibus ad utilitatem et aedificationem sibi ad aeternam memoriam et mercedem post se dereliquid," ibid., p. xvi. Back 18. Grammatwn autoij oikeiwn eurethj katastaj, metefrasen eij thn autwn fwnhn taj grafaj apasaj, plhn ge dh twn basileiwn, ate twn men polemwn istorian ecouswn, tou de eqnouj ontoj filopolemou, kai deomenou mallon calinou thj epi taj macaj ormhj, all ouci tou proj tauta paroxunontoj, ibid., p. xx. Back 19. "Ea Philostorgii sententia a viris doctis tamquam ridicula improbata atque explosa est," H.C. de Gabelentz et J. Loebe, Ulfilas, Lipsiae 1843, vol. I, p. x. Back 20. Prwtoj de grammatwn eurethj autoij egeneto kai eij thn oikeian fwnhn metefrase taj ieraj biblouj, Streitberg, l. c. Back 21. Tote de kai Oulfilas o twn Gotqwn episkopoj grammata efeure Gotqika kai taj qeiaj grafaj eis thn Gotqwn metabalwn, touj barbarouj manqanein ta qeia logia paraskeuasen, ibid., p. xxi. Back font face="Georgia, Verdana, Trebuchet MS">22. "Erant si quidem et alii Gothi, qui dicuntur minores, populus immensus, cum suo pontifice ipsoque primate Vulfila, qui eis dicitur et litteras instituisse. hodieque sunt in Moesia regionem incolentes Nicopolitanam ad pedes Emimonti gens multa, sed paupera et inbellis," ibid., p. xxiv. Back 23. "Tunc Gulfilas eorum episcopus Gothicas litteras condidit et scripturas novi et veteris testamenti in eandem linguam convertit," ibid., p. xxiv. Back 24. "In Grecorum provinciis commorantes nostrum i.e. theotiscum sermonem postmodum studiosi illius gentis divinos libros in suae locutionis proprietatem transtulerint quorum adhunc monimenta apud nonullos habentur; et fidelium fratrum relatione didicimus apud quasdam Scytharum gentes, maxime Thomitanos, eadem locutione divina hactenus celebrari officia," MGH., Capitularia, Vol. II, p. 481. Back 25. Jahrbücher der Literatur, vol. xliii (Wien, 1828), pp. 1-41; F. Dietrich, Ueber die Aussprache des Gothischen, Marburg, 1862, p. 23 ff.; Streitberg, Gotisches Elementarbuch, Heidelberg, 1910, p. 36, Die gotische Bibel, pp. xxx and 475 ff.; H. F. Massmann, Gotthica minora, in Haupt's Zeitschrift, vol. I, p. 296 ff. Back 26. Jahrbücher, l. c. Back 27. Die germanischen Runennamen, in Paul and Braune's Beiträge, vol. xxi, p. 199. Back 28. "Wir entnehmen, dass im neunten jahrhunderte wohl noch handschriften der gothischen bibel vorhanden, wie noch ziemlich verstanden waren," Haupt's Zeitschrift, vol. I, p. 306. Back 29. "Et interfuit etiam Renerius legatus, et Romanae ecclesiae Cardinalis, ibidemque celebrato concilio cum Bernardo Toletano primate, multa de officijs ecclesiae statuerunt, et etiam de caetero omnes scriptores omissa litera Toletana, quam Gulfilas Gothorum Episcopus adinuenit, Gallicis literis vterentur," Roderici Toletani (Rodrigo Ximenes) Chronicon, lib, VI, cap. XXX. See Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2nd ed., vol. V, p. 201. The assertion made somewhere that the reference is to a calligraphy and not to the Gothic language is without any foundation, for the Gothic alphabet was never used for anything but Gothic. Back 30. Streitberg, Elementarbuch, p. 24. Back 31. See Zahn, Ulifilas, Weissenfels 1805, p. 46 ff. Back 32. Op. cit., p. 50. Back 33. Op. cit., vol. I, p. xxxi. Back 34. The Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels, London 1874, p. vii. Back 35. Die gotische Bibel, p. xxv. Back
© 2004-2007 Northvegr. Most of the material on this site is in the public domain. However, many people have worked very hard to bring these texts to you so if you do use the work, we would appreciate it if you could give credit to both the Northvegr site and to the individuals who worked to bring you these texts. A small number of texts are copyrighted and cannot be used without the author's permission. Any text that is copyrighted will have a clear notation of such on the main index page for that text. Inquiries can be sent to info@northvegr.org. Northvegr™ and the Northvegr symbol are trademarks and service marks of the Northvegr Foundation. |
|