Mysterious Truths and Christmas Impulses

GA 180 — 14 January 1918, Dornach

Fifteenth Lecture

Today I would like to present something that is purely historical, as it were. I believe that the ninth century and the fifteenth century, which I will speak about in a future lecture, can indeed be considered in such a way that important things can be seen from the consideration of the cultural content of precisely these two centuries, from which much can be learned for the present, for the assessment of current conditions. We are dealing in the 9th century with a significant historical period of European life, in that in this 9th century, so to speak, the Occident is already approaching us in the sense that it has become Christianized. The earlier centuries are actually centuries in which Christianity is only just being integrated into Western life. And in the 9th century, that is, in the period that followed the century of, for example, Charlemagne, we see that Europe has a Christian character, that Christian character that has then been working through the centuries in the lives of the people of Europe. But the fact that Europe has become so Christian, as it actually appears to us in the 9th century, has many prerequisites. And one can only judge how Christianity has become established if one considers these manifold prerequisites.

We know, of course, that at the time of the emergence of Christianity, the Roman Empire was just beginning its imperial period, that it was beginning to encompass, in a unified administrative form, basically the whole world known at that time, or to assert this encompassing, to really experience it. We know that this is the time when Hellenism as an external political form of existence is already declining, that Hellenism has long since penetrated into Romanism as a ferment of education and culture, and we then have to direct our attention primarily to the fact that from the beginnings of Christianity, which we do know, this Christianity gradually settled into the entire form of the Roman Empire, into all the administrative and constitutional forms of the Roman Empire. And we see then how Christianity, developing under the most diverse conditions in Europe, in the first, second, and third centuries, becomes established in what is there as the Roman way of life. But then we see how this assimilation of Christianity is initially connected with a complete anarchization of European life. We know how the Roman Empire, from the moment in world history when it was at its most widespread, clearly showed the seeds of its decline.

The question will always occupy the mind of anyone who contemplates these things: how did this Roman Empire, which rose to such glory, actually perish in the first three or four centuries of the Christian era? One can believe that the onslaught of the northern, Germanic peoples alone was responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire. One can then find some of this guilt in the spread of Christianity itself. One will misinterpret the deeper basis for the downfall of the Western Roman Empire if one seeks the only motives for this downfall in these factors. For the Western Roman Empire shows, if one looks at it more thoroughly, that such structures do have a life of their own, that they have, so to speak, a birth, a youth, a certain age of maturity, and that they then gradually die, and that the causes of this dying-off must be sought within the state itself, just as, in the case of an individual organism, the causes of its aging and physical dying-off must be sought within the organism itself and not in external conditions. However, it is possible to discern from external appearances how this gradual aging and eventual dying-off of such a thing as the Roman Empire took place.

What must be taken into account when considering European development into the 9th century is that two phenomena clearly emerge before the eye that looks at history. One is the gradual decline of the Roman Empire and all that was connected with it; the other, however, is that at the same time the oriental way of life flourishes. We see that in the East, far beyond the areas bordering the Roman Empire to the East, a cultural flowering develops, albeit an external, material cultural flowering. In other words, these countries, to which the Roman Empire, one cannot even say that it bordered them in its cultural flowering, but which it nominally included, these countries develop a brilliant material cultural flowering. Without this material cultural flowering, which formed on the periphery of the Roman Empire, it would have been impossible for Islam to flourish and for the Arabs to assert themselves in the historical development later on, when they were able to lay claim to a large part of the world in such a brilliant way until the 8th or 9th century. We see that up to the 8th or 9th century the Arab domination spread under the spiritual banner of Mohammed as far as Spain, but that in other directions, too, European life came into clear contact with all the cultural blossoms that arose all around. What the Arabs achieved in Spain and Sicily and in the East, before they became the enemies of Europe, must have been rooted in a rich and splendid material civilization. Only on such a foundation was it possible for the Arabs to accomplish such brilliant conquests. Where does this phenomenon come from, which is more closely connected than one might think with what happened in Europe up to the ninth century? How did this phenomenon come about, that on the one hand the Roman Empire was declining, and on the other hand the oriental character was taking a brilliant upswing and had an extraordinary effect on the Occident? For it did not only work through its conquest, it worked in an extraordinary way spiritually. One cannot believe how much of what the Arabs, partly through the Greek education that they themselves had only recently adopted and interwoven with their own nature, has influenced the European Occident.

This European Occident, through the way it has developed until the 9th century, does not have just one current in itself. All of us, insofar as we have participated in the formation of the Occident, have two distinct currents within us. It is a great mistake to believe that only the Christian current has spread in the Occident; spiritually, what has come from the Arabs has spread throughout the Occident. The way of thinking, the way of imagining, has been deeply influenced by the Arabs in European conditions. In what today's man - I do not mean the man who is intellectually ill, but the man of general education - thinks about fate, about the natural order, about life in general, the most diverse Arab thoughts are found in it, right down to the peasant's head. And if you take much of what dominates minds today, you will find that Arab thoughts are in them.

What, among many other things, can be said to be characteristic of this Arab way of thinking that spread to Europe? It can be said to be particularly characteristic that this Arab way of thinking is, first of all, subtle and abstract, does not like the concrete, and therefore prefers to view all world and natural conditions in abstractions. Alongside this is a development of fantasy that cannot be called merely flourishing, but voluptuous. Just think, what develops alongside the sober, abstract way of thinking, which even shows itself in the artistic in Arabdom, what develops in fantasy about a kind of paradise, about a kind of afterlife with all the pleasures transferred from the sensual into this afterlife. These two parallel things: sober, materialistic observation of natural and world conditions, on the other hand, a lush fantasy life, which of course then becomes dulled and becomes intelligent, is something that has been passed down to the present day. For if today you want to present something of the spiritual world, yes, if it is in the form of fantasy, then people still respond to it. Then they do not need to believe in it, but can accept it as a figment of the imagination. They put up with that, because alongside it they want to have what they call genuine, real. But that must be sober, that must be dry, that must be abstract.

These two things, which live as a second current in the soul-life of Europe, came essentially with the Arab element. Although the Arab influence has been pushed back in many respects, this way of thinking has penetrated deeply into European life, especially into southern, western and central European life, less so into eastern European life; but even there, at least into what is called “education”, it has partially penetrated. So that Christianity, which is quite different in relation to these things, had to struggle with these opposing ideas. If we want to understand Europe's development up to the 9th century, we must not forget that such Arab ideas have penetrated into Europe. It is hard to believe how much in Europe is actually close to Turkishness, to Muslim culture in the thoughts that the European has about life, destiny and so on.

But how did it come about that something could arise, or rather take root, on the periphery of the Roman Empire that caused Europe so much trouble? This is connected with the ever-increasing expansion of the Roman Empire. This Roman Empire, as it spread more and more, was obliged to obtain many, many products from the Orient to meet the needs that arose in this vast empire, and all of them had to be paid for. And we see with the development of the Roman Empire, precisely from the beginning of our calendar year, that a significant phenomenon in the development of the Roman Empire is that the Romans have to pay so much for what they obtain from the Orient. In other words, we see that during this period there is an enormous outflow of gold from the Roman Empire to the periphery. The gold flows out. And curiously enough, no new sources of gold open up. And the consequence of this is that the wealth conditions of the Roman Empire change completely, that with the development of Christianity the Roman Empire becomes poor in money, that is, poor in gold and silver. This is a phenomenon of fundamental significance. So that Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire in a region that increasingly tended towards primitive conditions in terms of its economy. For wherever there is a lack of money, wherever there is a lack of gold – on the physical plane that is the case – there the necessity very soon arises to return to primitive forms of natural economy, to primitive forms of a kind of bartering by merely exchanging goods. But that is not even the significant thing. The significant thing is that when such a scarcity of gold occurs, it becomes impossible to create extensive and meaningful human connections. As a result, people are dependent on the exploitation of much closer relationships; they are enclosed within much narrower limits in their needs in the exchange and in their coexistence.

And so it came about that the Roman economy gradually grew more and more into a way that it was not accustomed to as an empire. The institutions in the Roman Empire were all affected, all kinds of administrative institutions, administration and so on, everything that is referred to as the connection between the regions and their authorities and so on, was set up so that one had money. And now the money was getting less and less. You can clearly observe it in a particular area. Of course, as the empire grew larger and larger, the Romans needed more and more legions, especially in the outer parts of the empire; they needed soldiers. They had to be paid. You could not always transport infinite masses of things produced in Italy itself to the periphery. The soldiers wanted to be paid in gold, so that they could then trade for it from the others. But gradually the gold was no longer there. The soldiers could no longer be paid. This was the case in many areas. The Roman Empire thus died, so to speak, of its own greatness. And in its periphery, a very special wealth developed, which then of course also resulted in a certain basis for a spiritual life.

Now something else is added to this: the Romans had gradually come to be unable to live according to their old habits. Of course, one must not look at the individual people, but at the whole institutions. In the north, however, fresh peoples were there; they were organized according to their customs and habits precisely for natural economy. Among them, the tendency and urge towards natural economy had gradually developed. They were organized for such conditions, also through their deeply rooted, elementary inclinations and sympathies. These Germanic peoples – that is what they are called in their entirety, as they spread in Western and Central Europe, in the north of the Roman Empire – had gradually become, over the centuries, both at the time of complete anarchy in the 3rd and 4th centuries and up to the time of complete consolidation in the 9th century, they had gradually come to prefer a natural economy to the Roman one, because it corresponded to their customs and habits, as well as to their sympathies and inclinations. Above all, however, the natural economy corresponded in a certain sense to the institutions, the way people in these northern regions lived together.

We must now take a look at these northern regions. In general, we say: in the first Christian centuries, Germanic peoples were there. We call what spread in the north Germanic peoples 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 you were to look at each individual mosquito, it would look different. And so what spread in the north while the Roman Empire was falling apart due to the conditions described above, should not be generally referred to as “Germanic peoples”, as it appears now in the temporal distance. Above all, we must consider how it actually came about that what came from the north collided with the Roman Empire in the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries. That must be borne in mind. Yes, even when Tacitus, in the first Christian century, saw these northern regions, it was the case that the process that had taken place there, when there was still little contact with the Roman Empire, had emerged from the fact that in all these areas there was originally a kind of native population that, if you go back in the development of Europe, leads straight back to Celtic culture, at least for Western Europe and Central Europe.

Everything that was cultivated in Europe in ancient times, of course before the emergence of Christianity, belongs to a certain Celtic indigenous population. This Celtic indigenous population can basically be found as the basis of the entire European population. The descendants of Celtic blood flow everywhere in Europe, not only in Western Europe, but above all in Central Europe. There are very many people in Bavaria, Austria, Thuringia, in whom, if one may be imprecise in describing these things, the succession 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.

Into these primeval Celtic conditions something has been pushed which is actually rather unclear in its origin to external history. All kinds of theories have been advanced about this, but the truth is this: through what is usually called the migration of peoples, which also took place somewhat differently than it is usually described in the history books, a people element – one cannot even say a people element, but rather a larger number of people from the most diverse regions, also from Asia via Northern Europe – has pushed its way into the Celtic original population. And through the mingling of this new element with the old Celtic element, through the manifold minglingsome were stronger, some weaker, some in which the Celtic element remained in the foreground, some in which it receded into the background, the various shades of the European population came into being. And from these shades developed, on the one hand, those conditions that then became the folk conditions of Western and Central Europe, but also those conditions that led to the forms of life, to the forms of constitution and administration. There was a time when the Celtic element of the indigenous population lived relatively comfortably, perhaps even very frugally in some areas, but comfortably from year to year, not caring much about any innovations and the like, but lived along not much differently than you can see today, though less and less, in some abandoned area, where people live just from year to year without taking on any innovations. So this Celtic element lived in a certain comfortable calm, which was actually not at all appropriate for the national character of the Celts, but had gradually occurred. Then came these other masses of people, who actually only created Germanic culture by mixing with the Celts. The next thing that emerged was that, as I have already indicated, in one area the old element retained the upper hand, while the new element receded – in some areas it was the other way around – and as a result, different shades of blood emerged.

But on the other hand, the result was that the habitual residents were flooded by the intruders. The intruders became the masters. They were the ones who disturbed the peace and thus became the masters. And from this relationship between the conquering immigrant masters and the remaining original inhabitants, the relationship between the free, the semi-free and the unfree emerged. The original inhabitants were gradually pushed down into slavery. Those who had immigrated gradually formed the master class, and that determined the living conditions.

Thus Europe was settled by a population that arose in the way I have characterized it, but within which the distinct configuration of a master caste and a kind of serf or slave caste emerged. And on this basis, all the other conditions then developed. Through the nuances of which I have spoken, the various Germanic branches formed, especially towards the west, but also as far as the areas of present-day northern Bavaria, even into the areas of present-day Hesse and so on. What we call the Franks were, in some respects, the most active population, in some respects, in terms of external intellect, the most understanding, active, and in some respects, the most domineering group of the various groups that emerged as nations. This was the population group that spread more towards the west, the element of the Franks. The word is still present today in the word combination “frank und frei”; everyone knows what “frank und frei” means in its composition, and “Franken” is related to the word “frank”, which has a close relationship with the word: to want to feel free, independent, outwardly free, independent.

In the middle remained the population that could be described – if one wants a summarizing name – as the Saxon population, which spread into Thuringia, into the northern areas opposite Thuringia, down the Elbe, to the coast. This was the population that was more stubborn in terms of its older national character, that particularly held on to its original identity, that, so to speak, embodied the human-personal-conservative feeling.

And so there were other groups. It would be too much to list all these groups. What is important is that the British population developed from the Saxon group, through a variety of mixtures but with a strong predominance of the Saxon group, and that the British population, if one may say so, belongs to the Saxon tribe in its essential origin, leading back to these centuries.

Now we have to consider what the life of this population, which has developed in this way, actually was. This population, which lived there, was a youthful, childlike population in relation to the southern population, to the Roman and Greek population. What had become old in Celtic culture had not become very old at all, but had become old early on. A rejuvenation process did take place, however, in that certain ethnic groups pushed in from northern Europe and also indirectly from Asia. Above all, the population had sympathies for the southern element, for the natural economy, for the economy of barter, which placed little value on the money economy, which only comes into play when an empire is at an advanced stage.

Those who, despite the migration of peoples – which is, after all, somewhat different than presented in the history books – developed within these newly emerging European conditions, were actually basically only connected to their neighbors, to their closest neighbors. But there was also a very specific peculiarity in the intellectual relationship. All these nations still had something that the Greek and Roman populations had long since lost. Even well into the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, they all had, to a much greater extent than the most uneducated Greek and Roman populations, an original atavistic clairvoyance. These people all lived in connection with certain spiritual beings. For them, there was not only an external material nature, there were not only seasons and wind and weather, but for them there was, because they saw it in those states that were more than a dream, the god Wotan, whom the people knew. Many at least knew: they themselves saw the god Wotan, who moved with the wind, on wings of wind.

The people knew that. They also knew, for example, the god Saxnot, who helped them in their battles when they had to fight. When they had fought the battles, or before they fought them, their god Saxnot appeared to them, and much more. They were also familiar with the rapidly changing weather conditions not only in a material way, but they were spiritually familiar with the elements, with the god Thor, with his hammer, and the like. These were real experiences for these people, they still knew that. And besides, these people had a belief in guidance from the spiritual world because they knew from their own experience that there is a spiritual world. They believed that everything that happens in the days, in the seasons, is guided by spiritual forces and beings. If any tribe was victorious, it knew that the tribal god had stood by and guided it.

You could say of the tribal god: He led. You cannot say of a general human god that he is the god of battle. You can say that of a tribal god just fine. The people were right when they said of their tribal deities that they were led by them. Of course, any tribe can say that it has been protected and cared for by a tribal god, but the same cannot be said of a god to whom the whole of humanity is attributed in the same sense.

The priesthoods, which developed – there were also mysteries in these areas, we have often spoken about such things – in order to have, so to speak, the leadership in this whole context of people with the divine spiritual powers. But this leadership was a very specific one because the people knew that there are spiritual powers, that there are spiritual forces and entities.

So outwardly these people lived in a certain primitive way with a natural economy; inwardly, one can say, they lived a kind of spiritual life. There were no educated people in the sense that there were in Greece and Rome. The priests were leaders; they organized the life that the others also knew. But they were not educated in the sense that the Greek philosophers or the Roman philosophers, or the Roman poets or those who could read and write in Greece and Rome and were educated in this sense; because the people did not know all this. Of course there was no reading and writing. So you are dealing with a population that lived in primitive natural conditions and that led a spiritual life in a certain way.

There was a certain inner strength due to the revitalization that had come into this Celtic culture; it was suitable for the primitive conditions. The southern part was not suitable for the primitive conditions. In certain points, what was a new, young element there clashed with what was present in the south, was present in such a way that in an empire perishing from lack of money, Christianity took root, was adopted in the way you know things. And it was particularly at such points, where the two areas, the old dying and the young emerging, collided, that the Romans still founded their cities, their border cities on the periphery of their empire. Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Strasbourg, Basel, Constance, Salzburg, Augsburg, these were urban structures that had existed since Roman times.

Now it should be clear to you: the Romans thought of these urban structures of Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Strasbourg, Constance, Basel, Salzburg and so on as a kind of protective fort against the onslaughing people. But when Romanism - not through anything else, but through itself - gradually disintegrated, the cities were in a very special situation. In the countryside it was good for primitive conditions. In the cities it was nothing special under primitive conditions. And the consequence of this was that the cities would have been deserted if they had not been used in some other way. But the emerging church, which had taken hold of Christianity, was a good observer that knew: one must hold to the cities. And so the dioceses were transferred to the cities, which would otherwise have been deserted. But as a result, the cities gradually became a point of concentration for the surrounding people, who were unfree, over the centuries towards the 9th century, because the dioceses were transferred there, because education came into them – for the bishop initially came from the southern regions. The free had no particular reason to move into the cities, which would gradually have become deserted; so they followed the bishops and clergy into the cities only to a limited extent. But those who were unfree followed the calls from the church to move into the cities.

And if you now look at the basic conditions, you will easily understand: the unfree were, after all, the stragglers, the descendants of the original population. There was a great deal of Celtic blood in them. What flocked together in the cities was basically an element that wanted to free itself from those who had become the masters there. This gave the cities, little by little, the character of medieval free enterprise. This was essentially due to the fact that it was often the seething of the Celtic blood in the cities that the cities flourished in the Middle Ages, in the early Middle Ages up to the 9th or 10th century.

Then we must realize that all these conditions were real historical necessities. It is hard to believe how little man's character could be guided by external abstract means, especially in earlier times. But it could be guided if one first studied the conditions and then linked them to the concrete. Thus we see – and we could cite many examples, but I can only give a sketch – how a new element arises and how the old element in the south gradually dies out due to its own nature. This dying out can be seen from the fact that, on the one hand, in the south, ancient science and the ancient element of education gradually reach their particular height but then come to a dead end, freeze; they can no longer advance. In the sixth century, Emperor Justinian abolished the office of consul in Rome, helped to condemn the teachings of Origen and closed the last remnants of the Athenian schools of philosophy. The old Athenian schools of philosophy were transferred to Persia. There, Gondishapur was founded as an academy. The Athenian philosophers follow the paths that gold has taken, settling where a spiritual life can develop on the basis of a certain wealth. In Europe, it is necessary to take into account the primitive conditions that have arisen.

And two factors initially knew how to deal with these primitive conditions. It can be said that the other factors knew little how to deal with them. But two factors knew well how to reckon with these primitive conditions, namely, the papacy, which was a good observer, not only of the bad, but also of the good, because in those days the papacy had very many good qualities, and those - they were basically nothing more than large landowners - who gradually asserted themselves within the Frankish tribe as Merovingians, Carolingians and so on.

What did the papacy need? The papacy could not easily spread Christianity as a doctrine. It did make a thorough, even very thorough attempt to spread Christianity as a doctrine; but in such matters one must always take into account the concrete, real conditions. Pope Gregory the Great sent fifty emissaries to England and Ireland, and from there the emissaries went to Central Europe, Gallus, who is connected with St. Gallen, and many others. But here you could count on people who came from a peoplehood and had a great gift of persuasion. This was a current through which Christianity was spread in a certain spiritual way, spread in such a way that it also went among the rural population, who lived under the characterized conditions, built churches. And around these churches, Christianity gradually took hold in such a way that the people who, as Franks, Saxons, Alemanni and so on, populated these northern regions did not significantly change their concept of God. They still had this concept of God from their atavistic clairvoyance. They did not particularly change it; but, take any area, some messenger came, built a small church - in Alsace, for example, this has happened over and over again in many areas - near a place where there was an image, a statue of the god Saxnot or something like that. He builds a small church, and he knows how to take the people. After he has built his church with his comrades – they did everything themselves, they were hardworking people, not just book writers – he goes to the people and says: Now you have your god, it is the rain god; praying to him will achieve nothing!

Such a messenger knows how to make it plausible to them that the God for whom he built the church is better. Now, this required persuasion, because, of course, the God whom he called the Christ had not shown any direct influence on the rain either. But this was mixed up with the fact that the ideas about the gods that had emerged from the military campaigns were gradually brought into contact with Christianity. When some tribe was defeated by another that had already converted to Christianity, it turned out that the people said, “Our god did not help us; their god helped them.” I am only trying to express that the Christian God was equated with the individual tribal deities. But people did not arrive at any other concept of God than that which they had from their atavistic clairvoyance. From this arose the necessity, when the Roman Church naturalized Christianity by using this, that the old tribal deities had to be gradually eradicated, root and branch. For they wanted, as it were, to replace the name of God with the other deities.

As I said, attempts were made to spread Christianity as a doctrine, as a spiritual way of life. But it may be said that, owing to the most diverse circumstances, another element was more successful at first, and that was the warlike element of the Franks, who were the most enterprising tribe, the most active, who, through their intellect, through their understanding, really knew: they could make something out of the adoption of what was bound to perish in the Roman Empire, through this adoption of institutions and so on. Through these and similar circumstances a connection arose between the Frankish folk element and the shadow of the Roman Empire, with the institutions and the views of the Roman Empire.

This began in the 8th century, continued into the 9th century, and the result was that Christianity was associated with the conquering element. The Saxon tribe, which was conservative and stubborn, was indeed overcome in a conquering manner; and from the West spread that which arose initially from a combination of the old customs and habits with regard to the judiciary and human coexistence with Christianity. This combining of the original customs with the southern element, which came from Christianity but in which Romanism lived, is evident in everything. Today we no longer realize how much it is evident in everything. For example, people believe that a count is a particularly Germanic institution, while the word 'count' is nothing more than something related to graph, stylus, and writing. Writing and administration were taken from the south. The one who administered was the count. And in the event of war, he also led the district, the area. The word “count” has the same root as graphology and stylus and is related to writing. But everything that concerns writing, pen-pushing, everything that concerns education, that came from the southern areas, and which has its real life in dying. So that these two elements interacted well into the 9th century. The most powerful element had just become the Frankish element through Charlemagne, whose power was based primarily on the fact that it had absorbed ecclesiastical Christianity and was now renewing the shadow of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne was indeed crowned in Rome; the old Caesaranity was to rise again.

These things, however, had only an artificial supporting power in themselves, not a natural one. We know then: after Charlemagne, the wide areas that Charlemagne supposedly held together initially still followed, and which were also still ruled like a kind of empire by Louis the Dumb - that is to say, the Pious. And when the power of the original conditions became more pronounced, when the Germanic-Frankish breakthrough came – because this Frankish element emerged, as I said, from a large part of what is now called Germany – when that breakthrough came, then the Treaty of Verdun, 843, had to divide. Why did it actually have to be divided? It had to be divided because it was unnatural to hold together. The real cement was Romance, but it was actually effective through the chancellery and through what developed as the first primitive schools and the like, and through what the clergy did, which asserted itself as such. The cement was Romance, but life was not Romance, life was Germanic. The people were organized in small groups. At the head of such small groups stood a duke – not by law. The laws only came into being when what was the custom of 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 strangers, who led the army that made the settled population into serfs. He gradually disappeared. The count was appointed where there was a duke. You can say that the dukes survived as far as Bavaria and Thuringia. But the count is placed there; he is placed there, judges, administers, where the duke used to be, whom the people called that because he was there before they came to the area. The count is installed and gradually becomes a landowner, gathering the unfree around him and making them his serfs. The feudal system comes into being, the development of which would be very interesting to observe, but we do not have the time.

And we see that it is actually through the interaction of such details that those great landowners come into being. Because that is what they are, namely those great landowners that we see in the Merovingians and Carolingians. They are great landowners; and they were now sitting inside, far removed from following Roman law, because according to Roman law one could not have divided up the land as in the Treaty of Verdun! So you divide when you are the owner and divide among your sons. That was an old custom where the personality was involved. That was right according to ancient custom. Roman law could not have allowed that in reality.

These were such disintegrating elements. They were everywhere, these disintegrating elements, so that one can only properly understand this 9th century, which is crucial, if one knows that all of Western and Central Europe was flooded by the Romanic element, the popular nature. This was even more pronounced later, as we will discuss in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it will become even more apparent. Of course, educated people are placed in the form of clergy and so on, but it is the Romanic element that overflows these areas. But the Germanic element lives in the people - throughout Europe from the 9th century onwards, yes, even in England, in the British Empire. And this Germanic element is first expressed particularly in the element of the Franks. It was only through this division of the heritage, which actually took place according to purely private, arbitrary circumstances, that this tripartite structure came into being, so that one received this middle long strip along the Rhine and Italy, the other received what was to the west of it, and the third received what was to the east of it. And this then became the basis for the later division of the German and French characters, as a result of the Treaty of Verdun. And what Lothar got in the intermediate line created the happy basis for Central and Western Europe to fight with each other forever! But these things are connected in this way.

Now we must bear in mind that there are various and variously important factors at work: the Germanic element, particularly in this period, finding expression in the Frankish element; but the Romance element, which, as a shadow of ancient times, flits across the scene like a ghost, an old inheritance. And into this development, according to the corresponding conditions given by this nature – whereby the Germanic nature, always arising out of the strength of the people, thus out of reality, wanted to shatter the Romanic semblance – into this development, Christianity had to be spread from Rome. One had to take into account all these conditions, one had to reckon with the urban elements, with the rural elements, and one had to try to introduce Christianity in such a way that people could understand it. In spite of Constantine and his successors, it could not be introduced in Rome, because education, although it had reached a high level, had reached a dead end. It had to be introduced into popular elements that had original, youthful vigor in them.

Therefore, one had to push back to the East what had just frozen into dogmas, what wanted to remain at a certain point of view. And in the West, one had to reckon with a popular element that wanted to develop out of the ecclesiastical, out of all the elements that I have indicated. The papacy in particular could already count on these elements. There was already active calculation on the part of the papacy when Charlemagne was crowned; for one simply reckoned with this large landowner, who also let himself be reckoned with. And then it was always the policy of the papacy, first and foremost, to introduce Christianity in such a way that it was suitable for seizing the souls of those who had just outgrown the old atavistic clairvoyance.

It is of particular importance that from the ninth century onwards, and influenced by the separation from Oriental Christianity, the Roman Church began to take the European ethnic elements and conditions into account in an eminent way, when under Nicholas I, the great Pope, the Orient began to separate from the Occident within the Christian element. The underlying reason for this separation was the necessity to take into account what was rooted in European conditions, as I have outlined in very sketchy fashion. If we now consider the 14th and 15th centuries in terms of their basic character, we will see that the period from the 8th to the 14th century is characterized by the interaction of the papal element, the interaction of the Central European element, and the development of that European configuration, which then changed again when the great discoveries and the Reformation and the like came.

I just wanted to show you the factors that culminated in the ninth century in purely historical terms. In the development of Europe, one can clearly distinguish the first three Christian centuries, which led to a kind of anarchy. Everything is topsy-turvy. In the third century, everything is mixed up. But then, through the natural conditions, the situation developed over the next five or six centuries, into the ninth century, in such a way that one can say that Christianity was carried into the circumstances in the way I have indicated, but that these circumstances were actually given by the way people lived.