The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1940-03-23
IL ~ By Hendrix wHiem Leea
llC OIL vi ACIIIOO1oO/ y
For 500 Years the Dark Ages Are Unlighied
BY Cleans From the Light of Democracy
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Were the Dark Ages really as
dark as they have always been
depicted! On the whole, the an
swer In yes.
The moment the imperial police
men had disappeared from the
scene, the gangster was left m
full possession Of the field. North
ern and western Europe were over
run by bands of marauding bar
barians, all of whom tried to find
a spot in the warm and comfort
able sun of the Mediterranean.
Hence there arose a period
of unrest, which historians call
the age of the Great Migra-
tons and which In the end
destroyed the last vestiges Of
that system of law and order
which had been Rome's most
important contribution TO the
civilization of the lent
world.
England. which had been under
Roman domination for as long as
America has been inhabited by the
white man. was left to its own
fate, and the moment the last of
Roman legionnaires had embarked
for the continent, it became the
prey of every pirate whose ship
was sufficiently seaworthy to let
him cross from the mainland to
this rich island.
The Balkan provinces were so
completely forgotten that some of
them, like Rumania, disappeared
from view for more than a thou
sand years.
Rome herself was no longer safe
from foreign attack, and the seat
of residence was first of all moved
to Ravenna on the coast of the
Adriatic and another imperator-
another commander in chief-es-
tablished himself and his court in
Constantinople on the banks of
the Bosporus, giving the bewil-
dered savages tstill, and in spite
Of everything, deeply impressed by
the name of Romeo the sight of a
world dominated by two full
fledged Roman emperors.
For a short while the navies of
the Romans held their own in the
Mediterranean. But this was
matter of life and death to them,
for without the grain ships that
piled regularly between Egypt and
Italy. the people of the Italian
peninsula would have persisted,
even as the inhabitants of London
will die of hunger if the Germans
should ever succeed in cutting off
the grain supply from Canada and
South Africa.
But, shortly after the death of
Mohammed. the whole of northern
Africa was conquered by the fol-
lowers of the prophet, and the
Mediterranean thereupon became a
Moorish inland sea on which no
Christian vessel was safe from
attack.
In Italy in the valley Of the Pc
the Lombards, who had settled
down there, maintained a SEM
blance Of that tribal government
common among all the wander
ing Teutonic tribes among the
forests and plains of northern and
eastern Europe.
OF course, ever since they had
gone on the warpath. they had
been obliged to elect themselves a
commander-in-chief. but these old
German kings only enjoyed their
power as long as they were able
to lead their fellow tribesmen into
happier pastures.
They were kings in the sense
that the chiefs of our own Indian
tribes were kings. very limited in
their actual power, and depending
for their final decisions upon the
will of deliberative council COM
posed of the older members of the
community.
OF course, now and then one of
these little chieftains, cleverer or
more INSCRIPTIONS than his neigh
bors, would succeed in making
himself a sort of local kingpin.
The most successful of these was
a Frankish chief, whose family,
during the latter half of the
eighth century, ruled over the
greater part of the ancient Ro-
man province of Gaul.
Meanwhile, in Rome, the bishops
of that city had reached a point
Of eminence where their episcopal
rivals were ready TO recognize
them as their spiritual head-as
the pontifex maximus of the
whole Of the Christian church