igion, and when there was a constant mingling of the
Christian spirit with the spirit of heathenism. In fact, the subject
should cover all that is known of the Germanic tribes prior to the
Roman contact and after it, down to the full entrance of the Middle
Ages and the rise of new nationalities. In this period we shall miss
the full interest of the society of the Middle Ages after the feudal
system had transformed Europe or, rather, after Europe had entered into
a great period of transformation from the indefinite, broken-down
tribal life into the new life of modern nations.

Tribal society has its limitations and types distinctive from every
other. The very name "tribe" suggests to us something different from
the conditions of a modern nation. Caesar and Tacitus were accustomed
to speak of the Germanic tribes as _nationes_, although with no such
fulness of meaning as we attach to our modern nations. The Germanic,
like the Grecian, tribe is founded upon two cardinal principles, and is
a natural and not an artificial assemblage of people. These two
principles are religion and kinship, or consanguinity. In addition to
this there is a growth of the tribe by adoption, largely through the
means of matrimony and the desire for protection.

These principles in the formation of the tribe are universal with the
Aryan people, and, probably, with all other races. There is a
clustering of the relatives around the eldest parent, who becomes the
natural leader of the tribe and who has great power over the members of
the expanded family. There is no state, there are no citizens,
consequently the social life must be far different from that which we
are accustomed to see. At {285} the time of our first knowledge of the
Germans, the family had departed a step from the conditions which bound
the old families of Greece and Rome into such compact and firmly
organized bodies. There was a tendency toward individualism, freedom,
and the private ownership of land. All of these points, and more, must
be taken into consideration, as we take a brief survey of the
characteristics of the early Teutonic society. What has been said in
reference to the tribe, points at once to the fact that there must have
been different ranks of society, according to the manner in which a
person became a member of the tribe.

_Classes of Society_.--The classes of people were the freemen of noble
blood, or the nobility, the common freemen, the freedmen,