Europe and to find
in Christianity the religion most admirably adapted to fill their
spiritual needs and shape their ideals. In the year 476 the barbarian
Odoacer ascended the throne of the Caesars. He still pretended to govern
by virtue of the authority delegated to him by Zeno, emperor at
Constantinople; but the rupture between East and West was becoming final
and after the reign of Justinian (527-565) it was practically complete.
Henceforth the eastern empire had little or nothing to do with western
Europe and subsisted as an independent monarchy until Constantinople was
taken by the Turks in 1453. I shall not concern myself with it any
longer.

In western Europe, then, new races with new ideals were forming the
nations that to-day are England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and
Austria. It is interesting to note what some of these barbarians
thought about women and what place they assigned them.

[Sidenote: Julius Caesar's account.]

Our earliest authorities on the subject are Julius Caesar and Tacitus.
Caesar informs us[288] that among the Gauls marriage was a well
recognized institution. The husband contributed of his own goods the
same amount that his wife brought by way of dowry; the combined property
and its income were enjoyed on equal terms by husband and wife. If
husband or wife died, all the property became the possession of the
surviving partner. Yet the husband had full power of life and death over
his wife as over his children; and if, upon the decease of a noble,
there were suspicions regarding the manner of his death, his wife was
put to inquisitorial torture and was burnt at the stake when adjudged
guilty of murder. Among the Germans women seem to have been held in
somewhat greater respect. German matrons were esteemed as prophetesses
and no battle was entered upon unless they had first consulted the lots
and given assurance that the fight would be successful.[289] As for the
British, who were not a Germanic people, Caesar says that they practiced
polygamy and near relatives were accustomed to have wives in
common.[290]

[Sidenote: The account of Tacitus.]

Tacitus wrote a century and a half after Julius Caesar when the tribes
had become better known the Romans; hence we get from him more detailed
information. From him we learn that both the Sitones--a people of
northern Germany--and the British often bestowed the royal power on
women, a circumstance which aroused the strong contempt of Tacitus,