vernacular literature; on the contrary, they rapidly lost their native
speech, and adopted that of the conquered nation.

The Franks and the Saxons had been neighbours in their native homes,
speaking almost the same mother-tongue; but their migrations led them
into new regions in which they again proved neighbours under altered
conditions. Each was to take a leading part in the formation of modern
Europe, but they were to be divided in that office, their lots being
severally cast with the two great constituent factors of modern
civilisation. The one was to lead the Romanesque, the other the Gothic
division. The Franks became assimilated to the Romanised Gauls, and
formed, with them, one Latin-speaking Church; they raised the standard
of orthodoxy against the Arianism of the other barbarian powers, and the
Frankish king was decorated with the title of Most Christian; the
history of that Church was written in Latin by Gregory of Tours. This
work, upon which he was engaged from A.D. 576 to 592, bears
strong marks of literary degeneracy. Gregory complained of the low state
of education in the cities of Gaul. He became a historian only from a
sense of necessity, and for fear lest the memory of important events
should perish. He has been called the Herodotus of the Franks, and the
Herodotus of barbarism. The history of the Church in Gaul after the
absorption of the Franks is not one of quickened progress but of crime
and torpidity. Gregory the Great justified his mission to the Saxons on
the express ground that the Church of Gaul, whose natural duty it was,
had neglected it. The history of the Merovingian Franks stands in
disadvantageous contrast with the early vigour of the Saxon Churches.
The first great elevation of European culture was to spring, not from
among the Franks, but in the remoter colonies of the Saxons.

The English conversion began A.D. 597; and two religious