It
is enough to point out one respect in which the Teutonic conquest was
immeasurably more complete in Britain than in any other part of the
empire. Everywhere else the tribes who settled upon Roman soil--the
Goths, Vandals, Suevi, and Burgundians--were christianized, and so to
some extent romanized, before they came to take possession. Even the
more distant Franks had been converted to Christianity before they
had completed their conquest of Gaul. Everywhere except in Britain,
therefore, the conquerors had already imbibed Roman ideas, and the
authority of Rome was in a certain sense acknowledged. There was no
break in the continuity of political events. In Britain, on the other
hand, there was a complete break, so that while on the continent the
fifth and sixth centuries are seen in the full midday light of history,
in Britain they have lapsed into the twilight of half-legendary
tradition. The Saxon and English tribes, coming from the remote wilds
of northern Germany, whither Roman missionaries had not yet penetrated,
still worshipped Thor and Wodan; and their conquest of Britain was
effected with such deadly thoroughness that Christianity was destroyed
there, or lingered only in sequestered nooks. A land once christianized
thus actually fell back into paganism, so that the work of converting it
to Christianity had to be done over again.
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