GAUL - GALLIA
In ancient geography, the country of the Gauls,
the chief branch of the original stock of Celts, extended from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, and included also a part
of Italy. Hence it was divided into Gaul on this side (the Roman side) of the Alps, or Gallia Cisalpina, and Gaul
beyond the Alps, or Gallia Transalpina. Latterly the former was regarded quite as part of Italy, and the name Gallia
was restricted to Transalpine Gaul, or the country nearly corresponding to modern France. Julius Cæsar, about
the middle of the first century B.C., found Transalpine Gaul divided into three parts:
Migrations among the Gauls about 397 B.C., and their passage of the Alps, first bring the Gallic nation into the
region of history. Having crossed the Alps they fell upon the Etruscans, defeated the Romans at Allia (390 B.C.),
and sacked and burned Rome, the capitol, however, being saved by Camillus. More than a century after the burning
of Rome, the eastern Gauls, in 280-278 B.C., made three destructive irruptions into Macedonia and Greece. Several
tribes pursued their course into Asia Minor, where, under the name of Galatians,
they long retained their national peculiarities. After these migrations the Gauls along the banks of the Danube
and in the south of Germany disappear. Tribes of German origin occupy the whole country as far as the Rhine, and
even beyond that river. The Belgæ, who were partly German, occupied the northern part of Gaul. from the Seine
and Maine to the British Channel and the Rhine, from whence colonists passed over into Britain, and settled on
the coast districts. The Celts in Gaul had attained some degree of cultivation by intercourse with the Greeks and
Carthaginians before they came in contact with the Romans. Those of Cisalpine Gaul continued formidable to Rome
until after the first Punic war, when the nation was compelled as the result of a war of six years to submit to
the Romans (220 B.C.). When Hannibal marched on Rome they attempted to shake off the yoke: but the Romans, victorious
over the Carthaginians, reduced them again to submission. Thirty-one years later (189 B.C.) their kindred tribe
in Asia, the Galatians, met with the same fate; they also were vanquished, and their princes (tetrarchs) became
tributary. In the years 128-122 B.C. the Romans conquered the southern part of Gaul along the sea from the Alps
to the Pyrenees, and here established their dominion in what was called the Province (Provincia), a name that still
exists as Provence. Not long after Gaulish tribes shared in the destructive incursions of the Cimbri and Teutones
on the Roman territory, which were ended by Marius in the battles of Aquæ Sextiæ (Aix) in 102, and
Vercelli in 101 B.C. On the appointment of Julius Cæsar to the proconsulship over the countries bordering
on Gaul, he resolved to subject all Gaul, and executed his purpose in less than nine years (58-50 B.C.), in eight
bloody campaigns. The dominion of the Romans in Gaul was confirmed by colonies, and the liberal grant of the Roman
citizenship to several Gallic tribes.
1.
Aquitania, extending from the Pyrenees to the Garonne,
chiefly occupied by Iberian tribes;
2.
Gallia Celtica, Celtic Gaul, from the Garonne to the
Seine and Maine;
3.
Gallia Belgica, Belgic Gaul, in the north, extending
to the Rhine.
The religion of the Druids, being suppressed in Gaul by Tiberius and Claudius, gradually retreated into Britain, soon also conquered by the Romans. After the extinction of the Cæsars, the Gauls once more attempted to recover their liberty by aid of the Germans, but after this last effort became entirely Romanized, even their ancient language, the Celtic, being supplanted by a corrupt Latin dialect. About the year 486 the Franks subdued the greater part of Gaul, and put a period to the dominion of the Romans in that country.
At the time of the conquest of Gaul by Julius Cæsar, the principal dialects spoken by the inhabitants were Celtic. After the conquest of Gaul by the Romans all these dialects were gradually supplanted by Latin except in Brittany, where a Celtic dialect still holds its ground. The popular Latin of Gaul of course exhibited considerable differences from the written and classic Latin and by the 7th or 8th century the literary' and the popular languages had come to be quite clearly distinguished as the Latina and the Romana respectively. Besides the Celtic words, not very numerous, which were imported into the new speech, it was considerably modified by Celtic habits of speech, new sounds being introduced. It was still further modified by the influences introduced with the Teutonic invasions. The half-barbarous conquerors, incapable of mastering the intricacy of Latin inflections mostly neglected them, using only the simpler forms. They enlarged the vocabulary also by a number of words, mostly terms of war, hunting, &c. After the Franks in Gaul had abandoned their native language and adopted this new Romanic or Romance tongue it became known as the Francisca, later Franceis, from which the modern term French is derived. The oldest known monument of the new dialect is the oath of Louis the German, taken at Strasburg in 842.
In the 9th and 10th centuries two main branches or groups of dialects came to be recognized, the Langue d'Oc, spoken in the districts south of the Loire, and the Langue d'Oil, spoken in a variety of dialects in the provinces of the north and the east. The former may be said to have reached its height in the Provençal poetry and dialect, known especially in connection with the Troubadours. In the 13th century the political superiority of the north threw the Langue d'Oc into the shade and a dialect of the Langue d'Oil spoken in the central province of Ile de France, where the capital, Paris, was, came to be regarded as the classical language of the country, all other dialects sinking into the condition of patois.
At the beginning of the 16th century Francis I. prohibited the use of Latin at court and in the public tribunals and formally recognized the French as the national language. As one of the Romance languages it is a sister tongue of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.
