with Europe); W. Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe (London, 1900);
J. Deniker, The Races of Man (London, 1900); R. G. Latham, The
Nationalities of Europe (London, 2 vols., 1863); J. G. Bartholomew,
“The Mapping of Europe,” in Scot. Geog. Magazine (1890), p. 293;
Joseph Prestwich, Geological Map of Europe (Oxford, 1880);
A. Supan, Die Bevölkerung der Erde (viii. Gotha, 1891, and x. Gotha,
1899); Strelbitsky, La Superficie de l’Europe (St Petersburg, 1882);
Oppel, “Die progressive Zunahme der Bevölkerung Europas,”
Petermanns Mitteil. (Gotha, 1886); Dr W. Koch, Handbuch für den
Eisenbahn-Güterverkehr (Berlin), published annually (gives railway
distances on all the lines of Europe except those of the British Isles,
Greece, Portugal and Spain); Verkehrsatlas von Europa (Leipzig),
frequently re-issued; Grosser Atlas der Eisenbahnen von Mitteleuropa
(Leipzig); Verlag für Börsen and Finanzliteratur, frequently re-issued
(gives kilometric distances between a great number of places and a
great variety of other information in the text); K. Wiedenfeld,
Die nordwesteuropäischen Welthäfen (Berlin, 1903) (an important
work discussing the geographical basis of the commercial importance
of the seaports of London, Liverpool, Hamburg, Bremen, Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, Antwerp and Havre). Papers relating to the climate
of Europe: J. Hann, “Die Vertheilung des Luftdruckes über
Mittel- und Süd-Europa” (based on monthly and annual means for
the period 1851–1880), in Penck’s Geograph. Abhandlungen (vol. ii.
No. 2, Vienna, 1887); A. Supan, “Die mittlere Dauer der Haupt-Wärme-perioden
in Europa,” Petermanns Mitteil. (1887), pl. 10,
and pp. 165-172; Joseph Reger, “Regenkarte von Europa,” in
Petermanns Mitteil. (1903), pl. 1; A. Supan, “Die jahreszeitliche
Verteilung der Niederschläge in Europa,” &c., ibid. (1890), pl. 21,
and pp. 296-297; P. Elfert, “Die Bewölkung in Mitteleuropa mit
Einschluss der Karpatenländer,” ibid. (1890), pl. 11 and pp. 137-145;
König, “Die Dauer des Sonnenscheins in Europa,” in Nova Acta
Leopoldina Karol. der deutschen Akad. der Naturforscher, vol. lxvii.
No. 3 (Halle, 1896); E. Ihne, “Phänologische Karte des Frühlingseinzugs
in Mitteleuropa,” in Petermanns Mitteil. (1905), pl. 9, and
pp. 97-108; A. Angot, “Régime des pluies de la péninsule ibérique,”
in Annales du bur. cent. météor. de France (1893, B. pp. 157-194),
and “Régime des pluies de l’Europe occidentale,” ibid. (1895,
B. pp. 155-192); E. D. Brückner, “Die Klimaschwankungen seit
1700,” in Penck’s Geographische Abhandlungen, iv. Pl. 2 (Vienna,
1890); Supan, “Die Verschiebung der Bevölkerung in Mitteleuropa
mit Einschluss der Karpatenländer,” Petermanns Mitteil. (1892);
Block, L’Europe politique et sociale (2nd ed., 1892); E. Reclus,
“Hégémonie de l’Europe,” in La Société nouvelle (Brussels, 1894).
Publications relating to the measurement of a degree of longitude
on the parallel of 52° N. from Valentia (Ireland) to the eastern
frontier of Russia: (1) Stebnitsky, account of the Russian section
of this work in the Memoirs (Zapiski) of the Milit. Topog. Section
of the Russian General Staff, vols. xlix. and l. (St. Petersburg, 1893)
(in Russian, see notice in Petermanns Mitteil. (1894), Litteraturbericht,
No. 289); (2) and (3) Die europäische Längengradmessung
in 52° Br. von Greenwich bis Warschau; (2) Part i., Helmert, Hauptdreiecke
und Grundlinienanschlüsse von England bis Polen (Berlin,
1893); (3) Part ii., Bërsch and Krüger, Geodätische Linien, Parallelbogen,
und Lothabweichungen zwischen Feaghmain und Warschau
(Berlin, 1896); J. G. Kohl, Die geographische Lage der Hauptstädte
Europas (Leipzig, 1874); Paul Meuriot, Des agglomérations urbaines
dans l’Europe contemporaine (Paris, 1898); Scharff, The History
of the European Fauna (London, 1899).
(G. G. C.)
2. Political History
The origin of the name of Europe has been dealt with above, and the difficulty of any exact definition of the geographical limits covered by this term has been pointed out. A similar difficulty meets us when we come to deal with European history. We know what we mean when we speak of European civilization, though in its origins, as in its modern developments, this was not confined to Europe. In one sense the history of Europe is the history of this civilization and of the forces by which it was produced, preserved and developed; for a separate history of Europe could never have been written but for the alien powers by which this civilization was for centuries confined within the geographical limits of the European continent. Moreover, within these geographical limits the tradition of the Roman empire, and above all the organization of the Catholic Church, gave to the European nations, and the states based upon them, a homogeneity which without them could not have survived. The name of Europe, indeed, remained until modern times no more than “a geographical expression”; its diplomatic use, in the sense of a group of states having common interests and duties, is, indeed, no older than the 19th century; in the middle ages its place was taken by the conceptions of the Church and the Empire, which, though theoretically universal, were practically European. Yet the history of the states system of Europe, though enormously influenced by outside forces, possesses from the first a character of its own, which enables it to be treated as a separate unit. This historical Europe, however, has never been exactly commensurate with Europe considered as a geographical division. Russia, though part of Europe geographically—even if we set the limits of Asia at the Don with certain old geographers—had but slight influence on European history until the time of Peter the Great. The Ottoman empire, though its influence on the affairs of Europe was from the first profound, was essentially an Asiatic power, and was not formally introduced into the European system until the treaty of Paris of 1856. It still remains outside European civilization.
Europe, then, as we now conceive the term in its application to the political system and the type of culture established in this part of the world, may, broadly speaking, be traced to four principal origins: (1) The Aegean civilization (Hellenic and pre-Hellenic); (2) the Roman empire; (3) Christianity; (4) the break-up of the Roman empire by the Teutonic invasions. All these forces helped in the development of Europe as we now know it. To the Aegean civilization, whether transformed by contact with Rome, and again transformed by the influence of Christianity and the religious genius of the middle ages—or rediscovered during the classical Renaissance—Europe owes the characteristic qualities of its thought and of its expression in literature and art. From republican Rome it largely draws its conceptions of law and of administrative order. From the Roman empire it inherited a tradition of political unity which survived, in visible form, though but as a shadowy symbol, until the last Holy Roman emperor abdicated in 1806; survived also, more fruitfully, in the rules of the Roman lawyers which developed into modern international law. Yet more does Europe owe to Christianity, an Asiatic religion, but modified by contact with Greek thought and powerfully organized on the lines of the Roman administrative system. The Roman Church remained a reality when the Roman empire had become little more than a name, and was throughout the period of chaos and transformation that followed the collapse of the Roman empire the most powerful instrument for giving to the heterogeneous races of Europe a common culture and a certain sense of common interests.
The history of Europe, then, might well begin with the origins of Greece and Rome, and trace the rise of the Roman empire and the successive influence upon it of Hellenism and Christianity. These subjects are, however, very fully dealt with elsewhere (see Aegean Civilization; Greece; Rome; Church History); and it will, therefore, be more convenient to begin this account with the Teutonic invasions and the break-up of the Roman empire, events which mark the definite beginning of the modern European states system.
In a sense the Roman empire had been already “barbarized” before the invasions of the barbarians en masse. Land left vacant by the dwindling of the population was colonized by immigrants, Teutonic and other, from beyond the frontiers; the Roman legions were largely recruited from Germans and other non-Romans, some of whom even rose to the imperial purple. Thus, in the end, the Roman emperor, with his guard and his household, ruling over an empire mercilessly exploited to fill his treasury, was essentially indistinguishable from those barbarian chiefs, with their antrustions and their primitive fiscal methods, who entered into portions of his inheritance and carried on the traditions of his rule.
The history of the Teutonic peoples prior to their organized invasions of the empire is dealt with elsewhere (see Teutonic Peoples). It was in the 4th century that the pressure of their advance was first felt on the frontiers, and this led to a change in the government of the empire which was to have notable consequences. In A.D. 330 Constantine had transferred the capital from Rome to Byzantium (Constantinople), but the empire, from the Forth to the Tigris, continued to be administered successfully from a single centre. Not, however, for long: the increasing perils from without made a closer supervision essential, and after the death of Theodosius I. (395) the empire was divided
