In the third and fourth centuries the history of modern Europe begins. ♦The new confederacies.♦ We now begin to hear names which have been heard ever since, _Franks_, _Alemans_, _Saxons_, all of them great confederacies of German tribes. ♦Defensive warfare of Rome.♦ Defence against German inroads now becomes the chief business of the rulers of Rome. The invaders were constantly driven back; but new invaders were as constantly found to renew their incursions. Men of Teutonic race pressed into the Empire in every conceivable character. ♦Germans within the Empire.♦ Besides open enemies, who came with the hope either of plunder or settlement, crowds of Germans served in the Roman armies and obtained lands held by military tenure as the reward of their services. Their chiefs were promoted to every rank and honour, military and civil, short of the Imperial dignity itself. These were changes of the utmost importance in other points of view; still they do not directly affect the map of the Empire. Lands and cities were won and lost over and over again; but such changes were merely momentary; the acknowledged boundaries of the Roman dominion were not yet altered; it is not till the next stage that geography begins to be directly concerned. ♦Beginning of national kingdoms.♦ This last stage begins with the early years of the fifth century, and thus nearly coincides with the division of the Empire into East and West. Gothic and other Teutonic kings could now march at pleasure at the head of their armies through every corner of the Empire, sometimes bearing the titles of Roman officers, sometimes dictating the choice of Roman Emperors, sometimes sacking the Old Rome or threatening the New. It was when these armies under their kings settled down and formed national kingdoms within the limits of the Empire, that the change comes to have an effect on the map. In the course of the fifth century the Western provinces of Rome were rent away from her. In most cases the loss was cloaked by some Imperial commission, some empty title bestowed on the victorious invader; but the Empire was none the less practically dismembered. Out of these dismemberments the modern states of Europe gradually grew. It will now be our business to give some account of those nations, Teutonic and otherwise, who had an immediate share in this work, passing lightly by all questions, and indeed all nations, which cannot be said to have had such an immediate share in it. * * * * * ♦Teutonic Settlements in the West.♦