It is impossible to state the precise limits of the different tribes. There was a constant shifting of settlements, and the subsequent migrations have rendered the boundaries of Tacitus totally undistinguish-able. The southward pressure of the Germans, Slavs, Finns, Huns, and Avars commenced in the 3d century A. D. The result was the withdrawal of the Romans from the southern portion of Germany, and the loss of the eastern portion to Slavic and Finnic tribes. The Longobards settled for a while in the north of Hungary, the Gepidae in the east of it, the Goths in Moesia and Illyria, the Marcomanni in Vindelicia and Noricum, the Alemanni and Burgundians in Helvetia. The whole original territory from the mouth of the Danube to the delta of the Rhine was thus occupied again by Germanic races. But the pressure of the eastern races continued, and impelled by it about one half of the German warriors attacked the Roman empire, and divided southern Europe among them. The whole Gothic family of Vandals, Heruli, Rugii, Gepidae, Alani, Suevi, Longobards, Burgundians, and Franks left Germany almost entirely, and the Slavs and Finnic races took possession of the thinly populated districts, and extirpated in several places the German inhabitants.

The Gothic empire on the Danube, founded there after the exodus of the Goths from the Baltic territory, was conquered by the Huns. After Attila's death the Goths separated again into the old divisions of Eastern and Western Goths. The Visigoths were led by Alaric to Italy (about 400), and by his successor Ataulf to Spain, and became Romanized. Theodoric led the Ostrogoths to Italy (489), where he founded a mighty empire, which after his death was absorbed by the Byzantines.

The people disappeared in the small remnants that survived 'the disasters of the long war. The Burgundians moved to the Rhine and Neckar, and subsequently into Roman Gaul, where they settled between the Aar and the Rhone, and founded an empire, which was conquered and absorbed by the Franks about 534. They too became Romanized. The Vandals moved from the Oder and Vistula to Dacia. Early in the 5th century they conquered Spain, and Genseric took them to Africa, where they founded an empire, which was conquered by Belisarius in 534, when the Vandals disappeared. The Scandinavians remained in comparative isolation. The Goths inhabited only a small portion of the Scandinavian peninsula, going no further north than the lakes Wener, Wetter, and Hielmar. From the population south of Jutland went forth the stock of the English-speaking race. During the 5th and 6th centuries three Germanic tribes, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, crossed the North sea, settled in the British islands, and subjugated the former population. The country of the Rhine and the Weser then became the main abiding place of pure Germanic elements.

The principal races in the old homestead were now the Saxons, Thuringians, Franks, and Bavarians, and they were in danger of being overrun by the Slavs. Charlemagne succeeded in driving the Wends back to the Vistula, the Sorbs to the Oder, the Czechs to the lower Carpathians, and the Croats as far as Spalato in Dalmatia, and also in destroying the Avar power in Pan-nonia. The Moors had destroyed the empire of the Visigoths, and the Frankish empire absorbed the other Romano-Germanic states, with the exception of small fractions in Italy. This empire comprised the whole of Gaul and Germany as far as the Oder, and after its division it was found necessary to frame treaties in both the Romance- and the German language. The portion which Louis the German received at the division of the East Frankish empire in 870 embraced all the pure Germanic races, excepting those on the Maas and the Scheldt. The earliest record of the existence of German as a national language dates from A. D. 813 {lingua Theutisca, Theotisca, Theo-disca, Tfieo-disca), and the development of the German nation as a blending of several races into one belongs to the same century. Conrad I. and Henry I. subdued the dukes of the Swabians, eastern Franks or Franconians, and Bavarians, and under Otho I. a German empire appeared.

During this period the Scandinavians peopled the Faroe and Shetland islands, the Orkneys and Hebrides, Iceland, and Greenland, and visited the north coast of the American continent. They established themselves also in the British isles and France (Normandy). These dispersions produced however no lasting effect, except in Iceland and the Faroe islands. The Northmen of Normandy became Gallicized, went to Italy, founded there the empire of the Two Sicilies, and conquered England in 1066. The Danes moved south on the peninsula of Jutland as far as t,he Schlei, but their invasions of England, prior to the Norman eon-quest, proved fruitless in the end. The Swedes were similarly unsuccessful in Esthonia and Livonia, but their conquest of Finland led to a lasting establishment of their nationality on the European mainland, which the Russian occupancy of the country since the beginning of the 19th century has not been able to efface. The history of the German empire after Otho I. is a series of contests between the emperors and the dukes of the principal races composing it. The Saxons, the Franconians, and the Swabians were in turn at the head of the empire in the persons of their own leaders.

The political significance of special races ceased in the 13th century, but in language and manners there are still five which may be clearly distinguished. The Saxon race is dominant in the northwestern lowlands of Germany, especially in the northern districts of the Elbe, across the Hartz to Cassel, and across the Weser to the mouth of the Rhine. The Frankish race extends from the Fichtelgebirge to Treves, and from Hesse to the Rauhe Alp. The Thurin-gians inhabit the section between the Thurin-gian forest and the Hartz, and from the Werra far into Brandenburg. The Swabians live between the central Neckar and the Alps, and from the upper Rhine to Augsburg. The Bavarians reach from Augsburg to Vienna, and from the Fichtelgebirge to the Tyrol.-The boundaries of the modern German language are not coincident with the limits of the present German empire. In the northwest, German is spoken in some portions of the French department of Le Nord, the south and east of Belgium, and the eastern portion of the Netherlands. In the southwest, German is heard as far as the Doubs, the eastern Jura, the lake of Neufcha-tel, and Monte Rosa in Italy. In the south, the language reaches from Monte Rosa to Mount St. Gothard, and thence almost directly east as far as the Mur in Styria. In the east, the line may be drawn from Radkersburg on the Mur, through Presburg in Hungary, to Pohrlitz on the Iglau in Moravia, thence to Krummau on the Moldau in Bohemia, and thence again to Tans. Further N. E. the territory of the German language reaches to Leit-meritz on the Elbe, and to the sources of the Oder in Austrian Silesia, whence the boundary runs directly N. to Krotoschin in Posen, and thence indefinitely to Interburg in East Prussia and N. W. to the Kurische Half. The N. boundary follows the Baltic from Polan-gen to Flensburg in Schleswig, and the North sea from Tondern to Gravelines. It is possible to distinguish about 20 different dialects within this territory.