Gauls, however, are the chief example of a mediating people. Romanized and not made Roman, their epoch, their geographical situation, and their modified faculties, all made them intermediaries between the Roman and the Teuton.
If the Romanization of the "Three Gauls" was least thorough in Belgica, there was even less of it across the channel. Britain, as far north as the Clyde and Firth of Forth, was a Roman province for three or four hundred years. Latin was the language of the towns; but probably never supplanted the Celtic in the country. The Romanization of the Britons however, whether thorough or superficial, affected a people who were to be apparently submerged. They seem to have transmitted none of their Latin civilization to their Anglo-Saxon conquerors. Yet even the latter when they came to Britain were not quite untouched by Rome. They were familiar with Roman wares, if not with Roman ways; and certain Latin words which are found in all Teutonic languages had doubtless entered Anglo-Saxon.[1] But this early Roman influence was slight, compared with that which afterwards came with Christianity. Nor did the Roman culture, before the introduction of Christianity, exert a deep effect on Germany, at least beyond the neighbourhood of the large Roman or Romanized towns like Cologne and Mainz. In many ways, indeed, the Germans were touched by Rome. Roman diplomacy, exciting tribe against tribe, was decimating them. Roman influence, and sojourn at Rome, had taught much to many German princes. Roman weapons, Roman utensils and wares of all kinds were used from the Danube to the Baltic. But all this did not Romanize the Germans, any more than a number of Latin words, which had crept in, Latinized their language.[2]
