It was always so throughout history: the migration of nations.

It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former migrations of nations and crusades.

Some said they had once been of this world, forced back by the migration of nations ten centuries before when the war-like Drenai, the Gothir and the ferocious Nadir tribes came sweeping from north, south and east.

Weber's 1876 Christmas presents to his parents, when he was thirteen years old, were two historical essays entitled "About the course of German history, with special reference to the positions of the Emperor and the Pope", and "About the Roman Imperial period from Constantine to the migration of nations".