The Germans
indeed seem to have considered them as an inferior race, and treated
them accordingly. The contempt with which the old historians speak of
them, is revolting to every liberal and unprejudiced mind, and can
hardly be explained. For the Sorabians seem to have been at the time
of their submission, superior on the whole to the Germans in respect
to civilization; although in consequence of this contemptuous
treatment, they in the course of time fell far behind them. Despised
and oppressed, they were kept for centuries in a state of ignorance
and neglect; from which, it seems, they could only escape by
renouncing their Slavic peculiarities, and above all their language.
The use of this latter before courts of justice was in the fourteenth
century forbidden by law throughout most of the country. In the
beginning of the same century, the Vendish language was still
sometimes heard at Leipzig, but not afterwards. In the villages also
it became wholly extinct fifty or a hundred years later; and only
single words passed over into the German language. But this was not
the case with their usages and other national peculiarities; there are
still several tribes, nay the peasants of whole provinces in this part
of Germany, in whom the Slavic origin can be distinctly traced.
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