672 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
Danish march, the Saxon march, and, still more remote, that of the Billungs, a military possession of the dukes of Saxony, the most preparious of all. Bishoprics were erected in the middle of the tenth century at Oldenburg, at Havelberg, and at Branden- burg. From Germany Christianity was propagated first among the Slavs in the North and then among those in the South. At the end of the same century it had spread from the marches of the Elbe over Poland and Hungary. From the commencement of the eleventh century, it was the official religion of the Scandi- navian states.
The Greek church continued to hold a predominant place in the Empire of the East, in the south of Italy, and in Bulgaria. The religion of Islam ruled from the Indus to Spain, in Sicily, and in Crete. Judaism since the eighth century had been the official religion of the Khazars, a people of Turkish race to the north of the Black Sea as far as the Caspian; but it had spread everywhere in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa. Finally, religious forms and beliefs, from the most rude and simple ones up to pagan polytheism, still persisted for a certain length of time in Poland, in Hungary, and in Scandinavia. After the conversion of these countries, they held out among the Finnish populations, among the Slavs of the Baltic Pomeranians, Prussians, Lithua- nians and finally among the people of Turkish race in the south- east of Europe, Petchenegs and Comans, and among the Bachkirs. All of these beliefs, without distinction, while setting limits to one another, took no account of either physical or ethnic barriers; they all overstepped the different political frontiers, and the differ- ent races, as well as rivers, mountains, and seas.
No political state at this time, any more than at any time before or since, has been occupied by a race entirely free from mixture, or to the exclusion of other races. The Celts spread into Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, and Wales, and into the penin- sula of Armorica. France, Spain, Lorraine and Burgundy in part, Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, the coasts of Dalmatia, and Transylvania were Romanized. The Basques spread over the kingdom of Navarre, Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, the kingdom of Leon, and into a part of Gascony. The Scandinavians occupied
