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The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied
Central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...
and
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...
during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and early medieval
Germanic language
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
s and are thus equated at least approximately with Germanic-speaking peoples, although different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". The Romans named the area belonging to North-Central Europe in which Germanic peoples lived ''
Germania
Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north-c ...
'', stretching East to West between the
Vistula
The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...
and
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, source ...
rivers and north to south from Southern Scandinavia to the upper
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
. In discussions of the Roman period, the Germanic peoples are sometimes referred to as ''Germani'' or ancient Germans, although many scholars consider the second term problematic since it suggests identity with present-day
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
. The very concept of "Germanic peoples" has become the subject of controversy among contemporary scholars. Some scholars call for its total abandonment as a modern construct since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity.
Scholars generally agree that it is possible to speak of Germanic peoples after 500 BCE. Archaeologists usually connect the early Germanic peoples with the
Jastorf culture
The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what is now northern Germany and southern Scandinavia spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and associating with Germanic peoples. The culture evo ...
of the
Pre-Roman Iron Age
The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain,
roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.
The regio ...
, which is found in Denmark (southern Scandinavia) and northern Germany from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE, around the same time that the
first Germanic consonant shift is theorized to have occurred; this sound change lead to recognizably Germanic languages. From northern Germany and southern Scandinavia, the Germanic peoples expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with the
Celt
The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient ...
ic,
Iranic
The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities.
The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate ...
,
Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
*Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...
, and
Slavic peoples. Roman authors first described Germanic peoples near the Rhine in the 1st century BCE, while the Roman Empire was establishing its dominance in that region. Under Emperor
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
(63 BCE–14CE), the Romans attempted to conquer a large area of Germania, but they withdrew after a major Roman defeat at the
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, described as the Varian Disaster () by Roman historians, took place at modern Kalkriese in AD 9, when an alliance of Germanic peoples ambushed Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius ...
in 9 CE. The Romans continued to control the Germanic frontier closely by meddling in its politics, and they constructed a long fortified border, the
Limes Germanicus
The (Latin for ''Germanic frontier'') is the name given in modern times to a line of frontier () fortifications that bounded the ancient Roman provinces of Germania Inferior, Germania Superior and Raetia, dividing the Roman Empire and the unsubd ...
. From 166 to 180 CE, Rome was embroiled in a conflict against the Germanic
Marcomanni
The Marcomanni were a Germanic people
*
*
*
that established a powerful kingdom north of the Danube, somewhere near modern Bohemia, during the peak of power of the nearby Roman Empire. According to Tacitus and Strabo, they were Suebian.
O ...
,
Quadi
The Quadi were a Germanic
*
*
*
people who lived approximately in the area of modern Moravia in the time of the Roman Empire. The only surviving contemporary reports about the Germanic tribe are those of the Romans, whose empire had its bord ...
, and many other peoples known as the
Marcomannic Wars
The Marcomannic Wars (Latin: ''bellum Germanicum et Sarmaticum'', "German and Sarmatian War") were a series of wars lasting from about 166 until 180 AD. These wars pitted the Roman Empire against, principally, the Germanic Marcomanni and Quad ...
. The wars reordered the Germanic frontier, and afterwards, new Germanic peoples appear for the first time in the historical record, such as the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools ...
,
Goths
The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Euro ...
,
Saxons
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
, and
Alemanni
The Alemanni or Alamanni, were a confederation of Germanic tribes
*
*
*
on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the in 260, and later expanded into pres ...
. During the
Migration Period
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roma ...
(375–568), various Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and eventually took control of parts of it and established their own
independent kingdoms after the collapse of Western Roman rule. The most powerful of them were the Franks, who conquered many of the others. Eventually, the Frankish king
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...
claimed the title of
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...
for himself in 800.
Archaeological finds suggest that Roman-era sources portrayed the Germanic way of life as more primitive than it actually was. Instead, archaeologists have unveiled evidence of a complex society and economy throughout Germania. Germanic-speaking peoples originally shared similar religious practices. Denoted by the term
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...
, they varied throughout the territory occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples. Over the course of
Late Antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...
, most continental Germanic peoples and the
Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened ...
of Britain converted to Christianity, but the Saxons and
Scandinavians
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and ...
converted only much later. The Germanic peoples shared a native script from around the first century or before, the
runes
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
, which was gradually replaced with the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
, although runes continued to be used for specialized purposes thereafter.
Traditionally, the Germanic peoples have been seen as possessing a law dominated by the concepts of
feud
A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, clan war, gang war, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight, often between social groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one par ...
ing and
blood compensation. The precise details, nature and origin of what is still normally called "Germanic law" are now controversial. Roman sources state that the Germanic peoples made decisions in a popular assembly (the
thing
Thing or The Thing may refer to:
Philosophy
* An object
* Broadly, an entity
* Thing-in-itself (or ''noumenon''), the reality that underlies perceptions, a term coined by Immanuel Kant
* Thing theory, a branch of critical theory that focuse ...
) but that they also had kings and war leaders. The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples probably shared a common poetic tradition,
alliterative verse
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...
, and later Germanic peoples also
shared legends originating in the Migration Period.
The publishing of
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...
's ''Germania'' by
humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced the emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the
Romantic period
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
, such as
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among th ...
, developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by
romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...
. For those scholars, the "Germanic" and modern "German" were identical. Ideas about the early Germans were also highly influential among and were influenced and co-opted by the nationalist and racist
völkisch movement and later by the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
, which led in the second half of the 20th century to a backlash against many aspects of earlier scholarship.
Terminology
Etymology
The etymology of the Latin word , from which Latin and English Germanic are derived, is unknown, although several different proposals have been made for the origin of the name. Even the language from which it derives is a subject of dispute, with proposals of Germanic,
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foo ...
, and Latin, and
Illyrian origins.
Herwig Wolfram
Herwig Wolfram (born 14 February 1934) is an Austrian historian who is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History and Auxiliary Sciences of History at the University of Vienna and the former Director of the . He is a leading member of the Vienna Sc ...
, for example, thinks must be
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switze ...
. The historian
Wolfgang Pfeifer more or less concurs with Wolfram and surmises that the name is likely of Celtic etymology and is related to the
Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...
word ('neighbours') or could be tied to the Celtic word for their war cries, , which simplifies into 'the neighbours' or 'the screamers'. Regardless of its language of origin, the name was transmitted to the Romans via Celtic speakers.
It is unclear that any people group ever referred to themselves as ''Germani''. By
late antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...
, only peoples near the Rhine, especially the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools ...
and sometimes the Alemanni, were called ''Germani'' by Latin or Greek writers. ''Germani'' subsequently ceased to be used as a name for any group of people and was revived as such only by the
humanists
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "human ...
in the 16th century. Previously, scholars during the
Carolingian period
The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippi ...
(8th–11th centuries) had already begun using ''Germania'' and ''Germanicus'' in a territorial sense to refer to
East Francia
East Francia (Medieval Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the East Franks () was a successor state of Charlemagne's empire ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911. It was created through the Treaty of Verdun (843) which divided the former empire int ...
.
In modern English, the adjective ''Germanic'' is distinct from ''German'', which is generally used when referring to modern Germans only. ''Germanic'' relates to the ancient ''Germani'' or the broader Germanic group. In modern German, the ancient ''Germani'' are referred to as and ''Germania'' as , as distinct from modern Germans () and modern Germany (). The direct equivalents in English are, however, ''Germans'' for ''Germani'' and ''Germany'' for ''Germania'' although the Latin is also used. To avoid ambiguity, the ''Germani'' may instead be called "ancient Germans" or ''Germani'' by using the Latin term in English.
Modern definitions and controversies
The modern definition of Germanic peoples developed in the 19th century, when the term ''Germanic'' was linked to the newly identified
Germanic language family
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engl ...
. Linguistics provided a new way of defining the Germanic peoples, which came to be used in historiography and archaeology. While Roman authors did not consistently exclude
Celtic-speaking people or have a term corresponding to Germanic-speaking peoples, this new definition—which used the Germanic language as the main criterion—presented the ''Germani'' as a people or nation () with a stable group identity linked to language. As a result, some scholars treat the (Latin) or (Greek) of Roman-era sources as non-Germanic if they seemingly spoke non-Germanic languages. For clarity, Germanic peoples, when defined as "speakers of a Germanic language", are sometimes referred to as "Germanic-speaking peoples". Today, the term "Germanic" is widely applied to "phenomena including identities, social, cultural or political groups, to material cultural artefacts, languages and texts, and even specific chemical sequences found in human DNA".
Apart from the designation of a language family (i.e., "Germanic languages"), the application of the term "Germanic" has become controversial in scholarship since 1990, especially among archaeologists and historians. Scholars have increasingly questioned the notion of ethnically defined people groups () as stable basic actors of history. The connection of archaeological assemblages to ethnicity has also been increasingly questioned. This has resulted in different disciplines developing different definitions of "Germanic". Beginning with the work of the "Toronto School" around
Walter Goffart
Walter Goffart (born February 22, 1934) is a German-born American historian who specializes in Late Antiquity and the European Middle Ages. He taught for many years in the History Department and Centre for Medieval Studies of the University of Tor ...
, various scholars have denied that anything such as a common Germanic ethnic identity ever existed. Such scholars argue that most ideas about Germanic culture are taken from far later epochs and projected backwards to antiquity. Historians of the Vienna School, such as
Walter Pohl, have also called for the term to be avoided or used with careful explanation, and argued that there is little evidence for a common Germanic identity. The Anglo-Saxonist
Leonard Neidorf writes that historians of the continental-European Germanic peoples of the 5th and 6th centuries are "in agreement" that there was no pan-Germanic identity or solidarity. Whether a scholar favors the existence of a common Germanic identity or not is often related to their position on the nature of the
end of the Roman Empire.
Defenders of continued use of the term ''Germanic'' argue that the speakers of Germanic languages can be identified as Germanic people by language regardless of how they saw themselves. Linguists and philologists have generally reacted skeptically to claims that there was no Germanic identity or cultural unity, and they may view ''Germanic'' simply as a long-established and convenient term. Some archaeologists have also argued in favor of retaining the term ''Germanic'' due to its broad recognizability. Archaeologist
Heiko Steuer
Heiko Steuer (born 30 October 1939) is a German archaeologist, notable for his research into social and economic history in early Europe. He serves as co-editor of Germanische Altertumskunde Online.
Career
Heiko Steuer was born on 30 October, 1 ...
defines his own work on the ''Germani'' in geographical terms (covering ''Germania''), rather than in ethnic terms. He nevertheless argues for some sense of shared identity between the ''Germani'', noting the use of a common language, a common
runic script
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
, various common objects of material culture such as
bracteates
A bracteate (from the Latin ''bractea'', a thin piece of metal) is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age (including the Vende ...
and
gullgubber
Gullgubber (Norwegian, ) or guldgubber ( Danish, ), guldgubbar (Swedish, ), are art-objects, amulets, or offerings found in Scandinavia and dating to the Nordic Iron Age. They consist of thin pieces of beaten gold (occasionally silver), usually ...
(small gold objects) and the confrontation with Rome as things that could cause a sense of shared "Germanic" culture. Despite being cautious of the use of ''Germanic'' to refer to peoples,
Sebastian Brather
Sebastian Brather (born 28 June 1964) is a German medieval archaeologist and co-editor of '' Germanische Altertumskunde Online''.
Career
Brather received his PhD in archaeology from the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1995 with a thesis '' Fe ...
,
Wilhelm Heizmann
Wilhelm Heizmann (born 5 September 1953) is a German philologist who is Professor and Chair of the Institute for Nordic Philology at the University of Munich. Heizmann specializes in Germanic studies, and is a co-editor of the ''Germanische Alte ...
and
Steffen Patzold
Steffen Patzold (born 1 September 1972) is a German historian. Patzold is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Tübingen and specializes in the study of the study of political and religious history of the Carolingian Empire.
Biograp ...
nevertheless refer to further commonalities such as the widely attested worship of deities such as
Odin
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, ...
,
Thor
Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, ...
and
Frigg
Frigg (; Old Norse: ) is a goddess, one of the Æsir, in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the wet ...
, and a
shared legendary tradition.
Classical terminology
The first author to describe the ''Germani'' as a large category of peoples distinct from the
Gauls
The Gauls ( la, Galli; grc, Γαλάται, ''Galátai'') were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (''Gallia''). They sp ...
and
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Cent ...
was
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...
, writing around 55 BCE during his governorship of Gaul. In Caesar's account, the clearest defining characteristic of the ''Germani'' people was that they lived east of the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, source ...
, opposite
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
on the west side. Caesar sought to explain both why his legions stopped at the Rhine and also why the ''Germani'' were more dangerous than the Gauls and a constant threat to the empire. He also classified the
Cimbri
The Cimbri (Greek Κίμβροι, ''Kímbroi''; Latin ''Cimbri'') were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people (or Gaulish), Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate ...
and
Teutons
The Teutons ( la, Teutones, , grc, Τεύτονες) were an ancient northern European tribe mentioned by Roman authors. The Teutons are best known for their participation, together with the Cimbri and other groups, in the Cimbrian War with th ...
, peoples who had previously invaded Italy, as ''Germani'', and examples of this threat to Rome. Although Caesar described the Rhine as the border between ''Germani'' and Celts, he also describes a group of people he identifies as ''Germani'' who live on the west bank of the Rhine in the northeast of Gall, the
Germani cisrhenani
The ''Germani cisrhenani'' (Latin '' cis- rhenanus'' "on this side of the Rhine", referring to the Roman or western side), or "Left bank ''Germani''", were a group of Germanic peoples who lived west of the Lower Rhine at the time of the Gallic W ...
. It is unclear if these ''Germani'' spoke a Germanic language. According to the Roman historian
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...
in his ''Germania'' (c. 98 CE), it was among this group, specifically the
Tungri
The Tungri (or Tongri, or Tungrians) were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part of Gaul, during the times of the Roman Empire. Within the Roman Empire, their territory was called the ''Civitas Tungrorum''. They were described b ...
, that the name ''Germani'' first arose, and was spread to further groups. Tacitus continues to mention Germanic tribes on the west bank of the Rhine in the period of the early Empire. Caesar's division of the ''Germani'' from the Celts was not taken up by most writers in Greek.
Caesar and authors following him regarded Germania as stretching east of the Rhine for an indeterminate distance, bounded by the Baltic Sea and the
Hercynian Forest.
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
and Tacitus placed the eastern border at the
Vistula
The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...
. The Upper Danube served as a southern border. Between there and the Vistula Tacitus sketched an unclear boundary, describing Germania as separated in the south and east from the Dacians and the Sarmatians by mutual fear or mountains. This undefined eastern border is related to a lack of stable frontiers in this area such as were maintained by Roman armies along the Rhine and Danube. The geographer
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
(2nd century CE) applied the name
Germania magna
Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north- ...
("Greater Germania", gr, Γερμανία Μεγάλη) to this area, contrasting it with the Roman provinces of
Germania Prima and
Germania Secunda
Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed Germania Secunda in the fourth century, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Agrippin ...
(on the west bank of the Rhine). In modern scholarship, Germania magna is sometimes also called ("free Germania"), a name that became popular among German nationalists in the 19th century.
Caesar and, following him, Tacitus, depicted the ''Germani'' as sharing elements of a common culture. A small number of passages by Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention Germanic tribes or individuals speaking a language distinct from Gaulish. For Tacitus (''Germania'' 43, 45, 46), language was a characteristic, but not defining feature of the Germanic peoples. Many of the ascribed ethnic characteristics of the ''Germani'' represented them as typically "barbarian", including the possession of stereotypical vices such as "wildness" and of virtues such as chastity. Tacitus was at times unsure whether a people were Germanic or not, expressing his uncertainty about the
Bastarnae
The Bastarnae ( Latin variants: ''Bastarni'', or ''Basternae''; grc, Βαστάρναι or Βαστέρναι) and Peucini ( grc, Πευκῖνοι) were two ancient peoples who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited areas north of the Roman front ...
, who he says looked like Sarmatians but spoke like the ''Germani'', about the
Osi and the
Cotini The Gotini (in Tacitus), who are generally equated to the Cotini in other sources, were a Gaulish tribe living during Roman times in the mountains approximately near the modern borders of the Czech Republic, Poland,
and Slovakia.
The spelling " ...
, and about the
Aesti
The Aesti (also Aestii, Astui or Aests) were an ancient people first described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his treatise ''Germania'' (circa 98 AD). According to Tacitus, the land of ''Aesti'' was located somewhere east of the ''Suiones'' (p ...
, who were like Suebi but spoke a different language. When defining the ''Germani'' ancient authors did not differentiate consistently between a territorial definition ("those living in ''Germania''") and an ethnic definition ("having Germanic ethnic characteristics"), although the two definitions did not always align.
The Romans did not regard the eastern Germanic speakers such as Goths, Gepids, and Vandals as ''Germani'', but rather connected them with other non-Germanic-speaking peoples such as the
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
,
Sarmatians
The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...
, and
Alans
The Alans (Latin: ''Alani'') were an ancient and medieval Iranian nomadic pastoral people of the North Caucasus – generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the A ...
. Romans described these peoples, including those who did not speak a Germanic language, as "Gothic people" () and most often classified them as "Scythians". The writer
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...
, describing the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, and Gepids, derived the Gothic peoples from the ancient
Getae
The Getae ( ) or Gets ( ; grc, Γέται, singular ) were a Thracian-related tribe that once inhabited the regions to either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania. Both the singular form ''Get'' an ...
and described them as sharing similar customs, beliefs, and a common language.
Subdivisions
![1st century Germani](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/1st_century_Germani.png)
Several ancient sources list subdivisions of the Germanic tribes. Writing in the first century CE,
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
lists five Germanic subgroups: the Vandili, the Inguaeones, the Istuaeones (living near the Rhine), the Hermiones (in the Germanic interior), and the Peucini Basternae (living on the lower Danube near the Dacians). In chapter 2 of the ''Germania'', written about a half-century later, Tacitus lists only three subgroups: the Ingvaeones (near the sea), the Hermiones (in the interior of Germania), and the Istvaeones (the remainder of the tribes); Tacitus says these groups each claimed descent from the god
Mannus
Mannus, according to the Roman writer Tacitus, was a figure in the creation myths of the Germanic tribes. Tacitus is the only source of these myths.
Tacitus wrote that Mannus was the son of Tuisto and the progenitor of the three Germanic tribe ...
, son of
Tuisto
According to Tacitus's '' Germania'' (AD 98), Tuisto (or Tuisco) is the legendary divine ancestor of the Germanic peoples. The figure remains the subject of some scholarly discussion, largely focused upon etymological connections and compariso ...
. Tacitus also mentions a second tradition that there were four sons of either Mannus or Tuisto from whom the groups of the Marsi, Gambrivi, Suebi, and Vandili claim descent. The Hermiones are also mentioned by
Pomponius Mela
Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45.
His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less ...
, but otherwise, these divisions do not appear in other ancient works on the ''Germani''.
There are a number of inconsistencies in the listing of Germanic subgroups by Tacitus and Pliny. While both Tacitus and Pliny mention some Scandinavian tribes, they are not integrated into the subdivisions. While Pliny lists the
Suebi
The Suebi (or Suebians, also spelled Suevi, Suavi) were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own name ...
as part of the Hermiones, Tacitus treats them as a separate group. Additionally, Tacitus's description of a group of tribes as united by the cult of
Nerthus
In Germanic paganism, Nerthus is a goddess associated with a ceremonial wagon procession. Nerthus is attested by first century AD Roman historian Tacitus in his ethnographic work ''Germania''.
In ''Germania'', Tacitus records that a group of Germ ...
(''Germania'' 40) as well as the cult of the
Alcis controlled by the
Nahanarvali The Nahanarvali, also known as the Nahavali, Naha-Narvali, and Nahanavali, were a Germanic tribe mentioned by the Roman scholar Tacitus in his ''Germania''.
According to Tacitus, the Nahanarvali were one of the five most powerful tribes of the Lugi ...
(''Germania'' 43) and Tacitus's account of the origin myth of the
Semnones
The Semnones were a Germanic and specifically a Suevian people, who were settled between the Elbe and the Oder in the 1st century when they were described by Tacitus in ''Germania'':
"The Semnones give themselves out to be the most ancient and r ...
(''Germania'' 39) all suggest different subdivisions than the three mentioned in ''Germania'' chapter 2.
The subdivisions found in Pliny and Tacitus have been very influential for scholarship on Germanic history and language up until recent times. However, outside of Tacitus and Pliny there are no other textual indications that these groups were important. The subgroups mentioned by Tacitus are not used by him elsewhere in his work, contradict other parts of his work, and cannot be reconciled with Pliny, who is equally inconsistent. Additionally, there is no linguistic or archaeological evidence for these subgroups. New archaeological finds have tended to show that the boundaries between Germanic peoples were very permeable, and scholars now assume that migration and the collapse and formation of cultural units were constant occurrences within Germania. Nevertheless, various aspects such as the alliteration of many of the tribal names in Tacitus's account and the name of Mannus himself suggest that the descent from Mannus was an authentic Germanic tradition.
Languages
Proto-Germanic
All
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
derive from the
Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
(PIE), which is generally thought to have been spoken between 4500 and 2500 BCE. The ancestor of Germanic languages is referred to as
Proto- or Common Germanic, and likely represented a group of mutually intelligible
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
s. They share distinctive characteristics which set them apart from other Indo-European sub-families of languages, such as
Grimm's and
Verner's law
Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives , , , , , following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives , , , , . The law w ...
, the conservation of the PIE
ablaut
In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German '' Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).
An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...
system in the
Germanic verb system (notably in
strong verbs), or the merger of the vowels ''a'' and ''o'' qualities (''ə'', ''a'', ''o'' > ''a;'' ''ā'', ''ō'' > ''ō''). During the
Pre-Germanic linguistic period (2500–500 BCE), the
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...
has almost certainly been influenced by
an unknown non-Indo-European language, still noticeable in the Germanic
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
and
lexicon
A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or fo ...
.
Although Proto-Germanic is reconstructed without dialects via the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
, it is almost certain that it never was a uniform proto-language. The late Jastorf culture occupied so much territory that it is unlikely that Germanic populations spoke a single dialect, and traces of early linguistic varieties have been highlighted by scholars. Sister dialects of Proto-Germanic itself certainly existed, as evidenced by the absence of the First Germanic Sound Shift (Grimm's law) in some "Para-Germanic" recorded proper names, and the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language was only one among several dialects spoken at that time by peoples identified as "Germanic" by Roman sources or archeological data. Although Roman sources name various Germanic tribes such as Suevi, Alemanni,
Bauivari, etc., it is unlikely that the members of these tribes all spoke the same dialect.
Early attestations
Definite and comprehensive evidence of Germanic lexical units only occurred after
Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...
's conquest of
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
in the 1st century BCE, after which contacts with Proto-Germanic speakers began to intensify. The ''
Alcis'', a pair of brother gods worshipped by the
Nahanarvali The Nahanarvali, also known as the Nahavali, Naha-Narvali, and Nahanavali, were a Germanic tribe mentioned by the Roman scholar Tacitus in his ''Germania''.
According to Tacitus, the Nahanarvali were one of the five most powerful tribes of the Lugi ...
, are given by Tacitus as a Latinized form of (a kind of '
stag'), and the word ('hair dye') is certainly borrowed from Proto-Germanic (English ''
soap
Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are us ...
)'', as evidenced by the parallel Finnish loanword ''.'' The name of the ''
framea'', described by Tacitus as a short spear carried by Germanic warriors, most likely derives from the
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...
('forward-going one'), as suggested by comparable semantical structures found in early
runes
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
(e.g., ''raun-ij-az'' 'tester', on a lancehead) and
linguistic cognates attested in the later
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
,
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). I ...
and
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old Hig ...
languages: '','' and all mean 'to carry out'.
![Helm von Negau; KHM, Wien Inschrift](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Helm_von_Negau%3B_KHM%2C_Wien_Inschrift.jpg)
In the absence of earlier evidence, it must be assumed that Proto-Germanic speakers living in ''Germania'' were members of preliterate societies. The only pre-Roman inscriptions that could be interpreted as Proto-Germanic, written in the
Etruscan alphabet
The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD.
The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphab ...
, have not been found in ''Germania'' but rather in the Venetic region. The inscription ''harikastiteiva
\\\ip'', engraved on the
Negau helmet
The Negau helmets are 26 bronze helmets (23 of which are preserved) dating to c. 450 BC–350 BC, found in 1812 in a cache in Ženjak, near Negau, Duchy of Styria (now Negova, Slovenia). The helmets are of typical Etruscan ' vetulonic' shape, ...
in the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE, possibly by a Germanic-speaking warrior involved in combat in northern Italy, has been interpreted by some scholars as ''Harigasti Teiwǣ'' ( 'army-guest' + 'god, deity'), which could be an invocation to a war-god or a mark of ownership engraved by its possessor.
The inscription ''Fariarix'' ( 'ferry' + 'ruler') carved on
tetradrachm
The tetradrachm ( grc-gre, τετράδραχμον, tetrádrachmon) was a large silver coin that originated in Ancient Greece. It was nominally equivalent to four drachmae. Over time the tetradrachm effectively became the standard coin of the An ...
s found in
Bratislava
Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approximately 140% of ...
(mid-1st c. BCE) may indicate the Germanic name of a Celtic ruler.
Linguistic disintegration
By the time Germanic speakers entered written history, their linguistic territory had stretched farther south, since a Germanic
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...
(where neighbouring language varieties diverged only slightly between each other, but remote dialects were not necessarily
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
due to accumulated differences over the distance) covered a region roughly located between the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, source ...
, the
Vistula
The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...
, the
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
, and southern
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...
during the first two centuries of the
Common Era
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
. East Germanic speakers dwelled on the Baltic sea coasts and islands, while speakers of the Northwestern dialects occupied territories in present-day Denmark and bordering parts of Germany at the earliest date when they can be identified.
In the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, migrations of East Germanic ''gentes'' from the Baltic Sea coast southeastwards into the hinterland led to their separation from the dialect continuum.
[; ; ; .] By the late 3rd century CE, linguistic divergences like the West Germanic loss of the final consonant ''-z'' had already occurred within the "residual" Northwest dialect continuum. The latter definitely ended after the 5th- and 6th-century migrations of
Angles
The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ...
,
Jutes
The Jutes (), Iuti, or Iutæ ( da, Jyder, non, Jótar, ang, Ēotas) were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the departure of the Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic nation ...
and part of the
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
tribes towards modern-day England.
Classification
![Weyer (Mechernich) - Weihestein des Caldinius Firminius](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Weyer_%28Mechernich%29_-_Weihestein_des_Caldinius_Firminius.jpg)
The Germanic languages are traditionally divided between
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
,
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''north ...
and
West Germanic
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...
branches. The modern prevailing view is that North and West Germanic were also encompassed in a larger subgroup called Northwest Germanic.
*
Northwest Germanic
Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic languages, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Germ ...
: mainly characterized by the
''i''-umlaut, and the shift of the long vowel ''*ē'' towards a long ''*ā'' in accented syllables; it remained a
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...
following the migration of East Germanic speakers in the 2nd–3rd century CE;
**
North Germanic
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
or
Primitive Norse: initially characterized by the
monophthongization
Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong, a type of vowel shift. It is also known as ungliding, as diphthongs are also known as gliding vowels. In languages that have undergone monophthongization, digraphs ...
of the sound ''ai'' to ''ā'' (attested from ca. 400 BCE); a uniform northern dialect or ''koiné'' attested in runic inscriptions from the 2nd century CE onward, it remained practically unchanged until a transitional period that started in the late 5th century; and
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
, a language attested by runic inscriptions written in the
Younger Fuþark from the beginning of the
Viking Age
The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...
(8th–9th centuries CE);
**
West Germanic
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...
: including
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). I ...
(attested from the 5th c. CE),
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
(late 5th c.),
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Fries ...
(6th c.),
Frankish
Frankish may refer to:
* Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture
** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages
* Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany
* East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
(6th c.),
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old Hig ...
(6th c.), and possibly
Langobardic
Lombardic or Langobardic is an extinct West Germanic language that was spoken by the Lombards (), the Germanic people who settled in Italy in the sixth century. It was already declining by the seventh century because the invaders quickly adopt ...
(6th c.), which is only scarcely attested;
[; ] they are mainly characterized by the loss of the final consonant -''z'' (attested from the late 3rd century), and by the
''j''-consonant gemination (attested from ca. 400 BCE); early inscriptions from the West Germanic areas found on altars where votive offerings were made to the ''Matronae Vacallinehae'' (Matrons of Vacallina) in the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
dated to ca. 160–260 CE; West Germanic remained a "residual" dialect continuum until the
Anglo-Saxon migrations in the 5th–6th centuries CE;
*
East Germanic
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...
, of which only
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
is attested by both
runic inscriptions
A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of ...
(from the 3rd c. CE) and textual evidence (principally
Wulfila's Bible; ca. 350–380). It became extinct after the fall of the
Visigothic Kingdom
The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to ...
in the early 8th century. The inclusion of the
Burgundian and
Vandalic language
Vandalic was the Germanic language spoken by the Vandals during roughly the 3rd to 6th centuries. It was probably closely related to Gothic, and, as such, is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language. Its attestation is very frag ...
s within the East Germanic group, while plausible, is still uncertain due to their scarce attestation. The latest attested East Germanic language,
Crimean Gothic
Crimean Gothic was an East Germanic language spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea until the late 18th century.
Attestation
The existence of a Germanic dialect in Crimea is noted in a number of sources from the 9th ce ...
, has been partially recorded in the 16th century.
Further internal classifications are still debated among scholars, as it is unclear whether the internal features shared by several branches are due to early common innovations or to the later diffusion of local dialectal innovations.
History
Prehistory
![Nordic Bronze Age](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Nordic_Bronze_Age.png)
The Germanic-speaking peoples speak an
Indo-European language
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
. The leading theory for the origin of Germanic languages, suggested by archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence, postulates a diffusion of Indo-European languages from the
Pontic–Caspian steppe
The Pontic–Caspian steppe, formed by the Caspian steppe and the Pontic steppe, is the steppeland stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the Pontus Euxinus of antiquity) to the northern area around the Caspian Sea. It extend ...
towards Northern Europe during the third millennium BCE, via linguistic contacts and migrations from the
Corded Ware culture
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a v ...
towards modern-day Denmark, resulting in cultural mixing with the earlier
Funnelbeaker culture
The Funnel(-neck-)beaker culture, in short TRB or TBK (german: Trichter(-rand-)becherkultur, nl, Trechterbekercultuur; da, Tragtbægerkultur; ) was an archaeological culture in north-central Europe.
It developed as a technological merger of lo ...
. The subsequent culture of the
Nordic Bronze Age
The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from c. 2000/1750–500 BC.
The Nordic Bronze Age culture emerged about 1750 BC as a continuation of the Battle Axe culture (th ...
(c. 2000/1750-c. 500 BCE) shows definite cultural and population continuities with later Germanic peoples, and is often supposed to have been the culture in which the
Germanic Parent Language
In historical linguistics, the Germanic parent language (GPL) includes the reconstructed languages in the Germanic group referred to as Pre-Germanic Indo-European (PreGmc), Early Proto-Germanic (EPGmc), and Late Proto-Germanic (LPGmc), spoken in t ...
, the predecessor of the Proto-Germanic language, developed. However, it is unclear whether these earlier peoples possessed any ethnic continuity with the later Germanic peoples.
Generally, scholars agree that it is possible to speak of Germanic-speaking peoples after 500 BCE, although the first attestation of the name ''Germani'' is not until much later. Between around 500 BCE and the beginning of the
Common Era
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
, archeological and linguistic evidence suggest that the ''
Urheimat
In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and ''Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the r ...
'' ('original homeland') of the
Proto-Germanic language
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic br ...
, the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, was primarily situated in the southern
Jutland peninsula
Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...
, from which Proto-Germanic speakers migrated towards bordering parts of Germany and along the sea-shores of the Baltic and the North Sea, an area corresponding to the extent of the
late Jastorf culture. If the Jastorf Culture is the origin of the Germanic peoples, then the Scandinavian peninsula would have become Germanic either via migration or assimilation over the course of the same period. Alternatively, has stressed that two other archaeological groups must have belonged to the ''Germani'', one on either side of the
Lower Rhine
The Lower Rhine (german: Niederrhein; kilometres 660 to 1,033 of the river Rhine) flows from Bonn, Germany, to the North Sea at Hook of Holland, Netherlands (including the Nederrijn or "Nether Rhine" within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta); ...
and reaching to the
Weser
The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...
, and another in Jutland and southern Scandinavia. These groups would thus show a "polycentric origin" for the Germanic peoples. The neighboring
Przeworsk culture
The Przeworsk culture () was an Iron Age material culture in the region of what is now Poland, that dates from the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD. It takes its name from the town Przeworsk, near the village where the first artifacts w ...
in modern Poland is thought to possibly reflect a Germanic and
Slavic component. The identification of the Jastorf culture with the ''Germani'' has been criticized by
Sebastian Brather
Sebastian Brather (born 28 June 1964) is a German medieval archaeologist and co-editor of '' Germanische Altertumskunde Online''.
Career
Brather received his PhD in archaeology from the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1995 with a thesis '' Fe ...
, who notes that it seems to be missing areas such as southern Scandinavia and the Rhine-Weser area, which linguists argue to have been Germanic, while also not according with the Roman era definition of ''Germani'', which included Celtic-speaking peoples further south and west.
![Iron Age Germanic–Celtic Contacts](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Iron_Age_Germanic%E2%80%93Celtic_Contacts.svg)
A category of evidence used to locate the Proto-Germanic homeland is founded on traces of early linguistic contacts with neighbouring languages. Germanic loanwords in the
Finnic and
Sámi languages
Sámi languages ( ), in English also rendered as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sámi people in Northern Europe (in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and extreme northwestern Russia). There are, dependin ...
have preserved archaic forms (e.g. Finnic ''kuningas'', from Proto-Germanic 'king'; ''rengas'', from 'ring'; etc.), with the older loan layers possibly dating back to an earlier period of intense contacts between pre-Germanic and
Finno-Permic (i.e.
Finno-Samic) speakers. Shared lexical innovations between
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foo ...
and Germanic languages, concentrated in certain semantic domains such as religion and warfare, indicates intensive contacts between the ''Germani'' and
Celtic peoples
The Celts (, see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-Europea ...
, usually identified with the archaeological
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture (; ) was a European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC), succeeding the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture without any defi ...
, found in southern Germany and the modern Czech Republic. Early contacts probably occurred during the Pre-Germanic and Pre-Celtic periods, dated to the 2nd millennium BCE, and the Celts appear to have had a large amount of influence on Germanic culture from up until the first century CE, which led to a high degree of Celtic-Germanic shared material culture and social organization. Some evidence of linguistic convergence between Germanic and
Italic languages
The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official languag ...
, whose ''Urheimat'' is supposed to have been situated north of the Alps before the 1st millennium BCE, have also been highlighted by scholars. Shared changes in their grammars also suggest early contacts between Germanic and
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branc ...
; however, some of these innovations are shared with Baltic only, which may point to linguistic contacts during a relatively late period, at any rate after the initial breakup of Balto-Slavic into
Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
*Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...
and
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
, with the similarities to Slavic being seen as remnants of Indo-European archaisms or the result of secondary contacts.
Earliest recorded history
According to some authors the
Bastarnae
The Bastarnae ( Latin variants: ''Bastarni'', or ''Basternae''; grc, Βαστάρναι or Βαστέρναι) and Peucini ( grc, Πευκῖνοι) were two ancient peoples who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited areas north of the Roman front ...
or
Peucini
The Bastarnae (Latin variants: ''Bastarni'', or ''Basternae''; grc, Βαστάρναι or Βαστέρναι) and Peucini ( grc, Πευκῖνοι) were two ancient peoples who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited areas north of the Roman fronti ...
were the first ''Germani'' to be encountered by the
Greco-Roman world
The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were dir ...
and thus to be mentioned in historical records. They appear in historical sources going back as far as the 3rd century BCE through the 4th century CE. Another eastern people known from about 200 BCE, and sometimes believed to be Germanic-speaking, are the
Sciri
The Sciri, or Scirians, were a Germanic people. They are believed to have spoken an East Germanic language. Their name probably means "the pure ones".
The Sciri were mentioned already in the late 3rd century BC as participants in a raid on th ...
(Greek: ), who are recorded threatening the city of
Olbia
Olbia (, ; sc, Terranoa; sdn, Tarranoa) is a city and commune of 60,346 inhabitants (May 2018) in the Italian insular province of Sassari in northeastern Sardinia, Italy, in the historical region of Gallura. Called ''Olbia'' in the Roman age ...
on the Black Sea. Late in the 2nd century BCE, Roman and Greek sources recount the migrations of the Cimbri, Teutones and
Ambrones
The Ambrones ( grc, Ἄμβρωνες) were an ancient tribe mentioned by Roman authors. They are generally believed to have been a Germanic tribe from Jutland.
In the late 2nd century BC, along with the fellow Cimbri and Teutons, the Ambrone ...
whom Caesar later classified as Germanic. The movements of these groups through parts of
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
and
Hispania
Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hi ...
resulted in the
Cimbrian War
The Cimbrian or Cimbric War (113–101 BC) was fought between the Roman Republic and the Germanic and Celtic tribes of the Cimbri and the Teutons, Ambrones and Tigurini, who migrated from the Jutland peninsula into Roman controlled territory, ...
(113–101 BCE) against the Romans, in which the Teutons and Cimbri were victorious over several Roman armies but were ultimately defeated.
The first century BCE was a time of the expansion of Germanic-speaking peoples at the expense of Celtic-speaking polities in modern southern Germany and the Czech Republic. In 63 BCE,
Ariovistus
Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani in defeating their rivals, the Aedui. They the ...
, king of the
Suevi
The Suebi (or Suebians, also spelled Suevi, Suavi) were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names ...
and a host of other peoples, led a force across the Rhine into Gaul to aid the
Sequani
The Sequani were a Gallic tribe dwelling in the upper river basin of the Arar river (Saône), the valley of the Doubs and the Jura Mountains during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
Name
They are mentioned as ''Sequanos'' by Caesar (mi ...
against their enemies the
Aedui
The Aedui or Haedui (Gaulish: *''Aiduoi'', 'the Ardent'; grc, Aἴδουοι) were a Gallic tribe dwelling in the modern Burgundy region during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
The Aedui had an ambiguous relationship with the Roman Republic a ...
. The Suevi were victorious at the
Battle of Magetobriga, and initially were considered an ally of Rome. The Aedui were Roman allies and
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...
, the governor of the Roman province of
Transalpine Gaul
Gallia Narbonensis (Latin for "Gaul of Narbonne", from its chief settlement) was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in Southern France. It was also known as Provincia Nostra ("Our Province"), because it was the ...
in 58 BCE, went to war with them, defeating Ariovistus at the
Battle of Vosges. In 55 BCE, Caesar crossed the Rhine into Germania, massacring a large migrating group of
Tencteri and
Usipetes who had crossed the Rhine from the east.
Roman Imperial Period to 375
Early Roman Imperial period (27 BCE–166 CE)
Throughout the reign of Augustus—from 27 BCE until 14 CE—the Roman empire expanded into Gaul, with the Rhine as a border. Starting in 13 BCE, there were Roman campaigns across the Rhine for a 28-year period. First came the pacification of the Usipetes, Sicambri, and
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, ...
near the Rhine, then attacks increased further from the Rhine, on the
Chauci
The Chauci (german: Chauken, and identical or similar in other regional modern languages) were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Rivers Ems and Elbe, on both sides of the Weser and ranging as far inland as the ...
,
Cherusci
The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germany in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered themse ...
,
Chatti
The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe
whose homeland was near the upper Weser (''Visurgis''). They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the val ...
and
Suevi
The Suebi (or Suebians, also spelled Suevi, Suavi) were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names ...
(including the
Marcomanni
The Marcomanni were a Germanic people
*
*
*
that established a powerful kingdom north of the Danube, somewhere near modern Bohemia, during the peak of power of the nearby Roman Empire. According to Tacitus and Strabo, they were Suebian.
O ...
). These campaigns eventually reached and even crossed the Elbe, and in 5 CE Tiberius was able to show strength by having a Roman fleet enter the Elbe and meet the legions in the heart of ''Germania''. Once Tiberius subdued the Germanic people between the Rhine and the Elbe, the region at least up to
Weser
The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...
—and possibly up to the
Elbe
The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Re ...
—was made the Roman province ''
Germania
Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north-c ...
'' and provided soldiers to the Roman army.
However, within this period two Germanic kings formed larger alliances. Both of them had spent some of their youth in Rome; the first of them was
Maroboduus
Maroboduus (d. AD 37) was a king of the Marcomanni, who were a Germanic Suebian people. He spent part of his youth in Rome, and returning, found his people under pressure from invasions by the Roman empire between the Rhine and Elbe. He led the ...
of the Marcomanni, who had led his people away from the Roman activities into
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
, which was defended by forests and mountains, and had formed alliances with other peoples. In 6 CE, Rome planned an attack against him but the campaign was cut short when forces were needed for the
Illyrian revolt in the Balkans.
Just three years later (9 CE), the second of these Germanic figures,
Arminius
Arminius ( 18/17 BC – 21 AD) was a chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe who is best known for commanding an alliance of Germanic tribes at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, in which three Roman legions under the command of ge ...
of the Cherusci—initially an ally of Rome—drew a large Roman force into an ambush in northern Germany, and destroyed the three legions of
Publius Quinctilius Varus
Publius Quinctilius Varus ( Cremona, 46 BC – Teutoburg Forest, AD 9) was a Roman general and politician under the first Roman emperor Augustus. Varus is generally remembered for having lost three Roman legions when ambushed by Germanic tribe ...
at the
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, described as the Varian Disaster () by Roman historians, took place at modern Kalkriese in AD 9, when an alliance of Germanic peoples ambushed Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius ...
. Marboduus and Arminius went to war with each other in 17 CE; Arminius was victorious and Marboduus was forced to flee to the Romans.
Following the Roman defeat at the Teutoburg Forest, Rome gave up on the possibility of fully integrating this region into the empire. Rome launched successful campaigns across the Rhine between 14 and 16 CE under Tiberius and Germanicus, but the effort of integrating Germania now seemed to outweigh its benefits. In the reign of Augustus's successor, Tiberius, it became state policy to expand the empire no further than the frontier based roughly upon the Rhine and Danube, recommendations that were specified in the will of Augustus and read aloud by Tiberius himself. Roman intervention in Germania led to a shifting and unstable political situation, in which pro- and anti-Roman parties vied for power. Arminius was murdered in 21 CE by his fellow Germanic tribesmen, due in part to these tensions and for his attempt to claim supreme kingly power for himself.
In the wake of Arminius's death, Roman diplomats sought to keep the Germanic peoples divided and fractious. Rome established relationships with individual Germanic kings that are often discussed as being similar to
client state
A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite sta ...
s; however, the situation on the border was always unstable, with rebellions by the
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, ...
in 28 CE, and attacks by the
Chauci
The Chauci (german: Chauken, and identical or similar in other regional modern languages) were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Rivers Ems and Elbe, on both sides of the Weser and ranging as far inland as the ...
and
Chatti
The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe
whose homeland was near the upper Weser (''Visurgis''). They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the val ...
in the 60s CE. The most serious threat to the Roman order was the
Revolt of the Batavi
The Revolt of the Batavi took place in the Roman province of Germania Inferior between AD 69 and 70. It was an uprising against the Roman Empire started by the Batavi, a small but militarily powerful Germanic tribe that inhabited Batavia, on t ...
in 69 CE, during the civil wars following the death of
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...
known as the
Year of the Four Emperors
The Year of the Four Emperors, AD 69, was the first civil war of the Roman Empire, during which four emperors ruled in succession: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. It is considered an important interval, marking the transition from the ...
. The
Batavi had long served as auxiliary troops in the Roman army as well as in the imperial bodyguard as the so-called ''
Numerus Batavorum'', often called the Germanic bodyguard. The uprising was led by
Gaius Julius Civilis
Gaius Julius Civilis was the leader of the Batavian rebellion against the Romans in 69 AD. His nomen shows that he (or one of his male ancestors) was made a Roman citizen (and thus, the tribe a Roman vassal) by either Augustus or Caligula.
Earl ...
, a member of the Batavian royal family and Roman military officer, and attracted a large coalition of people both inside and outside of the Roman territory. The revolt ended following several defeats, with Civilis claiming to have only supported the imperial claims of
Vespasian
Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Emp ...
, who was victorious in the civil war.
![Osterby Man Suebian-Knot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Osterby_Man_Suebian-Knot.jpg)
The century after the Batavian Revolt saw mostly peace between the Germanic peoples and Rome. In 83 CE, Emperor
Domitian
Domitian (; la, Domitianus; 24 October 51 – 18 September 96) was a Roman emperor who reigned from 81 to 96. The son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, he was the last member of the Fl ...
of the
Flavian dynasty
The Flavian dynasty ruled the Roman Empire between AD 69 and 96, encompassing the reigns of Vespasian (69–79), and his two sons Titus (79–81) and Domitian (81–96). The Flavians rose to power during the civil war of 69, known ...
attacked the Chatti north of Mainz (Mogontiacum). This war would last until 85 CE. Following the end of the war with the Chatti, Domitian reduced the number of Roman soldiers on the upper Rhine and shifted the Roman military to guarding the Danube frontier, beginning the construction of the ''
limes
Limes may refer to:
* the plural form of lime (disambiguation)
Lime commonly refers to:
* Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit
* Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide
* Lime (color), a ...
'', the longest fortified border in the empire. The period afterwards was peaceful enough that the emperor
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
reduced the number of soldiers on the frontier. According to
Edward James, the Romans appear to have reserved the right to choose rulers among the barbarians on the frontier.
Marcomannic Wars to 375 CE
Following sixty years of quiet on the frontier, 166 CE saw a major incursion of peoples from north of the Danube during the reign of
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good E ...
, beginning the
Marcomannic Wars
The Marcomannic Wars (Latin: ''bellum Germanicum et Sarmaticum'', "German and Sarmatian War") were a series of wars lasting from about 166 until 180 AD. These wars pitted the Roman Empire against, principally, the Germanic Marcomanni and Quad ...
. By 168 (during the
Antonine plague), barbarian hosts consisting of Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatian Iazyges, attacked and pushed their way to Italy. They advanced as far as Upper Italy, destroyed Opitergium/Oderzo and besieged Aquileia. The Romans had finished the war by 180, through a combination of Roman military victories, the resettling of some peoples on Roman territory, and by making alliances with others. Marcus Aurelius's successor
Commodus
Commodus (; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was a Roman emperor who ruled from 177 to 192. He served jointly with his father Marcus Aurelius from 176 until the latter's death in 180, and thereafter he reigned alone until his assassination. ...
chose not to permanently occupy any territory conquered north of the Danube, and the following decades saw an increase in the defenses at the ''limes''. The Romans renewed their right to choose the kings of the Marcomanni and Quadi, and Commodus forbid them to hold assemblies unless a Roman centurion was present.
The period after the Marconmannic Wars saw the emergence of peoples with new names along the Roman frontiers, which were probably formed by the merger of smaller groups. These new confederacies or peoples tended to border the Roman imperial frontier. Many ethnic names from earlier periods disappear. The
Alamanni
The Alemanni or Alamanni, were a confederation of Germanic tribes
*
*
*
on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the in 260, and later expanded into pre ...
emerged along the upper Rhine and are mentioned in Roman sources from the third century onward. The
Goths
The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Euro ...
begin to be mentioned along the lower Danube, where they attacked the city of
Histria in 238. The Franks are first mentioned occupying territory between the Rhine and Weser. The Lombards seem to have moved their center of power to the central Elbe. Groups such as the Alamanni, Goths, and Franks were not unified polities; they formed multiple, loosely associated groups, who often fought each other and some of whom sought Roman friendship. The Romans also begin to mention seaborne attacks by the Saxons, a term used generically in Latin for Germanic-speaking pirates. A system of defenses on both sides of the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Ka ...
, the
Saxon Shore
The Saxon Shore ( la, litus Saxonicum) was a military command of the late Roman Empire, consisting of a series of fortifications on both sides of the Channel. It was established in the late 3rd century and was led by the " Count of the Saxon Sh ...
, was established to deal with their raids.
From 250 onward, the Gothic peoples formed the "single most potent threat to the northern frontier of Rome". In 250 CE a Gothic king
Cniva
Cniva ( mid-3rd century AD) was a Gothic king who invaded the Roman Empire. He successfully captured the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv in Bulgaria) in 250 and killed Emperor Decius and his son Herennius Etruscus at the Battle of Abritus as he ...
led Goths with Bastarnae, Carpi, Vandals, and
Taifali
The Taifals or Tayfals ( la, Taifali, Taifalae or ''Theifali''; french: Taïfales) were a people group of Germanic or Sarmatian origin, first documented north of the lower Danube in the mid third century AD. They experienced an unsettled and fra ...
into the empire, laying siege to
Philippopolis. He followed his victory there with another on the marshy terrain at
Abrittus, a battle which cost the life of Roman emperor
Decius
Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius ( 201 ADJune 251 AD), sometimes translated as Trajan Decius or Decius, was the emperor of the Roman Empire from 249 to 251.
A distinguished politician during the reign of Philip the Arab, Decius was procl ...
. In 253/254, further attacks occurred reaching
Thessalonica
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
and possibly
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
. In 267/268 there were large raids led by the Herules in 267/268, and a mixed group of Goths and Herules in 269/270. Gothic attacks were abruptly ended in the years after 270, after a Roman victory in which the Gothic king
Cannabaudes {{Short description, Gothic leader of the Tervings (died 271)
Cannabaudes or Cannabas (died 271) was a third-century leader of the Gothic tribe of the Tervings, who died in a battle against the Roman emperor Aurelian.
Life
In the third centur ...
was killed.
The Roman ''limes'' largely collapsed in 259/260, during the
Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as the Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis (AD 235–284), was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed. The crisis ended due to the military victories of Aurelian and with the ascensio ...
(235–284), and Germanic raids penetrated as far as northern Italy. The ''limes'' on the Rhine and upper Danube was brought under control again in 270s, and by 300 the Romans had reestablished control over areas they had abandoned during the crisis. From the later third century onward, the Roman army relied increasingly on troops of Barbarian origin, often recruited from Germanic peoples, with some functioning as senior commanders in the Roman army. In the 4th century, warfare along the Rhine frontier between the Romans and Franks and Alemanni seems to have mostly consisted of campaigns of plunder, during which major battles were avoided. The Romans generally followed a policy of trying to prevent strong leaders from emerging among the barbarians, using treachery, kidnapping, and assassination, paying off rival tribes to attack them, or by supporting internal rivals.
Migration Period (ca. 375–568)
![Invasions of the Roman Empire 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Invasions_of_the_Roman_Empire_1.png)
The
Migration Period
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roma ...
is traditionally cited by historians as beginning in 375 CE, under the assumption that the appearance of the
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
prompted the
Visigoths
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is k ...
to seek shelter within the Roman Empire in 376. The end of the migration period is usually set at 586 when the Lombards invaded Italy. During this time period, numerous barbarian groups invaded the Roman Empire and established new kingdoms within its boundaries. These Germanic migrations traditionally mark the transition between antiquity and the beginning of the early
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
. The reasons for the migrations of the period are unclear, but scholars have proposed overpopulation, climate change, bad harvests, famines, and adventurousness as possible reasons. Migrations were probably carried out by relatively small groups rather than entire peoples.
Early Migration Period (before 375–420)
The
Greuthungi
The Greuthungi (also spelled Greutungi) were a Gothic people who lived on the Pontic steppe between the Dniester and Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic ...
, a Gothic group in modern Ukraine under the rule of
Ermanaric
Ermanaric; la, Ermanaricus or ''Hermanaricus''; ang, Eormanrīc ; on, Jǫrmunrekkr , gmh, Ermenrîch (died 376) was a Greuthungian Gothic king who before the Hunnic invasion evidently ruled a sizable portion of Oium, the part of Scythi ...
, were among the first peoples attacked by the Huns, apparently facing Hunnic pressure for some years. Following Ermanaric's death, the Greuthungi's resistance broke and they moved toward the
Dniester
The Dniester, ; rus, Дне́стр, links=1, Dnéstr, ˈdⁿʲestr; ro, Nistru; grc, Τύρᾱς, Tyrās, ; la, Tyrās, la, Danaster, label=none, ) ( ,) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and t ...
river. A second Gothic group, the
Tervingi
The Thervingi, Tervingi, or Teruingi (sometimes pluralised Tervings or Thervings) were a Gothic people of the plains north of the Lower Danube and west of the Dniester River in the 3rd and the 4th centuries.
They had close contacts with the Gr ...
under King
Athanaric
Athanaric or Atanaric ( la, Athanaricus; died 381) was king of several branches of the Thervingian Goths () for at least two decades in the 4th century. Throughout his reign, Athanaric was faced with invasions by the Roman Empire, the Huns and a c ...
, constructed a
defensive earthwork against the Huns near the Dniester. However, these measures did not stop the Huns and the majority of the Tervingi abandoned Athanaric; they subsequently fled—accompanied by a contingent of Greuthungi—to the Danube in 376, seeking asylum in the Roman Empire. The emperor
Valens
Valens ( grc-gre, Ουάλης, Ouálēs; 328 – 9 August 378) was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of ...
chose only to admit the Tervingi, who were settled in the Roman provinces of
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
and
Moesia
Moesia (; Latin: ''Moesia''; el, Μοισία, Moisía) was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans south of the Danube River, which included most of the territory of modern eastern Serbia, Kosovo, north-eastern Alban ...
.
Due to mistreatment by the Romans, the Tervingi revolted in 377, starting the
Gothic War, joined by the Greuthungi. The Goths and their allies defeated the Romans first at
Marcianople, then defeated and killed emperor Valens in the
Battle of Adrianople
The Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between an Eastern Roman army led by the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels (largely Thervings as well as Greutungs, non-Gothic A ...
in 378, destroying two-thirds of Valens' army. Following further fighting, peace was negotiated in 382, granting the Goths considerable autonomy within the Roman Empire. However, these Goths—who would be known as the
Visigoths
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is k ...
—revolted several more times, finally coming to be ruled by
Alaric. In 397, the disunited eastern Empire submitted to some of his demands, possibly giving him control over
Epirus
sq, Epiri rup, Epiru
, native_name_lang =
, settlement_type = Historical region
, image_map = Epirus antiquus tabula.jpg
, map_alt =
, map_caption = Map of ancient Epirus by Heinri ...
. In the aftermath of the large-scale Gothic entries into the empire, the Franks and Alemanni became more secure in their positions in 395, when
Stilicho
Flavius Stilicho (; c. 359 – 22 August 408) was a military commander in the Roman army who, for a time, became the most powerful man in the Western Roman Empire. He was of Vandal origins and married to Serena, the niece of emperor Theodosiu ...
, the barbarian generalissimo who held power in the western Empire, made agreements with them.
![Stilicho](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Stilicho.jpg)
In 401, Alaric invaded Italy, coming to an understanding with Stilicho in 404/5. This agreement allowed Stilicho to fight against the force of
Radagaisus
Radagaisus (died 23 August 406) was a Gothic king who led an invasion of Roman Italy in late 405 and the first half of 406.Peter Heather, ''The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians'', 2nd ed. 2006:194; A committed ...
, who had crossed the Middle Danube in 405/6 and invaded Italy, only to be defeated outside Florence. That same year, a large force of Vandals, Suevi, Alans, and Burgundians
crossed the Rhine, fighting the Franks but facing no Roman resistance. In 409, the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans crossing the Pyrenees into Spain, where they took possession of the northern part of the peninsula. The Burgundians seized the land around modern
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer lie ...
,
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany
Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
, and Strasbourg, territory that was recognized by the Roman Emperor
Honorius. When Stilicho fell from power in 408, Alaric invaded Italy again and eventually
sacked Rome in 410; Alaric died shortly thereafter. The Visigoths withdrew into Gaul where they faced a power struggle until the succession of
Wallia
Wallia or Walha ( Spanish: ''Walia'', Portuguese ''Vália''), ( 385 – 418) was king of the Visigoths from 415 to 418, earning a reputation as a great warrior and prudent ruler. He was elected to the throne after Athaulf and then Sigeric were ...
in 415 and his son
Theodoric I
Theodoric I ( got, Þiudarīks; la, Theodericus; 390 or 393 – 20 or 24 June 451) was the King of the Visigoths from 418 to 451. Theodoric is famous for his part in stopping Attila (the Hun) at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451, where ...
in 417/18. Following successful campaigns against them by the Roman emperor
Flavius Constantius, the Visigoths were settled as Roman allies in Gaul between modern Toulouse and Bourdeaux.
Other Goths, including those of Athanaric, continued to live outside the empire, with three groups crossing into the Roman territory after the Tervingi. The Huns gradually conquered Gothic groups north of the Danube, of which at least six are known, from 376 to 400.
Those in Crimea may never have been conquered. The
Gepids
The Gepids, ( la, Gepidae, Gipedae, grc, Γήπαιδες) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the relig ...
also formed an important Germanic people under Hunnic rule; the Huns had largely conquered them by 406. One Gothic group under Hunnic domination was ruled by the
Amal dynasty
The Amali – also called Amals, Amalings or Amalungs – were a leading dynasty of the Goths, a Germanic people who confronted the Roman Empire during the decline of the Western Roman Empire. They eventually became the royal house of the Ostrog ...
, who would form the core of the
Ostrogoths
The Ostrogoths ( la, Ostrogothi, Austrogothi) were a Roman-era Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Gothic kingdoms within the Roman Empire, based upon the large Gothic populations who ...
. The situation outside the Roman empire in 410s and 420s is poorly attested, but it is clear that the Huns continued to spread their influence onto the middle Danube.
The Hunnic Empire (c. 420–453)
In 428, the Vandal leader
Geiseric
Gaiseric ( – 25 January 477), also known as Geiseric or Genseric ( la, Gaisericus, Geisericus; reconstructed Vandalic: ) was King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477), ruling a kingdom he established, and was one of the key players in the dif ...
moved his forces across the strait of Gibraltar into north Africa. Within two years, they had conquered most of north Africa. By 434, following a renewed political crisis in Rome, the Rhine frontier had collapsed, and in order to restore it, the Roman
Flavius Aetius
Aetius (also spelled Aëtius; ; 390 – 454) was a Roman general and statesman of the closing period of the Western Roman Empire. He was a military commander and the most influential man in the Empire for two decades (433454). He managed pol ...
engineered the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom in 435/436, possibly with Hunnic mercenaries, and launched several successful campaigns against the Visigoths. In 439, the Vandals conquered
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
, which served as an excellent base for further raids throughout the Mediterranean and became the basis for the
Vandal Kingdom. The loss of Carthage forced Aetius to make peace with the Visigoths in 442, effectively recognizing their independence within the boundaries of the empire. During the resulting peace, Aetius resettled the Burgundians in
Sapaudia
Sapaudia or Sabaudia was an Alpine territory of Late antiquity and the Dark Ages.
Name
The name is a Latinisation of the local words for "forest" or "upland forest", although it is often glossed as " fir" from the roughly similar Latin '. It ...
in southern Gaul. In the 430s, Aetius negotiated peace with the Suevi in Spain, leading to a practical loss of Roman control in the province. Despite the peace, the Suevi expanded their territory by conquering Mérida in 439 and Seville in 441.
By 440,
Attila
Attila (, ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others, in Central and E ...
and the Huns had come to rule a multi-ethnic empire north of the Danube; two of the most important peoples within this empire were the
Gepids
The Gepids, ( la, Gepidae, Gipedae, grc, Γήπαιδες) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the relig ...
and the Goths. The Gepid king
Ardaric
Ardaric ( la, Ardaricus; c. 450 AD) was the king of the Gepids, a Germanic tribe closely related to the Goths. He was "famed for his loyalty and wisdom," one of the most trusted adherents of Attila the Hun, who "prized him above all the other chi ...
came to power around 440 and participated in various Hunnic campaigns. In 450, the Huns interfered in a Frankish succession dispute, leading in 451 to an invasion of Gaul. Aetius, by uniting a coalition of Visigoths, part of the Franks, and others, was able to defeat the Hunnic army at the
Battle of the Catalaunian Plains
The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (or Fields), also called the Battle of the Campus Mauriacus, Battle of Châlons, Battle of Troyes or the Battle of Maurica, took place on June 20, 451 AD, between a coalition – led by the Western Roman ...
. In 453, Attila died unexpectedly, and an alliance led by Ardaric's Gepids rebelled against the rule of his sons, defeating them in the
Battle of Nedao
The Battle of Nedao was a battle fought in Pannonia in 454 between the Huns and their former Germanic vassals. Nedao is believed to be a tributary of the Sava River.
Battle
After the death of Attila the Hun, allied forces of the subject peoples u ...
. Either before or after Attila's death,
Valamer
Valamir or Valamer (c. 420 – 469) was an Ostrogothic king in the former Roman province of Pannonia from AD 447 until his death. During his reign, he fought alongside the Huns against the Roman Empire and then, after Attila the Hun's death, fo ...
, a Gothic ruler of the Amal dynasty, seems to have consolidated power over a large part of the Goths in the Hunnic domain. For the next 20 years, the former subject peoples of the Huns would fight among each other for preeminence.
The arrival of the Saxons in Britain is traditionally dated to 449, however, archaeology indicates they had begun arriving in Britain earlier. Latin sources used ''Saxon'' generically for seaborne raiders, meaning that not all of the invaders belonged to the continental Saxons. According to the British monk
Gildas
Gildas ( Breton: ''Gweltaz''; c. 450/500 – c. 570) — also known as Gildas the Wise or ''Gildas Sapiens'' — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic ''De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'', which recount ...
(c. 500 – c. 570), this group had been recruited to protect the
Romano-British
The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...
from the
Picts
The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from ea ...
, but had revolted. They quickly established themselves as rulers on the eastern part of the island.
After the death of Attila (453–568)
![Mausoleum of Theodoric (Ravenna) - Exterior](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Mausoleum_of_Theodoric_%28Ravenna%29_-_Exterior.jpg)
In 455, in the aftermath of the death of Aetius in 453 and the murder of emperor
Valentinian III
Valentinian III ( la, Placidus Valentinianus; 2 July 41916 March 455) was Roman emperor in the West from 425 to 455. Made emperor in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by powerful generals vying ...
in 455, the Vandals invaded Italy and
sacked Rome in 455. In 456, the Romans persuaded the Visigoths to fight the Suevi, who had broken their treaty with Rome. The Visigoths and a force of Burgundians and Franks defeated the Suevi at the Battle of Campus Paramus, reducing Suevi control to northwestern Spain. The Visigoths went on to conquer all of the Iberian Peninsula by 484 except a small part that remained under Suevian control.
The Ostrogoths, led by Valamer's brother Thiudimer, invaded the Balkans in 473. Thiudimer's son
Theodoric
Theodoric is a Germanic given name. First attested as a Gothic name in the 5th century, it became widespread in the Germanic-speaking world, not least due to its most famous bearer, Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths.
Overview
The name ...
succeeded him in 476. In that same year, a barbarian commander in the Roman Italian army,
Odoacer
Odoacer ( ; – 15 March 493 AD), also spelled Odovacer or Odovacar, was a soldier and statesman of barbarian background, who deposed the child emperor Romulus Augustulus and became Rex/Dux (476–493). Odoacer's overthrow of Romulus Augustul ...
, mutinied and removed the final western Roman emperor,
Romulus Augustulus
Romulus Augustus ( 465 – after 511), nicknamed Augustulus, was Roman emperor of the West from 31 October 475 until 4 September 476. Romulus was placed on the imperial throne by his father, the ''magister militum'' Orestes, and, at that time, ...
. Odoacer ruled Italy for himself, largely continuing the policies of Roman imperial rule. He destroyed the Kingdom of the Rugians, in modern Austria, in 487/488. Theodoric, meanwhile, successfully extorted the Eastern Empire through a series of campaigns in the Balkans. The eastern emperor
Zeno
Zeno ( grc, Ζήνων) may refer to:
People
* Zeno (name), including a list of people and characters with the name
Philosophers
* Zeno of Elea (), philosopher, follower of Parmenides, known for his paradoxes
* Zeno of Citium (333 – 264 BC), ...
agreed to send Theodoric to Italy in 487/8. After a successful invasion, Theodoric killed and replaced Odoacer in 493, founding a new Ostrogothic kingdom. Theodoric died in 526, amid increasing tensions with the eastern empire.
Toward the end of the migration period, in the early 500s, Roman sources portray a completely changed ethnic landscape outside of the empire: the Marcomanni and Quadi disappeared, as had the Vandals. Instead, the Thuringians, Rugians, Sciri, Herules, Goths, and Gepids are mentioned as occupying the Danube frontier. From the mid-5th century onward, the Alamanni had greatly expanded their territory in all directions and launched numerous raids into Gaul. The territory under the Frankish influence had grown to encompass northern Gaul and Germania to the Elbe. The Frankish king
Clovis I
Clovis ( la, Chlodovechus; reconstructed Frankish: ; – 27 November 511) was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of petty kings to rule by a single kin ...
united the various Frankish groups in 490s, and conquered the Alamanni by 506. From the 490s onward, Clovis waged wars against the Visigoths, defeating them in 507 and taking control of most of Gaul. Clovis's heirs conquered the Thuringians by 530 and the Burgundians by 532. The continental Saxons, composed of many subgroups, were made tributary to the Franks, as were the Frisians, who faced an attack by the Danes under
Hygelac
Hygelac ( ang, Hygelāc; non, Hugleikr; gem-x-proto, Hugilaikaz; la, Ch(l)ochilaicus or ''Hugilaicus''; died 521) was a king of the Geats according to the poem ''Beowulf''. It is Hygelac's presence in the poem which has allowed scholars to ...
in 533.
The Vandal and Ostrogothic kingdoms were destroyed in 534 and 555 respectively by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire under
Justinian
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
. Around 500, a new ethnic identity appears in modern southern Germany, the
Baiuvarii
The Baiuvarii or Bavarians (german: Bajuwaren) were a Germanic people. The Baiuvarii had settled modern-day Bavaria (which is named after them), Austria, and South Tyrol by the 6th century AD, and are considered the ancestors of modern-day Bava ...
(Bavarians), under the patronage of Theodoric's Ostrogothic kingdom and then of the Franks. The Lombards, moving out of Bohemia, destroyed the kingdom of the Heruli in Pannonia in 510. In 568, after destroying the Gepid kingdom, the last Germanic kingdom in the
Carpathian basin
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only th ...
, the Lombards under
Alboin
Alboin (530s – 28 June 572) was king of the Lombards from about 560 until 572. During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572. He had a lasting effe ...
invaded northern Italy, eventually conquering most of it. This invasion has traditionally been regarded as the end of the migration period. The eastern part of Germania, formerly inhabited by the Goths, Gepids, Vandals, and Rugians, was gradually Slavicized, a process enabled by the invasion of the nomadic
Avars.
Early Middle Ages to c. 800
![British Museum (15139266039)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/British_Museum_%2815139266039%29.jpg)
Merovingian Frankia became divided into three subkingdoms:
Austrasia
Austrasia was a territory which formed the north-eastern section of the Merovingian Kingdom of the Franks during the 6th to 8th centuries. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of the F ...
in the east around the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, source ...
and
Meuse
The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...
,
Neustria
Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks.
Neustria included the land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, approximately the north of present-day France, with Paris, Orléans, Tours, Soissons as its main cities. It later ...
in the west around
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, and
Burgundy
Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...
in the southeast around
Chalon-sur-Saône
Chalon-sur-Saône (, literally ''Chalon on Saône'') is a city in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France.
It is a sub-prefecture of the department. It is the largest city in the department; h ...
. The Franks ruled a multilingual and multi-ethnic kingdom, divided between a mostly Romance-speaking West and a mostly Germanic-speaking east, that integrated former Roman elites but remained centered on a Frankish ethnic identity. In 687, the
Pippinids
The Pippinids and the Arnulfings were two Frankish aristocratic families from Austrasia during the Merovingian period. They dominated the office of mayor of the palace after 687 and eventually supplanted the Merovingians as kings in 751, founding ...
came to control the Merovingian rulers as
mayors of the palace in Neustria. Under their direction, the subkingdoms of Frankia were reunited. Following the mayoralty of
Charles Martel
Charles Martel ( – 22 October 741) was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesma ...
, the Pippinids replaced the Merovingians as kings in 751, when Charles's son
Pepin the Short
the Short (french: Pépin le Bref; – 24 September 768), also called the Younger (german: Pippin der Jüngere), was King of the Franks from 751 until his death in 768. He was the first Carolingian to become king.
The younger was the son of ...
became king and founded the
Carolingian dynasty
The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippin ...
. His son,
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...
, would go on to conquer the Lombards, Saxons, and Bavarians. Charlemagne was crowned
Roman emperor in 800 and regarded his residence of
Aachen
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...
as the new Rome.
Following their invasion in 568, the Lombards quickly conquered larger parts of the Italian peninsula. From 574 to 584, a period without a single Lombard ruler, the Lombards nearly collapsed, until a more centralized Lombard polity emerged under King
Agilulf
Agilulf ( 555 – April 616), called ''the Thuringian'' and nicknamed ''Ago'', was a duke of Turin and king of the Lombards from 591 until his death.
A relative of his predecessor Authari, Agilulf was of Thuringian origin and belonged to the An ...
in 590. The invading Lombards only ever made up a very small percentage of the Italian population, however Lombard ethnic identity expanded to include people of both Roman and barbarian descent. Lombard power reached its peak during the reign of King
Liutprand (712–744). After Liutprand's death, the Frankish King Pippin the Short invaded in 755, greatly weakening the kingdom. The Lombard kingdom was finally annexed by Charlemagne in 773.
After a period of weak central authority, the Visigothic kingdom came under the rule of
Liuvigild
Liuvigild, Leuvigild, Leovigild, or ''Leovigildo'' (Spanish and Portuguese), ( 519 – 586) was a Visigothic King of Hispania and Septimania from 568 to 586. Known for his Codex Revisus or Code of Leovigild, a law allowing equal rights between the ...
, who conquered the Kingdom of the Suebi in 585. A Visigothic identity that was distinct from the Romance-speaking population they ruled had disappeared by 700, with the removal of all legal differences between the two groups. In 711,
a Muslim army landed at Grenada; the entire Visigothic kingdom would be conquered by the
Umayyad Caliphate
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by th ...
by 725.
In what would become England, the
Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened ...
were divided into several competing kingdoms, the most important of which were
Northumbria
la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria
, common_name = Northumbria
, status = State
, status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
,
Mercia
la, Merciorum regnum
, conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia
, common_name=Mercia
, status=Kingdom
, status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex ()
, life_span=527–918
, era=Heptarchy
, event_start=
, date_start=
, ye ...
, and
Wessex
la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons
, common_name = Wessex
, image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg
, map_caption = S ...
. In the 7th century, Northumbria established overlordship over the other Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, until Mercia revolted under
Wulfhere
Wulfhere or Wulfar (died 675) was King of Mercia from 658 until 675 AD. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of North ...
in 658. Subsequently, Mercia would establish dominance until 825 with the death of King
Cenwulf
Coenwulf (; also spelled Cenwulf, Kenulf, or Kenwulph; la, Coenulfus) was the King of Mercia from December 796 until his death in 821. He was a descendant of King Pybba, who ruled Mercia in the early 7th century. He succeeded Ecgfrith, the son ...
. Few written sources report on
Vendel period
In Swedish prehistory, the Vendel Period ( sv, Vendeltiden; 540–790 AD) appears between the Migration Period and the Viking Age. The name is taken from the rich boat inhumation cemetery at Vendel parish church, Uppland. This is a period wit ...
Scandinavia from 400 to 700, however this period saw profound societal changes and the formation of early states with connections to the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish kingdoms. In 793, the first recorded
Viking
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
raid occurred at
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important ...
, ushering in the
Viking Age
The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...
.
Religion
Germanic paganism
![MUFT - Oberdorla Götter 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/MUFT_-_Oberdorla_G%C3%B6tter_2.jpg)
Germanic paganism refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic-speaking peoples. It did not form a uniform religious system across Germanic-speaking Europe, but varied from place to place, people to people, and time to time. In many contact areas (e.g.
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
and eastern and northern Scandinavia), it was similar to neighboring religions such as those of the
Slavs
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
,
Celts
The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
, and
Finnic peoples
The Finnic or Fennic peoples, sometimes simply called Finns, are the nations who speak languages traditionally classified in the Finnic (now commonly '' Finno-Permic'') language family, and which are thought to have originated in the region of ...
. The term is sometimes applied as early as the
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
,
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
, or the earlier
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
, but it is more generally restricted to the time period after the Germanic languages had become distinct from other Indo-European languages. From the first reports in Roman sources to the final conversion to Christianity, Germanic paganism thus covers a period of around one thousand years. Scholars are divided as to the degree of continuity between the religious practices of the earlier Germanic peoples and those attested in later
Norse paganism
Old Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is the most common name for a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into a distinct branch of the Germanic peop ...
and elsewhere: while some scholars argue that Tacitus, early medieval sources, and the Norse sources indicate religious continuity, other scholars are highly skeptical of such arguments.
Like their neighbors and other historically related peoples, the ancient Germanic peoples
venerated numerous indigenous deities. These deities are attested throughout literature authored by or written about Germanic-speaking peoples, including
runic inscriptions
A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of El ...
, contemporary written accounts, and in folklore after Christianization. As an example, the second of the two
Merseburg charms (two
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old Hig ...
examples of
alliterative verse
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...
from a manuscript dated to the ninth century) mentions six deities:
Woden
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered Æsir, god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, v ...
,
Balder
Baldr (also Balder, Baldur) is a god in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, Baldr (Old Norse: ) is a son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg, and has numerous brothers, such as Thor and Váli. In wider Germanic mythology, the god was kno ...
,
Sinthgunt,
Sunna,
Frija
Frigg (; Old Norse: ) is a goddess, one of the Æsir, in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the w ...
, and
Volla.
With the exception of ''Sinthgunt'', proposed
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s to these deities occur in other Germanic languages, such as
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
and
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
. By way of the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
,
philologists
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
are then able to reconstruct and propose early Germanic forms of these names from early
Germanic mythology
Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism.
Origins
As the Germanic language ...
. Compare the following table:
The structure of the magic formula in this charm has a long history prior to this attestation: it is first known to have occurred in
Vedic India
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (ca. 1300–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, betwe ...
, where it occurs in the
Atharvaveda
The Atharva Veda (, ' from ' and ''veda'', meaning "knowledge") is the "knowledge storehouse of ''atharvāṇas'', the procedures for everyday life".Laurie Patton (2004), Veda and Upanishad, in ''The Hindu World'' (Editors: Sushil Mittal and G ...
, dated to around 500 BCE. Numerous other beings common to various groups of ancient Germanic peoples receive mention throughout the ancient Germanic record. One such type of entity, a variety of supernatural women, is also mentioned in the first of the two Merseburg Charms:
Other widely attested entities from the North and West Germanic folklore include
elves
An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...
,
dwarf
Dwarf or dwarves may refer to:
Common uses
*Dwarf (folklore), a being from Germanic mythology and folklore
* Dwarf, a person or animal with dwarfism
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a humanoid ...
s, and the
mare
A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four ...
. (For more discussion on these entities, see
Proto-Germanic folklore
Proto-Germanic folklore is the folklore of the speakers of Proto-Germanic and includes topics such as the Germanic mythology, legendry, and folk beliefs of early Germanic culture. By way of the comparative method, Germanic philologists, a variety ...
.)
The great majority of material describing Germanic mythology stems from the North Germanic record. The body of myths among the North Germanic-speaking peoples is known today as
Norse mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...
and is attested in numerous works, the most expansive of which are the ''
Poetic Edda
The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic me ...
'' and the ''
Prose Edda
The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been t ...
''. While these texts were composed in the 13th century, they frequently quote genres of traditional alliterative verse known today as ''
eddic poetry
The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic med ...
'' and ''
skaldic poetry
A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...
'' dating to the pre-Christian period.
![Inscription on Golden horn of Gallehus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Inscription_on_Golden_horn_of_Gallehus.jpg)
West Germanic mythology (that of speakers of, e.g., Old English and Old High German) is comparatively poorly attested. Notable texts include the
Old Saxon Baptismal Vow
The ''Old Saxon Baptismal Vow'', also called the ''Old Saxon Catechism'', ''Utrecht Baptismal Vow'' and ''Abrenuntiatio Diaboli'', is a baptismal vow that was found in a ninth-century manuscript in a monastery library in Mainz, Germany. The vow ...
and the Old English
Nine Herbs Charm
The "Nine Herbs Charm" is an Old English charm recorded in the tenth-century CEGordon (1962:92–93). Anglo-Saxon medical compilation known as ''Lacnunga'', which survives on the manuscript, Harley MS 585, in the British Library, at London.Macleo ...
. While most extant references are simply to deity names, some narratives do survive into the present, such as the Lombard origin myth, which details a tradition among the
Lombards
The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774.
The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 and ...
that features the deities Frea (cognate with Old Norse ) and Godan (cognate with Old Norse ). Attested in the 7th-century ''
Origo Gentis Langobardorum'' and the 8th-century ''
Historia Langobardorum
The ''History of the Lombards'' or the ''History of the Langobards'' ( la, Historia Langobardorum) is the chief work by Paul the Deacon, written in the late 8th century. This incomplete history in six books was written after 787 and at any rate ...
'' from the
Italian Peninsula, the narrative strongly corresponds in numerous ways with the prose introduction to the eddic poem ''
Grímnismál
''Grímnismál'' (Old Norse: ; 'The Lay of Grímnir') is one of the mythological poems of the ''Poetic Edda''. It is preserved in the Codex Regius manuscript and the AM 748 I 4to fragment. It is spoken through the voice of ''Grímnir'', one of ...
'', recorded in 13th-century Iceland.
Very few texts make up the corpus of Gothic and other East Germanic languages, and East Germanic paganism and its associated mythic body is especially poorly attested. Notable topics that provide insight into the matter of East Germanic paganism include the
Ring of Pietroassa
The Ring of Pietroassa or Buzău torc is a gold torc-like necklace found in a ring barrow in Pietroassa (now Pietroasele), Buzău County, southern Romania (formerly Wallachia), in 1837. It formed part of a large gold hoard (the Pietroasele trea ...
, which appears to be a cult object (see also
Gothic runic inscriptions
Very few Elder Futhark inscriptions in the Gothic language have been found in the territory historically settled by the Goths (Wielbark culture, Chernyakhov culture). Due to the early Christianization of the Goths, the Gothic alphabet replaced ru ...
), and the mention of the Gothic (cognate with Old Norse ''
Æsir
The Æsir (Old Norse: ) are the gods of the principal pantheon in Norse religion. They include Odin, Frigg, Höðr, Thor, and Baldr. The second Norse pantheon is the Vanir. In Norse mythology, the two pantheons wage war against each other, res ...
'' '(pagan) gods') by
Jordanes
Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Goths, Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history (''Romana ...
.
Practices associated with the religion of the ancient Germanic peoples see fewer attestations. However, elements of religious practices are discernable throughout the textual record associated with the ancient Germanic peoples, including
a focus on sacred groves and trees, the presence of
seeresses, and
numerous vocabulary items. The archaeological record has yielded a variety of depictions of deities, a number of them associated with depictions of the ancient Germanic peoples (see
). Notable from the Roman period are the
Matres and Matronae
The Matres (Latin for "mothers") and Matronae (Latin for "matrons") were female deities venerated in Northwestern Europe, of whom relics are found dating from the first to the fifth century AD. They are depicted on votive offerings and altars th ...
, some having Germanic names, to whom devotional altars were set up in regions of Germania, Eastern Gaul, and Northern Italy (with a small distribution elsewhere) that were occupied by the Roman army from the first to the fifth century.
Germanic mythology and religious practice is of particular interest to Indo-Europeanists, scholars who seek to identify aspects of ancient Germanic culture—both in terms of linguistic correspondence and by way of
motifs—stemming from
Proto-Indo-European culture
Proto-Indo-European society is the reconstructed culture of Proto-Indo-Europeans, the ancient speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, ancestor of all modern Indo-European languages.
Scientific approaches
Many of the modern ideas in this ...
, including
Proto-Indo-European mythology
Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested ...
. The primordial being Ymir, attested solely in Old Norse sources, makes for a commonly cited example. In Old Norse texts, the death of this entity results in creation of the cosmos, a complex of motifs that finds strong correspondence elsewhere in the Indo-European sphere, notably in
Vedic mythology
The historical Vedic religion (also known as Vedicism, Vedism or ancient Hinduism and subsequently Brahmanism (also spelled as Brahminism)), constituted the religious ideas and practices among some Indo-Aryan peoples of northwest Indian Subco ...
.
[See discussion in for example and .]
Conversion to Christianity
![Wulfila bibel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Wulfila_bibel.jpg)
Germanic peoples began entering the Roman Empire in large numbers at the same time that
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
was spreading there, and this connection was a major factor encouraging conversion. The East Germanic peoples, the Langobards, and the Suevi in Spain converted to
Arian Christianity
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...
, a form of Christianity that rejected the divinity of Christ. The first Germanic people to convert to Arianism were the Visigoths, at the latest in 376 when they entered the Roman Empire. This followed a longer period of missionary work by both
Orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
Christians and Arians, such as the Arian
Wulfila
Ulfilas (–383), also spelled Ulphilas and Orphila, all Latinized forms of the unattested Gothic form *𐍅𐌿𐌻𐍆𐌹𐌻𐌰 Wulfila, literally "Little Wolf", was a Goth of Cappadocian Greek descent who served as a bishop and missionary ...
, who was made missionary bishop of the Goths in 341 and translated the
Bible into Gothic. The Arian Germanic peoples all eventually converted to Nicene Christianity, which had become the dominant form of Christianity within the Roman Empire; the last to convert were the Visigoths in Spain under their king
Reccared
Reccared I (or Recared; la, Flavius Reccaredus; es, Flavio Recaredo; 559 – December 601; reigned 586–601) was Visigothic King of Hispania and Septimania. His reign marked a climactic shift in history, with the king's renunciation of Arian ...
in 587.
The areas of the Roman Empire conquered by the Franks,
Alemanni
The Alemanni or Alamanni, were a confederation of Germanic tribes
*
*
*
on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the in 260, and later expanded into pres ...
, and
Baiuvarii
The Baiuvarii or Bavarians (german: Bajuwaren) were a Germanic people. The Baiuvarii had settled modern-day Bavaria (which is named after them), Austria, and South Tyrol by the 6th century AD, and are considered the ancestors of modern-day Bava ...
were mostly Christian already, but it appeared Christianity declined there. In 496, the Frankish king
Clovis I
Clovis ( la, Chlodovechus; reconstructed Frankish: ; – 27 November 511) was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of petty kings to rule by a single kin ...
converted to Nicene Christianity. This began a period of missionizing within Frankish territory. The Anglo-Saxons gradually converted following a mission sent by Pope
Gregory the Great
Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregori ...
in 595. In the 7th century, Frankish-supported missionary activity spread out of Gaul, led by figures of the
Anglo-Saxon mission
Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon missionaries were instrumental in the spread of Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century, continuing the work of Hiberno-Scottish missionaries which had been spreading Celtic Christianity across the Fra ...
such as
Saint Boniface
Boniface, OSB ( la, Bonifatius; 675 – 5 June 754) was an English Benedictines, Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of the Frankish Empire during the eighth century. He organised significant ...
. The Saxons initially rejected Christianization, but were eventually forcibly converted by
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...
as a result of their conquest in the
Saxon Wars
The Saxon Wars were the campaigns and insurrections of the thirty-three years from 772, when Charlemagne first entered Saxony with the intent to conquer, to 804, when the last rebellion of tribesmen was defeated. In all, 18 campaigns were fought ...
in 776/777.
While attempts to convert the Scandinavian peoples began in 831, they were mostly unsuccessful until the 10th and 11th centuries. The last Germanic people to convert were the Swedes, although the
Geats
The Geats ( ; ang, gēatas ; non, gautar ; sv, götar ), sometimes called ''Goths'', were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the late Middle Ages. They are one of th ...
had converted earlier. The pagan
Temple at Uppsala
The Temple at Uppsala was a religious center in the ancient Norse religion once located at what is now Gamla Uppsala (Swedish "Old Uppsala"), Sweden attested in Adam of Bremen's 11th-century work '' Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum'' and ...
seems to have continued to exist into the early 1100s.
Society and culture
Runic writing
Germanic speakers developed a native script, the
runes
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
(or the ''fuþark''), and the earliest known form of which consists of 24 characters. The runes are generally held to have been used exclusively by Germanic-speaking populations. All known early runic inscriptions are found in Germanic contexts with the potential exception of one inscription, which may indicate cultural transfer between the Germanic speakers to Slavic speakers (and may potentially be the
earliest known writing among Slavic speakers).
Like other indigenous scripts of Europe, the runes ultimately developed from the
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician alpha ...
, but unlike similar scripts, the runes were not replaced by the Latin alphabet by the first century BCE. Runes remained in use among the Germanic peoples throughout their history despite the significant influence of Rome.
The precise date that Germanic speakers developed the runic alphabet is unknown, with estimates varying from 100 BCE to 100 CE. Generally accepted inscriptions in the oldest attested form of the script, called the
Elder Futhark
The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Peri ...
, date from 200 to 700 CE. The word ''rune'' is widely attested among Germanic languages, where it developed from Proto-Germanic and held a primary meaning of 'secret', but also other meanings such as 'whisper', 'mystery', 'closed deliberation', and 'council'. In most cases, runes appear not to have been used for everyday communication and knowledge of them may have generally been limited to a small group, for whom the term ''erilaR'' is attested from the sixth century onward.
The letters of the Elder Futhark are arranged in an order called the ''futhark'', so named after its first six characters. The alphabet is supposed to have been extremely phonetic, and each letter could also represent a word or concept, so that, for instance, the f-rune also stood for ('cattle, property'). Such examples are known as ''Begriffsrunen'' ('concept runes'). Runic inscriptions are found on organic materials such as wood, bone, horn, ivory, and animal hides, as well as on stone and metal. Inscriptions tend to be short, and are difficult to interpret as profane or magical. They include names, inscriptions by the maker of an object, memorials to the dead, as well as inscriptions that religious or magical in nature.
Personal names
![Dr359 Istaby, Istabystenen - KMB - 16000300013393](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Dr359_Istaby%2C_Istabystenen_-_KMB_-_16000300013393.jpg)
Germanic personal names are commonly dithematic, consisting of two components that may be combined freely (such as the Old Norse female personal name ''Sigríðr'', consisting of 'victory' + 'beloved'). As summarized by Per Vikstrand, "The old Germanic personal names are, from a social and ideological point of view, characterized by three main features: religion, heroism, and family bonds. The religious aspect
f Germanic namesseems to be an inherited, Indo-European trace, which the Germanic languages share with Greek and other Indo-European languages."
One point of debate surrounding Germanic name-giving practice is whether name elements were considered semantically meaningful when combined. Whatever the case, an element of a name could be inherited by a male or female's offspring, leading to an alliterative lineage (related, see
alliterative verse
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...
). The
runestone D359 in Istaby, Sweden provides one such example, where three generations of men are connected by way of the element , meaning 'wolf' (the alliterative ''Haþuwulfaz'', *''Heruwulfaz'', and ''Hariwulfaz''). Sacral components to Germanic personal names are also attested, including elements such as *''hailaga''- and *''wīha''- (both usually translated as 'holy, sacred', see for example
Vé), and deity names (
theonym
A theonym (from Greek ''theos'' (Θεός), "god"'','' attached to ''onoma'' (ὄνομα), "name") is the proper name of a deity.
Theonymy, the study of divine proper names, is a branch of onomastics (the study of the etymology, history, and u ...
s). Deity names as first components of personal names are attested primarily in Old Norse names, where they commonly reference in particular the god
Thor
Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, ...
(Old Norse ).
Poetry and legend
The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples were a largely
oral culture
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985) ...
. Written literature in Germanic languages is not recorded until the 6th century (
Gothic Bible
The Gothic Bible or Wulfila Bible is the Christian Bible in the Gothic language spoken by the Eastern Germanic (Goths, Gothic) tribes in the early Middle Ages.
The translation was allegedly made by the Arianism, Arian bishop and missionary U ...
) or the 8th century in modern England and Germany. The philologist
Andreas Heusler
Andreas Heusler (10 August 1865 – 28 February 1940) was a Swiss philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. He was a Professor of Germanic Philology at the University of Berlin and a renowned authority on early Germanic literature.
Life
...
proposed the existence of various genres of literature in the "Old Germanic" period, which were largely based on genres found in high medieval
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
poetry. These include ritual poetry, epigrammatic poetry (), memorial verses (), lyric, narrative poetry, and praise poetry.
Heinrich Beck suggests that, on the basis of Latin mentions in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the following genres can be adduced:
origo gentis
In medieval studies, an ''origo gentis'' is the origin story of a '' gens'' (people). It is not a literary genre of its own, but it is a part of quite extensive works that describe, for example, the history of the respective people. They can also ...
(the origin of a people or their rulers), the fall of heroes (), praise poetry, and laments for the dead.
Some stylistic aspects of later Germanic poetry appear to have origins in the
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
period, as shown by comparison with ancient Greek and Sanskrit poetry. Originally, the Germanic-speaking peoples shared a metrical and poetic form,
alliterative verse
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...
, which is attested in very similar forms in Old Saxon,
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old Hig ...
and
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
, and in a modified form in
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
. Alliterative verse is not attested in the small extant
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
corpus. The poetic forms diverge among the different languages from the 9th century onward.
Later Germanic peoples shared a common
legendary tradition. These heroic legends mostly involve historical personages who lived during the
migration period
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
(4th–6th centuries AD), placing them in highly ahistorical and mythologized settings; they originate and develop as part of an
oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
. Some early Gothic heroic legends are already found in
Jordanes
Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Goths, Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history (''Romana ...
' ''Getica'' (c. 551). The close link between Germanic heroic legend and Germanic language and possibly poetic devices is shown by the fact that the Germanic speakers in
Francia
Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks dur ...
who adopted a Romance language, do not preserve Germanic legends but rather developed their own heroic folklore—excepting the figure of
Walter of Aquitaine
Walter or Walther of Aquitaine is a king of the Visigoths in Germanic heroic legend.
Epic poetry
Walter figures in several epic poems and narratives dealing with Germanic heroic legend in medieval languages:
* ''Waldere'', a fragment of an Ol ...
.
Germanic law
![Bracteate from Funen, Denmark (DR BR42)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Bracteate_from_Funen%2C_Denmark_%28DR_BR42%29.jpg)
Until the middle of the 20th century, the majority of scholars assumed the existence of a distinct Germanic legal culture and law. Early ideas about Germanic law have come under intense scholarly scrutiny since the 1950s, and specific aspects of it such as the legal importance of ''
sibb
''Sippe'' is German for " clan, kindred, extended family" ( Frisian ''Sibbe'', Norse ''Sifjar'').
It continues a Proto-Germanic term ''*sebjō'', which referred to a band or confederation bound by a treaty or oath, not primarily restricted to bl ...
'', retinues, and loyalty, and the concept of outlawry can no longer be justified. Besides the assumption of a common Germanic legal tradition and the use of sources of different types from different places and time periods, there are no native sources for early Germanic law. The earliest written legal sources, the ''Leges Barbarorum'', were all written under Roman and Christian influence and often with the help of Roman jurists, and contain large amounts of "Vulgar Latin Law", an unofficial legal system that functioned in the Roman provinces.
Although Germanic law never appears to have been a competing system to Roman law, it is possible that Germanic "modes of thought" () still existed, with important elements being an emphasis on
orality
Orality is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition.
The term "ora ...
, gesture, formulaic language, legal symbolism, and ritual. Some items in the "Leges", such as the use of vernacular words, may reveal aspects of originally Germanic, or at least non-Roman, law. Legal historian Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand writes that this vernacular, often in the form of Latinized words, belongs to "the oldest layers of a Germanic legal language" and shows some similarities to Gothic.
Warfare
![Column of Marcus Aurelius - detail4](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Column_of_Marcus_Aurelius_-_detail4.jpg)
Warfare seems to have been a constant in Germanic society, including conflicts among and within Germanic peoples. There is no common Germanic word for "war", and it was not necessarily differentiated from other forms of violence. Historical information on Germanic warfare almost entirely depends on Greco-Roman sources, however their accuracy has been questioned. The core of the army was formed by the
comitatus
''Comitatus'' was in ancient times the Latin term for an armed escort or retinue. The term is used especially in the context of Germanic warrior culture for a warband tied to a leader by an oath of fealty and describes the relations between a lor ...
(retinue), a group of warriors following a chief. As retinues grew larger, their names could become associated with entire peoples. Many retinues functioned as
auxilia
The (, lit. "auxiliaries") were introduced as non-citizen troops attached to the citizen legions by Augustus after his reorganisation of the Imperial Roman army from 30 BC. By the 2nd century, the Auxilia contained the same number of inf ...
(mercenary units in the Roman army).
Roman sources stress, perhaps partially as a
literary topos
In classical Greek rhetoric, topos, ''pl.'' topoi, (from grc, τόπος "place", elliptical for grc, τόπος κοινός ''tópos koinós'', 'common place'), in Latin ''locus'' (from ''locus communis''), refers to a method for developing ar ...
, that the Germanic peoples fought without discipline. Germanic warriors fought mostly on foot, in tight formations in close combat. Tacitus mentions a single formation as used by the ''Germani'', the wedge ( la, cuneus). Cavalry was rare: in the Roman period, it mostly consisted of chiefs and their immediate retinues, who may have dismounted to fight. However, East Germanic peoples such as the Goths developed cavalry forces armed with lances due to contact with various nomadic peoples. Archaeological finds, mostly in the form of grave goods, indicate that most warriors were armed with spear, shield, and often with swords. Higher status individuals were often buried with spurs for riding. The only archaeological evidence for helmets and
chain mail
Chain mail (properly called mail or maille but usually called chain mail or chainmail) is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. It was in common military use between the 3rd century BC and ...
shows them to be of Roman manufacture.
Economy and material culture
Agriculture and population density
Unlike agriculture in the Roman provinces, which was organized around the large farms known as
villae rusticae
Villa rustica () was the term used by the ancient Romans to denote a farmhouse or villa set in the countryside and with an agricultural section, which applies to the vast majority of Roman villas. In some cases they were at the centre of a large ...
, Germanic agriculture was organized around villages. When Germanic peoples expanded into Northern Gaul in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, they brought this village-based agriculture with them, which increased the agricultural productivity of the land;
Heiko Steuer
Heiko Steuer (born 30 October 1939) is a German archaeologist, notable for his research into social and economic history in early Europe. He serves as co-editor of Germanische Altertumskunde Online.
Career
Heiko Steuer was born on 30 October, 1 ...
suggests this means that Germania was more agriculturally productive than is generally assumed. Villages were not distant from each other but often within sight, revealing a fairly high population density, and contrary to the assertions of Roman sources, only about 30% of Germania was covered in forest, about the same percentage as today.
Based on pollen samples and the finds of seeds and plant remains, the chief grains cultivated in Germania were barley, oats, and wheat (both
Einkorn
Einkorn wheat (from German ''Einkorn'', literally "single grain") can refer either to a wild species of wheat (''Triticum'') or to its domesticated form. The wild form is '' T. boeoticum'' (syn. ''T. m.'' ssp. ''boeoticum''), the domesticated ...
and
emmer
Emmer wheat or hulled wheat is a type of awned wheat. Emmer is a tetraploid (4''n'' = 4''x'' = 28 chromosomes). The domesticated types are ''Triticum turgidum'' subsp. ''dicoccum'' and ''Triticum turgidum ''conv.'' durum''. The wild plant is ...
), while the most common vegetables were beans and peas. Flax was also grown. Agriculture in Germania relied heavily on animal husbandry, primarily the raising of cattle, which were smaller than their Roman counterparts Both cultivation and animal husbandry methods improved with time, with examples being the introduction of rye, which grew better in Germania, and the introduction of the
three-field system
The three-field system is a regime of crop rotation in which a field is planted with one set of crops one year, a different set in the second year, and left fallow in the third year. A set of crops is ''rotated'' from one field to another. The tec ...
.
Crafts
It is unclear if there was a special class of craftsmen in Germania, however archaeological finds of tools are frequent. Many everyday items such as dishes were made out of wood, and archaeology has found the remains of wooden well construction. The 4th-century CE Nydam and Illerup ships show highly developed knowledge of ship construction, while elite graves have revealed wooden furniture with complex
joinery
Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining pieces of wood, engineered lumber, or synthetic substitutes (such as laminate), to produce more complex items. Some woodworking joints employ mechanical fasteners, bindings, or adhesives, ...
. Products made from ceramics included cooking, drinking, and storage, vessels, as well as lamps. While originally formed by hand, the period around 1 CE saw the introduction of the
potter's wheel
In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping (known as throwing) of clay into round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess clay from leather-hard dried ware that is stiff but malleable, a ...
. Some of the ceramics produced on potter's wheels seem to have been done in direct imitation of Roman wares, and may have been produced by Romans in Germania or by ''Germani'' who had learned Roman techniques while serving in the Roman army. The shape and decoration of Germanic ceramics vary by region and archaeologists have traditionally used these variations to determine larger cultural areas. Many ceramics were probably produced locally in hearths, but large pottery kilns have also been discovered, and it seems clear that there were areas of specialized production.
Metalworking
![Viking gold necklace2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Viking_gold_necklace2.jpg)
Despite the claims of Roman writers such as Tacitus that the ''Germani'' had little iron and lacked expertise in working it, deposits of iron were commonly found in Germania and Germanic smiths were skillful metalworkers. Smithies are known from multiple settlements, and smiths were often buried with their tools. An iron mine discovered at Rudki, in the
Łysogóry mountains of modern central Poland, operated from the 1st to the 4th centuries CE and included a substantial smelting workshop; similar facilities have been found in Bohemia. The remains of large smelting operations have been discovered by
Ribe
Ribe () is a town in south-west Jutland, Denmark, with a population of 8,257 (2022). It is the seat of the Diocese of Ribe covering southwestern Jutland. Until 1 January 2007, Ribe was the seat of both a surrounding Ribe Municipality, municipali ...
in Jutland (4th to 6th century CE), as well as at Glienick in northern Germany and at
Heeten
Raalte () is a municipality and a town in the heart of the region of Salland in the Dutch province of Overijssel.
Population centres
The municipality consists of the following towns and villages. Raalte is the main place of the municipality, w ...
in the Netherlands (both 4th century CE). Germanic smelting furnaces may have produced metal that was as high-quality as that produced by the Romans. In addition to large-scale production, nearly every individual settlement seems to have produced some iron for local use. Iron was used for agricultural tools, tools for various crafts, and for weapons.
Lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
was needed in order to make molds and for the production of jewelry, however it is unclear if the ''Germani'' were able to produce lead. While lead mining is known from within the
Siegerland
The Siegerland is a region of Germany covering the old district of Siegen (now part of the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in North Rhine-Westphalia) and the upper part of the district of Altenkirchen, belonging to the Rhineland-Palatinate adjoin ...
across the Rhine from the Roman Empire, it is sometimes theorized that this was the work of Roman miners. Another mine within Germania was near modern
Soest, where again it is theorized that lead was exported to Rome. The neighboring Roman provinces of
Germania superior
Germania Superior ("Upper Germania") was an imperial province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of today's western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany. Important cities were Besançon ('' Vesontio' ...
and
Germania inferior
Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed Germania Secunda in the fourth century, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Agrippin ...
produced a great deal of lead, which has been found stamped as ("Germanic lead") in Roman shipwrecks.
Deposits of gold are not found naturally within Germania and had to either be imported or could be found having naturally washed down rivers. The earliest known gold objects made by Germanic craftsmen are mostly small ornaments dating from the later 1st century CE. Silver working likewise dates from the first century CE, and silver often served as a decorative element with other metals. From the 2nd century onward, increasingly complex gold jewelry was made, often inlaid with precious stones and in a
polychrome style
Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of t ...
. Inspired by Roman metalwork, Germanic craftsmen also began working with gold and silver-gilt foils on belt buckles, jewelry, and weapons. Pure gold objects produced in the late Roman period included
torc
A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large rigid or stiff neck ring in metal, made either as a single piece or from strands twisted together. The great majority are open at the front, although some had hook and ring closures and a few had ...
s with snakeheads, often displaying
filigree
Filigree (also less commonly spelled ''filagree'', and formerly written ''filigrann'' or ''filigrene'') is a form of intricate metalwork used in jewellery and other small forms of metalwork.
In jewellery, it is usually of gold and silver, ma ...
and
cloisonné
Cloisonné () is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects with colored material held in place or separated by metal strips or wire, normally of gold. In recent centuries, vitreous enamel has been used, but inlays of cut gemstones, ...
work, techniques that dominated throughout Germanic Europe.
Clothing and textiles
![Thorsberg Trousers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Thorsberg_Trousers.jpg)
Clothing does not generally preserve well archaeologically. Early Germanic clothing is shown on some Roman stone monuments such as
Trajan's Column
Trajan's Column ( it, Colonna Traiana, la, Columna Traiani) is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Ap ...
and the
Column of Marcus Aurelius
The Column of Marcus Aurelius ( la, Columna Centenaria Divorum Marci et Faustinae, it, Colonna di Marco Aurelio) is a Roman victory column in Piazza Colonna, Rome, Italy. It is a Doric column featuring a spiral relief: it was built in honour of ...
, and is occasionally discovered in finds from in
moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or ...
, mostly from Scandinavia. Frequent finds include long trousers, sometimes including connected stockings, shirt-like gowns () with long sleeves, large pieces of cloth, and capes with fur on the inside. All of these are thought to be male clothing, while finds of tubular garments are thought to be female clothing. These would have reached to the ankles and would likely have been held in place by brooches at the height of the shoulders, as shown on Roman monuments. On Roman depictions, the dress was gathered below the breast or at the waist, and there are frequently no sleeves. Sometimes a blouse or skirt is depicted below the dress, along with a neckerchief around the throat. By the middle of the 5th century CE, both men and women among the continental Germanic peoples came to wear a Roman-style
tunic
A tunic is a garment for the body, usually simple in style, reaching from the shoulders to a length somewhere between the hips and the knees. The name derives from the Latin ''tunica'', the basic garment worn by both men and women in Ancient Rome ...
as their most important piece of clothing. This was secured at the waist and likely adopted due to intensive contact with the Roman world. The Romans typically depict Germanic men and women as bareheaded, although some head-coverings have been found. Although Tacitus mentions an undergarment made of linen, no examples of these have been found.
Surviving examples indicate that Germanic textiles were of high quality and mostly made of
flax
Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...
and
wool
Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool.
As ...
. Roman depictions show the Germani wearing materials that were only lightly worked. Surviving examples indicate that a variety of weaving techniques were used. Leather was used for shoes, belts, and other gear.
Spindles, sometimes made of glass or amber, and the weights from
loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but th ...
s and
distaff
A distaff (, , also called a rock"Rock." ''The Oxford English Dictionary''. 2nd ed. 1989.), is a tool used in spinning. It is designed to hold the unspun fibers, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. It is most commonly use ...
s are frequently found in Germanic settlements.
Trade
![Athena-Schale Hildesheimer Silberfund](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Athena-Schale_Hildesheimer_Silberfund.jpg)
Archaeology shows that from at least the turn of the 3rd century CE larger regional settlements in Germania existed that were not exclusively involved in an agrarian economy, and that the main settlements were connected by paved roads. The entirety of Germania was within a system of long-distance trade. Migration-period seaborne trade is suggested by
Gudme
Gudme is a town in central Denmark with a population of 907 (1 January 2022), located in Svendborg municipality on the island of Funen in Region of Southern Denmark. Until 1 January 2007, it was the site of the municipal council of the now form ...
on the Danish island of
Funen
Funen ( da, Fyn, ), with an area of , is the third-largest island of Denmark, after Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy. It is the 165th-largest island in the world. It is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 469,947 as of ...
and other harbors on the Baltic.
Roman trade with Germania is poorly documented. Roman merchants crossing the Alps for Germania are recorded already by Caesar in the 1st century BCE. During the imperial period, most trade probably took place in trading posts in Germania or at major Roman bases. The most well-known Germanic export to the Roman Empire was amber, with a trade centered on the Baltic coast. Economically, however, amber is likely to have been fairly unimportant. The use of Germanic loanwords in surviving Latin texts suggests that besides amber (), the Romans also imported the feathers of Germanic geese () and hair dye (). Germanic slaves were also a major commodity. Archaeological discoveries indicate that lead was exported from Germania as well, perhaps mined in Roman-Germanic "joint ventures".
Products imported from Rome are found archaeologically throughout the Germanic sphere and include vessels of bronze and silver, glassware, pottery, brooches; other products such as textiles and foodstuffs may have been just as important. Rather than mine and smelt
non-ferrous metal
In metallurgy, non-ferrous metals are metals or alloys that do not contain iron (allotropes of iron, ferrite, and so on) in appreciable amounts.
Generally more costly than ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals are used because of desirable proper ...
s themselves, Germanic smiths seem to have often preferred to melt down finished metal objects from Rome, which were imported in large numbers, including coins, metal vessels, and metal statues. Tacitus mentions in ''Germania'' chapter 23 that the Germani living along the Rhine bought wine, and Roman wine has been found in Denmark and northern Poland. Find of Roman silver coinage and weapons might have been war booty or the result of trade, while high quality silver items may have been diplomatic gifts. Roman coinage may have acted as a form of currency as well.
Genetics
The use of genetic studies to investigate the Germanic past is controversial, with scholars such as
Guy Halsall
Guy Halsall (born 1964) is an English historian and academic, specialising in Early Medieval Europe. He is currently based at the University of York, and has published a number of books, essays, and articles on the subject of early medieval histo ...
suggesting it could represent a hearkening back to 19th-century ideas of race.
Sebastian Brather
Sebastian Brather (born 28 June 1964) is a German medieval archaeologist and co-editor of '' Germanische Altertumskunde Online''.
Career
Brather received his PhD in archaeology from the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1995 with a thesis '' Fe ...
,
Wilhelm Heizmann
Wilhelm Heizmann (born 5 September 1953) is a German philologist who is Professor and Chair of the Institute for Nordic Philology at the University of Munich. Heizmann specializes in Germanic studies, and is a co-editor of the ''Germanische Alte ...
, and
Steffen Patzold
Steffen Patzold (born 1 September 1972) is a German historian. Patzold is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Tübingen and specializes in the study of the study of political and religious history of the Carolingian Empire.
Biograp ...
write that genetics studies are of great use for demographic history, but cannot give us any information about cultural history. In a 2013 book which reviewed studies made up until then, scholars noted that most Germanic speakers today have a
Y-DNA
The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...
that is a mixture
haplogroup I1
Haplogroup I-M253, also known as I1, is a Y chromosome haplogroup. The genetic markers confirmed as identifying I-M253 are the SNPs M253,M307.2/P203.2, M450/S109, P30, P40, L64, L75, L80, L81, L118, L121/S62, L123, L124/S64, L125/S65, L157.1, L1 ...
,
R1a1a,
R1b-P312 and
R1b-U106; however, the authors also note that these groups are older than Germanic languages and found among speakers of other languages.
Modern reception
The rediscovery of Tacitus's ''Germania'' in the 1450s was used by German
humanists
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humanis ...
to claim a glorious classical past for their nation that could compete with that of Greece and Rome, and to equate the "Germanic" with the "German". While the humanists' notion of the "Germanic" was initially vague, later it was narrowed and used to support a notion of German(ic) superiority to other nations. Equally important was
Jordanes
Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Goths, Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history (''Romana ...
's ''
Getica
''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae oths'), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'', written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of th ...
'', rediscovered by
Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini
Pope Pius II ( la, Pius PP. II, it, Pio II), born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini ( la, Aeneas Silvius Bartholomeus, links=no; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 August ...
in the mid-15th century and first printed in 1515 by
Konrad Peutinger
Conrad Peutinger (14 October 1465 – 28 December 1547) was a German humanist, jurist, diplomat, politician, economist and archaeologist (serving as Emperor Maximilian I's chief archaeological adviser). A senior official in the municipal governme ...
, which depicted Scandinavia as the "womb of nations" ( la, vagina nationum) from which all the historical northeastern European barbarians migrated in the distant past. While treated with suspicion by German scholars, who preferred the indigenous origin given by Tacitus, this motif became very popular in contemporary Swedish
Gothicism
Gothicism or Gothism ( sv, Göticism ; la, Gothicismus) was a cultural movement in Sweden, centered on the belief in the glory of the Swedish Geats, who were identified with the Goths. The founders of the movement were Nicolaus Ragvaldi and th ...
, as it supported Sweden's imperial ambitions. Peutinger printed the ''Getica'' together with
Paul the Deacon
Paul the Deacon ( 720s 13 April in 796, 797, 798, or 799 AD), also known as ''Paulus Diaconus'', ''Warnefridus'', ''Barnefridus'', or ''Winfridus'', and sometimes suffixed ''Cassinensis'' (''i.e.'' "of Monte Cassino"), was a Benedictine monk, s ...
's ''History of the Lombards'', so that the ''Germania'', the ''Getica'', and the ''History of the Lombards'' formed the basis for the study of the Germanic past. Scholars did not clearly differentiate between the Germanic peoples, Celtic peoples, and the "Scythian peoples" until the late 18th century with the discovery of
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
and the establishment of language as the primary criterion for nationality. Before that time, German scholars considered the Celtic peoples to be part of the Germanic group.
The beginning of
Germanic philology
Germanic philology is the philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a comparative or historical perspective.
The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, with the discovery of literary tex ...
proper starts around the turn of the 19th century, with
Jacob
Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...
and
Wilhelm Grimm
Wilhelm Carl Grimm (also Karl; 24 February 178616 December 1859) was a German author and anthropologist, and the younger brother of Jacob Grimm, of the literary duo the Brothers Grimm.
Life and work
Wilhelm was born in February 1786 in Hanau, in ...
being the two most significant founding figures. Their oeuvre included various monumental works on linguistics, culture, and literature. Jacob Grimm offered many arguments identifying the
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
as the "most Germanic" of the Germanic-speaking peoples, many of which were taken up later by others who sought to equate "Germanicness" (german: Germanentum) with "Germanness" (german: Deutschtum). Grimm also argued that the Scandinavian sources were, while much later, more "pure" attestations of "Germanness" than those from the south, an opinion that remains common today. German
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
thinkers of the
völkisch movement placed a great emphasis on the connection of modern Germans to the ''Germania'' using Tacitus to prove the purity and virtue of the German people, which had allowed them to conquer the decadent Romans. German historians used the Germanic past to argue for a
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
, democratic form of government and a unified German state. Contemporary
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...
in Scandinavia placed more weight on the
Viking Age
The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...
, resulting in the movement known as
Scandinavism
Scandinavism ( da, skandinavisme; no, skandinavisme; sv, skandinavism), also called Scandinavianism or pan-Scandinavianism,[Gustaf Kossinna
Gustaf Kossinna (28 September 1858 – 20 December 1931) was a German philologist and archaeologist who was Professor of German Archaeology at the University of Berlin.
Along with Carl Schuchhardt he was the most influential German prehisto ...](_blank)
developed several widely accepted theories tying archaeological finds of specific assemblages of objects. Kossina used his theories to extend Germanic identity back to the
Neolithic period
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
and to state with confidence when and where various Germanic and other peoples had migrated within Europe. In the 1930s and 40s, the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
made use of notions of Germanic "purity" reaching back into the earliest prehistoric times. Nazi ideologues also used the "Germanic" nature of peoples such as the Franks and Goths to justify territorial annexations in northern France, Ukraine, and the Crimea. Scholars reinterpreted Germanic culture to justify the Nazis' rule as anchored in the Germanic past, emphasizing noble leaders and warlike retinues who dominated surrounding peoples. After 1945, these associations led to a scholarly backlash and re-examining of Germanic origins. Many medieval specialists have even demanded that scholars avoid the term ''Germanic'' altogether since it is too emotionally charged, adding that it has been politically abused and creates more confusion than clarity.
See also
*
List of Germanic peoples
This list of ancient Germanic peoples is an inventory of ancient Germanic cultures, tribal groupings and other alliances of Germanic tribes and civilisations in ancient times. The information comes from various ancient historical documents, beginn ...
Notes
References
Citations
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* Looijenga, Tineke. 2020
"Germanic: Runes"in ''Palaeohispánica'' 20, pp. 819–853. Institucion Fernando el Catolico de la Excma. ISSN 1578-5386.
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* Macháček, Jiří, et al. 2021
"Runes from Lány (Czech Republic) – The oldest inscription among Slavs. A new standard for multidisciplinary analysis of runic bones"in ''
Journal of Archaeological Science
The ''Journal of Archaeological Science'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal that covers "the development and application of scientific techniques and methodologies to all areas of archaeology". The journal was established in 1974 by Aca ...
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External links
Classical and medieval sources
Agathias, ''Histories''Bede, ''Ecclesiastical history of England''in LatinCaesar, ''De Bello Gallico''Cicero, ''Against Piso''Dio Cassius, ''Roman History''Jordanes, ''Getica''Titus Livy, ''History of Rome''Paul the Deacon, ''History of the Langobards''Pliny the Elder, ''Natural Histories''Pomponius Mela, Description of the WorldProcopius, ''Gothic War''Ptolemy, ''Geography''Strabo, ''Geography''Suetonius, ''12 Caesars''Tacitus, ''Germania''Tacitus, ''The History''
{{Authority control
2nd-millennium BC establishments
Indo-European peoples