The Ingaevones () or Ingvaeones () were a Germanic cultural group living in the Northern

Germania Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superio ...

along the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

coast in the areas of

Jutland Jutland (; , ''Jyske Halvø'' or ''Cimbriske Halvø''; , ''Kimbrische Halbinsel'' or ''Jütische Halbinsel'') is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein). It ...

, Holstein, and

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

. Tribes in this area included the Angles, Chauci,

Saxons The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

, and

Jutes The Jutes ( ) were one of the Germanic people, Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the end of Roman rule in Britain, departure of the Roman Britain, Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic na ...

. The name is transmitted in two different forms in ancient sources:

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. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

provides the form , while

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

has . Most scholars derive the name from the god or hero attested under the name

Yngvi Old Norse Yngvi , Old High German Ing/Ingwi and Old English Ing are names that relate to a Lists of deities, theonym which appears to have been the older List of names of Freyr, name for the god Freyr. Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic Ingw ...

in later Norse sources, and thus believe Pliny's form is the original one. Hence the postulated common group of closely related dialects of the "Ingvaeones" is called

Ingvaeonic North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic ( ), is a subgrouping of West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants. These languages share a number of commonalities, such as a single pl ...

or North Sea Germanic. Tacitus' source categorized the ''Ingaevones near the ocean'' as one of the three tribal groups descended from the three sons of Mannus, son of Tuisto, progenitor of all the Germanic peoples, the other two being the ''

Irminones The Irminones, also referred to as Herminones or Hermiones (), were a large group of early Germanic tribes settling in the Elbe watershed and by the first century AD expanding into Bavaria, Swabia, and Bohemia. Notably this included the large sub ...

'' and the '' Istaevones''. According to the speculations of Rafael von Uslar, this threefold subdivision of the West Germanic tribes corresponds to archeological evidence from

late antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

. Pliny ''ca'' AD 80 in his ''

Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

''
IV.28
lists the Ingaevones as one of the five Germanic races, the others being the '' Vandili'', the '' Istvaeones'', the '' Hermiones'' and the

Bastarnae The Bastarnae, Bastarni or Basternae, also known as the Peuci or Peucini, were an ancient people who are known from Greek and Roman records to have inhabited areas north and east of the Carpathian Mountains between about 300 BC and about 300 AD, ...

. According to him, the Ingaevones were made up of Cimbri,

Teutons The Teutons (, ; ) 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 the Roman Republic in the late seco ...

and Chauci. Blaeu 1645 - Germaniae veteris typus

Ing, the legendary father of the Ingaevones/Ingvaeones derives his name from a posited proto-Germanic ''* Ingwaz'', as Ing, Ingo or Inguio, son of Mannus. This is also the name applied to the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

deity

Freyr Freyr (Old Norse: 'Lord'), sometimes anglicized as Frey, is a widely attested Æsir, god in Norse mythology, associated with kingship, fertility, peace, prosperity, fair weather, and good harvest. Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was ...

, known in Sweden as ''

'' and mentioned as Yngvi-Freyr in

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

's ''

Ynglinga saga ''Ynglinga saga'' ( ) is a Kings' sagas, Kings' saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelanders, Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It is the first section of his ''Heimskringla''. It was first translated into Engl ...

''.

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...

, in his ''Teutonic Mythology'' considers this Ing to have been originally identical to the obscure Scandinavian

, eponymous ancestor of the Swedish royal house of the ''

Yngling The Ynglings were a dynasty of kings, first in Sweden and later in Norway, primarily attested through the poem ''Ynglingatal''. The dynasty also appears as Scylfings (, ) in ''Beowulf''. When ''Beowulf'' and ''Ynglingatal'' were composed sometime ...

a'', the "Inglings" or sons of Ing. Ing appears in the set of verses composed about the 9th century and printed under the title '' The Old English Rune Poem'' by George Hickes in 1705: Ing wæs ærest mid Est-Denum Gesewen secgum, oþ he siððan est Ofer wæg gewat; wæn æfter ran; Þus heardingas þone hæle nemdun. An Ingui is also listed in the Anglo-Saxon royal house of

Bernicia Bernicia () was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England. The Anglian territory of Bernicia was approximately equivalent to the modern English cou ...

and was probably once seen as the progenitor of all Anglian kings.Grigsby 2005:99. Since the Ingaevones form the bulk of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain, they were speculated by Noah Webster to have given England its name, and Grigsby remarks that on the continent "they formed part of the confederacy known as the 'friends of Ing' and in the new lands they migrated to in the 5th and 6th centuries. In time, they would name these lands Angle-land, and it is tempting to speculate that the word Angle was derived from, or thought of as a pun on, the name of Ing." According to the Trojan genealogy in the , ''Mannus'' becomes ''Alanus'' and ''Ing'', his son, becomes ''Neugio''. The three sons of Neugio are named Boguarus, Vandalus and Saxo—from whom came the peoples of the Boguarii (

Baiuvarii The Baiuvarii or Bavarii, sometimes simply called Bavarians (; ) were a Germanic people who lived in and near present-day southern Bavaria, which is named after them. They began to appear in records by the 6th century AD, and their culture, lang ...

), the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...

, the

and Taringi ( Thuringii). This account comes to the ''Historia'' by way of the 6th-century Frankish Table of Nations, which borrows directly from Tacitus..

Notes

References

* Grimm, Jacob (1835). ''Deutsche Mythologie'' (German Mythology); From English released version ''Grimm's Teutonic Mythology'' (1888); Available online by Northvegr 2004-200
Chapter 15, page 2

3
File retrieved 09-26-2007. * * Sonderegger, Stefan (1979): ''Grundzüge deutscher Sprachgeschichte. Diachronie des Sprachsystems. Band I: Einführung – Genealogie – Konstanten.'' Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. * Tacitus. ''

'' (1st century AD). (in Latin) {{Authority control Early Germanic peoples Pre-Roman Iron Age North Sea Germanic

See also

Notes

References