Английская Википедия:Germanic peoples
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Distinguish Шаблон:Redirect Шаблон:Use dmy dates
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia 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 languages 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".Шаблон:Sfn The Romans named the area belonging to North-Central Europe in which Germanic peoples lived Germania, stretching east to west between the Vistula and Rhine rivers and north to south from southern Scandinavia to the upper Danube.Шаблон:Sfn 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. The very concept of "Germanic peoples" has become the subject of controversy among contemporary scholars.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn While several historians and archaeologists continue to use the term "Germanic peoples" to refer to historical people groups from the 1st to 4th centuries CE, the term is no longer used by most historians and archaeologists for the period around the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages.Шаблон:Sfn
Scholars generally agree that it is possible to refer to Germanic-speaking peoples after 500 BCE.Шаблон:Sfn Archaeologists usually connect the early Germanic peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age, 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 led to recognizably Germanic languages.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn From northern Germany and southern Scandinavia, the Germanic peoples expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with the Celtic, Iranic, Baltic, 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 (27 BCE–14 CE), 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 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. From 166 to 180 CE, Rome was embroiled in a conflict against the Germanic Marcomanni, Quadi, and many other peoples known as the Marcomannic Wars. The wars reordered the Germanic frontier, and afterwards, new Germanic peoples appear for the first time in the historical record, such as the Franks, Goths, Saxons, and Alemanni. During the Migration Period (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 claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor 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, they varied throughout the territory occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples. Over the course of Late Antiquity, most continental Germanic peoples and the Anglo-Saxons of Britain converted to Christianity, but the Saxons and Scandinavians converted only much later. The Germanic peoples shared a native script from around the first century or before, the runes, which was gradually replaced with the Latin script, 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 feuding 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) but that they also had kings and war leaders. The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples probably shared a common poetic tradition, alliterative verse, and later Germanic peoples also shared legends originating in the Migration Period.
The publishing of Tacitus's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced the emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the Romantic period, such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by romantic nationalism. 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, 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 Шаблон:Lang, from which Latin Шаблон:Lang and English Germanic are derived, is unknown, although several proposals have been put forward. Even the language from which it derives is a subject of dispute, with proposals of Germanic, Celtic, and Latin, and Illyrian origins.Шаблон:Sfn Herwig Wolfram, for example, thinks Шаблон:Lang must be Gaulish.Шаблон:Sfn The historian Wolfgang Pfeifer more or less concurs with Wolfram and surmises that the name Шаблон:Lang is likely of Celtic etymology and is related to the Old Irish word Шаблон:Lang ('neighbours') or could be tied to the Celtic word for their war cries, Шаблон:Lang, which simplifies into 'the neighbours' or 'the screamers'.Шаблон:Sfn Regardless of its language of origin, the name was transmitted to the Romans via Celtic speakers.Шаблон:Sfn
It is unclear that any people group ever referred to themselves as Germani.Шаблон:Sfn By late antiquity, only peoples near the Rhine, especially the Franks and sometimes the Alemanni, were called Germani by Latin or Greek writers.Шаблон:Sfn Germani subsequently ceased to be used as a name for any group of people and was revived as such only by the humanists in the 16th century.Шаблон:Sfn Previously, scholars during the Carolingian period (8th–11th centuries) had already begun using Germania and Germanicus in a territorial sense to refer to East Francia.Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn In modern German, the ancient Germani are referred to as Шаблон:Lang and Germania as Шаблон:Lang, as distinct from modern Germans (Шаблон:Lang) and modern Germany (Шаблон:Lang). The direct equivalents in English are, however, Germans for Germani and Germany for GermaniaШаблон:Sfn although the Latin Шаблон:Lang is also used. To avoid ambiguity, the Germani may instead be called "ancient Germans" or Germani by using the Latin term in English.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
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. Linguistics provided a new way of defining the Germanic peoples, which came to be used in historiography and archaeology.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn 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 (Шаблон:Lang) with a stable group identity linked to language. As a result, some scholars treat the Шаблон:Lang (Latin) or Шаблон:Lang (Greek) of Roman-era sources as non-Germanic if they seemingly spoke non-Germanic languages.Шаблон:Sfn For clarity, Germanic peoples, when defined as "speakers of a Germanic language", are sometimes referred to as "Germanic-speaking peoples".Шаблон:Sfn 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".Шаблон:Sfn Several scholars continue to use the term to refer to a culture existing between the 1st to 4th centuries CE, but most historians and archaeologists researching Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages no longer use it.Шаблон:Sfn
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,Шаблон:Sfn especially among archaeologists and historians. Scholars have increasingly questioned the notion of ethnically defined people groups (Шаблон:Lang) as stable basic actors of history.Шаблон:Sfn The connection of archaeological assemblages to ethnicity has also been increasingly questioned.Шаблон:Sfn This has resulted in different disciplines developing different definitions of "Germanic".Шаблон:Sfn Beginning with the work of the "Toronto School" around Walter Goffart, 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.Шаблон:Sfn Historians of the Vienna School, such as Walter Pohl, have also called for the term to be avoided or used with careful explanation,Шаблон:Sfn and argued that there is little evidence for a common Germanic identity.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn Linguists and philologists have generally reacted skeptically to claims that there was no Germanic identity or cultural unity,Шаблон:Sfn and they may view Germanic simply as a long-established and convenient term.Шаблон:Sfn Some archaeologists have also argued in favor of retaining the term Germanic due to its broad recognizability.Шаблон:Sfn Archaeologist Heiko Steuer defines his own work on the Germani in geographical terms (covering Germania), rather than in ethnic terms.Шаблон:Sfn He nevertheless argues for some sense of shared identity between the Germani, noting the use of a common language, a common runic script, various common objects of material culture such as bracteates and gullgubber (small gold objects) and the confrontation with Rome as things that could cause a sense of shared "Germanic" culture.Шаблон:Sfn Despite being cautious of the use of Germanic to refer to peoples, Sebastian Brather, Wilhelm Heizmann and Steffen Patzold nevertheless refer to further commonalities such as the widely attested worship of deities such as Odin, Thor and Frigg, and a shared legendary tradition.Шаблон:Sfn
Classical terminology
The first author to describe the Germani as a large category of peoples distinct from the Gauls and Scythians was Julius Caesar, writing around 55 BCE during his governorship of Gaul.Шаблон:Sfn In Caesar's account, the clearest defining characteristic of the Germani people was that they lived east of the Rhine,Шаблон:Sfn opposite Gaul 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.Шаблон:Sfn He also classified the Cimbri and Teutons, peoples who had previously invaded Italy, as Germani, and examples of this threat to Rome.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn 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 Gaul, the Germani cisrhenani.Шаблон:Sfn It is unclear if these Germani were actually Germanic speakers.Шаблон:Sfn According to the Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania (c. 98 CE), it was among this group, specifically the Tungri, that the name Germani first arose, and was spread to further groups.Шаблон:Sfn Tacitus continues to mention Germanic tribes on the west bank of the Rhine in the period of the early Empire.Шаблон:Sfn Caesar's division of the Germani from the Celts was not taken up by most writers in Greek.Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn Pliny the Elder and Tacitus placed the eastern border at the Vistula.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn The geographer Ptolemy (2nd century CE) applied the name Germania magna ("Greater Germania", Шаблон:Lang-gr) to this area, contrasting it with the Roman provinces of Germania Prima and Germania Secunda (on the west bank of the Rhine).Шаблон:Sfn In modern scholarship, Germania magna is sometimes also called Шаблон:Lang ("free Germania"),Шаблон:Sfn a name coined by Jacob Grimm around 1835.Шаблон:Sfn
Caesar and, following him, Tacitus, depicted the Germani as sharing elements of a common culture.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Tacitus was at times unsure whether a people were Germanic or not, expressing his uncertainty about the Bastarnae, who he says looked like Sarmatians but spoke like the Germani, about the Osi and the Cotini, and about the Aesti, who were like Suebi but spoke a different language.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
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, Sarmatians, and Alans.Шаблон:Sfn Romans described these peoples, including those who did not speak a Germanic language, as "Gothic people" (Шаблон:Lang) and most often classified them as "Scythians".Шаблон:Sfn The writer Procopius, describing the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, and Gepids, derived the Gothic peoples from the ancient Getae and described them as sharing similar customs, beliefs, and a common language.Шаблон:Sfn
Subdivisions
Several ancient sources list subdivisions of the Germanic tribes. Writing in the first century CE, Pliny the Elder 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).Шаблон:Sfn 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);Шаблон:Sfn Tacitus says these groups each claimed descent from the god Mannus, son of Tuisto.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The Hermiones are also mentioned by Pomponius Mela, but otherwise, these divisions do not appear in other ancient works on the Germani.Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn While Pliny lists the Suebi as part of the Hermiones, Tacitus treats them as a separate group.Шаблон:Sfn Additionally, Tacitus's description of a group of tribes as united by the cult of Nerthus (Germania 40) as well as the cult of the Alcis controlled by the Nahanarvali (Germania 43) and Tacitus's account of the origin myth of the Semnones (Germania 39) all suggest different subdivisions than the three mentioned in Germania chapter 2.Шаблон:Sfn
The subdivisions found in Pliny and Tacitus have been very influential for scholarship on Germanic history and language up until recent times.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Additionally, there is no linguistic or archaeological evidence for these subgroups.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Languages
Proto-Germanic
All Germanic languages derive from the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), which is generally thought to have been spoken between 4500 and 2500 BCE.[1] The ancestor of Germanic languages is referred to as Proto- or Common Germanic,Шаблон:Sfn and likely represented a group of mutually intelligible dialects.Шаблон:Sfn They share distinctive characteristics which set them apart from other Indo-European sub-families of languages, such as Grimm's and Verner's law, the conservation of the PIE ablaut 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).[2] During the Pre-Germanic linguistic period (2500–500 BCE), the proto-language was almost certainly influenced by an unknown non-Indo-European language, still noticeable in the Germanic phonology and lexicon.[3]Шаблон:Efn
Although Proto-Germanic is reconstructed without dialects via the comparative method, it is almost certain that it never was a uniform proto-language.[4] 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.[5] 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Early attestations
Definite and comprehensive evidence of Germanic lexical units only occurred after Caesar's conquest of Gaul 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, are given by Tacitus as a Latinized form of Шаблон:Lang (a kind of 'stag'), and the word Шаблон:Lang ('hair dye') is certainly borrowed from Proto-Germanic Шаблон:Lang (English soap), as evidenced by the parallel Finnish loanword Шаблон:Lang.[6] The name of the framea, described by Tacitus as a short spear carried by Germanic warriors, most likely derives from the compound Шаблон:Lang ('forward-going one'), as suggested by comparable semantical structures found in early runes (e.g., raun-ij-az 'tester', on a lancehead) and linguistic cognates attested in the later Old Norse, Old Saxon and Old High German languages: Шаблон:Lang, Шаблон:Lang and Шаблон:Lang all mean 'to carry out'.Шаблон:Sfn
In the absence of earlier evidence, it must be assumed that Proto-Germanic speakers living in Germania were members of preliterate societies.[8] The only pre-Roman inscriptions that could be interpreted as Proto-Germanic, written in the Etruscan alphabet, have not been found in Germania but rather in the Venetic region. The inscription harikastiteiva\\\ip, engraved on the Negau helmet 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 (Шаблон:Lang 'army-guest' + Шаблон:Lang 'god, deity'), which could be an invocation to a war-god or a mark of ownership engraved by its possessor.[7] The inscription Fariarix (Шаблон:Lang 'ferry' + Шаблон:Lang 'ruler') carved on tetradrachms found in Bratislava (mid-1st c. BCE) may indicate the Germanic name of a Celtic ruler.Шаблон:Sfn
Linguistic disintegration
By the time Germanic speakers entered written history, their linguistic territory had stretched farther south, since a Germanic dialect continuum (where neighbouring language varieties diverged only slightly between each other, but remote dialects were not necessarily mutually intelligible due to accumulated differences over the distance) covered a region roughly located between the Rhine, the Vistula, the Danube, and southern Scandinavia during the first two centuries of the Common Era.[9] 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.[10]
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.[11] 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.Шаблон:Sfn The latter definitely ended after the 5th- and 6th-century migrations of Angles, Jutes and part of the Saxon tribes towards modern-day England.Шаблон:Sfn
Classification
The Germanic languages are traditionally divided between East, North and West Germanic branches.[12] The modern prevailing view is that North and West Germanic were also encompassed in a larger subgroup called Northwest Germanic.[13]
- Northwest Germanic: mainly characterized by the i-umlaut, and the shift of the long vowel *ē towards a long *ā in accented syllables;Шаблон:Sfn it remained a dialect continuum following the migration of East Germanic speakers in the 2nd–3rd century CE;[11]
- North Germanic or Primitive Norse: initially characterized by the monophthongization of the sound ai to ā (attested from ca. 400 BCE);[14] a uniform northern dialect or koiné attested in runic inscriptions from the 2nd century CE onward,Шаблон:Sfn it remained practically unchanged until a transitional period that started in the late 5th century;Шаблон:Sfn and Old Norse, a language attested by runic inscriptions written in the Younger Fuþark from the beginning of the Viking Age (8th–9th centuries CE);Шаблон:Sfn
- West Germanic: including Old Saxon (attested from the 5th c. CE), Old English (late 5th c.), Old Frisian (6th c.), Frankish (6th c.), Old High German (6th c.), and possibly Langobardic (6th c.), which is only scarcely attested;[15] they are mainly characterized by the loss of the final consonant -z (attested from the late 3rd century),Шаблон:Sfn and by the j-consonant gemination (attested from ca. 400 BCE);Шаблон:Sfn 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 dated to ca. 160–260 CE; West Germanic remained a "residual" dialect continuum until the Anglo-Saxon migrations in the 5th–6th centuries CE;Шаблон:Sfn
- East Germanic, of which only Gothic is attested by both runic inscriptions (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 in the early 8th century.Шаблон:Sfn The inclusion of the Burgundian and Vandalic languages within the East Germanic group, while plausible, is still uncertain due to their scarce attestation.Шаблон:Sfn The latest attested East Germanic language, Crimean Gothic, has been partially recorded in the 16th century.Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn
History
Prehistory
The Germanic-speaking peoples speak an Indo-European language. The leading theory for the origin of Germanic languages, suggested by archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence,[16] postulates a diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Pontic–Caspian steppe towards Northern Europe during the third millennium BCE, via linguistic contacts and migrations from the Corded Ware culture towards modern-day Denmark, resulting in cultural mixing with the earlier Funnelbeaker culture.[17]Шаблон:Efn The subsequent culture of the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 2000/1750-c. 500 BCE) shows definite cultural and population continuities with later Germanic peoples,Шаблон:Sfn and is often supposed to have been the culture in which the Germanic Parent Language, the predecessor of the Proto-Germanic language, developed.Шаблон:Sfn However, it is unclear whether these earlier peoples possessed any ethnic continuity with the later Germanic peoples.Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn Between around 500 BCE and the beginning of the common era, archeological and linguistic evidence suggest that the Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language, the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, was primarily situated in the southern Jutland peninsula, 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.[18]Шаблон:Efn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Alternatively, Шаблон:Interlanguage link has stressed that two other archaeological groups must have belonged to the Germani, one on either side of the Lower Rhine and reaching to the Weser, and another in Jutland and southern Scandinavia. These groups would thus show a "polycentric origin" for the Germanic peoples.Шаблон:Sfn The neighboring Przeworsk culture in modern Poland is thought to possibly reflect a Germanic and Slavic component.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn The identification of the Jastorf culture with the Germani has been criticized by Sebastian Brather, 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.Шаблон:Sfn
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 have preserved archaic forms (e.g. Finnic kuningas, from Proto-Germanic Шаблон:Lang 'king'; rengas, from Шаблон:Lang 'ring'; etc.),[19] 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.[20] Shared lexical innovations between Celtic and Germanic languages, concentrated in certain semantic domains such as religion and warfare, indicates intensive contacts between the Germani and Celtic peoples, usually identified with the archaeological La Tène culture, found in southern Germany and the modern Czech Republic.[21] Early contacts probably occurred during the Pre-Germanic and Pre-Celtic periods, dated to the 2nd millennium BCE,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Some evidence of linguistic convergence between Germanic and Italic languages, whose Urheimat is supposed to have been situated north of the Alps before the 1st millennium BCE, have also been highlighted by scholars.Шаблон:Sfn Shared changes in their grammars also suggest early contacts between Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages; 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 and Slavic languages, with the similarities to Slavic being seen as remnants of Indo-European archaisms or the result of secondary contacts.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn
Earliest recorded history
According to some authors the Bastarnae or Peucini were the first Germani to be encountered by the Greco-Roman world and thus to be mentioned in historical records.Шаблон:Sfn They appear in historical sources going back as far as the 3rd century BCE through the 4th century CE.Шаблон:Sfn Another eastern people known from about 200 BCE, and sometimes believed to be Germanic-speaking, are the Sciri (Greek: Шаблон:Lang), who are recorded threatening the city of Olbia on the Black Sea.Шаблон:Sfn Late in the 2nd century BCE, Roman and Greek sources recount the migrations of the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones whom Caesar later classified as Germanic.Шаблон:Sfn The movements of these groups through parts of Gaul, Italy and Hispania resulted in the Cimbrian War (113–101 BCE) against the Romans, in which the Teutons and Cimbri were victorious over several Roman armies but were ultimately defeated.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn In 63 BCE, Ariovistus, king of the Suevi and a host of other peoples,Шаблон:Sfn led a force across the Rhine into Gaul to aid the Sequani against their enemies the Aedui.Шаблон:Sfn The Suevi were victorious at the Battle of Magetobriga, and initially were considered an ally of Rome.Шаблон:Sfn The Aedui were Roman allies and Julius Caesar, the governor of the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul in 58 BCE, went to war with them,Шаблон:Sfn defeating Ariovistus at the Battle of Vosges.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Roman Imperial Period to 375
Early Roman Imperial period (27 BCE–166 CE)
Шаблон:Further 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.Шаблон:Sfn First came the pacification of the Usipetes, Sicambri, and Frisians near the Rhine, then attacks increased further from the Rhine, on the Chauci, Cherusci, Chatti and Suevi (including the Marcomanni).Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Once Tiberius subdued the Germanic people between the Rhine and the Elbe, the region at least up to Weser—and possibly up to the Elbe—was made the Roman province Germania and provided soldiers to the Roman army.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
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 of the Marcomanni,Шаблон:Efn who had led his people away from the Roman activities into Bohemia, 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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Just three years later (9 CE), the second of these Germanic figures, Arminius 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 at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.Шаблон:Sfn Marboduus and Arminius went to war with each other in 17 CE; Arminius was victorious and Marboduus was forced to flee to the Romans.Шаблон:Sfn
Following the Roman defeat at the Teutoburg Forest, Rome gave up on the possibility of fully integrating this region into the empire.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
In the wake of Arminius's death, Roman diplomats sought to keep the Germanic peoples divided and fractious.Шаблон:Sfn Rome established relationships with individual Germanic kings that are often discussed as being similar to client states; however, the situation on the border was always unstable, with rebellions by the Frisians in 28 CE, and attacks by the Chauci and Chatti in the 60s CE.Шаблон:Sfn The most serious threat to the Roman order was the Revolt of the Batavi in 69 CE, during the civil wars following the death of Nero known as the Year of the Four Emperors.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn The uprising was led by Gaius Julius Civilis, 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, who was victorious in the civil war.Шаблон:Sfn
The century after the Batavian Revolt saw mostly peace between the Germanic peoples and Rome. In 83 CE, Emperor Domitian of the Flavian dynasty attacked the Chatti north of Mainz (Mogontiacum).Шаблон:Sfn 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, the longest fortified border in the empire.Шаблон:Sfn The period afterwards was peaceful enough that the emperor Trajan reduced the number of soldiers on the frontier.Шаблон:Sfn According to Edward James, the Romans appear to have reserved the right to choose rulers among the barbarians on the frontier.Шаблон:Sfn
Marcomannic Wars to 375 CE
Шаблон:Further 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, beginning the Marcomannic Wars.Шаблон:Sfn By 168 (during the Antonine plague), barbarian hosts consisting of Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatian Iazyges, attacked and pushed their way to Italy.Шаблон:Sfn They advanced as far as Upper Italy, destroyed Opitergium/Oderzo and besieged Aquileia.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Marcus Aurelius's successor Commodus 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn These new confederacies or peoples tended to border the Roman imperial frontier.Шаблон:Sfn Many ethnic names from earlier periods disappear.Шаблон:Sfn The Alamanni emerged along the upper Rhine and are mentioned in Roman sources from the third century onward.Шаблон:Sfn The Goths begin to be mentioned along the lower Danube, where they attacked the city of Histria in 238.Шаблон:Sfn The Franks are first mentioned occupying territory between the Rhine and Weser.Шаблон:Sfn The Lombards seem to have moved their center of power to the central Elbe.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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 Saxon Shore, was established to deal with their raids.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
From 250 onward, the Gothic peoples formed the "single most potent threat to the northern frontier of Rome".Шаблон:Sfn In 250 CE a Gothic king Cniva led Goths with Bastarnae, Carpi, Vandals, and Taifali 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.Шаблон:Sfn In 253/254, further attacks occurred reaching Thessalonica and possibly Thrace.Шаблон:Sfn 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 was killed.Шаблон:Sfn
The Roman limes largely collapsed in 259/260,Шаблон:Sfn during the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284),Шаблон:Sfn and Germanic raids penetrated as far as northern Italy.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Migration Period (ca. 375–568)
The Migration Period is traditionally cited by historians as beginning in 375 CE, under the assumption that the appearance of the Huns prompted the Visigoths to seek shelter within the Roman Empire in 376.Шаблон:Sfn The end of the migration period is usually set at 568 when the Lombards invaded Italy. During this time period, numerous barbarian groups invaded the Roman Empire and established new kingdoms within its boundaries.Шаблон:Sfn These Germanic migrations traditionally mark the transition between antiquity and the beginning of the early Middle Ages.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Migrations were probably carried out by relatively small groups rather than entire peoples.Шаблон:Sfn
Early Migration Period (before 375–420)
The Greuthungi, a Gothic group in modern Ukraine under the rule of Ermanaric, were among the first peoples attacked by the Huns, apparently facing Hunnic pressure for some years.Шаблон:Sfn Following Ermanaric's death, the Greuthungi's resistance broke and they moved toward the Dniester river.Шаблон:Sfn A second Gothic group, the Tervingi under King Athanaric, constructed a defensive earthwork against the Huns near the Dniester.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn The emperor Valens chose only to admit the Tervingi, who were settled in the Roman provinces of Thrace and Moesia.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
Due to mistreatment by the Romans, the Tervingi revolted in 377, starting the Gothic War, joined by the Greuthungi.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn The Goths and their allies defeated the Romans first at Marcianople, then defeated and killed emperor Valens in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, destroying two-thirds of Valens' army.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Following further fighting, peace was negotiated in 382, granting the Goths considerable autonomy within the Roman Empire.Шаблон:Sfn However, these Goths—who would be known as the Visigoths—revolted several more times,Шаблон:Sfn finally coming to be ruled by Alaric.Шаблон:Sfn In 397, the disunited eastern Empire submitted to some of his demands, possibly giving him control over Epirus.Шаблон:Sfn 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, the barbarian generalissimo who held power in the western Empire, made agreements with them.Шаблон:Sfn
In 401, Alaric invaded Italy, coming to an understanding with Stilicho in 404/5.Шаблон:Sfn This agreement allowed Stilicho to fight against the force of Radagaisus, who had crossed the Middle Danube in 405/6 and invaded Italy, only to be defeated outside Florence.Шаблон:Sfn That same year, a large force of Vandals, Suevi, Alans, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine, fighting the Franks but facing no Roman resistance.Шаблон:Sfn In 409, the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans crossing the Pyrenees into Spain, where they took possession of the northern part of the peninsula.Шаблон:Sfn The Burgundians seized the land around modern Speyer, Worms, and Strasbourg, territory that was recognized by the Roman Emperor Honorius.Шаблон:Sfn When Stilicho fell from power in 408, Alaric invaded Italy again and eventually sacked Rome in 410; Alaric died shortly thereafter.Шаблон:Sfn The Visigoths withdrew into Gaul where they faced a power struggle until the succession of Wallia in 415 and his son Theodoric I in 417/18.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
Other Goths, including those of Athanaric, continued to live outside the empire, with three groups crossing into the Roman territory after the Tervingi.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn The Gepids also formed an important Germanic people under Hunnic rule; the Huns had largely conquered them by 406.Шаблон:Sfn One Gothic group under Hunnic domination was ruled by the Amal dynasty, who would form the core of the Ostrogoths.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
The Hunnic Empire (c. 420–453)
Шаблон:Further In 428, the Vandal leader Geiseric moved his forces across the strait of Gibraltar into north Africa. Within two years, they had conquered most of north Africa.Шаблон:Sfn By 434, following a renewed political crisis in Rome, the Rhine frontier had collapsed, and in order to restore it, the Roman Шаблон:Lang Flavius Aetius engineered the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom in 435/436, possibly with Hunnic mercenaries, and launched several successful campaigns against the Visigoths.Шаблон:Sfn In 439, the Vandals conquered Carthage, which served as an excellent base for further raids throughout the Mediterranean and became the basis for the Vandal Kingdom.Шаблон:Sfn The loss of Carthage forced Aetius to make peace with the Visigoths in 442, effectively recognizing their independence within the boundaries of the empire.Шаблон:Sfn During the resulting peace, Aetius resettled the Burgundians in Sapaudia in southern Gaul.Шаблон:Sfn In the 430s, Aetius negotiated peace with the Suevi in Spain, leading to a practical loss of Roman control in the province.Шаблон:Sfn Despite the peace, the Suevi expanded their territory by conquering Mérida in 439 and Seville in 441.Шаблон:Sfn
By 440, Attila 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 and the Goths.Шаблон:Sfn The Gepid king Ardaric came to power around 440 and participated in various Hunnic campaigns.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Either before or after Attila's death, Valamer, a Gothic ruler of the Amal dynasty, seems to have consolidated power over a large part of the Goths in the Hunnic domain.Шаблон:Sfn For the next 20 years, the former subject peoples of the Huns would fight among each other for preeminence.Шаблон:Sfn
The arrival of the Saxons in Britain is traditionally dated to 449, however, archaeology indicates they had begun arriving in Britain earlier.Шаблон:Sfn Latin sources used Saxon generically for seaborne raiders, meaning that not all of the invaders belonged to the continental Saxons.Шаблон:Sfn According to the British monk Gildas (c. 500 – c. 570), this group had been recruited to protect the Romano-British from the Picts, but had revolted.Шаблон:Sfn They quickly established themselves as rulers on the eastern part of the island.Шаблон:Sfn
After the death of Attila (453–568)
In 455, in the aftermath of the death of Aetius in 453 and the murder of emperor Valentinian III in 455,Шаблон:Sfn the Vandals invaded Italy and sacked Rome in 455.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn The Visigoths went on to conquer all of the Iberian Peninsula by 484 except a small part that remained under Suevian control.Шаблон:Sfn
The Ostrogoths, led by Valamer's brother Thiudimer, invaded the Balkans in 473. Thiudimer's son Theodoric succeeded him in 476.Шаблон:Sfn In that same year, a barbarian commander in the Roman Italian army, Odoacer, mutinied and removed the final western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus.Шаблон:Sfn Odoacer ruled Italy for himself, largely continuing the policies of Roman imperial rule.Шаблон:Sfn He destroyed the Kingdom of the Rugians, in modern Austria, in 487/488.Шаблон:Sfn Theodoric, meanwhile, successfully extorted the Eastern Empire through a series of campaigns in the Balkans. The eastern emperor Zeno agreed to send Theodoric to Italy in 487/8.Шаблон:Sfn After a successful invasion, Theodoric killed and replaced Odoacer in 493, founding a new Ostrogothic kingdom.Шаблон:Sfn Theodoric died in 526, amid increasing tensions with the eastern empire.Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn From the mid-5th century onward, the Alamanni had greatly expanded their territory in all directions and launched numerous raids into Gaul.Шаблон:Sfn The territory under the Frankish influence had grown to encompass northern Gaul and Germania to the Elbe.Шаблон:Sfn The Frankish king Clovis I united the various Frankish groups in 490s,Шаблон:Sfn and conquered the Alamanni by 506.Шаблон:Sfn From the 490s onward, Clovis waged wars against the Visigoths, defeating them in 507 and taking control of most of Gaul.Шаблон:Sfn Clovis's heirs conquered the Thuringians by 530 and the Burgundians by 532.Шаблон:Sfn 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 in 533.Шаблон:Sfn
The Vandal and Ostrogothic kingdoms were destroyed in 534 and 555 respectively by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire under Justinian.Шаблон:Sfn Around 500, a new ethnic identity appears in modern southern Germany, the Baiuvarii (Bavarians), under the patronage of Theodoric's Ostrogothic kingdom and then of the Franks.Шаблон:Sfn 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,Шаблон:Sfn the Lombards under Alboin invaded northern Italy, eventually conquering most of it.Шаблон:Sfn This invasion has traditionally been regarded as the end of the migration period.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Early Middle Ages to c. 800
Merovingian Frankia became divided into three subkingdoms: Austrasia in the east around the Rhine and Meuse, Neustria in the west around Paris, and Burgundy in the southeast around Chalon-sur-Saône.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn In 687, the Pippinids came to control the Merovingian rulers as mayors of the palace in Neustria. Under their direction, the subkingdoms of Frankia were reunited.Шаблон:Sfn Following the mayoralty of Charles Martel, the Pippinids replaced the Merovingians as kings in 751, when Charles's son Pepin the Short became king and founded the Carolingian dynasty. His son, Charlemagne, would go on to conquer the Lombards, Saxons, and Bavarians.Шаблон:Sfn Charlemagne was crowned Roman emperor in 800 and regarded his residence of Aachen as the new Rome.Шаблон:Sfn
Following their invasion in 568, the Lombards quickly conquered larger parts of the Italian peninsula.Шаблон:Sfn From 574 to 584, a period without a single Lombard ruler, the Lombards nearly collapsed,Шаблон:Sfn until a more centralized Lombard polity emerged under King Agilulf in 590.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Lombard power reached its peak during the reign of King Liutprand (712–744).Шаблон:Sfn After Liutprand's death, the Frankish King Pippin the Short invaded in 755, greatly weakening the kingdom.Шаблон:Sfn The Lombard kingdom was finally annexed by Charlemagne in 773.Шаблон:Sfn
After a period of weak central authority, the Visigothic kingdom came under the rule of Liuvigild, who conquered the Kingdom of the Suebi in 585.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn In 711, a Muslim army landed at Grenada; the entire Visigothic kingdom would be conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate by 725.Шаблон:Sfn
In what would become England, the Anglo-Saxons were divided into several competing kingdoms, the most important of which were Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex.Шаблон:Sfn In the 7th century, Northumbria established overlordship over the other Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, until Mercia revolted under Wulfhere in 658. Subsequently, Mercia would establish dominance until 825 with the death of King Cenwulf.Шаблон:Sfn Few written sources report on Vendel period 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.Шаблон:Sfn In 793, the first recorded Viking raid occurred at Lindisfarne, ushering in the Viking Age.Шаблон:Sfn
Religion
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic-speaking peoples.Шаблон:Sfn 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 and eastern and northern Scandinavia), it was similar to neighboring religions such as those of the Slavs, Celts, and Finnic peoples.Шаблон:Sfn The term is sometimes applied as early as the Stone Age, Bronze Age, or the earlier Iron Age, 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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 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.Шаблон:Sfn
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, contemporary written accounts, and in folklore after Christianization. As an example, the second of the two Merseburg charms (two Old High German examples of alliterative verse from a manuscript dated to the ninth century) mentions six deities: Woden, Balder, Sinthgunt, Sunna, Frija, and Volla.[22]
With the exception of Sinthgunt, proposed cognates to these deities occur in other Germanic languages, such as Old English and Old Norse. By way of the comparative method, philologists are then able to reconstruct and propose early Germanic forms of these names from early Germanic mythology. Compare the following table:
Old High German | Old Norse | Old English | Proto-Germanic reconstruction | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
WuotanШаблон:Sfn | ÓðinnШаблон:Sfn | WōdenШаблон:Sfn | *WōđanazШаблон:Sfn | A deity similarly associated with healing magic in the Old English Nine Herbs Charm and particular forms of magic throughout the Old Norse record. This deity is strongly associated with extensions of *Frijjō (see below). |
BalderШаблон:Sfn | BaldrШаблон:Sfn | BældægШаблон:Sfn | *BalđrazШаблон:Sfn | In Old Norse texts, where the only description of the deity occurs, Baldr is a son of the god Odin and is associated with beauty and light. |
SunneШаблон:Sfn | SólШаблон:Sfn | SigelШаблон:Sfn | *Sowelō ~ *SōelШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn | A theonym identical to the proper noun 'Sun'. A goddess and the personified Sun. |
VollaШаблон:Sfn | FullaШаблон:Sfn | Unattested | *FullōnШаблон:Sfn | A goddess associated with extensions of the goddess *Frijjō (see below). The Old Norse record refers to Fulla as a servant of the goddess Frigg, while the second Merseburg Charm refers to Volla as Friia's sister. |
FriiaШаблон:Sfn | FriggШаблон:Sfn | FrīgШаблон:Sfn | *FrijjōШаблон:Sfn | Associated with the goddess Volla/Fulla in both the Old High German and Old Norse records, this goddess is also strongly associated with the god Odin (see above) in both the Old Norse and Langobardic records. |
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, where it occurs in the Atharvaveda, dated to around 500 BCE.[23] 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:
Old High German | Old Norse | Old English | Proto-Germanic reconstruction | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
itisШаблон:Sfn | dísШаблон:Sfn | idesШаблон:Sfn | *đīsōШаблон:Sfn | A type of goddess-like supernatural entity. The West Germanic forms present some linguistic difficulties but the North Germanic and West Germanic forms are used explicitly as cognates (compare Old English ides Scildinga and Old Norse dís Skjǫldunga).Шаблон:Sfn |
Other widely attested entities from the North and West Germanic folklore include elves, dwarfs, and the mare. (For more discussion on these entities, see Proto-Germanic folklore.)
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 and is attested in numerous works, the most expansive of which are the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. While these texts were composed in the 13th century, they frequently quote genres of traditional alliterative verse known today as eddic poetry and skaldic poetry dating to the pre-Christian period.[24]
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 and the Old English Nine Herbs Charm. 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 that features the deities Frea (cognate with Old Norse Шаблон:Lang) and Godan (cognate with Old Norse Шаблон:Lang). Attested in the 7th-century Origo Gentis Langobardorum and the 8th-century Historia Langobardorum from the Italian Peninsula, the narrative strongly corresponds in numerous ways with the prose introduction to the eddic poem Grímnismál, recorded in 13th-century Iceland.Шаблон:Sfn[25]
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, which appears to be a cult object (see also Gothic runic inscriptions), and the mention of the Gothic Шаблон:Lang (cognate with Old Norse Æsir '(pagan) gods') by Jordanes.[26]
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 Anthropomorphic wooden cult figurines of Central and Northern Europe). Notable from the Roman period are the Matres and Matronae, 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.Шаблон:Sfn
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, including Proto-Indo-European mythology. 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.[27]
Conversion to Christianity
Germanic peoples began entering the Roman Empire in large numbers at the same time that Christianity was spreading there,Шаблон:Sfn and this connection was a major factor encouraging conversion.Шаблон:Sfn The East Germanic peoples, the Langobards, and the Suevi in Spain converted to Arian Christianity,Шаблон:Sfn a form of Christianity that rejected the divinity of Christ.Шаблон:Sfn 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 Christians and Arians, such as the Arian Wulfila, who was made missionary bishop of the Goths in 341 and translated the Bible into Gothic.Шаблон:Sfn 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 in 587.Шаблон:Sfn
The areas of the Roman Empire conquered by the Franks, Alemanni, and Baiuvarii were mostly Christian already, but it appeared Christianity declined there.Шаблон:Sfn In 496, the Frankish king Clovis I converted to Nicene Christianity. This began a period of missionizing within Frankish territory.Шаблон:Sfn The Anglo-Saxons gradually converted following a mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 595.Шаблон:Sfn In the 7th century, Frankish-supported missionary activity spread out of Gaul, led by figures of the Anglo-Saxon mission such as Saint Boniface.Шаблон:Sfn The Saxons initially rejected Christianization,Шаблон:Sfn but were eventually forcibly converted by Charlemagne as a result of their conquest in the Saxon Wars in 776/777.Шаблон:Sfn
While attempts to convert the Scandinavian peoples began in 831, they were mostly unsuccessful until the 10th and 11th centuries.Шаблон:Sfn The last Germanic people to convert were the Swedes, although the Geats had converted earlier. The pagan Temple at Uppsala seems to have continued to exist into the early 1100s.Шаблон:Sfn
Society and culture
Runic writing
Germanic speakers developed a native script, the runes (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.Шаблон:Efn 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).Шаблон:Efn
Like other indigenous scripts of Europe, the runes ultimately developed from the Phoenician alphabet, 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.Шаблон:Efn
The precise date that Germanic speakers developed the runic alphabet is unknown, with estimates varying from 100 BCE to 100 CE.Шаблон:Sfn Generally accepted inscriptions in the oldest attested form of the script, called the Elder Futhark, date from 200 to 700 CE.Шаблон:Sfn The word rune is widely attested among Germanic languages, where it developed from Proto-Germanic Шаблон:Lang and held a primary meaning of 'secret',Шаблон:Sfn but also other meanings such as 'whisper', 'mystery', 'closed deliberation', and 'council'.Шаблон:Sfn 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,Шаблон:Sfn for whom the term erilaR is attested from the sixth century onward.Шаблон:Sfn
The letters of the Elder Futhark are arranged in an order called the futhark, so named after its first six characters.Шаблон:Sfn 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 Шаблон:Lang ('cattle, property'). Such examples are known as Begriffsrunen ('concept runes').Шаблон:Sfn Runic inscriptions are found on organic materials such as wood, bone, horn, ivory, and animal hides, as well as on stone and metal.Шаблон:Sfn Inscriptions tend to be short,Шаблон:Sfn 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 are religious or magical in nature.Шаблон:Sfn
Personal names
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 Шаблон:Lang 'victory' + Шаблон:Lang '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 [of Germanic names] seems to be an inherited, Indo-European trace, which the Germanic languages share with Greek and other Indo-European languages."Шаблон:Sfn
One point of debate surrounding Germanic name-giving practice is whether name elements were considered semantically meaningful when combined. Шаблон:Sfn 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). The runestone D359 in Istaby, Sweden provides one such example, where three generations of men are connected by way of the element Шаблон:Lang, meaning 'wolf' (the alliterative Haþuwulfaz, *Heruwulfaz, and Hariwulfaz).Шаблон:Sfn 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 (theonyms). Deity names as first components of personal names are attested primarily in Old Norse names, where they commonly reference in particular the god Thor (Old Norse Шаблон:Lang).Шаблон:Sfn
Poetry and legend
Шаблон:Main The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples were a largely oral culture. Written literature in Germanic languages is not recorded until the 6th century (Gothic Bible) or the 8th century in modern England and Germany.Шаблон:Sfn The philologist Andreas Heusler 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 poetry. These include ritual poetry, epigrammatic poetry (Шаблон:Lang), memorial verses (Шаблон:Lang), lyric, narrative poetry, and praise poetry.Шаблон:Sfn 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 (the origin of a people or their rulers), the fall of heroes (Шаблон:Lang), praise poetry, and laments for the dead.Шаблон:Sfn
Some stylistic aspects of later Germanic poetry appear to have origins in the Indo-European period, as shown by comparison with ancient Greek and Sanskrit poetry.Шаблон:Sfn Originally, the Germanic-speaking peoples shared a metrical and poetic form, alliterative verse, which is attested in very similar forms in Old Saxon, Old High German and Old English, and in a modified form in Old Norse.Шаблон:Sfn Alliterative verse is not attested in the small extant Gothic corpus.Шаблон:Sfn The poetic forms diverge among the different languages from the 9th century onward.Шаблон:Sfn
Later Germanic peoples shared a common legendary tradition. These heroic legends mostly involve historical personages who lived during the migration period (4th–6th centuries AD), placing them in highly ahistorical and mythologized settings;Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn they originate and develop as part of an oral tradition.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Some early Gothic heroic legends are already found in Jordanes' Getica (Шаблон:Circa).Шаблон:Sfn 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 who adopted a Romance language, do not preserve Germanic legends but rather developed their own heroic folklore—excepting the figure of Walter of Aquitaine.Шаблон:Sfn
Germanic law
Until the middle of the 20th century, the majority of scholars assumed the existence of a distinct Germanic legal culture and law.Шаблон:Sfn 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 Sippe, retinues, and loyalty, and the concept of outlawry can no longer be justified.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Besides the assumption of a common Germanic legal tradition and the use of sources of different types from different places and time periods,Шаблон:Sfn there are no native sources for early Germanic law.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The earliest written legal sources, the Leges Barbarorum, were all written under Roman and Christian influence and often with the help of Roman jurists,Шаблон:Sfn and contain large amounts of "Vulgar Latin Law", an unofficial legal system that functioned in the Roman provinces.Шаблон:Sfn
As of 2023, scholarly consensus is that Germanic law is best understood in contrast with Roman law, in that whereas Roman law was "learned" and the same across regions, Germanic law was not learned and incorporated regional peculiarities.Шаблон:Sfn Common elements include an emphasis on orality, gesture, formulaic language, legal symbolism, and ritual.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
Warfare
Warfare seems to have been a constant in Germanic society,Шаблон:Sfn including conflicts among and within Germanic peoples.Шаблон:Sfn There is no common Germanic word for "war", and it was not necessarily differentiated from other forms of violence.Шаблон:Sfn Historical information on Germanic warfare almost entirely depends on Greco-Roman sources,Шаблон:Sfn however their accuracy has been questioned.Шаблон:Sfn The core of the army was formed by the comitatus (retinue), a group of warriors following a chief.Шаблон:Sfn As retinues grew larger, their names could become associated with entire peoples. Many retinues functioned as Шаблон:Lang (mercenary units in the Roman army).Шаблон:Sfn
Roman sources stress, perhaps partially as a literary topos, that the Germanic peoples fought without discipline.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Germanic warriors fought mostly on foot,Шаблон:Sfn in tight formations in close combat.Шаблон:Sfn Tacitus mentions a single formation as used by the Germani, the wedge (Шаблон:Lang-la).Шаблон:Sfn Cavalry was rare: in the Roman period, it mostly consisted of chiefs and their immediate retinues,Шаблон:Sfn who may have dismounted to fight.Шаблон:Sfn However, East Germanic peoples such as the Goths developed cavalry forces armed with lances due to contact with various nomadic peoples.Шаблон:Sfn Archaeological finds, mostly in the form of grave goods, indicate that most warriors were armed with spear, shield, and often with swords.Шаблон:Sfn Higher status individuals were often buried with spurs for riding.Шаблон:Sfn The only archaeological evidence for helmets and chain mail shows them to be of Roman manufacture.Шаблон:Sfn
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, 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 suggests this means that Germania was more agriculturally productive than is generally assumed.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
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 and emmer), while the most common vegetables were beans and peas. Flax was also grown.Шаблон:Sfn Agriculture in Germania relied heavily on animal husbandry, primarily the raising of cattle, which were smaller than their Roman counterpartsШаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Crafts
It is unclear if there was a special class of craftsmen in Germania, however archaeological finds of tools are frequent.Шаблон:Sfn Many everyday items such as dishes were made out of wood, and archaeology has found the remains of wooden well construction.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Some of the ceramics produced on potter's wheels seem to have been done in direct imitation of Roman wares,Шаблон:Sfn and may have been produced by Romans in Germania or by Germani who had learned Roman techniques while serving in the Roman army.Шаблон:Sfn The shape and decoration of Germanic ceramics vary by region and archaeologists have traditionally used these variations to determine larger cultural areas.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Metalworking
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.Шаблон:Sfn Smithies are known from multiple settlements, and smiths were often buried with their tools.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn The remains of large smelting operations have been discovered by Ribe in Jutland (4th to 6th century CE),Шаблон:Sfn as well as at Glienick in northern Germany and at Heeten in the Netherlands (both 4th century CE).Шаблон:Sfn Germanic smelting furnaces may have produced metal that was as high-quality as that produced by the Romans.Шаблон:Sfn In addition to large-scale production, nearly every individual settlement seems to have produced some iron for local use.Шаблон:Sfn Iron was used for agricultural tools, tools for various crafts, and for weapons.Шаблон:Sfn
Lead 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 across the Rhine from the Roman Empire, it is sometimes theorized that this was the work of Roman miners.Шаблон:Sfn Another mine within Germania was near modern Soest, where again it is theorized that lead was exported to Rome.Шаблон:Sfn The neighboring Roman provinces of Germania superior and Germania inferior produced a great deal of lead, which has been found stamped as Шаблон:Lang ("Germanic lead") in Roman shipwrecks.Шаблон:Sfn
Deposits of gold are not found naturally within Germania and had to either be importedШаблон:Sfn or could be found having naturally washed down rivers.Шаблон:Sfn The earliest known gold objects made by Germanic craftsmen are mostly small ornaments dating from the later 1st century CE.Шаблон:Sfn Silver working likewise dates from the first century CE, and silver often served as a decorative element with other metals.Шаблон:Sfn From the 2nd century onward, increasingly complex gold jewelry was made, often inlaid with precious stones and in a polychrome style.Шаблон:Sfn Inspired by Roman metalwork, Germanic craftsmen also began working with gold and silver-gilt foils on belt buckles, jewelry, and weapons.Шаблон:Sfn Pure gold objects produced in the late Roman period included torcs with snakeheads, often displaying filigree and cloisonné work, techniques that dominated throughout Germanic Europe.Шаблон:Sfn
Clothing and textiles
Clothing does not generally preserve well archaeologically. Early Germanic clothing is shown on some Roman stone monuments such as Trajan's Column and the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and is occasionally discovered in finds from in moors,Шаблон:Sfn mostly from Scandinavia.Шаблон:Sfn Frequent finds include long trousers, sometimes including connected stockings, shirt-like gowns (Шаблон:Lang) with long sleeves, large pieces of cloth, and capes with fur on the inside.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn By the middle of the 5th century CE, both men and women among the continental Germanic peoples came to wear a Roman-style tunic as their most important piece of clothing. This was secured at the waist and likely adopted due to intensive contact with the Roman world.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Surviving examples indicate that Germanic textiles were of high quality and mostly made of flax and wool.Шаблон:Sfn Roman depictions show the Germani wearing materials that were only lightly worked.Шаблон:Sfn Surviving examples indicate that a variety of weaving techniques were used.Шаблон:Sfn Leather was used for shoes, belts, and other gear.Шаблон:Sfn Spindles, sometimes made of glass or amber, and the weights from looms and distaffs are frequently found in Germanic settlements.Шаблон:Sfn
Trade
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.Шаблон:Sfn Migration-period seaborne trade is suggested by Gudme on the Danish island of Funen and other harbors on the Baltic.Шаблон:Sfn
Roman trade with Germania is poorly documented.Шаблон:Sfn Roman merchants crossing the Alps for Germania are recorded already by Caesar in the 1st century BCE.Шаблон:Sfn During the imperial period, most trade probably took place in trading posts in Germania or at major Roman bases.Шаблон:Sfn The most well-known Germanic export to the Roman Empire was amber, with a trade centered on the Baltic coast.Шаблон:Sfn Economically, however, amber is likely to have been fairly unimportant.Шаблон:Sfn The use of Germanic loanwords in surviving Latin texts suggests that besides amber (Шаблон:Lang), the Romans also imported the feathers of Germanic geese (Шаблон:Lang) and hair dye (Шаблон:Lang). Germanic slaves were also a major commodity.Шаблон:Sfn Archaeological discoveries indicate that lead was exported from Germania as well, perhaps mined in Roman-Germanic "joint ventures".Шаблон:Sfn
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.Шаблон:Sfn Rather than mine and smelt non-ferrous metals 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Finds 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.Шаблон:Sfn Roman coinage may have acted as a form of currency as well.Шаблон:Sfn
Genetics
Шаблон:See also The use of genetic studies to investigate the Germanic past is controversial, with scholars such as Guy Halsall suggesting it could represent a hearkening back to 19th-century ideas of race.Шаблон:Sfn Sebastian Brather, Wilhelm Heizmann, and Steffen Patzold write that genetics studies are of great use for demographic history, but cannot give us any information about cultural history.Шаблон:Sfn In a 2013 book which reviewed studies made up until then, scholars noted that most Germanic speakers today have a Y-DNA that is a mixture including haplogroup I1, 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.Шаблон:Sfn
Modern reception
The rediscovery of Tacitus's Germania in the 1450s was used by German humanists to claim a glorious classical past for their nation that could compete with that of Greece and Rome,Шаблон:Sfn and to equate the "Germanic" with the "German".Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn Equally important was Jordanes's Getica, rediscovered by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini in the mid-15th century and first printed in 1515 by Konrad Peutinger, which depicted Scandinavia as the "womb of nations" (Шаблон:Lang-la) from which all the historical northeastern European barbarians migrated in the distant past.Шаблон:Sfn While treated with suspicion by German scholars, who preferred the indigenous origin given by Tacitus, this motif became very popular in contemporary Swedish Gothicism, as it supported Sweden's imperial ambitions.Шаблон:Sfn Peutinger printed the Getica together with Paul the Deacon'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.Шаблон:Sfn 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 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.Шаблон:Sfn
The beginning of Germanic philology proper starts around the turn of the 19th century, with Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm being the two most significant founding figures. Their oeuvre included various monumental works on linguistics, culture, and literature.Шаблон:Sfn Jacob Grimm offered many arguments identifying the Germans as the "most Germanic" of the Germanic-speaking peoples, many of which were taken up later by others who sought to equate "Germanicness" (Шаблон:Lang-de) with "Germanness" (Шаблон:Lang-de).Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn German nationalist 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.Шаблон:Sfn German historians used the Germanic past to argue for a liberal, democratic form of government and a unified German state.Шаблон:Sfn Contemporary Romantic nationalism in Scandinavia placed more weight on the Viking Age, resulting in the movement known as Scandinavism.Шаблон:Sfn
In the late 19th century, Gustaf Kossinna 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 and to state with confidence when and where various Germanic and other peoples had migrated within Europe.Шаблон:Sfn In the 1930s and 40s, the Nazi Party made use of notions of Germanic "purity" reaching back into the earliest prehistoric times.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn After 1945, these associations led to a scholarly backlash and re-examining of Germanic origins.Шаблон:Sfn 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.Шаблон:Sfn
See also
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
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External links
Шаблон:Commons category multi Шаблон:EB1911 poster
Classical and medieval sources
- Agathias, Histories
- Bede, Ecclesiastical history of England, in Latin
- Caesar, De Bello Gallico
- Cicero, Against Piso
- Dio Cassius, Roman History
- Historia Augusta
- Jordanes, Getica
- Titus Livy, History of Rome
- Paul the Deacon, History of the Langobards, in Latin
- Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories
- Pomponius Mela, Description of the World
- Procopius, Gothic War
- Ptolemy, Geography
- Strabo, Geography
- Suetonius, 12 Caesars
- Tacitus, Germania
- Tacitus, The History
Шаблон:Germanic peoples Шаблон:Barbarian kingdoms
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ 7,0 7,1 Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ 11,0 11,1 Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; ; Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb; Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ For general discussion regarding the Merseburg Charms, see for example Шаблон:Harvnb and Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ The Atharveda charm is specifically charm 12 of book four of the Atharveda. See discussion in for example Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ For a concise overview of sources on Germanic mythology, see Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ On the correspondences between the prose introduction to Grímnismál and the Langobardic origin myth, see for example Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ Regarding the Ring of Pietroassa, see for example discussion in Шаблон:Harvnb. On Gothic Anses, see for example Шаблон:Harvnb.
- ↑ See discussion in for example Шаблон:Harvnb and Шаблон:Harvnb.