1.
Nerthus
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In Germanic paganism, Nerthus is a goddess associated with fertility. Nerthus is attested by Tacitus, the first century AD Roman historian, the priests feel her presence by the cart, and, with deep reverence, attend her cart, which is drawn by heifers. Everywhere the goddess then deigns to visit, she is met with celebration, hospitality, all iron objects are locked away, and no one will leave for war. When the goddess has had her fill she is returned to her temple by the priests, Tacitus adds that the goddess, the cart, and the cloth are then washed by slaves in a secluded lake. The name Nerthus is generally held to be a Latinized form of Proto-Germanic *Nerþuz, while scholars have noted numerous parallels between the descriptions of the two figures, Njörðr is attested as a male deity. Nerthus is often identified with the Wane Njörðr who is attested in various 13th century Old Norse works and this form was proposed as an attempt to mirror the Old Norse goddess name Jörð earth. Writing on this topic in 1912, Raymond Wilson Chambers says strange has been the history of this goddess Nerthus in modern times, sixteenth century scholars found irresistible the temptation to emend the name of Mother Earth into Herthum, which nineteenth century scholars further improved into Hertham, Ertham. For many years this false goddess drove out the deity from the fortieth chapter of the Germania. Up until its superseding, the name Hertha had some influence, for example, Hertha and Herthasee play major roles in German novelist Theodor Fontanes 1896 novel Effi Briest. A number of scholars have proposed a location of Tacitus account of Nerthus as on the island of Zealand in Denmark. The reasoning behind this notion is the linking of the name Nerthus with the place name Niartharum located on Zealand. Further justification is given in that Lejre, the seat of the ancient kings of Denmark, is located on Zealand. However, along with the rejection of the reading Hertha, the location is now no longer considered as a potential site, Nerthus wagon tour of has been likened to several archeological wagon finds and legends of deities parading in wagons. Terry Gunnell and many others have noted various archaeological finds of ritual wagons in Denmark dating from 200 AD, such a ceremonial wagon, incapable of making turns, was discovered in the Oseberg ship find. Nerthus typically is identified as a Vanir goddess, two of the most famous literary examples occur in the Icelandic family sagas. In the same source, King Eric of Sweden is said to consult a god named Lýtir, davidson says that the evidence suggests that similar customs as detailed in Tacitus account continued to exist during the close of the pagan period through worship of the Vanir. The minor planet 601 Nerthus is named after Nerthus
2.
Myth
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A myth is any traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon. The word myth is derived from the Greek word mythos, which means story. Mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths, myth can mean sacred story, traditional narrative or tale of the gods. A myth can also be a story to explain why something exists, human cultures usually include a cosmogonical or creation myth, concerning the origins of the world, or how the world came to exist. The active beings in myths are generally gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, or animals, most myths are set in a timeless past before recorded time or beginning of the critical history. A myth can be a story involving symbols that are capable of multiple meanings, a myth is a sacred narrative because it holds religious or spiritual significance for those who tell it. Myths also contribute to and express a cultures systems of thought and values, myths are often therefore stories that are currently understood as being exaggerated or fictitious. According to Albert A. Anderson, a professor of philosophy, in these works, the term had several meanings, conversation, narrative, speech, story, tale, and word. Like the related term logos, mythos expresses whatever can be delivered in the form of words, Anderson contrasts the two terms with ergon, a Greek term for action, deed, and work. The term mythos lacks an explicit distinction between true or false narratives, in the context of the Theatre of ancient Greece, the term mythos referred to the myth, the narrative, the plot, and the story of a theatrical play. According to David Wiles, the Greek term mythos in this era covered an entire spectrum of different meanings, from undeniable falsehoods to stories with religious, according to philosopher Aristotle, the spirit of a theatrical play was its mythos. The term mythos was also used for the material of Greek tragedy. The tragedians of the era could draw inspiration from Greek mythology, David Wiles observes that modern conceptions about Greek tragedy can be misleading. It is commonly thought that the ancient audience members were familiar with the mythos behind a play. However, the Greek dramatists were not expected to faithfully reproduce traditional myths when adapting them for the stage and they were instead recreating the myths and producing new versions. Storytellers like Euripides relied on suspense to excite their audiences, in one of his works, Merope attempts to kill her sons murderer with an axe, unaware that the man in question is actually her son. According to an ancient description of reactions to this work. They rose to their feet in terror and caused an uproar, David Wiles points that the traditional mythos of Ancient Greece, was primarily a part of its oral tradition
3.
Germanic peoples
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The Germanic peoples are an ethno-linguistic Indo-European group of Northern European origin. They are identified by their use of Germanic languages, which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the term Germanic originated in classical times when groups of tribes living in Lower, Upper, and Greater Germania were referred to using this label by Roman scribes. Tribes referred to as Germanic by Roman authors generally lived to the north, in about 222 BCE, the first use of the Latin term Germani appears in the Fasti Capitolini inscription de Galleis Insvbribvs et Germ. This may simply be referring to Gaul or related people, the term Germani shows up again, allegedly written by Poseidonios, but is merely a quotation inserted by the author Athenaios who wrote much later. Somewhat later, the first surviving detailed discussions of Germani and Germania are those of Julius Caesar, from Caesars perspective, Germania was a geographical area of land on the east bank of the Rhine opposite Gaul, which Caesar left outside direct Roman control. This usage of the word is the origin of the concept of Germanic languages. In other classical authors the concept sometimes included regions of Sarmatia, also, at least in the south there were Celtic peoples still living east of the Rhine and north of the Alps. Caesar, Tacitus and others noted differences of culture which could be found on the east of the Rhine, but the theme of all these cultural references was that this was a wild and dangerous region, less civilised than Gaul, a place that required additional military vigilance. Caesar used the term Germani for a specific tribal grouping in northeastern Belgic Gaul, west of the Rhine. He made clear that he was using the name in the local sense and these are the so-called Germani Cisrhenani, whom Caesar believed to be closely related to the peoples east of the Rhine, and descended from immigrants into Gaul. Caesar described this group of both as Belgic Gauls and as Germani. Gauls are associated with Celtic languages, and the term Germani is associated with Germanic languages, but Caesar did not discuss languages in detail. It has been claimed, for example by Maurits Gysseling, that the names of this region show evidence of an early presence of Germanic languages. The etymology of the word Germani is uncertain, the likeliest theory so far proposed is that it comes from a Gaulish compound of *ger near + *mani men, comparable to Welsh ger near, Old Irish gair neighbor, Irish gar- near, garach neighborly. Another Celtic possibility is that the name meant noisy, cf. Breton/Cornish garm shout, however, here the vowel does not match, nor does the vowel length ). Others have proposed a Germanic etymology *gēr-manni, spear men, cf. Middle Dutch ghere, Old High German Ger, Old Norse geirr. However, the form gēr seems far too advanced phonetically for the 1st century, has a vowel where a short one is expected. The term Germani, therefore, probably applied to a group of tribes in northeastern Gaul who may or may not have spoken a Germanic language
4.
Proto-Germanic
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Proto-Germanic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. The end of the Common Germanic period is reached with the beginning of the Migration Period in the fourth century, the Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested by any coherent surviving texts, it has been reconstructed using the comparative method. Fragmentary direct attestation exists of Common Germanic in early runic inscriptions, the Proto-Germanic language developed in southern Scandinavia, the Urheimat of the Germanic tribes. Proto-Germanic developed out of pre-Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe, Proto-Germanic itself was likely spoken after c. Early Germanic expansion in the Pre-Roman Iron Age placed Proto-Germanic speakers in contact with the Continental Celtic La Tène horizon, a number of Celtic loanwords in Proto-Germanic have been identified. By the 1st century AD, Germanic expansion reaches the Danube and the Upper Rhine in the south, at about the same time, extending east of the Vistula, Germanic speakers come into contact with early Slavic cultures, as reflected in early Germanic loans in Proto-Slavic. By the 3rd century, LPGmc speakers had expanded over significant distance, the period marks the breakup of Late Proto-Germanic and the beginning of the Germanic migrations. The earliest coherent text in Proto-Norse become available c.400 in runic inscriptions, the delineation of Late Common Germanic from Proto-Norse about then is largely a matter of convention. Early West Germanic becomes available in the 5th century with the Frankish Bergakker inscription, between the two points, many sound changes occurred. Phylogeny as applied to historical linguistics involves the descent of languages. The Germanic languages form a tree with Proto-Germanic at its root that is a branch of the Indo-European tree, borrowing of lexical items from contact languages makes the relative position of the Germanic branch within Indo-European less clear than the positions of the other branches of Indo-European. In the course of the development of linguistics, various solutions have been proposed, none certain. In the evolutionary history of a family, philologists consider a genetic tree model appropriate only if communities do not remain in effective contact as their languages diverge. The internal diversification of West Germanic developed in an especially non-treelike manner, Proto-Germanic is generally agreed to have begun about 500 BC. Its hypothetical ancestor between the end of Proto-Indo-European and 500 BC is termed Pre-Proto-Germanic, whether it is to be included under a wider meaning of Proto-Germanic is a matter of usage. The fixation of the led to sound changes in unstressed syllables. For Lehmann, the boundary was the dropping of final -a or -e in unstressed syllables, for example, post-PIE *wóyd-e > Gothic wait. Antonsen agreed with Lehmann about the boundary but later found runic evidence that the -a was not dropped, ékwakraz … wraita, I, Wakraz
5.
Germanic Christianity
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The Germanic peoples underwent gradual Christianization in the course of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By AD700, England and the Frankish Empire were officially Christian, in the 4th century, the early process of Christianization of the various Germanic people was partly facilitated by the prestige of the Christian Roman Empire among European pagans. Until the decline of the Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes who had migrated there had converted to Christianity, many of them, notably the Goths and Vandals, adopted Arianism instead of the Trinitarian beliefs that were dogmatically defined by the Catholic Church in the Nicene Creed. The gradual rise of Germanic Christianity was, at times, voluntary, from the 6th century, Germanic tribes were converted by missionaries of the Catholic Church. Many Goths converted to Christianity as individuals outside the Roman Empire, most members of other tribes converted to Christianity when their respective tribes settled within the Empire, and most Franks and Anglo-Saxons converted a few generations later. In the 3rd century, East-Germanic peoples migrated into the steppes, north of the Black Sea in what today is South West Ukraine, Crimean Peninsula and from there to Bessarabia and todays Romania. The Greuthungi or Ostrogoths lived in Bessarabia and the Thervingi lived in the provinces of Moldova and Valachia, Gothic culture and identity emerged from various East-Germanic, Sarmatian, local Dacian, and Roman influences. In the same period, Gothic raiders took captives among the Romans, including many Christians, Ulfilas, or Wulfila, was the son or grandson of Christians from Sadagolthina in Cappadocia who had been taken captive by the Goths. In 337 or 341, Ulfilas was sent by Arian emperor Constantius II to preach to the Goths in their language, and became the first bishop of the Goths. By 348, one of the Gothic kings began persecuting the Christian Goths, between 348 and 383, Ulfilas translated the Bible into the Gothic language. The Chronicle of St. Denis relates that, following Clovis conversion, a number of pagans who were unhappy rallied around Ragnachar, though the text remains unclear as to the precise pretext, Clovis had Ragnachar executed. Remaining pockets of resistance were overcome region by region, primarily due to the work of a network of monasteries. The Alamanni became Christians only after a period of syncretism during the 7th century, the Lombards adopted Catholic Christianity as they entered Italy, also during the 6th century. Until 1066, by time the Danes and the Norse had lost their foothold in Britain, theological and missionary work in Germany was largely organized by Anglo-Saxon missionaries. A key event was the felling of Thors Oak in 723 near Fritzlar by Boniface, apostle of the Germans, Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England began around AD600, influenced by the Gregorian mission from the south-east and the Hiberno-Scottish mission from the north-west. Gregory I sent the first Archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine, to southern England in 597 and this process was often only partial, perhaps due to confusion as to the nature of the new religion, or for a desire to take the best of both traditions. A famous case of this was king Raedwald of East Anglia and his suspected burial place at Sutton Hoo shows definite influences of both Christian and pagan burial rites. The last pagan Anglo-Saxon king, the Jutish king Arwald of the Isle of Wight, was killed in battle in 686 fighting against the imposition of Christianity in his kingdom, Scandinavia was the last part of Germanic Europe to convert and most resistant
6.
Norse mythology
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The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil. Units of time and elements of the cosmology are personified as deities or beings, various forms of a creation myth are recounted, where the world is created from the flesh of the primordial being Ymir, and the first two humans are Ask and Embla. These worlds are foretold to be reborn after the events of Ragnarök, there the surviving gods will meet, and the land will be fertile and green, and two humans will repopulate the world. Norse mythology has been the subject of scholarly discourse since the 17th century, by way of comparative mythology and historical linguistics, scholars have identified elements of Germanic mythology reaching as far back as Proto-Indo-European mythology. In the modern period, the Romanticist Viking revival re-awoke an interest in the subject matter, the myths have further been revived in a religious context among adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland and this occurred primarily in the 13th century. The Prose Edda was composed as a manual for producing skaldic poetry—traditional Old Norse poetry composed by skalds. Originally composed and transmitted orally, skaldic poetry utilizes alliterative verse, kennings, the Prose Edda presents numerous examples of works by various skalds from before and after the Christianization process and also frequently refers back to the poems found in the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda consists almost entirely of poems, with some prose narrative added, in comparison to skaldic poetry, Eddic poetry is relatively unadorned. Numerous further texts, such as the sagas, provide further information, the saga corpus consists of thousands of tales recorded in Old Norse ranging from Icelandic family histories to Migration period tales mentioning historic figures such as Attila the Hun. By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, comparisons to other attested branches of Germanic mythology may also lend insight, wider comparisons to the mythology of other Indo-European peoples by scholars has resulted in the potential reconstruction of far earlier myths. Of the mythical tales and poems that are presumed to have existed during the Middle Ages, Viking Age, Migration Period, numerous gods are mentioned in the source texts. In the mythology, Thor lays waste to numerous jötnar who are foes to the gods or humanity, the god Odin is also frequently mentioned in surviving texts. One-eyed, wolf and raven-flanked, and spear in hand, Odin pursues knowledge throughout the worlds, Odin has a strong association with death, Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where valkyries carry half of those slain in battle. Odins wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. After a series of dreams had by Baldr of his death, his death is engineered by Loki, and Baldr thereafter resides in Hel. Odin must share half of his share of the dead with a powerful goddess and she is beautiful, sensual, wears a feathered cloak, and practices seiðr. She rides to battle to choose among the slain, and brings her chosen to her afterlife field Fólkvangr, Freyja weeps for her missing husband Óðr, and seeks after him in far away lands
7.
Anglo-Saxon paganism
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A variant of the Germanic paganism found across much of north-western Europe, it encompassed a heterogeneous variety of disparate beliefs and cultic practices, with much regional variation. Anglo-Saxon paganism was a belief system, focused around a belief in deities known as the ése. The most prominent of these deities was probably Woden, other prominent gods included Thunor, there was also a belief in a variety of other supernatural entities which inhabited the landscape, including elves, nicor, and dragons. There is some evidence for the existence of temples, although other cultic spaces might have been open-air. The belief system also included ideas about magic and witchcraft. The deities of this provided the basis for the names of the days of the week in the English language. What is known about the religion and its accompanying mythology have since influenced both literature and Modern Paganism, the word pagan is a Latin term that was used by Christians in Anglo-Saxon England to describe non-Christians. These pagan belief systems would have been inseparable from other aspects of daily life and they also suggested that early Anglo-Saxon Christianity had a similar structure, although acknowledged that this would be a controversial notion. As a phenomenon, it appeared to lack any rules or consistency, also exhibiting regional variation, thus, the archaeologist Aleks Pluskowski suggested that it is possible to talk of multiple Anglo-Saxon paganisms. Also adopting the categories of Gustav Mensching, she described Anglo-Saxon paganism as a religion, in that they concentrated on survival. Using the expressions paganism or heathenism when discussing pre-Christian belief systems in Anglo-Saxon England is problematic, historically, many early scholars of the Anglo-Saxon period used the terms to describe the religious beliefs in England before its conversion to Christianity in the 7th century. Several later scholars criticised the use of the term in this context, the term pre-Christian religion avoids the judgemental connotations of paganism and heathenism but is not always chronologically accurate. The pre-Christian society of Anglo-Saxon England was non-literate, thus there is no contemporary written evidence of the Anglo-Saxon practice of paganism. Far fewer textual records discuss Anglo-Saxon paganism than the belief systems found in nearby Ireland, Francia. There is no neat, formalised account of Anglo-Saxon pagan beliefs as there is for instance for Classical mythology, although many scholars have used Norse mythology as a guide to understanding the beliefs of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon England, caution has been expressed as to the utility of this approach. As Stenton noted, the connection between Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian paganism occurred in a past which was already remote at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain. Moreover, there was clear diversity among the pre-Christian belief systems of Scandinavia itself, Old English place-names also provide some insight into the pre-Christian beliefs and practices of Anglo-Saxon England. Some of these place-names reference the names of deities, while others use terms that refer to cultic practices that took place there
8.
Germanic languages
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It is the third most spoken Indo-European subdivision, behind Italic and Indo-Iranian, and ahead of Balto-Slavic languages. Limburgish varieties have roughly 1.3 million speakers along the Dutch–Belgian–German border, the main North Germanic languages are Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese, which have a combined total of about 20 million speakers. The East Germanic branch included Gothic, Burgundian, and Vandalic, the last to die off was Crimean Gothic, spoken in the late 18th century in some isolated areas of Crimea. The total number of Germanic languages throughout history is unknown, as some of them—especially East Germanic languages—disappeared during or after the Migration Period. Proto-Germanic, along all of its descendants, is characterized by a number of unique linguistic features. Early varieties of Germanic enter history with the Germanic tribes moving south from Scandinavia in the 2nd century BC, to settle in the area of todays northern Germany, furthermore, it is the de facto language of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. It is also a language in Nicaragua and Malaysia. German is a language of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland and has regional status in Italy, Poland, Namibia. German also continues to be spoken as a minority language by immigrant communities in North America, South America, Central America, Mexico, a German dialect, Pennsylvania Dutch, is still present amongst Anabaptist populations in Pennsylvania in the United States. Dutch is a language of Aruba, Belgium, Curaçao. The Netherlands also colonised Indonesia, but Dutch was scrapped as a language after Indonesian independence. Dutch was until 1925 an official language in South Africa, but evolved in and was replaced by Afrikaans, Afrikaans is one of the 11 official languages in South Africa and is a lingua franca of Namibia. It is used in other Southern African nations as well, low German is a collection of sometimes very diverse dialects spoken in the northeast of the Netherlands and northern Germany. Scots is spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster, frisian is spoken among half a million people who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. Luxembourgish is mainly spoken in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, though it extends into small parts of Belgium, France. Limburgish varieties are spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, along the Dutch–Belgian–German border, Swedish is also one of the two official languages in Finland, along with Finnish, and the only official language in the Åland Islands. Danish is also spoken natively by the Danish minority in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, Norwegian is the official language of Norway. Icelandic is the language of Iceland, and is spoken by a significant minority in the Faroe Islands
9.
Proto-Indo-European religion
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The hypothesized reconstructions below are based on linguistic evidence using the comparative method. Archaeological evidence is difficult to match to any specific culture in the period of early Indo-European culture in the Chalcolithic, other approaches to Indo-European mythology are possible, such as the trifunctional hypothesis of Georges Dumézil. Linguists are able to reconstruct the names of deities in the Proto-Indo-European language from many types of sources. Some of the proposed deity names are more accepted among scholars than others. The term for a god was *deiwos, reflected in Hittite, sius, Latin, deus, divus, Sanskrit, deva, Avestan, daeva, Welsh, duw, Irish, dia, Old Norse, tívurr, Lithuanian, Dievas, Latvian, Dievs. The supreme ruler of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon was the god *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr and he is believed to have been worshipped as the god of the daylit skies. He is, by far, the most well-attested of all the Proto-Indo-European deities, the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, and the Illyrian god Dei-Pátrous all appear as the head gods of their respective pantheons. The Norse god Týr, however, seems to have been demoted to the role of a minor war-deity, *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr is also attested in the Rigveda as Dyáus Pitā, a minor ancestor figure mentioned in only a few hymns. The names of the Latvian god Dievs and the Hittite god Attas Isanus do not preserve the exact translation of the name *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr. *Hɑéusōs has been reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn, derivatives of her found throughout various Indo-European mythologies include the Greek goddess Eos, the Roman goddess Aurōra, the Vedic goddess Uṣás, and the Lithuanian goddess Auštrine. The form Arap Ushas appears in Albanian folklore, but as a name for the Moon, an extension of the name may have been *H2eustro, but see also the form *as-t-r, with intrusive -t- in northern dialects. *Seh2ul and *Meh1not are reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the Sun, *Meh1not is reconstructed based off the Norse god Máni, the Hittite god Myesyats, and the Lithuanian god *Meno, or Mėnuo. They are often seen as the children of various deities. The usual scheme is one of these celestial deities is male. The original Indo-European lunar deity appears to have masculine, with feminine lunar deities like Selene, Minerva. Even in these traditions, remnants of male deities, like Menelaus. The word *prihxeha-, meaning wife has been reconstructed based off the Sanskrit word priyā, meaning wife, the Old Norse word frī, meaning beloved, and the Old English word frēo, meaning woman. The name of the Norse goddess Frigg is derived from this root, Analysis of different Indo-European tales indicate the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed there were two progenitors of mankind, *Manu- and *Yemo-, his twin brother
10.
Heathenry (new religious movement)
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Heathenry, also termed Heathenism or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Classified as a new movement, its practitioners model their faith on the pre-Christian belief systems adhered to by the Germanic peoples of Iron Age. To reconstruct these past belief systems, Heathenry uses surviving historical, archaeological, although lacking a unified theology, Heathenry is typically polytheistic, centering on a pantheon of deities from pre-Christian Germanic Europe which includes both gods and goddesses. It adopts cosmological views from these religions, including an animistic view of the cosmos in which the natural world is imbued with spirits. The faiths deities and these spirits are honored in sacrificial rites known as blóts in which food and these are often accompanied by symbel, the act of ceremonially toasting the gods with an alcoholic beverage. Heathen ethical systems place great emphasis on honor, personal integrity, a central division within the Heathen movement surrounds the issue of race. Many groups eschew racialist ideas, adopting a universalist perspective which holds that the religion is open to all, some folkish Heathens further combine the religion with explicitly racist and white supremacist perspectives. Although the term Heathenry is used widely to describe the religion as a whole, many groups prefer different forms of designation, influenced by their regional focus and their attitude to race. While a number of groups venerating Scandinavian deities use Ásatrú or Forn Sed, the religions origins lie in the 19th and early 20th century Romanticist movement which glorified the pre-Christian beliefs of Germanic societies. In the 1970s, new Heathen groups emerged in Europe and North America, in recent decades, the Heathen movement has been the subject of academic study by scholars active in the field of Pagan studies. Scholarly estimates put the number of Heathens at no more than 20,000 worldwide, with communities of practitioners being active in Europe, North America, scholars of religious studies classify Heathenry as a new religious movement, and more specifically as a reconstructionist form of modern Paganism. Heathenry is a movement to revive and/or reinterpret for the present day the practices, practitioners seek to revive these past belief systems by using surviving historical source materials. Some Heathens also adopt ideas from the evidence of pre-Christian Northern Europe and from recorded folk tales. Some, for instance, adapt their practices according to unverified personal gnosis that they have gained through spiritual experiences, conversely, others draw inspiration from the beliefs and practices of a specific geographical area and chronological period within Germanic Europe, such as Anglo-Saxon England or Viking Age Iceland. The anthropologist Murphy Pizza suggested that Heathenry could be understood as an example of what the historian Eric Hobsbawm termed an invented tradition, no central religious authority exists to impose a particular terminological designation on all practitioners. Academics studying the religion have typically favoured the terms Heathenry and Heathenism to describe it and this term is the most commonly used option by practitioners in the United Kingdom, with growing usage in North America and elsewhere. Many practitioners favor the term Heathen over Pagan because the term originated among Germanic languages. A further term used in academic contexts is Germanic Neopaganism
11.
North Germanic languages
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The language group is sometimes referred to as the Nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among Danish, Swedish and Norwegian scholars and laypeople. Approximately 20 million people in the Nordic countries have a Scandinavian language as their native language, languages belonging to the North Germanic language tree are spoken commonly on Greenland and, to a lesser extent, by immigrants in North America. Dialects with the assigned to the northern group formed from the Proto-Germanic language in the late Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe. At last around the year 200 AD, speakers of the North Germanic branch became distinguishable from the other Germanic language speakers, the early development of this language branch is attested through runic inscriptions. The original vowel remained when nasalised *ōn and when before /z/, Proto-Germanic *geƀō ‘gift’ > Northwest Germanic *geƀu >, North Germanic *gjavu > with u-umlaut *gjǫvu > ON gjǫf, and West Germanic *gebu > OE giefu, cf. Goth giba. Proto-Germanic *tungōn ‘tongue’ > late Northwest Germanic *tungā > *tunga > ON tunga, OHG zunga, OE tunge, vs. Goth tuggō. *geƀōz ‘of a gift’ > late Northwest Germanic *geƀāz >, North Germanic *gjavaz > ON gjafar, the rhotacism of /z/ to /r/, with presumably a rhotic fricative of some kind as an earlier stage. This change probably affected West Germanic much earlier and then spread from there to North Germanic and this is confirmed by an intermediate stage ʀ, clearly attested in late runic East Norse at a time when West Germanic had long merged the sound with /r/. The development of the demonstrative pronoun ancestral to English this, Germanic *sa, sō, þat ‘this, that’ + proximal *si ‘here’, Runic Norse, nom. sg. þeim-si, etc. with declension of the 1st part, fixed form with declension on the 2nd part, ON sjá, þessi m. Some innovations are not found in West and East Germanic such as, Sharpening of geminate /jj/ and /ww/ according to Holtzmanns law Occurred also in East Germanic, Proto-Germanic *twajjôN > Old Norse tveggja, Gothic twaddjē, but > Old High German zweiio Word-final devoicing of stop consonants. Proto-Germanic *nahtuN > *nāttu > *nǭttu > Old Norse nótt /ɑi̯/ > /ɑː/ before /r/ Proto-Germanic *sairaz > *sāraz > *sārz > Old Norse sárr, with original /z/ Proto-Germanic *gaizaz > *geizz > Old Norse geirr. General loss of word-final /n/, following the loss of short vowels. Proto-Germanic *bindanaN > *bindan > Old Norse binda, but > Old English bindan and this also affected stressed syllables, Proto-Germanic *in > Old Norse í Vowel breaking of /e/ to /jɑ/ except after w, j or l. The diphthong /eu/ was also affected, shifting to /jɒu/ at an early stage and this diphthong is preserved in Old Gutnish and survives in modern Gutnish. In other Norse dialects, the /j/-onset and length remained, the word *ek, which could occur both stressed and unstressed, appears varyingly as ek and jak throughout Old Norse. Loss of initial /j/, and also of /w/ before a round vowel, Proto-Germanic *wulfaz > North Germanic ulfz > Old Norse ulfr The development of u-umlaut, which rounded stressed vowels when /u/ or /w/ followed in the next syllable. This followed vowel breaking, with ja /jɑ/ being u-umlauted to jǫ /jɒ/, Norwegian settlers brought Old West Norse to Iceland and the Faroe Islands around 800
12.
Old Norse
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Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders
13.
West Germanic languages
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The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages. The three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English, German, and Dutch, additionally, several creoles, patois, and pidgins are based on Dutch and English as they were languages of colonial empires. The West Germanic languages share many lexemes not existing in North Germanic and/or East Germanic—archaisms as well as common neologisms, most scholars doubt that there was a Proto-West-Germanic proto-language common to the West Germanic languages and no others, though a few maintain that Proto-West-Germanic existed. Although there is quite a bit of knowledge about North Sea Germanic or Anglo-Frisian, linguists know almost nothing about Weser-Rhine Germanic, in fact, these two terms were coined in the 1940s to refer to groups of archeological findings rather than linguistic features. Only later were these terms applied to hypothetical dialectal differences within both regions, the rhotacism of /z/ to /r/. The development of the demonstrative pronoun ancestral to English this, rhotacism, for example, was largely complete in West Germanic at a time when North Germanic runic inscriptions still clearly distinguished the two phonemes. However, there are also a number of common archaisms in West Germanic shared by neither Old Norse nor Gothic, the debate on the existence of a Proto-West-Germanic clade was recently summarized, That North Germanic is. A unitary subgroup is completely obvious, as all of its dialects shared a series of innovations. Several scholars have published reconstructions of Proto-West-Germanic morphological paradigms and many authors have reconstructed individual Proto-West-Germanic morphological forms or lexemes, the first comprehensive reconstruction of the Proto-West-Germanic language was published in 2013 by Wolfram Euler. If indeed Proto-West-Germanic existed, it must have been between the 3rd and 7th centuries, after that, the split into West and North Germanic occurred. It has been argued that, judging by their nearly identical syntax, over the course of this period, the dialects diverged successively. Bordering dialects very probably continued to be mutually intelligible even beyond the boundaries of the consonant shift, in fact, many dialects of Limburgish and Ripuarian are still mutually intelligible today. The High German consonant shift distinguished the High German languages from the other West Germanic languages, by early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from Highest Alemannic in the South to Northern Low Saxon in the North. Although both extremes are considered German, they are not mutually intelligible, the southernmost varieties have completed the second sound shift, whereas the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift. Of modern German varieties, Low German is the one that most resembles modern English, the district of Angeln, from which the name English derives, is in the extreme northern part of Germany between the Danish border and the Baltic coast. The area of the Saxons lay south of Anglia, the Anglo-Saxons, two Germanic tribes, were a combination of a number of peoples from northern Germany and the Jutland Peninsula. Note that divisions between subfamilies of Germanic are rarely defined, most form dialect continua, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible. Also note that English is part of the North Sea Germanic branch of the West Germanic languages, some may only appear in the older languages but are no longer apparent in the modern languages
14.
Ingvaeonic languages
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Ingvaeonic is named after the Ingaevones, a West Germanic cultural group or proto-tribe along the North Sea coast. It is not thought of as a monolithic proto-language, but rather as a group of related dialects that underwent several areal changes in relative unison. The other groupings are Istvaeonic, from the Istvaeones, including Dutch, Afrikaans, and related languages and it did not generally undergo the nasal spirant law, it kept the three plural endings distinct and it did not have the -s plural. However, it underwent near-full monophthongization, lost the reflexive pronoun and had the same four relic verbs in weak class 3, amsterdam, John Benjamins B. V. ISBN 978-90-272-3255-7. Das Westgermanische - von der Herausbildung im 3,244 p. in German with English summary, London/Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-9812110-7-8. Maurer, Friedrich Nordgermanen und Alemannen, Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde, ringe, Donald R. and Taylor, Ann. The Development of Old English - A Linguistic History of English, band I, Einführung – Genealogie – Konstanten. Early Germanic Grammar, Pre-, Proto-, and Post-Germanic
15.
Archaeology of Northern Europe
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The region entered the Mesolithic around the 7th millennium BCE. The transition to the Neolithic is characterized by the Funnelbeaker culture in the 4th millennium BCE, the Chalcolithic is marked by the arrival of the Corded Ware culture, possibly the first influence in the region of Indo-European expansion. The Nordic Bronze Age proper begins roughly one millennium later, around 1500 BCE, Northern Europe enters the protohistorical period in the early centuries CE, with the adoption of writing and ethnographic accounts by Roman authors. The following is a listing of Northern European archaeological periods, expanded from the basic three-age system with finer subdivisions. During the 6th millennium BCE, the climate of Scandinavia was generally warmer, the bearers of the Nøstvet and Lihult cultures and the Kongemose culture were mesolithic hunter-gatherers. The Kongemose culture was replaced by the Ertebølle culture, adapting to the changes and gradually adopting the Neolithic Revolution. During the 4th millennium BCE, the Funnelbeaker culture expanded into Sweden up to Uppland, the Nøstvet and Lihult cultures were succeeded by the Pitted Ware culture Early Indo-European presence likely dates to the late 3rd millennium BCE, introducing the Nordic Bronze Age. The tripartite division of the Nordic Iron Age into Pre-Roman Iron Age, Roman Iron Age, the Pre-Roman Iron Age was the earliest part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia and North European Plain. Succeeding the Nordic Bronze Age, the Iron Age developed in contact with the Hallstatt culture in Central Europe, the Iron Age in northern Europe is markedly distinct from the Celtic La Tène culture south of it. Iron was extracted from bog iron in peat bogs and the first iron objects to be fabricated were needles and edged tools such as swords, Iron products were also known in Scandinavia during the Bronze Age, but they were a scarce imported material. Similarly, imported bronze continued to be used during the Iron Age in Scandinavia, funerary practices continued the Bronze Age tradition of burning corpses and placing the remains in urns, a characteristic of the Urnfield culture. Archaeologists have found swords, shield bosses, spearheads, scissors, sickles, pincers, knives, needles, buckles, kettles, Bronze continued to be used for torcs and kettles, the style of which were continuous from the Bronze Age. Some of the most prominent finds from the pre-Roman Iron Age in northern Europe are the Gundestrup cauldron, in Scandinavia, this period is often called the Findless Age due to the lack of archaeological finds. While the archaeological record from Scandinavia are consistent with a decline in population, the southern parts of the culture. It consequently appears that the climate played a important role in this southward expansion into continental Europe. The current view in the Netherlands hold that Iron Age innovations, starting with Hallstatt, did not involve intrusions, another Iron Age nucleus considered to represent a local development is the Wessenstedt culture. The bearers of this northern Iron Age culture were likely speakers of Germanic languages, the stage of development of this Germanic is not known, although Proto-Germanic has been proposed. The Roman Iron Age is the name gave to a part of the Iron Age
16.
Jastorf culture
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The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what are now southern Scandinavia and north Germany, spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BCE, forming the southern part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The culture evolved out of the Nordic Bronze Age, through influence from the Halstatt culture farther south, the cultures of the Pre-Roman Iron Age are sometimes hypothesized to be the origin of the Germanic languages. Herwig Wolfram locates the initial stages of Grimms Law here, 7th century BC, Jastorf A 6th century BC, Jastorf B 400–350 BC, Jastorf C 350–120 BC, Ripdorf 120–1 BC, Seedorf It is named after a site near the village of Jastorf, Lower Saxony. The Jastorf culture was characterized by its use of cremation burials in extensive urnfields, Jastorf culture extended south to the fringes of the northern Hallstatt provinces, while towards the north a general congruence with the late phases of the Northern Bronze Age can be noted. Gravefields in Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, western Pomerania, in Brandenburg and in Lower Saxony show continuity of occupation from the Bronze Age far into the Jastorf period and its area was first restricted to northern Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. The Nienburg group has characteristics of material culture closer to Celtic cultures, isolated finds are scattered as far as Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Finds are mostly from tumuli, flat graves and Brandgruben graves, there are few and modest grave goods, with the weapon deposits characteristic of migration period graves completely absent. Nordic Bronze Age Germanic peoples J. Brandt, Jastorf und Latène,66 W. Künnemann, Jastorf - Geschichte und Inhalt eines archäologischen Kulturbegriffs, Die Kunde N. F.46, 61-122. Heinrich Krüger, Die Jastorfkultur in den Kreisen Lüchow-Dannenberg, Lüneburg, Uelzen und Soltau
17.
Nordwestblock
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Gysseling suspected an intermediate Belgian language between Germanic and Celtic, that might have been affiliated to Italic. According to Luc van Durme, a Belgian linguist, toponymic evidence to a former Celtic presence in the Low Countries is near to utterly absent. Similarly, in Celtic, PIE /p/ disappeared and in regularly inherited words only reappeared in p-Celtic languages as a result of proto-Celtic *kʷ becoming *p and it is uncertain when Germanic began to gain a foothold in the area. The general development converged with the emergence of Germanic within other previously Northern Bronze Age regions to the east, the local continuity of the Dutch areas was not substantially affected by pre-Roman or Celtic immigration. From about the 1st century CE, this saw the development of the Weser-Rhine group of West Germanic dialects which gave rise to Old Frankish from the 4th century. The issue still unresolved and so far no conclusive evidence has been forwarded to support any alternative. Mallory considers the issue a reminder that some anonymous linguistic groups that do not fully obey the current classification may have survived to the dawn of historical records. The archeological case for the Nordwestgroup hypothesis makes reference to a depth of up to 3000 BCE. The Bell Beaker culture locally developed into the Bronze Age Barbed Wire Beaker culture. In the second millennium BCE, the region was at the boundary between the Atlantic and Nordic horizons, split up in a northern and a southern region, the southern region became dominated by the Hilversum culture, which apparently inherited the previous Barbed Wire Beaker cultural ties with Britain. From 800 BCE onwards, the area was influenced by the Celtic Hallstatt culture, the current view in the Netherlands holds that subsequent Iron Age innovations did not involve substantial Celtic intrusions, but featured a local development from Bronze Age culture. Later, the Roman retreat resulted in the disappearance of imported products like ceramics and coins, to the north people continued to live in the same three-aisled farmhouse, while to the east completely new types of buildings arose. More to the south, in Belgium, archeological results of this point to immigration from the north. With the onset of historical records, the area was called the border region between Celtic and Germanic influence. Tribes located in the include the Batavians, Belgae, Chatti, Hermunduri, Cheruscii, Salii, Sicambri, Usipi, Tencteri. The Belgae were therefore considered Gaulish because of their position with respect to the Rhine, part of these tribes would later join the Frankish confederation. Archaeology of Northern Europe Dutch mythology Ambrones Old Europe
18.
Przeworsk culture
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The Przeworsk culture is part of an Iron Age archaeological complex that dates from the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD. It takes its name from the village near the town Przeworsk where the first artifacts were found and they knew how to dig and build wells, so the settlements didnt have to be located near bodies of water. Thirteen 2nd century wells with variously constructed timber lined walls were found at a settlement in Stanisławice, fields were being used for crop cultivation for a while and then as pastures, when animal excrement helped the soil regain fertility. Once iron share plows were introduced the fields were alternated between tillage and grazing, a number of such micro-regions possibly made up a tribe, with these separated by empty space, zones of mutual fear, as Tacitus put it. The tribes in turn, especially if they were closely related, would at times form larger structures, such as temporary alliances for waging wars. A Przeworsk culture turn of the industrial complex for the extraction of salt from salt springs was discovered in Chabsk near Mogilno. The dead were cremated and the ashes placed in urns. In the 1st century AD this was replaced with a sharp-profiled shape, the burial gifts were often, for unknown reasons, bent or broken, and then burned with the body. The burials range from poor to rich, the latter ones supplied with fancy Celtic and then Roman imports, scholars view the Przeworsk culture as an amalgam of a series of localized cultures. Continuity with the preceding Pomeranian culture is observed, albeit modified by significant influences from the La Tene, the Przeworsk culture is sometimes associated with the Vandals. To the east, in what is now northern Ukraine and southern Belarus, was the Zarubintsy culture, much of this area was subsequently absorbed by the Wielbark culture. The main characteristic feature of the Przeworsk culture are burials and these were mostly cremations, with occasional inhumation. Warrior burials are notable, which often include horse-gear and spurs, some burials are exceptionally rich, overshadowing the graves of Germanic groups further west, especially after 400 AD. Pottery and metalwork are often rich and show a great variety The cultures decline in the late 5th century coincides with the invasion of the Huns. Other factors may have included the social crisis that occurred as a result of the collapse of the Roman world, in the late 5/6th century, the Prague-Korchak culture appears in the Vistula basin. Przeworsk culture settlements and burial sites Vandals Amber Road Mallory, James P. Adams, Douglas Q
19.
Wielbark culture
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The Wielbark culture or East Pomeranian-Mazovian is part of an Iron Age archaeological complex that dates from the 1st century AD to the 4th century AD. It replaced the Oksywie culture, in the area of modern-day Eastern Pomerania around the lower Vistula river, Wielbark culture contained Venedi, Rugians, Goths, and Gepids located mainly in Pomerania and West Prussia later spreading down the east side into Podlasie and the southern Ukraine. The Wielbark culture was named after a village where a place with over 3,000 tombs, attributed to the Goths. Many of the stones were moved, and many graves were damaged by the early German discoverers. The Wielbark culture started out covering the area as the Oksywie culture, around the present day towns of Gdańsk. Later it reached into the lakelands and stretched southwards, into the region around Poznań, in 2000, in Czarnówko near Lębork, Pomerania, a cemetery of Oksywie and Wielbark cultures was found. These reached their height before the emigration of the population to the south west began, a bronze kettle depicts males wearing the Suebian knot hairstyle. The people of the Wielbark culture used both inhumation and cremation techniques for burying their dead, whether one or the other was used varies from site to site and is believed to have depended on family traditions. A characteristic of this culture, which it had in common with southern Scandinavia, was the raising of stone covered mounds, stone circles, solitary stelae and variations of cobble cladding. No weapons or tools are found in Wielbark culture graves, unlike the Przeworsk culture for which it was typical to give the dead such gifts. Instead, the artifacts found are mostly ornaments and costumes, although a few graves have shown spurs, another feature of the Wielbark culture was the use of bronze to make ornaments and accessories. Silver was used seldom and gold rarely, Iron appears to have been used extremely rarely. The Wielbark culture has traditionally been attributed to the migration of the Goths from Scandza to Gothiscandza as related in Jordanes account of their origin. Archaeologists, though, are wary of ascribing ethnicities to archaeological cultures, as the origins of, for this reason they normally assign names to cultures based on the modern names of sites where artifacts are found. The current tendency is to resist making an easy equation between Wielbark Culture and migration of the Goths, as any single migration of peoples is unlikely to be its sole source. The cemeteries may give some indication in evidence as to which settlements could have been established directly by Goths, appearing in the later 1st century, this type is found between the Vistula and the Kashubian and Krajenskian lakelands reaching into the Koszalin region. szukacz. pl
20.
Oksywie culture
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The Oksywie culture was an archaeological culture that existed in the area of modern-day Eastern Pomerania around the lower Vistula river from the 2nd century BC to the early 1st century AD. It is named after the village of Oksywie, now part of the city of Gdynia in northern Poland, a connection with the Rugii has been suggested. Like other cultures of this period, the Oksywie culture related to La Tène cultural characteristics, Oksywie cultures ceramics and burial customs indicate strong ties with the Przeworsk culture. Men only had their ashes placed in well made black urns with fine finish and their graves were supplied with practical items for the afterlife such as utensils and weapons. Typically buried with the man, this culture would also place swords with one-sided edge, womens ashes were buried in hollows and supplied with feminine items. Oxhöftkultur Andrzej Kokowski Archäologie der Goten 1999 Marija Gimbutas, the Bronze and the Early Iron Age of the Eastern Balts
21.
Chernyakhov culture
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The culture is probably the result of a multiethnic cultural mix of the Gothic, Geto-Dacian, Sarmatian and Slavic populations of the area. The Chernyakhov culture encompassed regions of modern Ukraine, Moldova, and it is named after the localities Sântana de Mureș, Mureș County, Transylvania in Romania and Cherniakhiv, Kaharlyk Raion, Kiev Oblast in Ukraine. The dual name reflects past preferential use by different schools of history to designate the culture, the spelling Chernyakhov is the transliteration from the Russian language. Other spellings include Sîntana de Mureș, Cherniakhiv, Czerniachów, the culture developed in the 2nd century AD. Of varied origins, the quickly became remarkably homogeneous throughout the areas it occupied. Scholars debate whether this means that the disparate peoples mingled inextricably, houses were arranged in parallel, and are of two predominant types. The most numerous are sunken huts, called Grubenhäuser in German and they are generally small in size, measuring 5-16 square metres in area. The other predominant type is surface dwellings called Wohnstallhäuser, which are of variable size. Some settlements have both types of dwellings, although Romanian finds have only sunken-floored houses, although the variation in types may be attributable to the different ethnic groups in the zone, the differences are also a reflection of socio-economic factors. The Wohnstallhäuser are typical of Germanic settlements in central Europe, and had not been found in cultures of south-eastern Europe. Conversely, the huts have been found in earlier Dacian cultures in the Carpathians and the farmers of the forest-steppe. Whatever their origins, these styles were adopted by all peoples of the culture. Both inhumation and cremation were practiced, the dead were buried with grave goods – pottery, iron implements, bone combs, personal ornaments, although in later periods grave goods decrease. Of the inhumation burials, the dead were buried in a north-south axis. Funerary gifts often include fibulae, belt buckles, bone combs, glass drinking vessels, womens burials in particular shared very close similarities with Wielbark forms - buried with two fibulae, one on each shoulder. Like in the Wielbark culture, Chernyakhov burials usually lack weapons as funerary gifts and this could be the result of the influences of Christianity, but could just as easily be explained in terms of an evolution of non-Christian beliefs about the afterlife. Pottery was predominantly of local production, being both wheel and hand-made, wheel made pottery predominated, and was made of finer clay. It was reminiscent of earlier Sarmatian types, refined by Roman, hand made pottery showed a greater variety in form, and was sometimes decorated with incised linear motifs
22.
Germania
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Germania was the Roman term for the geographical region in north-central Europe inhabited mainly by Germanic peoples. It extended from the Danube in the south to the Baltic Sea, the Roman portions formed two provinces of the Empire, Germania Inferior to the north, and Germania Superior to the south. Germania was inhabited mostly by Germanic tribes, but also Celts, early Slavs, Balts, the population mix changed over time by assimilation, and especially by migration. The ancient Greeks were the first to mention the tribes in the area, later, Julius Caesar wrote about warlike Germanic tribesmen and their threat to Roman Gaul, and there were military clashes between the Romans and the indigenous tribes. Tacitus wrote the most complete account of Germania that still survives, the origin of the term Germania is uncertain, but was known by Caesars time, and may be Gallic in origin. The name came into use after Julius Caesar and whether it was used widely before him amongst Romans is unknown, the term may be Gallic in origin. Tacitus wrote in AD98, For the rest, they affirm Germania to be a recent word, for those who first passed the Rhine and expulsed the Gauls, and are now named Tungrians, were then called Germani. Names of Germany in English and some languages are derived from Germania, but German speakers call it Deutschland. Several modern languages use the name Germania, including Hebrew, Italian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Maltese, Greek, Germania extended from the Rhine eastward to the Vistula river, and from the Danube river northward to the Baltic Sea. The areas west of the Rhine were mainly Celtic and became part of the Roman Empire in the first century BC, the Roman parts of Germania, Lesser Germania, eventually formed two provinces of the empire, Germania Inferior, Lower Germania and Germania Superior. Important cities in Lesser Germania included Besançon, Strasbourg, Wiesbaden, the geography of Magna Germania was comprehensively described in Ptolemys Geography of around 150 C. E. via geographical coordinates of the main cities. Germania was inhabited by different tribes, most of them Germanic but also some Celtic, proto-Slavic, Baltic, the tribal and ethnic makeup changed over the centuries as a result of assimilation and, most importantly, migrations. The Germanic people spoke several different dialects, classical records show little about the people who inhabited the north of Europe before the 2nd century BC. In the 5th century BC, the Greeks were aware of a group they called Celts, herodotus also mentioned the Scythians but no other tribes. At around 320 BC, Pytheas of Massalia sailed around Britain and along the northern coast of Europe and he may have been the first Mediterranean to distinguish the Germanic people from the Celts. Contact between German tribes and the Roman Empire did take place and was not always hostile, Caesar described the cultural differences between the Germanic tribesmen, the Romans, and the Gauls. He said that the Gauls, although warlike, could be civilized and his accounts of barbaric northern tribes could be described as an expression of the superiority of Rome, including Roman Gaul. Caesars accounts portray the Roman fear of the Germanic tribes and the threat they posed, the perceived menace of the Germanic tribesmen proved accurate
23.
Germanic Wars
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The Germanic Wars is a name given to a series of wars between the Romans and various Germanic tribes between 113 BC and 596 AD. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings and later Germanic invasions in the Roman Empire that started in the late 2nd century BC. The series of conflicts, which began in the 5th century under the Western Roman Emperor Honorius,112 BC, Battle of Noreia, Suicide of Consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo. 107 BC, Helvetii defeat the Romans in the Battle of Agen, Consul Lucius Cassius Longinus dies in battle,105 BC, Battle of Arausio, Execution of Roman General Marcus Aurelius Scaurus, Proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio and Consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus exiled. 101 BC, Roman consuls Gaius Marius and Manius Aquillius defeat the Cimbri in the Battle of Vercellae, King Boiorix dies in battle,57 BC, Battle of the Sabis. 54 BCE, Destruction of the legion Legio XIV Gemina by the Eburones led by Cativolcus and Ambiorix, Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta dies in battle,53 BC, Caesars retaliation against the Eburones second crossing of the Rhine, Extermination of the Eburones. 52 BC, Fall of Celtic Gaul, Gaul becomes a Roman province,46 BC, Execution of Vercingetorix the Celt. 20 BC, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Governor of Transalpine Gaul, Construction of military roads,16 BC, clades Lolliana, Destruction of the legion Legio V Alaudae by Sicambri and their allies, Fall of the Kingdom of Noricum. 9 BC, Creation of Magna Germania, Pacification campaigns against the Germanic tribes by the Roman Empire, 6–2 BC, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus invasions to the Elbe. 1–4 AD, Rise of the Chatti and Bructeri suppressed by Tiberius, 6–9, Uprising in Illyricum, which cancels the major Roman project of war against Suevic Marcomanni. 6, Varus succeeds Saturninus as governor of Germania with the mission of peacekeeping,9, clades Variana, Destruction of the legions XVII, XVIII and XIX by Arminius in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, Suicide of Administrator Varus, Loss of military camps east of the Rhine. Roman Empire is forced to withdraw from Germania. 10–13, Military command of Tiberius in Germania and interventions in the valley of the Lippe, replaced by Germanicus,14, Mutiny of the legions of Germania. 14–16, Roman retaliation against Cherusci, Chatti, Bructeri and Marsi,17, Cessation of military offensives east of the Rhine by Tiberius, Civil war between Germanic tribes. 28, Revolt of the Frisii, Tax collectors hanged, Romans defeated in the Battle of Baduhenna Wood,41, Raid against the Chauci under Emperor Claudius, Recovery of third legionary standard lost in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. 50, Raid against the Chatti under Emperor Claudius, Liberation of Roman prisoners, 69–70, Revolt of the Batavi, Destruction of 2 Roman legions by the Batavi. 82–83, Raids against the Chatti under Emperor Domitian,89, Lucius Antonius Saturninus, Legio XIV Gemina and Legio XXI Rapax revolt against Rome with aid of the Chatti. 165, Invasion of Pannonia by Lombards and Ubii, 166–180, Germanic tribes invade the frontiers of the Roman Empire, specifically the provinces of Raetia and Moesia, Marcomannic Wars
24.
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
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Despite several successful campaigns and raids by the Romans in the years after the battle, they never again attempted to conquer the Germanic territories east of the Rhine river. The victory of the Germanic tribes against Romes legions in the Teutoburg Forest would have far-reaching effects on the subsequent history of both the ancient Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire. In 4 CE, the Roman general Tiberius entered Germania and subjugated the Cananefates in Germania Inferior, the Chatti near the upper Weser River, after these conquests, he led his army across the Weser. He was assigned to consolidate the new province of Germania in the autumn of that year, Tiberius was then forced to turn his attention to a rebellion which broke out in the province of Illyricum. Led by Bato the Daesitiate, Bato the Breucian, Pinnes of Pannonia, and elements of the Marcomanni, it was known as the Bellum Batonianum, and it lasted nearly four years. Tiberius was forced to stop his campaign against Maroboduus and recognise him as king so that he could send his eight legions to crush the rebellion in the Balkans. This campaign, led by Tiberius and Quaestor Legatus Germanicus under Emperor Augustus, was one of the most difficult, due to this massive redeployment of available legions, when Varus was named Legatus Augusti pro praetore in Germania, only three legions were available to him. Varus name and deeds were well known beyond the empire because of his ruthlessness, while he was feared by the people, he was highly respected by the Roman senate. On the Rhine, he was in command of the XVII, XVIII and these had previously been led by General Gaius Sentius Saturninus, who had been sent back to Rome after being awarded an ornamenta triumphalia. The other two legions in the winter-quarters of the army at castrum Moguntiacum were led by Varus nephew, Lucius Nonius Asprenas, Arminius then spent his youth in Rome as a hostage, where he had received a military education, and even been given the rank of Equestrian. During Arminius absence, Segimerus was declared a coward by the other Germanic chieftains, because he had submitted to Roman rule, between 11 BCE and 4 CE, the hostility and suspicion between the Germanic tribes deepened. Trade and political accords between the warlords deteriorated, Tacitus wrote that the Chatti were hostile, and subjugated the Cherusci, but were themselves pacified between 4 and 6 CE. Velleius Paterculus also reported that in the years 1–4 CE, there was unrest in Germania, after his return from Rome, Arminius became a trusted advisor to Varus, but in secret he forged an alliance of Germanic tribes that had traditionally been enemies. These included the Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Chauci, Sicambri, and remaining elements of the Suebi and these five were some of the fifty Germanic tribes at the time. While Varus was on his way from his summer camp west of the Weser river to winter headquarters near the Rhine, he reports of a local rebellion. Varus decided to quell this uprising immediately, expediting his response by taking a detour through territory that was unfamiliar to the Romans, Arminius, who accompanied him, directed him along a route that would facilitate an ambush. His warning, however, was dismissed as stemming from the feud between Segestes and Arminius. Arminius then left under the pretext of drumming up Germanic forces to support the Roman campaign, once free from prying eyes, he immediately led his troops in a series of attacks on the surrounding Roman garrisons
25.
Germania (book)
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Tacitus says that physically, the Germanic peoples appear to be a distinct nation, not an admixture of their neighbors, as nobody would desire to migrate to a climate as horrid as that of Germania. They are divided into three branches, the Ingaevones, the Herminones and the Istaevones, deriving their ancestry from three sons of Mannus, son of Tuisto, their common forefather. He mentions that the opinions of women are given respect, Tacitus further discusses the role of women in Chapters 7 and 8, mentioning that they often accompany the men to battle and offer encouragement. He says that the men are highly motivated to fight for the women because of an extreme fear of losing them to captivity. He also records that adultery is very rare, and that a woman is shunned afterward by the community regardless of her beauty. In Chapter 45 Tacitus mentions that the tribe to the north of the Germans, the latter chapters of the books describe the various Germanic tribes, their relative locations and some of their characteristics. Many of the tribes named correspond with other records and traditions. Ethnography had a long and distinguished heritage in literature. Tacitus himself had written a similar—albeit shorter—essay on the lands. In writing the work, Tacitus might have wanted to stress the dangers that the Germanic tribes posed to the Empire, Tacitus descriptions of the Germanic character are at times favorable in contrast to the opinions of the Romans of his day. All of these traits were highlighted perhaps because of their similarity to idealized Roman virtues. g, the possibility that the Batavians may therefore have been Celtic-speaking. Tacitus nevertheless shows no lack of precision in stating that the Nervii are not actually Germanic as they claim to be and he also notes in Chapter 43 that a certain tribe called the Cotini actually speaks a Gallic tongue, and likewise the Osi speak a Pannonian dialect. Tacitus himself had never travelled in the Germanic lands, all his information is second-hand at best, the defection of these peoples in the year 89 during Domitians war against the Dacians modified the whole frontier policy of the Empire. All copies of Germania were lost during the Middle Ages and the work was forgotten until a manuscript was found in Hersfeld Abbey in 1425. It was then brought to Italy, where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II and this sparked interest among German humanists, including Conrad Celtes, Johannes Aventinus, and Ulrich von Hutten and beyond. Beginning in 16th-century German humanism, German interest in Germanic antiquity remained acute throughout the period of Romanticism and nationalism, a scientific angle was introduced with the development of Germanic philology by Jacob Grimm. Because of its influence on the ideologies of Pan-Germanism and Nordicism, christopher Krebs, a professor at Stanford University, claims in a 2012 study that Germania played a major role in the formation of the core concepts of Nazi ideology. The Codex Aesinas is believed to be portions of the Codex Hersfeldensis - the lost Germania manuscript brought to Rome from Hersfeld Abbey and it was rediscovered in 1902 by priest-philologist Cesare Annibaldi in the possession of Count Aurelio Balleani of Iesi
26.
Irminones
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The Irminones, also referred to as Herminones or Hermiones, were a group of early Germanic tribes settling in the Elbe watershed and by the 1st century AD expanding into Bavaria, Swabia and Bohemia. Irminonic or Elbe Germanic is a term grouping early West Germanic dialects ancestral to High German. The name Irminones or Hermiones comes from Tacituss Germania, where he categorized them as one of the tribes of descended from Mannus, other Germanic groups of tribes were the Ingvaeones, living on the coast, and Istvaeones, who accounted for the rest. Tacitus also mentioned the Suebi as a large grouping who included the Semnones, the Quadi and the Marcomanni, mela then begins to speak of the Scythians. Plinys Natural History claimed that the Irminones included the Suebi, Hermunduri, Chatti, in Nennius, the name Mannus and his three sons appear in corrupted form, the ancestor of the Irminones appearing as Armenon. His sons here are Gothus, Valagothus/Balagothus, Cibidus, Burgundus, and Longobardus, whence come the Goths, Valagoths/Balagoths, Cibidi, Burgundians and they may have differentiated into the tribes Alamanni, Hermunduri, Marcomanni, Quadi, Suebi by the 1st century AD. By that time the Suebi, Marcomanni and Quadi had moved southwest into the area of modern-day Bavaria and Swabia, in 8 BC, the Marcomanni and Quadi drove the Boii out of Bohemia. The term Suebi is usually applied to all the groups moved into this area. Jǫrmun, the Viking Age Norse form of the name Irmin, deutsche Mythologie, From English released version Grimms Teutonic Mythology, Available online by Northvegr © 2004-2007, Chapter 15, page 2-,3. Friedrich Maurer Nordgermanen und Alemannen, Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde, Strasbourg, Hünenburg
27.
Ingaevones
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The Ingaevones or, as Pliny has it, apparently more accurately, Ingvaeones, as described in Tacituss Germania, written c. The postulated common group of related dialects of the Ingvaeones is called Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic. According to the speculations of Rafael von Uslar, this subdivision of the West Germanic tribes corresponds to archeological evidence from Late Antiquity. Pliny ca 80 CE in his Natural History lists the Ingvaeones as one of the five Germanic races, the others being the Vandili, the Istvaeones, the Hermiones, according to him, the Ingvaeones were made up of Cimbri, Teutons, and Chauci. Stripped of its Latin ending, the Ingvaeon are the Ingwine, friends of Ing familiar from Beowulf, where Hrothgar is Lord of the Ingwine—whether one of them or lord over them being ambiguous. Ing, the father of the Ingaevones/Ingvaeones derives his name from a posited proto-Germanic *Ingwaz, signifying man and son of, as Ing, Ingo, or Inguio. This is also the name applied to the Viking era deity Freyr, known in Sweden as Yngvi-Freyr, an Ingui is also listed in the Anglo-Saxon royal house of Bernicia and was probably once seen as the progenitor of all Anglian kings. 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 of Nennius in the Historia Brittonum, Mannus becomes Alanus and Ing, his son, the three sons of Neugio are named Boganus, Vandalus, and Saxo—from whom came the peoples of the Bogari, the Vandals, and the Saxons and Thuringii. List of Germanic peoples Grimm, Jacob, deutsche Mythologie, From English released version Grimms Teutonic Mythology, Available online by Northvegr 2004-2007, Chapter 15, page 2-,3. Band I, Einführung – Genealogie – Konstanten
28.
Istvaeones
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The Istvaeones, also called Istaevones, Istriaones, Istriones, Sthraones, and Thracones, are mentioned as a Germanic tribal grouping in the writings of Tacitus and Pliny the Elder. They categorized them as one of the nations of Germanic tribes descended from one of the sons of Mannus, the other two such peoples were the Ingvaeones and Irminones. To Mannus they assign three sons, from names, they say, the coast tribes are called Ingævones. Pliny the Elder writes that there are five races of Germania, one of which is the Istævones, who live near the Rhine. There the sons of this figure are, fantastically, from Frankish tradition, Francus, Romanus, Alamanus, and Bruttus and this seems to reflect Frankish desire to connect the Franks with the people they ruled. Deutsche Mythologie, From English released version Grimms Teutonic Mythology, Available online by Northvegr © 2004-2007, Chapter 15, friedrich Maurer Nordgermanen und Alemannen, Studien zur germanische und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde, Strasbourg, Hünenburg. Ingvaeonic languages Irminonic languages Istvaeonic languages List of Germanic peoples
29.
Chatti
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The Chatti were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser. They settled within the region in the first century B. C, while Julius Caesar was well informed about the regions and tribes on the eastern banks of the Rhine, he never mentioned the Chatti by name. He did make note of the Suebi though, and suggested that they had driven out the Celts to the south of the region corresponding to modern north Hesse in the prior centuries BC. Some commentators believe that Caesars Suebi were possibly the later Chatti and they were poor because they had fought the Romans, and had been defeated and plundered. He says that, settlements begin at the Hercynian forest, where the country is not so open and they are found where there are hills, and with them grow less frequent, for the Hercynian forest keeps close till it has seen the last of its native Chatti. Hardy frames, close-knit limbs, fierce countenances, and a peculiarly vigorous courage and their whole strength is in their infantry, which, in addition to its arms, is laden with iron tools and provisions. Other tribes you see going to battle, the Chatti to a campaign, seldom do they engage in mere raids and casual encounters. It is indeed the peculiarity of a force quickly to win. Fleetness and timidity go together, deliberateness is more akin to steady courage, Tacitus also notes that like other Germanic tribes, the Chatti took an interest in traditions concerning haircuts and beards. The coward and the unwarlike remain unshorn, the bravest of them also wear an iron ring until they have released themselves by the slaughter of a foe. Most of the Chatti delight in these fashions, even hoary-headed men are distinguished by them, and are thus conspicuous alike to enemies and to fellow-countrymen. To begin the battle always rests with them, they form the first line, nor even in peace do they assume a more civilised aspect. It is possible that at first the Chatti moved into place on the Rhine, Cassius Dio describes Drusus establishing a fort in Chatti territory on the Rhine in 11 BC, and that in 10 BC they moved out of an area where the Romans had permitted them. To the north of the Chatti, Tacitus places the area of the Chauci. To the east, the neighbours of the Chatti and Chauci were the Cherusci, after the early third century AD, however, the Chatti virtually disappear from the sources and are only called upon as a topical element or when writing about events of the first century. Cassius Dio is most likely not only the first author to mention the Alamanni, writing about the Germanic war of Caracalla in 213 AD, he has the emperor fight Κέννους, Kελτικòν ἔθνος. This is taken from an excerpt of Dio in the writings of Joannes Xiphilinus, however, the usage of Kελτικός for Germanic peoples was an archaic tradition among Greek writers. After Cassius Dio, the name Chattus appears among others in a panegyric by Sidonius Apollinaris in the fifth century
30.
Marcomanni
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According to Tacitus and Strabo they were Suebian. It is believed their name derives possibly from the Proto-Germanic forms of march and men, *Markōmanniz, the Marcomanni first appear in historical records as confederates of the Suebi of Ariovistus fighting against Julius Caesar in Gaul, having crossed the Rhine from present-day southern Germany. The exact position of their lands at this time is not known, the fact that their name existed before the Romans had territory near the Danube or Rhine raises the question of which border they lived near in order to explain their name. It has been suggested that they may have lived near the conjunction of Rhine and this was described as being within the Hercynian forest and was possibly in the region of modern Bohemia, although this is not certain. By 6 BC, their king, Maroboduus, had established a kingdom there that Augustus perceived as a threat to Rome. Before he could act, however, the revolt in Illyria intervened, eventually Maroboduus was deposed and exiled by Catualda. Catualda was in turn deposed by Vibilius of the Hermunduri the same year, around 50 AD, Vannius was himself also deposed by Vibilius, in coordination with his nephews Vangio and Sido. Tacitus, in the late 1st century mentions the Marcomanni as being under kings appointed by Rome, in the 2nd century AD, the Marcomanni entered into a confederation with other peoples including the Quadi, Vandals, and Sarmatians, against the Roman Empire. This was probably driven by movements of larger tribes, like the Goths, according to the historian Eutropius, the forces of the emperor, Marcus Aurelius, battled against the Marcomannic confederation for three years at the fortress of Carnuntum in Pannonia. Eutropius compared the war, and Aureliuss success against the Marcomanni and their allies, the comparison was apt in that this war marked a turning point and had significant Roman defeats, it caused the death of two Praetorian Guard commanders. The war lasted until Aureliuss death in 180 and it would prove to be only a limited success for Rome, the Danube river remained as the frontier of the empire until the final fall of the West. The Christianisation of the Marcomanni, at least into a Roman orthodox form of Christianity, seems to have occurred under their queen and she corresponded with Ambrose of Milan to bring about the conversion. This was the last clear evidence of the Marcomanni having a polity and it was possibly on the Roman side of the Danube by this time. Soon after, the Pannonian and Danubian area went into a period of turmoil. These Suevi were probably a mix of Suevian groups from the north of Danube and Pannonian basin such as the Marcomanni, Quadi. There, Hermeric swore fealty to the emperor in 410, bracara Augusta, the modern city of Braga in Portugal, previously the capital of Roman Gallaecia, now became the capital of the Suebic Kingdom. The Danubian area meanwhile became the core of Attila the Huns empire, one group of them managed to reform into an independent group after the Battle of Nedao in 454, like many other groups who emerged from Attilas confederation. These Suevi eventually came into conflict with the Ostrogoths, who had been on the side at Nadao
31.
Suebi
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The Suebi was a large group of related Germanic peoples who lived in Germania in the time of the Roman Empire. They were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with his battles against Ariovistus in Gaul and they actually occupy more than half of Germania, and are divided into a number of distinct tribes under distinct names, though all generally are called Suebi. At one time, classical ethnography had applied the name Suevi to so many Germanic tribes that it appeared as if, in the first centuries AD, classical authors noted that the Suevic tribes, compared to other Germanic tribes, were very mobile and not reliant on agriculture. Various Suevic groups moved from the direction of the Baltic Sea, towards the end of the empire, the Alemanni, also referred to as Suebi, first settled in the Agri Decumates and then crossed the Rhine and occupied Alsace. An area in southwest Germany is still called Swabia, which derives from the Suebi. Other Suebi entered Gaul and some moved as far as Gallaecia, where they established the Kingdom of the Suebi, which lasted for 170 years until its integration into the Visigothic Kingdom. Notably, the Semnones, known to classical authors as one of the largest Suebian groups, also seem to have a name with this same meaning, alternatively, it may be borrowed from a Celtic word for vagabond. Caesar placed the Suebi east of the Ubii apparently near modern Hesse, in the position where later writers mention the Chatti, some commentators believe that Caesars Suebi were the later Chatti or possibly the Hermunduri, or Semnones. Later authors use the term Suebi more broadly, to cover a number of tribes in central Germany. Whether or not the Chatti were ever considered Suevi, both Tacitus and Strabo distinguish the two partly because the Chatti were more settled in one territory, whereas Suevi remained less settled. The definitions of the greater ethnic groupings within Germania were apparently not always consistent and clear, whereas Tacitus reported three main kinds of German peoples, Irminones, Istvaeones, and Ingaevones, Pliny specifically adds two more genera or kinds, the Bastarnae and the Vandili. The Vandals were tribes east of the Elbe, including the well-known Silingi, Goths, and Burgundians, the modern term Elbe Germanic similarly covers a large grouping of Germanic peoples that at least overlaps with the classical terms Suevi and Irminones. In the time of Caesar, southern Germany was Celtic, in addition, also near the Hercynian forest Caesar believed that the Celtic Tectosages had once lived. All of these peoples had for the most part moved by the time of Tacitus, nevertheless, Cassius Dio wrote that the Suebi, who dwelt across the Rhine, were called Celts, which could mean that some Celtic groups were absorbed by larger Germanic tribal confederations. Strabo, in Book IV of his Geography also associates the Suebi with the Hercynian Forest and the south of Germania north of the Danube. He describes a chain of mountains north of the Danube that is like an extension of the Alps, possibly the Swabian Alps. In Book VII Strabo specifically mentions as Suevic peoples the Marcomanni, some of these tribes were inside the forest and some outside of it. Tacitus confirms the name Boiemum, saying it was a survival marking the old population of the place
32.
Migration Period
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The Migration Period was a time of widespread migrations within or into Europe in the middle of the first millennium AD. It has also been termed the Völkerwanderung and, from the Roman, many of the migrations were movements of Germanic, Slavic, and other peoples into the territory of the then Roman Empire, with or without accompanying invasions or war. Although immigration was common throughout the time of the Roman Empire, later invasions, also had significant effects, however, they are outside the scope of the Migration Period. Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia and Germany to the adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward, moving into southern Germany up to the Roman provinces of Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul by 100 BC and it is this western group which was described by the Roman historian Tacitus and Julius Caesar. A later wave of Germanic tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia between 600 and 300 BC to the opposite coast of the Baltic Sea, moving up the Vistula near the Carpathians, the Barbarian Invasions may be divided into two phases. The first phase, occurring between AD300 and 500, is documented by Greek and Latin historians but difficult to verify archaeologically. It puts Germanic peoples in control of most areas of what was then the Western Roman Empire, the Tervingi entered Roman territory in 376. Some time thereafter in Marcianopolis, the escort to Fritigern was killed while meeting with Lupicinus, fending off challenges from the Allemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths, the Frankish kingdom became the nucleus of what would later become France and Germany. The initial Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain occurred during the fifth century, the Burgundians settled in North Western Italy, Switzerland and Eastern France in the fifth century. The second phase took place between 500 and 700 and saw Slavic tribes settling in central and eastern Europe, gradually making it predominantly Slavic, additionally, Turkic tribes such as the Avars became involved in this phase. In 567, the Avars and the Lombards destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom, the Lombards, a Germanic people, settled in Italy with their Herulian, Suebian, Gepid, Thuringian, Bulgarian, Sarmatian and Saxon allies in the 6th century. They were later followed by the Bavarians and the Franks, who conquered and ruled most of Italy, during the Khazar–Arab Wars, the Khazars stopped the Arab expansion into Europe across the Caucasus. At the same time, the Moors invaded Europe via Gibraltar and these battles broadly demarcated the frontiers between Christendom and Islam for the next millennium. The following centuries saw the Muslims successful in conquering most of Sicily from the Christians by 902, the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin from around 895, and the Viking expansion from the late 8th century conventionally mark the last large movements of the period. Christianity gradually converted the non-Islamic newcomers and integrated them into the medieval Christian order, a number of contemporary historical references worldwide refer to an extended period of extreme weather during 535–536. Evidence of this period is also found in dendrochronology and ice cores. The consequences of this period are debated
33.
Alemanni
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The Alemanni were a confederation of Germanic tribes on the upper Rhine river. In 496, the Alemanni were conquered by Frankish leader Clovis, mentioned as still pagan allies of the Christian Franks, the Alemanni were gradually Christianized during the 7th century. The Pactus Alamannorum is a record of their customary law during this period, until the 8th century, Frankish suzerainty over Alemannia was mostly nominal. But after an uprising by Theudebald, Duke of Alamannia, Carloman executed the Alamannic nobility, during the later and weaker years of the Carolingian Empire the Alemannic counts became almost independent, and a struggle for supremacy took place between them and the Bishopric of Constance. According to Asinius Quadratus their name means all men and it indicates that they were a conglomeration drawn from various Germanic tribes. Other sources say the name derives from alahmannen which means men of sanctuary and not all men. The Romans and the Greeks called them as such mentioned and this etymology has remained the standard derivation of the term. Walafrid Strabo, a monk of the Abbey of St, the name of Germany and the German language in several languages is derived from the name of this early Germanic tribal alliance. For details, see Names of Germany, the Alemanni were first mentioned by Cassius Dio describing the campaign of Caracalla in 213. At that time they dwelt in the basin of the Main. Cassius Dio portrays the Alemanni as victims of this treacherous emperor and they had asked for his help, says Dio, but instead he colonized their country, changed their place names and executed their warriors under a pretext of coming to their aid. When he became ill, the Alemanni claimed to have put a hex on him, Caracalla, it was claimed, tried to counter this influence by invoking his ancestral spirits. In retribution Caracalla then led the Legio II Traiana Fortis against the Alemanni, the legion was as a result honored with the name Germanica. Not on good terms with Caracalla, Geta had been invited to a reconciliation, at which time he was ambushed by centurions in Caracallas army. True or not, Caracalla, pursued by devils of his own, Caracalla left for the frontier, where for the rest of his short reign he was known for his unpredictable and arbitrary operations launched by surprise after a pretext of peace negotiations. If he had any reasons of state for such actions they remained unknown to his contemporaries, whether or not the Alemanni had been previously neutral, they were certainly further influenced by Caracalla to become thereafter notoriously implacable enemies of Rome. This mutually antagonistic relationship is perhaps the reason why the Roman writers persisted in calling the Alemanni barbari, most of the Alemanni were probably at the time in fact resident in or close to the borders of Germania Superior. At that time the frontier was being fortified for the first time
34.
Anglo-Saxons
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The Anglo-Saxons are a people who have inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including government of shires. During this period, Christianity was re-established and there was a flowering of literature, charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, in scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English. The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity and it developed from divergent groups in association with the peoples adoption of Christianity, and was integral to the establishment of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish invasions and occupation of eastern England, this identity was re-established, the visible Anglo-Saxon culture can be seen in the material culture of buildings, dress styles, illuminated texts and grave goods. Behind the symbolic nature of these emblems, there are strong elements of tribal. The elite declared themselves as kings who developed burhs, and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms, above all, as Helena Hamerow has observed, local and extended kin groups remained. the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Use of the term Anglo-Saxon assumes that the words Angles, Saxons or Anglo-Saxon have the meaning in all the sources. Assigning ethnic labels such as Anglo-Saxon is fraught with difficulties and this term began to be used only in the 8th century to distinguish the Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The Old English ethnonym Angul-Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli-Saxones and became the name of the peoples Bede calls Anglorum, Anglo-Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo-Saxons themselves, it is not an autonym. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest. The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, Saxones who attacked the shores of Britain, procopius states that Britain was settled by three races, the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in writing of the 8th century. The name therefore seemed to mean English Saxons, the Christian church seems to have used the word Angli, for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, Non Angli sed angeli. The terms ænglisc and Angelcynn were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people, at other times he uses the term rex Anglorum, which presumably meant both Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex, the term Engla cyningc is used by Æthelred
35.
Angles
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The Angles were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, and their name is the root of the name England, the name comes from the district of Angeln, an area located on the Baltic shore of what is now Schleswig-Holstein. The name of the Angles may have been first recorded in Latinised form, as Anglii and it is thought to derive from the name of the area they originally inhabited, Angeln in modern German, Angel in Danish. This name has been hypothesised to originate from the Germanic root for narrow, meaning the Narrow, i. e. the Schlei estuary, the root would be angh, tight. Another theory is that the name meant hook, as in angling for fish, Julius Pokorny, Gregory the Great in an epistle simplified the Latinised name Anglii to Angli, the latter form developing into the preferred form of the word. The country remained Anglia in Latin, the earliest recorded mention of the Angles may be in chapter 40 of Tacituss Germania written around AD98. Tacitus describes the Anglii as one of the more remote Suebic tribes compared to the Semnones and Langobardi and he grouped the Angles with several other tribes in that region, the Reudigni, Aviones, Varini, Eudoses, Suarini and Nuitones. These were all living behind ramparts of rivers and woods and therefore inaccessible to attack, the Eudoses are the Jutes, these names probably refer to localities in Jutland or on the Baltic coast. The majority of scholars believe that the Anglii lived on the coasts of the Baltic Sea and these Suevi Angili would have been in Lower Saxony or near it, but they are not coastal. The three Suebic peoples are separated from the coastal Chauci, and Saxones, by a series of tribes including, Ptolemy describes the coast to the east of the Saxons as inhabited by the Farodini, a name not known from any other sources. Owing to the uncertainty of this passage, there has been speculation regarding the original home of the Anglii. The ethnic names of Frisians and Warines are also attested in these Saxon districts, a second possible solution is that these Angles of Ptolemy are not those of Schleswig at all. According to Julius Pokorny the Angri- in Angrivarii, the -angr in Hardanger and the Angl- in Anglii all come from the root meaning bend. In other words, the similarity of the names is strictly coincidental, on the other hand, Gudmund Schütte, in his analysis of Ptolemy, believes that the Angles have simply been moved by an error coming from Ptolemys use of imperfect sources. Bede states that the Anglii, before coming to Great Britain, dwelt in a land called Angulus, similar evidence is given by the Historia Brittonum. Danish tradition has preserved record of two governors of Schleswig, father and son, in their service, Frowinus and Wigo, from whom the royal family of Wessex claimed descent. During the 5th century, the Anglii invaded Great Britain, after which time their name does not recur on the continent except in the title of Suevi Angili. The Angles are the subject of a legend about Pope Gregory I, as the story would later be told by the Anglo-Saxon monk and historian Bede, Gregory was struck by the unusual appearance of the slaves and asked about their background
36.
Jutes
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The Jutes, Iuti, or Iutæ were a Germanic people. According to Bede, the Jutes were one of the three most powerful Germanic peoples of their time in the Nordic Iron Age, the two being the Saxons and the Angles. The Jutes are believed to have originated from the Jutland Peninsula, in present times, the Jutlandic Peninsula consists of the mainland of Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany. North Frisia is also part of Germany, the Jutes invaded and settled in southern Britain in the late 4th century during the Age of Migrations, as part of a larger wave of Germanic settlement in the British Isles. Bede places the homeland of the Jutes on the side of the Angles relative to the Saxons. Tacitus portrays a people called the Eudoses living in the north of Jutland, the Jutes have also been identified with the Eotenas involved in the Frisian conflict with the Danes as described in the Finnesburg episode in the poem Beowulf. Others have interpreted the ēotenas as jotuns, meaning giants, or as a kenning for enemies, disagreeing with Bede, some historians identify the Jutes with the people called Eucii, who were evidently associated with the Saxons and dependents of the Franks in 536. The Eucii may have been identical to a tribe called the Euthiones. The Euthiones are mentioned in a poem by Venantius Fortunatus as being under the suzerainty of Chilperic I of the Franks. This identification would agree well with the location of the Jutes in Kent. Even if Jutes were present to the south of the Saxons in the Rhineland or near the Frisians, however, it is possible that the tribal names were confused in the above sources. In both Beowulf and Widsith, the Eotenas are clearly distinguished from the Geatas, there is also evidence that the Haestingas people who settled in the Hastings area of Sussex, in the 6th century, may also have been Jutish in origin. One recent scholar, Robin Bush, even argued that the Jutes of Hampshire, Bede clearly implies that this was so, in 686. However, Bushs theory has been the subject of debate amongst academics, including a counter-hypothesis, the culture of the Jutes of Kent shows more signs of Roman, Frankish, and Christian influence than that of the Angles or Saxons. The Quoit Brooch Style has been regarded as Jutish, from the 5th century
37.
Saxons
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The Saxons were a group of Germanic tribes first mentioned as living near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany, in the late Roman empire. They were soon mentioned as raiding and settling in many North Sea areas, as well as pushing south inland towards the Franks. Significant numbers settled in parts of Great Britain in the early Middle Ages. Many Saxons however remained in Germania, where they resisted the expanding Frankish Empire through the leadership of the semi-legendary Saxon hero, the Saxons earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein. This general area also included the probable homeland of the Angles, Saxons, along with the Angles and other continental Germanic tribes, participated in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain during and after the 5th century. The British-Celtic inhabitants of the isles tended to refer to all of these collectively as Saxons. It is unknown how many Saxons migrated from the Continent to Britain, the Saxons may have derived their name from seax, a kind of knife for which they were known. The seax has a symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex. Their names, along with those of Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the word Saxon. The Elizabethan era play Edmund Ironside suggests the Saxon name derives from the Latin saxa, Their names discover what their natures are, More hard than stones, in the Celtic languages, the words designating English nationality derive from the Latin word Saxones. The most prominent example, a loanword in English, is the Scottish Gaelic Sassenach and it derives from the Scottish Gaelic Sasunnach meaning, originally, Saxon, from the Latin Saxones. Scots- or Scottish English-speakers in the 21st century usually use it as a term for an English person. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English. Sasanach, the Irish word for an Englishman, has the same derivation, as do the words used in Welsh to describe the English people, Cornish terms the English Sawsnek, from the same derivation. In the 16th century Cornish-speakers used the phrase Meea navidna cowza sawzneck to feign ignorance of the English language, England in Scottish Gaelic is Sasainn. Other examples include the Welsh Saesneg, Irish Sasana, Breton saoz, and Cornish Sowson, Sowsnek, the label Saxons was also applied to German settlers who migrated during the 13th century to southeastern Transylvania. From Transylvania, some Saxons migrated to neighbouring Moldavia, as the name of the town, Sas-cut, sascut is located in the part of Moldavia that is today part of Romania. The Finns and Estonians have changed their usage of the term Saxony over the centuries to denote now the country of Germany
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Burgundians
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The Burgundians were a large East Germanic or Vandal tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the area of modern Poland in the time of the Roman Empire. This later became a component of the Frankish empire, the name of this Kingdom survives in the regional appellation, Burgundy, which is a region in modern France, representing only a part of that kingdom. Another part of the Burgundians stayed in their previous homeland in the Oder-Vistula basin, the ethnonym Burgundians is commonly used in English to refer to the Burgundi who settled in Sapaudia, in the western Alps, during the 5th Century. Between the 6th and 20th centuries, the boundaries and political connections of Burgundy have changed frequently, in modern times the only area still referred to as Burgundy is in France, which derives its name from the Duchy of Burgundy. The parts of the old Kingdom not within the French controlled Duchy tended to come under different names, the Burgundians had a tradition of Scandinavian origin which finds support in place-name evidence and archaeological evidence and many consider their tradition to be correct. The Burgundians are believed to have emigrated to the Baltic island of Bornholm. However, by about 250 CE, the population of Bornholm had largely disappeared from the island, most cemeteries ceased to be used, and those that were still used had few burials. In Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar, the Veseti settled in an island or holm, alfred the Greats translation of Orosius uses the name Burgenda land to refer to a territory next to the land of Sweons. The poet and early mythologist Viktor Rydberg, asserted from a medieval source, Vita Sigismundi. Early Roman sources, such as Tacitus and Pliny the Elder, knew little concerning the Germanic peoples east of the Elbe river, Pliny however mentions them among the Vandalic or Eastern Germanic Germani peoples, including also the Goths. Claudius Ptolemy lists them as living between the Suevus and Vistula rivers, north of the Lugii, and south of the coast dwelling tribes. Around the mid 2nd century AD, there was a significant migration by Germanic tribes of Scandinavian origin towards the south-east and these migrations culminated in the Marcomannic Wars, which resulted in widespread destruction and the first invasion of Italy in the Roman Empire period. Jordanes reports that during the 3rd century, the Burgundians living in the Vistula basin were almost annihilated by Fastida, king of the Gepids, in the late 3rd century, the Burgundians appear on the east bank of the Rhine, confronting Roman Gaul. Zosimus reports them being defeated by the emperor Probus in 278 in Gaul, at this time, they were led by a Vandal king. A few years later, Claudius Mamertinus mentions them along with the Alamanni and he also mentions that the Goths had previously defeated the Burgundians. Ammianus Marcellinus, on the hand, claimed that the Burgundians were descended from Romans. The Roman sources do not speak of any specific migration from Poland by the Burgundians, in 369/370, the Emperor Valentinian I enlisted the aid of the Burgundians in his war against the Alemanni. Approximately four decades later, the Burgundians appear again, following Stilichos withdrawal of troops to fight Alaric I the Visigoth in AD 406-408, the northern tribes crossed the Rhine and entered the Empire in the Völkerwanderung, or Germanic migrations
