Front Page
Bavaria
Bukovina
Galizia

Zeidlerei Profession
Germanic Tribes
Middle Ages
100 Years' War
30 Years War

The Two Calendars
Surname History
German Language
English Language
Gen Resources
Contact

ZEITLER LINES
    direct line
    with siblings
STANISLAWSKY
THE FEMALE LINE

more offsite...
Haplogroup-I mtDNA
NativeUSA.org
GermanTribes.org
Balko Photo
River-Styx.net
Christian-Webdesign
ClassicFilmStars
Gimme Sweeps!

see my new site: GermanTribes.org!

The Germanic peoples are a linguistic and ethnic branch of Indo-European peoples, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Germanic languages that are descended from Proto-Germanic. Migrating Germanic peoples spread throughout Europe, mixing with existing local populations (such as Celts, but also Slavs/Vends and Romans), forming the future basis of diverse nations, to various extents connected by linguistic affinity, as well as a common identity, history, and culture.

Etymology of Germani

Odin riding on Sleipnir (Tängvide image stone, 8th century.

Latin Germani is first used by Julius Caesar, and is thought to be a loan from the Celtic name for the Germanic tribes. There is also a Latin adjective germanus (from germen, "seed" or "offshoot"), which has the sense of "related" or "kindred" and whence derives Catalan germà, Spanish hermano and Portuguese irmão, "brother". If the proper name Germani derives from this word, it may refer to the Roman experience of the Germanic tribes as allies of the Celts. The name may also derive from one of the principal proto-tribes of Central Europe, the Hermunduri.

Another possible derivation is the one proffered by the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1966), which relates the name to Old Irish gair, "neighbor", which actually means "near". The Welsh is ger.

McBain's An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language relates the word to Irish gearr, "cut, short" (a short distance) and states the Proto-Celtic root to be *gerso-s, further related to ancient Greek chereion, "inferior" and English gash. Here the etymological trail becomes more obscured. English gash leads to the Greek word character, which is an engraving for an identity sign of some sort. There is no clear root for this word. It could be a Proto-Indo-European root, *khar-, *kher-, *ghar-, *gher-, "cut", from which also Hittite kar-, "cut". Or, it could be a pre-Indo-European root, related perhaps to Egyptian kha-, "cut", or the Indo-European root could derive from the pre-Indo-European root.

Apparently, the Germanic tribes did not have a self name that included all Germanic-speaking people but excluded all non-Germanic people, except for generic þiuda- "people", while non-Germanic peoples (primarily Celtic, Roman, Greek, the citizens of the Roman Empire) were called *walha- (this word lives forth in names such as Wales, Welsh, Cornwall, Walloons, Vlachs etc.). The self-designation is continued in many personal names (such as Thiud-reks, and also in the ethnonym of the Swedes (from a cognate of Old English Sweo-ðēod). The adjective *þiudiskaz, referring to the language, continued in German Deutsch (meaning German), English "Dutch", Dutch Duits and Dietsch (the latter referring to Dutch, the former meaning German). Danish Tysk (meaning German), was not introduced until the 9th century, originally designating the language of the people in contrast to the Latin language. From ca. 875, Latin writers refer to the German language as teutonicus.

In English, German is first attested in 1520, replacing earlier use of Almain or Dutch. Dutch is now used in the English language to refer to the language used in the Netherlands and Flanders and the inhabitants of the Netherlands.

Classification

Detail of the Uppland Rune Inscription 871 (12th century)

The concept of "Germanic" as a distinct ethnic identity was hinted at by the early Greek geographer Strabo, who distinguished a barbarian group in northern Europe similar to, but not part of, the Celts. Posidonius, to our knowledge, is the first to have used the name, around 80 BC, in his lost 30th book. Our knowledge of this is based on the 4th book of Athenaeus, who in ca. AD 190 quotes Posidonius as saying that "The Germani at noon serve roast meat with milk, and drink their wine undiluted".

By the 1st century A.D., the writings of Caesar, Tacitus and other Roman era writers indicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into tribal groupings centered on:

• the rivers Oder and Vistula (Poland) (East Germanic tribes)
• the lower Rhine river (Istvaeones)
• the river Elbe (Irminones)
• Jutland and the Danish islands (Ingvaeones)

The Sons of Mannus Istvaeones, Irminones, and Ingvaeones are collectively called West Germanic tribes. In addition, those Germanic people who remained in Scandinavia are referred to as North Germanic. These groups all developed separate dialects, the basis for the differences among Germanic languages down to the present day.

The division of peoples into West Germanic, East Germanic, and North Germanic is a modern linguistic classification. Many Greek scholars only classified Celts and Scyths in the Northwest and Northeast of the Mediterranean and this classification was widely maintained in Greek literature until Late Antiquity. Latin-Greek ethnographers (Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, and Strabo) mentioned in the first two centuries AD the names of peoples they classified as Germanic along the Elbe, the Rhine, and the Danube, the Vistula and on the Baltic Sea. Tacitus mentioned 40, Ptolemy 69 peoples. Classical ethnography applied the name Suebi to many tribes in the first century. It appeared that this native name had all but replaced the foreign name Germanic. After the Marcomannic wars the Gothic name steadily gained importance. Some of the ethnic names mentioned by the ethnographers of the first two centuries AD on the shores of the Oder and the Vistula (Gutones, Vandali) reappear from the 3rd century on in the area of the lower Danube and north of the Carpathian Mountains. For the end of the 5th century the Gothic name can be used - according to the historical sources - for such different peoples like the Goths in Gaul, Iberia and Italy, the Vandals in Africa, the Gepids along the Tisza and the Danube, the Rugians, Sciri and Burgundians, even the Iranian Alans.

History

Origin

Regarding the question of ethnic origins, evidence developed by archaeologists and linguists suggests that a people or group of peoples sharing a common material culture dwelt in a region defined by the Northern Bronze Age culture, centred in northern Germany and Scandinavia between 1700 BC and 450 BC. Also more specific Iron Age cultures comprising the same region, like Wessenstadt (800-600 BC) and Jastorf, are in consideration.[1] The change of PIE to proto-germanic has been defined by the first sound shift (or Grimm's law) and must have occurred when mutually intelligible dialects or languages in a Sprachbund where still able to convey such a change to the whole region. So far it has been impossible to date this event conclusively.

The precise interaction between these peoples is not known, however, they are tied together and influenced by regional features and migrational patterns linked to prehistoric cultures like Hügelgraber, Urnfield and La Tene. A deteriorating climate in Scandinavia c. 850 BC-760 BC and a later and more rapid one c. 650 BC might have triggered migrations to the coast of eastern Germany and further towards the Vistula. A contemporary northern expansion of Hallstatt drew part of this peoples into the Celtic hemisphere, including nordwestblock areas and the region of Elp culture (1800 BC - 800 BC), without evidence of losing their identity or being recolonized from the north. Cultural features at that time included small, independent settlements, and an economy strongly based on the keeping of livestock and agriculture.

At around this time, this culture became influenced by Hallstatt techniques of how to extract bog iron from the ore in peat bogs. Their technology for gaining iron ore from local sources may eventually have helped them expand into new territories later, after the northbound thrust of Hallstatt cultures - Celts, originally inhabiting the more southerly Danube and Alpine regions during the same period - had dwindled.

West Germanic subdivision

The expansion of the Germanic tribes 750 BC – 1 AD: New settlements until 1AD

Recently there is a growing awareness of a West Germanic identity of the Iron Age Rhineland "La Tene" tribes. First to emerge to the light of history in Roman times, they were traditionally labeled "Germanic". However, the "Celtic" nature of their cultural remains and archeological findings prompted 20th century writers to exclude these tribes from being originally Germanic and rather to consider the possibility of a separate nordwestblock identity speaking a language that might have been either non-indo european or otherwise intermediate between Germanic and Celtic, possibly most similar to the grossly unresolved (Celtic?) languages of the Belgae. Nowadays, gathered linguistic evidence propelled a return to previous views by showing already differentiated West Germanic characteristics at the earliest attested stages of their languages. New proposals consider a weak foreign Celtic elite superstratum in the region, that draw the older substratum into the Celtic hemisphere but did not achieve to impose a Celtic language - except for a quantity of obviously Celtic loans.

La Tene

Frankenstein and Rowlands (1978) and Wells (1980) have suggested late Hallstatt trade contact to be a direct catalyst for the development of a elite class that came into existence around northeastern France, the Middle Rhine region, and adjacent Alpine regions, culminating to new cultural developments and the advent of La Tene. The development of La Tene culture extended to the north around 200BC-150BC, including the North German Plain, Denmark and Southern Scandinavia.

"In certain cremation graves, situated at some distance from other graves, Celtic metalwork appears: brooches and swords, together with wagons, Roman cauldrons and drinking vessels. The area of these rich graves is the same as the places where later (first century AD) princely graves are found. A ruling class seems to have emerged, distinguished by the possession of large farms and rich gravegifts such as weapons for the men and silver objects for the women, imported earthenware and Celtic items."

Roman Times

Germanic expansions during early Roman times are known only generally, but it is clear that the forebears of the Goths were settled on the southern Baltic shore by 100 AD.

The early Germanic tribes spoke mutually intelligible dialects, and shared a common culture and mythology, as is indicated by Beowulf and the Volsunga saga. One example of their shared identity is their common Germanic name for non-Germanic peoples, *walhaz (plural of *walhoz), from which the local names Welsh, Wallis, etc. were derived. A second example of a recognized ethnic unity is the fact that the Romans knew them as one and gave them a common name, Germani, although it was well known for the Romans to give geographical rather than cultural names to peoples. This is the source of our German and Germanic.

Collision Course

Map showing the pre-Migration Age distribution of the Germanic tribes in Proto-Germanic times, and stages of their expansion up to 50 BC, AD 100 and AD 300. The extent of the Roman Empire in 68 BC and AD 117 is also shown.

By the late 2nd century, B.C., Roman authors recount, Gaul, Italy and Hispania were invaded by migrating Germanic tribes, culminating in military conflict with the armies of the Roman Empire. Six decades later, Julius Caesar invoked the threat of such attacks as one justification for his annexation of Gaul to Rome.

As Rome expanded to the Rhine and Danube rivers, it incorporated many Celtic societies into the Empire. The tribal homelands to the north and east emerged collectively in the records as Germania. The peoples of this area were sometimes at war with Rome, but also engaged in complex and long-term trade relations, military alliances, and cultural exchanges with Rome as well.

The Cimbri and Teutoni incursions into Roman Italy were thrust back in 101 BC. These invasions were written up by Caesar and others as presaging of a Northern danger for the Empire, a danger that should be controlled. In the Augustean period there was — as a result of Roman activity as far as the Elbe River — a first definition of the "Germania magna": from Rhine and Danube in the West and South to the Vistula and the Baltic Sea in the East and North.

Caesar's wars helped establish the term Germania. The initial purpose of the Roman campaigns was to protect Transalpine Gaul by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe. In 9 AD a revolt of their subject Germanics headed by the supposed Roman ally, Arminius, (along with his decisive defeat of Publius Quinctilius Varus in the surprise attack on unprepared Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest) ended in the withdrawal of the Roman frontier to the Rhine. At the end of the 1st century two provinces west of the Rhine called Germania inferior and Germania superior were established. Important medieval cities like Aachen, Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Worms and Speyer were part of these Roman provinces.

The Germania by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, an ethnographic work on the diverse group of Germanic tribes outside of the Roman Empire, is our most important source on the Germanic peoples of the 1st century.

The Migrations

2nd to 5th century simplified migrations

During the 5th century, as the Western Roman Empire lost military strength and political cohesion, numerous Germanic peoples, under pressure from population growth and invading Asian groups, began migrating en masse in far and diverse directions, taking them to England and as far south through present day Continental Europe to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. Over time, this wandering meant intrusions into other tribal territories, and the ensuing wars for land escalated with the dwindling amount of unoccupied territory. Wandering tribes then began staking out permanent homes as a means of protection. Much of this resulted in fixed settlements from which many, under a powerful leader, expanded outwards. A defeat meant either scattering or merging with the dominant tribe, and this continual process of assimilation was how nations were formed. In Denmark the Jutes merged with the Danes, in Sweden the Geats merged with the Swedes. In England, the Angles merged with the Saxons and other groups as well as a large number of natives to form the Anglo-Saxons.

Role in the Fall of Rome

Some of the Germanic tribes are frequently blamed in popular depictions of the decline of the Roman Empire in the late 5th century. Professional historians and archaeologists have since the 1950s shifted their interpretations in such a way that the Germanic peoples are no longer seen as invading a decaying empire but as being co-opted into helping defend territory the central government could no longer adequately administer. Individuals and small groups from Germanic tribes had long been recruited from the territories beyond the limes (i.e., the regions just outside the Roman Empire), and some of them had risen high in the command structure of the army. Then the Empire recruited entire tribal groups under their native leaders as officers. Assisting with defense eventually shifted into administration and then outright rule, as Roman government passed into the hands of Germanic leaders. Odoacer, who deposed Romulus Augustulus, is the ultimate example.

The presence of successor states controlled by a nobility from one of the Germanic tribes is evident in the 6th century - even in Italy, the former heart of the Empire, where Odoacer was followed by Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, who was regarded by Roman citizens and Gothic settlers alike as legitimate successor to the rule of Rome and Italy.

Conversion to Christianity

Karl der Großse (Charlemagne) by Albrecht Dürer

While the Germanic peoples were slowly converted to Christianity by varying means, many elements of the pre-Christian culture and indigenous beliefs remained firmly in place after the conversion process, particularly in the more rural and distant regions.

The Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals were Christianized while they were still outside the bounds of the Empire; however, they converted to Arianism rather than to orthodox Catholicism, and were soon regarded as heretics. The one great written remnant of the Gothic language is a translation of portions of the Bible made by Ulfilas, the missionary who converted them. The Lombards were not converted until after their entrance into the Empire, but received Christianity from Arian Germanic groups.

The Franks were converted directly from paganism to Catholicism without an intervening time as Arians. Several centuries later, Anglo-Saxon and Frankish missionaries and warriors undertook the conversion of their Saxon neighbors. A key event was the felling of Thor's Oak near Fritzlar by Boniface, apostle of the Germans, in 723.

Eventually, the conversion was forced by armed force, successfully completed by Karl der Große (a Germanic king, though the French have taken him over with the name of Charlemagne), in the Saxon Wars, that also brought Saxon lands into the Frankish empire. Massacres, such as the Bloody Verdict of Verden were a direct result of this policy.

In Scandinavia, the Germanic religion continued to dominate until the 11th century, when it was gradually replaced by Christianity.

Assimilation

"Germanic" as understood today is a linguistic term. Modern ethnicities speaking Germanic languages are not referred to as Germanic peoples, a term of historic scope. All present-day countries speaking a Germanic language including Germany have mixed ethnic roots not restricted to the Germanic peoples.

Germanic peoples were often quick to assimilate (although the term absorption could also accurately be used to describe several of the following historical situations) into foreign cultures. Established examples include the Gallo-Roman Norsemen in Normandy, and the societal elite in medieval Russia among whom many were the descendants of Slavified Norsemen (a theory, however, contested by some Slavic scholars in the former Soviet Union, who name it the Normanist theory).

England is similarly considered an example of assimilation, where elements of the culture of the migrating Angles, Saxons and Jutes merged with that of the indigenous Celtic speaking Britons, resulting in an English identity for the inhabitants of that land. The later (mid-11th century) arriving French-speaking Norsemen similarly altered what was known as Anglo-Saxon England and set the English language on the path from Old English to Middle English.

It should be noted that the Normans had spent 155 years or approximately 7 generations in a predominantly Celtic France before proceeding to invade Britain. During this time they replaced their Nordic language with a middle French/Gallo-Romance language. Since the Normans are known in particular for their ability to merge with existing populations of people it can be assumed that they would take wives from local populations and become absorbed by the lands they settled within a few short generations.

As in England, Scotland's indigenous Brythonic Celtic culture in the southeast succumbed to Germanic influence due to invasion; while the Scottish Highlands and Galloway retained a Gaelic heritage due to recent and sustained immigration from Ireland which planted the Gaelic culture there while the southwest remained predominantly Briton until adopting Gaelic under Alba. Later almost the entire Scottish Lowlands became Scots speaking as a result of the reforms of the 11th and 12th centuries. The Scots language is the resulting Germanic language now spoken in Scotland and similar to the regional variation of English in the north of England, Geordie (or Northumbrian). The Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands, though a part of Scotland, became Norse Gaels or “Dubh Gaels” reflecting the Nordic influence in their preexisting Celtic culture, again within a few short generations the influence of the Shetlands Nordic language Norn was replaced as an influx of Gaelic speaking Scots resulted in its displacement.

France saw a great deal of Germanic settlement. Its namesake, the Franks, were a fusion of several Germanic tribes whose homelands lay along the Roman Rhine frontier, and who had been strongly influenced by Roman culture. Entire regions of France (such as Alsace, Burgundy and Normandy) were settled heavily by Franks, contributing to their unique regional cultures and dialects, and Frankish kings ruled the country from the 6th century to the 10th century. However, most of the languages spoken in France today are Romance languages, while the people have a heavy Gallic substratum that predates Latin and Germanic settlement.

Portugal and Spain also had a great measure of Germanic settlement, due to the Visigoths, the Suevi (Quadi and Marcomanni) and the Buri, who settled permanently. The Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) were also present, before moving on to North Africa. Many words of Germanic origin entered into the Spanish and Portuguese languages at this time and many more entered through other avenues (often French) in the ensuing centuries.

Italy, especially the area north of the city of Rome, has also had a history of heavy Germanic settlement. Germanic tribes such as the Visigoths, Vandals, and Ostrogoths had successfully invaded and sparsely settled Italy in the 5th century AD. Most notably, in the 6th century AD, the Germanic tribe known as the Lombards entered and settled primarily in the area known today as Lombardy. The Normans also conquered and ruled Sicily and parts of southern Italy for a time.

Germany itself, during the last centuries BC, was mostly occupied by Celtic and Nordwestblock tribes who were linguistically assimilated into the Germanic peoples expanding from the western Baltic littoral area, as well as speakers of Romance languages in the south and west of the country and in Austria and Switzerland. In medieval times, under the identity of the Holy Roman Empire, Germany assimilated Slavic and Baltic peoples to the east (Ostsiedlung); after World War II their descendants spread to other parts of Germany as Vertriebene (exiles).

References
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, 20:67
1979: Nederland in de bronstijd, J.J. Butler
Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150-700 - Looijenga, Jantina Helena - III.6, The West Germanic hypothesis, University of Groningen, 1997
"Völker zwischen Germanen und Kelten", von Rolf Hachmann, Georg Kossack und Hans Kuhn, 1986, p183-212
by writers including Joke Delrue, University Gent"
Complexity, Trade, and Death: Analysis of the shift in Burial Practices during the Late La Tène Period - Dr. Charles Orser http://www.soa.ilstu.edu/anthropology/theses/smithburt/THESIS2.doc]
Parker Pearson 1989:202
Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150-700 - Looijenga, Jantina Helena - II.2, From the pre-Roman Iron Age to the late-Germanic Iron Age, University of Groningen, 1997

TOP