Germanic peoples

1. Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic, Suebian, or Gothic in
older literature) are an Indo-European ethnolinguistic group of
Northern European origin identified by their use of the Germanic
languages.[1] Their history stretches from the 2nd millennium BC up
to the present day.[2]
Proto-Germanic peoples are believed to have emerged during the
Nordic Bronze Age, which developed out of the Battle Axe culture in
southern Scandinavia.[3] During the Iron Age various Germanic tribes
began a southward expansion at the expense of Celtic peoples, which
led to centuries of sporadic violent conflict with ancient Rome. It is
from Roman authors that the term "Germanic" originated. The
decisive victory of Arminius at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9
AD is believed to have prevented the eventual romanization of the
Germanic peoples, and has therefore been considered a turning point
in world history.[4] Germanic tribes eventually settled the entire
Roman frontier along the Rhine and the Danube, with some of the
them establishing close relations with the Romans, often serving as
mercenaries and sometimes even rising to the highest offices in the
Roman military. Meanwhile, eastern Germanic tribes were expanding
into Eastern Europe, where the Goths subdued the local Iranian nomads and came to dominate the Pontic Steppe,
simultaneously launching seaborn expeditions into the Balkans and Anatolia as far as Cyprus.[5][6]
The westward expansion of the Huns into Europe in the late 4th-century AD pushed many Germanic tribes into the
Western Roman Empire. Their vacated lands were subsequently filled by Slavs. Much of these territories would be
reclaimed in the following centuries.[1] Other tribes settled Great Britain and became known as the Anglo-Saxons. With the
subsequent collapse of the Western Roman Empire, a series of Germanic kingdoms emerged, out of which Francia
acquired a dominant position. Under Charlemagne in the 8th-century AD, this kingdom was proclaimed the Holy Roman
Empire. During this time, North Germanic seafarers, commonly referred to as Vikings, embarked on a massive expansion
which led to the establishment of the Duchy of Normandy, Kievan Rus' and their settlement of the British Isles and the
North Atlantic Ocean as far as North America. With the North Germanic abandonment of their native religion in the 11th-
century AD, all Germanic peoples had been converted to Christianity.[7] With the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther
in the 16th-century AD, many Germanic nations embraced Protestantism.[8]
The Germanic migrations forged the main component of the population of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland,
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Northern Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, northern and central France,
Lowland Scotland and England.[9][10] The Germanic peoples have formed the basis of the history and society of most of
Western Europe from the Early Middle Ages and up to the present day.[11]
Roman bronze statuette representing a
praying Germanic man with his hair in a
Suebian knot
Contents

2. Ethnonym
Germanic
Teutonic
Classification
Linguistics
History
Origins
Early Iron Age
Pytheas
Bastarnae
Collision with Rome
Roman Empire period
Migration Period
Role in the Fall of Rome
Early Middle Ages
Post-migration ethnogeneses
Culture
Law
Warfare
Economy
Kinship patterns
Marriage
Religion
Genetics
Later Germanic studies and their influence
See also
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography and further reading
External links
In about 222 BCE, the first use of the Latin term "Germani" appears in the Fasti Capitolini inscription de Galleis
Insvbribvs et Germ(aneis). This may simply be referring to Gaul or related people; but this may be an inaccurate date
since the inscription was erected in about 18 BCE despite referencing an earlier date. The term Germani shows up again,
allegedly written by Poseidonios (from 80 BCE), but is merely a quotation inserted by the author Athenaios who wrote
much later (around 190 CE).[12][13] Somewhat later, the first surviving detailed discussions of Germani and Germania are
those of Julius Caesar, whose memoirs are based on first-hand experience.
From Caesar's 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 word provides the etymological origin of the modern concept of "Germanic"
languages and Germany as a geographical abstraction. For some classical authors Germania also included regions of
Sarmatia, as well as an area under Roman control on the west bank of the Rhine. Additionally, in the south there were
Ethnonym
Germanic

3. 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 civilized than Gaul, a place that required additional
military vigilance.[14]
Caesar used the term Germani for a very specific tribal grouping in northeastern
Belgic Gaul, west of the Rhine, the largest part of whom were the Eburones. He
made clear that he was using the name in the local sense. 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.[15] Tacitus suggests
that this was the original meaning of the word "Germani" – as the name of a
single tribal nation west of the Rhine, ancestral to the Tungri (who lived in the
same area as the earlier Germani reported by Caesar), and not the name of a
whole race (gens) as it came to mean. He also suggested that two large Belgic
tribes neighbouring Caesar's Germani, the Nervii and the Treveri, liked to call
themselves Germanic in his time, in order not to be associated with Gaulish
indolence.[16] Caesar described this group of tribes 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 (though he did say that Belgic Gaul was different from Celtic Gaul in
language). The geographer Ptolemy described the place where these people lived
as Germania, which according to his accounts was bordered by the Rhine,
Vistula and Danube Rivers, but he also circumscribed into Greater Germania an
area which included Jutland (Cimbrian peninsula) and an enormous island
known as Scandia (the Scandinavian peninsula).[17]
While saying that the Germani had ancestry across the Rhine, Caesar did not
describe these tribes as recent immigrants, saying that they had defended
themselves some generations earlier from the invading Cimbri and Teutones.
(He thereby distinguished them from the neighbouring Aduatuci, whom he did
not call Germani, but who were descended from those Cimbri and Teutones.)[15]
It has been claimed, for example by Maurits Gysseling, that the place names of this region show evidence of an early
presence of Germanic languages, as early as the 2nd century BCE.[18] The Celtic culture and language were however clearly
influential also, as can be seen in the tribal name of the Eburones, their kings' names, Ambiorix and Cativolcus, and also
the material culture of the region.[19][a]
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" (prep.), Old Irish gair "neighbor", Irish gar­
(prefix) "near", garach "neighborly".[20] Another Celtic possibility is that the name meant "noisy"; cf. Breton/Cornish
garm "shout", Irish gairm "call".[21] However, here the vowel does not match, nor does the vowel length (contrast with
inscriptional Garmangabi (UK) and Garma Alise, G-257)). Others have proposed a Germanic etymology *gēr-manni,
"spear men", cf. Middle Dutch ghere, Old High German Ger, Old Norse geirr.[22] However, the form gēr (from PGmc
*gaizaz) seems far too advanced phonetically for the 1st century, has a long vowel where a short one is expected, and the
Latin form has a simplex -n-, not a geminate.
Archeological cultures of
Northern and Central Europe in
the late Pre-Roman Iron Age:
Jastorf culture
Nordic (Germanic) culture
Harpstedt-Nienburger group
Celtic culture
Przeworsk culture
House Urns culture
Eastern Balt (Forest Zone)
culture
Western Balt culture
Zarubintsy culture
Estonian group
Gubin culture
Oksywie culture
Thracian group
Poienesti-Lukasevka culture

4. The term Germani, therefore, probably applied to a small group of tribes in northeastern Gaul who may or may not have
spoken a Germanic language, and whose links to Germania are unclear. It appears that the Germanic tribes did not have a
word to describe themselves, although the word Suebi, used by Caesar to broadly classify Germanic speakers, was likely
Germanic in origin.[b] They did however use the term walhaz to describe outsiders (mainly Celts, Romans and Greeks).[12]
Roman authors frequently employed the term "barbarian" from the Latin derivative barbarus (inherited from the Greek
barbaros which means "foreign") when describing Germanic peoples. Such a term presupposed a distinctive Roman
intellectual and cultural superiority and their ethnographic treatises on the various "barbarian" tribes ascribed specific
attributes of barbarism to each one so as to delineate the dichotomy between barbarism and civilization.[23] The more the
Romans increased their presence along the periphery of their Empire, the more trade and employment for the
"barbarians" became available, resulting in an economic boom along the corridors of the Danube River, which
subsequently increased the Roman focus upon the Germanic peoples.[24] Use of the modern term German or Germanic is
the result of 18th and 19th century classical philology which "envisioned the Germanic language group as occupying a
central branch of the Indo-European language tree."[25]
Latin scholars of the 10th century used the adjective teutonicus (a derivative of Teutones) when referencing East Francia,
which in their vernacular was connoted "Regnum Teutonicum", for that area and all of its subsequent inhabitants. Modern
speakers of English still use the word "Teutons" to describe Germanic peoples.[12] Historically, the Teutones were only one
specific tribe, and may not even have spoken a Germanic language. For example, some scholars postulate that the original
Teutonic language may have been a form of Celtic.[26] The source of this confusion, whereby Teutons are lumped into the
same category as German-speaking tribes, comes from their contact with the Romans in the 2nd century BCE, when they,
along with the Cimbri and the Ambrones, led a frightening attack against the Romans. Teuton was the byword the Romans
applied to the barbarians from the north and which they used to describe subsequent Germanic peoples.[27] Under the
leadership of Gaius Marius, who built his career on barbarian antagonists (like many who followed), the Teutones became
one of the archetypal enemies of the Roman Empire.[28]
By the 1st century CE, the writings of Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, and Tacitus indicate a division of Germanic-
speaking peoples into large groupings who shared ancestry and culture. This division has been appropriated in modern
terminology describing the divisions of Germanic languages.
Tacitus, in his Germania, wrote[29] that
In their ancient songs, their only way of remembering or recording the past, they celebrate an earth-born
god, Tuisco, and his son Mannus, as the origin of their race, as their founders. To Mannus they assign three
sons, from whose names, they say, the coast tribes are called Ingævones; those of the interior, Herminones;
all the rest, Istævones.
Tacitus also specifies that the Suevi are a very large grouping, with many tribes within it, with their own names. The
largest, he says, is the Semnones, the Langobardi are fewer, but living surrounded by warlike peoples, and in remoter and
better defended areas live the Reudigni, Aviones, Anglii, Varini, Eudoses, the Suardones, and Nuithones.[30]
Teutonic
Classification

5. Pliny the Elder, on the other hand, names five races of Germans in his Historia
Naturalis,[31] not three, by distinguishing the two more easterly blocks of
Germans, the Vandals and further east the Bastarnae, who were the first to reach
the Black Sea and come into contact with Greek civilization. He is also slightly
more specific about the position of the Istvaeones, though he also does not name
any examples of them:
There are five German races; the Vandili, parts of whom are the
Burgundiones, the Varini, the Carini, and the Gutones: the
Ingævones, forming a second race, a portion of whom are the
Cimbri, the Teutoni, and the tribes of the Chauci. The Istævones,
who join up to the Rhine, and to whom the Cimbri [sic, repeated]
belong, are the third race; while the Hermiones, forming a fourth,
dwell in the interior, and include the Suevi, the Hermunduri, the
Chatti, the Cherusci, [c] and the Peucini, who are also the Basternæ,
adjoining the Daci.
The remote Varini are listed by Tacitus as being in the Suebic or Hermionic
group by Tacitus, above, but by Pliny in the eastern Vandalic or Gothic group, so
the two accounts do not match perfectly.
These accounts and others from the period often emphasise that the Suebi and
their Hermione kin formed an especially large and mobile nation, which at the
time were living mainly near the Elbe, both east and west of it, but they were also
moving westwards into the lands near the Roman frontier. Pomponius Mela in his slightly earlier Description of the
World[33] places "the farthest people of Germania, the Hermiones" somewhere to the east of the Cimbri and the Teutones,
and further from Rome, apparently on the Baltic. Strabo however describes the Suebi as going through a period where they
were pushed back east by the Romans, in the direction from which they had come:
the nation of the Suevi is the most considerable, as it extends from the Rhine as far as the Elbe, and even a
part of them, as the Hermonduri and the Langobardi, inhabit the country beyond the Elbe; but at the present
time these tribes, having been defeated, have retired entirely beyond the Elbe.[34]
By the end of the 5th century the term "Gothic" was used more generally in the historical sources for Pliny's "Vandals" to
the east of the Elbe, including not only the Goths and Vandals, but also "the Gepids along the Tisza and the Danube, the
Rugians, Sciri and Burgundians, even the Iranian Alans."[12]
Linguists postulate that an early proto-Germanic language existed and was distinguishable from the other Indo-European
languages as far back as 500 BCE.[35] The earliest known Germanic inscription was found at Negau (in what is now
southern Austria) on a bronze helmet dating back to the first century BCE.[36] Some of the other earliest known physical
records of the Germanic language appear on stone and wood carvings in Runic script from around 200 CE.[26] Runic
writing likely disappeared due to the concerted opposition of the Christian Church, which regarded runic text as heathen
One proposed theory for
approximate distribution of the
primary Germanic dialect groups
in Europe around the year 1 CE:
North Germanic
North Sea Germanic
(Ingvaeonic)
Weser-Rhine Germanic,
(Istvaeonic)
Elbe Germanic (Irminonic)
East Germanic
Linguistics

6. symbols which supposedly contained inherent magical properties that they associated with the Germanic peoples' pagan
past.[37] Unfortunately, this primitive view ignores the abundance of "pious runic writing found on church-related objects"
(ranging from inscriptions in the doorways of churches, on church bells and even those found on baptismal fonts) when
Christianity was introduced into the Germanic North.[38][d] An important linguistic step was made by the Christian convert
Ulfilas, who became a bishop to the Visigoths in CE 341; he subsequently invented an alphabet and translated the
scriptures from Greek into Gothic, creating the earliest known translation of the Bible into a Germanic language.[39]
From what is known, the early Germanic tribes may have spoken "mutually intelligible dialects" derived from a common
parent language but there are no written records to verify this fact.[40] Despite their common linguistic framework, by the
5th century CE, the Germanic people were linguistically differentiated and could no longer easily comprehend one
another.[41] Nonetheless, the line between Germanic languages and Romance speakers in central Europe remained at the
western mouth of the Rhine river and while Gaul fell under German domination and was firmly settled by the Franks, the
linguistic patterns did not move much. Further west and south in Europe-proper, the linguistic presence of the Germanic
languages is almost negligible. Despite the fact that the Visigoths ruled what is now Spain for upwards of 250 years, there
are almost no recognizable Gothic words borrowed into Spanish.[42]
The Germanic tribes moved and interacted over the next centuries, and separate dialects among Germanic languages
developed down to the present day.[43] Some groups, such as the Suebians, have a continuous recorded existence, and so
there is a reasonable confidence that their modern dialects can be traced back to those in classical times.[44] By extension,
but sometimes controversially, the names of the sons of Mannus, Istvaeones, Irminones, and Ingvaeones, are also
sometimes used to divide up the medieval and modern West Germanic languages.[12] The more easterly groups such as the
Vandals are thought to have been united in the use of East Germanic languages, the most famous of which is Gothic. The
dialect of the Germanic people who remained in Scandinavia is not generally called Ingvaeonic, but is classified as North
Germanic, which developed into Old Norse. Within the West Germanic group, linguists associate the Suebian or
Hermionic group with an "Elbe Germanic" which developed into Upper German, including modern German.[45]
More speculatively, given the lack of any such clear explanation in any classical source, modern linguists sometimes
designate the Frankish language (and its descendant Dutch) as Istvaeonic, although the geographical term "Weser-Rhine
Germanic" is often preferred. However, the classical "Germani" near the Rhine, to whom the term was originally applied
by Caesar, may not have even spoken Germanic languages, let alone a language recognizably ancestral to modern
Dutch.[46] The close relatives of Dutch, Low German, Anglo-Saxon and Frisian, are in fact sometimes designated as
Ingvaeonic, or alternatively, "North-Sea Germanic". Frankish, (and later Dutch, Luxembourgish and the Frankish dialects
of German in Germany) has continuously been intelligible to some extent with both "Ingvaeonic" Low German, and some
"Suebian" High German dialects, with which they form a spectrum of continental dialects. All these dialects or languages
appear to have formed by the mixing of migrating peoples after the time of Caesar. So it is not clear if these medieval
dialect divisions correspond to any mentioned by Tacitus and Pliny. Indeed, in Tacitus (Tac. Ger. 40 (http://www.perseus.
tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0083:chapter=40&highlight=anglii)) and in Claudius Ptolemy's
Geography, the Anglii, ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons, are designated as being a Suebic tribe.
By CE 500 west Germanic speakers had apparently developed a distinct language continuum with extensive loaning from
Latin (due to their ongoing contact with the Romans), whereas the east Germanic languages were dying out.[e] West
Germanic languages include: German, Yiddish, Dutch, Luxemburgish, Frisian, and English. Combined, these languages
are today spoken as a native tongue by more than 450 million people worldwide.[35] North Germanic languages are
Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic.[47] Roughly 20 million people currently speak the North Germanic
languages as their native tongue.[35] Later manifestations of the western Germanic languages and their pursuant
typological characteristics are due in part to the activities of the Hanseatic League where trade necessitated a lingua
franca from the mainland of Scandinavia all along the navigable shores of the North Sea, and within the Baltic Sea.[f]

7. Archaeological and linguistic evidence from a period known as the
Nordic Bronze Age indicates that a common material culture existed
between the Germanic tribes that inherited the southern regions of
Scandinavia, along with the Schleswig-Holstein area and the area of
what is now Hamburg, Germany.[48][12] Additional archaeological
remnants from the Iron Age society that once existed in nearby
Wessenstedt also show traces of this culture.[40] Exactly how these
cultures interacted remains a mystery but the migrations of early
proto-Germanic peoples are discernible from the remaining evidence
of prehistoric cultures in Hügelgräber, Urnfield, and La Tene. Climatic
change between 850 BCE to 760 BCE in Scandinavia and "a later and
more rapid one around 650 BCE might have triggered migrations to
the coast of Eastern Germany and further toward the Vistula.[12]
The cultural phase of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age in Europe
(c. 1200–600 BCE in temperate continental areas), known in
contemporary terms as the Hallstatt culture expanded from the south
into this area and brought the early Germanic peoples under the
influence of early Celtic (or pre Celtic) culture between 1200 BCE to
600 BCE, whereupon they began extracting bog iron from the
available ore in peat bogs. This ushered in the Pre-Roman Iron Age.[12]
Stretching from central France all the way to western Hungary and
then from the Alps to central Poland, the Hallstatt culture also
constructed sophisticated structures and the archaeological remains
across parts of France, Germany and Hungary suggest their trade
networks along the North Atlantic, Baltic Sea and up and down central
Europe's river valleys were fairly elaborate as well.[49]
The earliest sites at which Germanic peoples per se have been documented are in Northern Europe, in what now
constitutes the plains of Denmark and southern Sweden. However, in even this region, the population had been, according
to Waldman & Mason, "remarkably stable" – as far back as the Neolithic Age, when humans first began controlling their
environment through the use of agriculture and the domestication of animals.[50] Given this stability, the population of the
region necessarily preceded the arrival in Europe of the precursors of the Germanic languages – which most likely began
with the Corded Ware culture.
During the 2nd millennium BCE, the so-called Nordic Bronze Age culture expanded eastward into the adjacent regions
between the estuaries of the Elbe and Oder rivers.[51]
As early as 750 BCE, archeological evidence gives the impression that the proto-Germanic population was becoming more
uniform in its culture.[12] As this population grew, it migrated south-west, into coastal floodplains due to the exhaustion of
the soil in its original settlements.[52]
History
Map of the Nordic Bronze Age culture,
around 1200 BCE
The gilded side of the Trundholm sun
chariot
Origins
Early Iron Age

8. By approximately 250 BCE, additional expansion further southwards
into central Europe had begun to take place and five general groups of
Germanic people emerged, each employing distinct linguistic dialects
but sharing similar language innovations — they are distinguished
from one another as: North Germanic in southern Scandinavia; North
Sea Germanic in the regions along the North Sea and in the Jutland
peninsula NW Europe, which forms the mainland of Denmark
together with the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein; Rhine­
Weser Germanic along the middle Rhine and Weser river (which
empties into the North Sea near Bremerhaven); Elbe Germanic
spoken by the people living directly along the middle Elbe river; and
East Germanic between the middle of the Oder and the Vistula
rivers.[g]
Concomitantly, during the 2nd century BCE the advent of the Celtic
culture of Hallstatt and La Tene arose in nearby territories further west but the interactions between the early Germanic
people and the Celts is thought to have been minimal based on the linguistic evidence.[53] Despite the absence of the Celtic
influence further eastwards, there are a number of Celtic loanwords in Proto-Germanic, which at the very least indicates
contact between the people of Gaul and the early Germanic cultures that resided along the Rhine river.[54] Nonetheless,
material objects such as metal ornaments and pottery found near the areas east of the lower Rhine are connoted as Jastorf
in nomenclature and are characteristically distinguishable from the Celtic objects found further west.[55]
It is not clear if the first occurrence of the term Germani in Roman ethnography is either a reference to Germanic or Celtic
according to modern linguists, but it is probable that the clear geographic demarcation appearing between the two peoples
may have been made for the sake of political convenience by Caesar.[56] Caesar described some tribes more distinctly than
others but generally considered most of them as being from Germanic stock. However, the archaeological evidence in some
of the regions creates an ethnographic problem in clearly delineating the indigenous people based strictly on Roman
classification. Nonetheless, there are scholars who assert that there was an eventual linguistic "Germanization" that
occurred during the 1st century BCE through something they call the "elite-dominance" model.[57] Archaeologists are
unable to make definitive judgments which accord the observations of the Roman writer Tacitus. Enough cultural
absorption between the various Germanic people occurred that geographically defining the extent of pre-Roman Germanic
territory is nearly impossible from a classification standpoint.[58]
Some recognizable trends in the archaeological records exist, as it is known that, generally speaking, western Germanic
people while still migratory, were more geographically settled, whereas the eastern Germanics remained transitory for a
longer period.[59] Three settlement patterns and solutions come to the fore, the first of which is the establishment of an
agricultural base in a region which allowed them to support larger populations; second, the Germanic peoples periodically
cleared forests to extend the range of their pasturage; thirdly (and the most frequent occurrence), they often emigrated to
other areas as they exhausted the immediately available resources.[60] War and conquest followed as the Germanic people
migrated bringing them into direct conflict with the Celts who were forced to either Germanize or migrate elsewhere as a
result. West Germanic people eventually settled in central Europe and became more accustomed to agriculture and it is the
various western Germanic people that are described by Caesar and Tacitus. Meanwhile, the eastern Germanic people
continued their migratory habits.[61] Roman writers characteristically organized and classified people and it may very well
have been deliberate on their part to recognize the tribal distinctions of the various Germanic people so as to pick out
known leaders and exploit these differences for their benefit. For the most part however, these early Germanic people
The Dejbjerg wagon, National Museum of
Denmark

9. shared a basic culture, operated similarly from an economic perspective, and were not nearly as differentiated as the
Romans implied. In fact, the Germanic tribes are hard to distinguish from the Celts on many accounts simply based on
archaeological records.[62]
One of the earliest known written records of the Germanic world in classical times was in the lost work of Pytheas (fl.). It is
believed that Pytheas traveled to northern Europe c. 325 BCE, and his observations about the geographical environment,
traditions and culture of the northern European populations became a central source of information for later historians -
often the only source.[h] Authors such as Strabo, Pliny and Diodorus cite Pytheas in disbelief, although Pytheas'
observations appear to have been accurate. Though Pytheas was not the first Mediterranean to explore those lands (note
for example Himilco (5th century BCE), and possibly Phoenicians and Tartessians (c. 6th century BCE), his became the
first substantial surviving description of these populations. Much of the Germanic peoples' early history enters into view
through Pytheas, particularly since he was also possibly the first to distinguish the Germanoi people of northern and
central Europe as distinct from the Keltoi people further west.[63][64] Along with the records of a couple of other classical
writers (namely Polybius (2nd century BCE) and Posidonius (c. 135 BCE – c. 51 BCE), the work of Pytheas on the Celts and
early Germans influenced scores of future geographers, historians and ethnographers.[65]
An early Germanic people known as the Bastarnae were
identified by Roman authors and were allegedly the first to reach
the Graeco-Roman world, living in the area north of the Danube's
mouth in the Black Sea. They resided primarily in the territory
east of the Carpathian Mountains between the Dniester River
valley and the delta of the Danube in what is now the Ukraine,
Moldova and Romania and are considered the easternmost of the
Germanic tribes.[66] The Bastarnae are mentioned in historical
sources going back as far as the 3rd century BCE all the way
through the 4th century CE.[67] In 201–202 BCE, the
Macedonians under the leadership of King Philip V, conscripted
the Bastarnae as soldiers to fight against the Romans in the
Second Macedonian War.[66] They remained a presence in that
area until late in the Roman empire while some settled on Peuce
Island at the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea which is why
the name Peucini is also associated with the Bastarnae.[66] King Perseus enlisted the service of the Bastarnae in 171–168
BCE to fight the Third Macedonian War. By 29 BCE, they were subdued by the Romans and those that remained began
merging with various tribes of Goths into the second century CE.[66]
Sometime in CE 250, the Gothic king Kniva employed the assistance of the Bastarnae, Carpi, various Goths, and the Taifali
when he eventually laid siege to Philippopolis; he followed this victory up with another on the marshy terrain at Abrittus, a
battle which cost the life of a Roman emperor and inaugurated a series of consecutive barbarian invasions of the northern
Balkans and Asia Minor.[68] Historian Thomas Burns references the Bastarnae but only as an aside from the Latin poet
Claudian, claiming that they were among "the oldest of the various Scythian people".[69] Burns further elaborates in stating
that there are no "specific references" to the Bastarnae and that remarks about them by Claudian and later third century
writers "must give us pause" for the mention of such people might merely have been a "convenient poetic device."[69]
Historian Peter Heather disagrees with this position and identifies the Bastarnae as one of the Germanic tribes and asserts
Pytheas
Migrations of the Cimbri and the Teutons (late
2nd century BCE) and their war with Rome
(113–101 BCE)
Bastarnae

10. that they once "dominated substantial tracts of territory at the mouth of the Danube."[70] Along similar lines, the late
classical scholar, Theodor Mommsen, recognized the Bastarnae and placed them in the geographic regions of Moldavia
and Bessarabia during the reign of Tiberius.[71][i] This is the same region where Tacitus placed them.[72] Another historian
of antiquity, J. B. Bury, counted the Bastarnae along with the Goths, Vandals, Gepids, Burgundians, Lombards, Rugians,
Heruls and Sciri among the eastern Germanic peoples.[73] Sometime during the 4th or 5th century CE, the Bastarnae were
defeated by the Huns, ending their regional domination.[74][66]
Late in the 2nd century BCE, Roman sources recount the migrating Germanic
people of Gaul, Italy and Hispania who invaded areas considered part of
Imperial Rome. Unsurprisingly, this cultural confrontation resulted in war
between the Roman Republic and the Germanic tribes; particularly those of
the Roman Consul under Gaius Marius.[12] The Cimbri crossed into Norticum
(Austria) in 113 BCE looking for food and usable land when they confronted
and defeated a Roman army. A combined force of Cimbri[j] and Teutoni
squared off against additional armies from Rome in 109 and 105 BCE,
vanquishing them in the process.[75] Their further incursions into Roman
Italy were thrust back in 101 BCE at Vercellae by the Roman army.[76] These
earlier invasions were written up by Caesar and others as presaging of a
Northern danger for the Roman Republic, a danger that should be
controlled.[77]
Julius Caesar describes the Germani and their customs in his Commentarii
de Bello Gallico, though it is still a matter of debate if he refers to Northern
Celtic tribes or clearly identified Germanic tribes.
[The Germani] have neither Druids to preside over sacred offices, nor do they pay great regard to sacrifices.
They rank in the number of the gods those alone whom they behold, and by whose instrumentality they are
obviously benefited, namely, the sun, fire, and the moon; they have not heard of the other deities even by
report. Their whole life is occupied in hunting and in the pursuits of the military art; from childhood they
devote themselves to fatigue and hardships. Those who have remained chaste for the longest time, receive
the greatest commendation among their people; they think that by this the growth is promoted, by this the
physical powers are increased and the sinews are strengthened. And to have had knowledge of a woman
before the twentieth year they reckon among the most disgraceful acts; of which matter there is no
concealment, because they bathe promiscuously in the rivers and [only] use skins or small cloaks of deer's
hides, a large portion of the body being in consequence naked.
They do not pay much attention to agriculture, and a large portion of their food consists in milk, cheese, and
flesh; nor has any one a fixed quantity of land or his own individual limits; but the magistrates and the
leading men each year apportion to the tribes and families, who have united together, as much land as, and
in the place in which, they think proper, and the year after compel them to remove elsewhere. For this
enactment they advance many reasons-lest seduced by long-continued custom, they may exchange their
ardor in the waging of war for agriculture; lest they may be anxious to acquire extensive estates, and the
more powerful drive the weaker from their possessions; lest they construct their houses with too great a
Collision with Rome
Roman limes and modern central
European boundaries.

11. desire to avoid cold and heat; lest the desire of wealth spring up, from which cause divisions and discords
arise; and that they may keep the common people in a contented state of mind, when each sees his own
means placed on an equality with [those of] the most powerful.[k]
Tacitus described the Germanic people as ethnically uniform or "unmixed" with "a distinct character" and he even
generalized them by claiming that "a family likeness pervades the whole." He also reported that their eyes were "stern and
blue" and they had "ruddy hair" with "large bodies" that rendered them capable of "powerful exertions."[78] This image
portrayed them as a fearsome people deserving Rome's attention. Caesar was wary of these "barbaric" people of Germania
and invoked the threat of expansions such as that by Ariovistus' Suebi as justification for his brutal campaigns to annex
Gaul to Rome in 58–51 BCE.[79] Both Ariovistus and another notable Germanic warrior king named Maroboduus
attempted to rule their warrior-based empires in autocratic fashion but were killed by the treachery of other warrior-
nobles who strove for their own glory.[80]
An intense Roman militarization, greater than ever before, was begun under Caesar to deal with the barbarian tribes along
the frontier — particularly since he feared that the Celtic Gauls between Rome and the Germanic people would not be able
to defend themselves.[81] One major Celtic people who were forced from their homeland in modern southwest Germany
and Bohemia were the Boii, a migration which had major impacts on Rome and many other peoples. Later, Caesar's
attention in 58 BCE was drawn to the movements of the Boii's old neighbours the Helvetii, another population group
forced into Gaul from the direction of modern southwest Germany and western Switzerland.[82][l] When the Gaulish
Arverni and Sequani elicited assistance from the Germanic Suebi (who came to them from east of the Rhine into Gaul)
against their Aedui enemies in 71 BCE, the Suebi essentially remained in situ and were able to expand further into the
territory along the periphery of the Roman frontier. Meanwhile, Celtic culture and influence in Gaul began to wane during
the first century BCE as a result.[83]
Roman expansion along the Rhine and Danube rivers resulted in the incorporation of many indigenous Celtic societies
into the Roman Empire. Lands to the north and east of the Rhine emerge in the Roman records under the name
Germania. Population groups from this area had a complex relationship with Rome; sometimes the peoples of Germania
were at war with Rome, but at times they established trade relations, symbiotic military alliances, and cultural exchanges
with one another.[84] Nevertheless, the Romans made concerted efforts to divide the Germanic tribes when the opportunity
presented itself, encouraging intertribal rivalry so as to diminish the threat of an otherwise formidable enemy.[85] Over the
following centuries, the Romans sometimes intervened, but often took advantage as their neighbors slaughtered one
another using Roman-influenced techniques of war. More instances of Germani fighting Germani appear in the works of
Tacitus than between Romans and Germani.[86] But it was Caesar's wars against the Germanic people that helped establish
and solidify the use of the term Germania. The initial purpose of the Roman military campaigns was to protect Trans-
Alpine Gaul from further incursions of the Germanic tribes by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe.[87]
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 the Rhine and Danube rivers in the West and South to the Vistula and the Baltic Sea in the East
and North. In 9 CE, a revolt of their Germanic subjects headed by the supposed Roman ally, Arminius, (along with his
decisive defeat of Publius Quinctilius Varus and the destruction of 3 Roman legions in the surprise attack on the Romans
at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest) ended in the withdrawal of the Roman frontier to the Rhine. Occupying Germany
had proven too costly and with it, ended 28 years of Roman campaigning across the North European plains.[88] At the end
of the 1st century, two provinces west of the Rhine called Germania inferior and Germania superior were established by the
Roman Empire period

12. Emperor Domitian, having previously been military districts, "so as to separate this more militarized zone from the civilian
populations farther west and south".[89] Important medieval cities like Aachen, Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Worms and Speyer
were part of these two "militarized" 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. 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 CE. According to
historian Thomas Burns, major hostilities
between the external Germanic peoples of the
north and Rome did not commence in
"earnest" until the reign of Trajan (CE 98—
117), who used the "full weight of Roman
might" to attack the Dacians.[90]
In the absence of large-scale political
unification, such as that imposed forcibly by
the Romans upon the peoples of Italy, the
various tribes remained free, led by their own
hereditary or chosen leaders. Once Rome faced significant threats on its borders, some of the Germanic tribes who once
guarded its periphery chose solace within the Roman empire itself, implying that enough assimilation and cross-cultural
pollination had occurred for their societies not only to cooperate, but to live together in some cases. The 4th century Gothic
Tervingi are most famous among scholars of classical Rome and pre-modern Europe because the majority of them sought
asylum inside the heart of the Roman Empire in 376 CE.[91][m]
By the middle to late second century CE, migrating Germanic tribes like the Marcomanni and Quadi pushed their way to
the Roman frontier along the Danube corridor, movements of people which resulted in conflicts known as the
Marcomannic Wars; these conflicts ended in approximately CE 180.[93] Not long thereafter, larger confederations of
Germanic people appeared, groups led by tribal leaders acting as would-be kings. The first of these conglomerations
mentioned in the historical sources were the Alamanni (a term meaning "all men") who appear in Roman texts sometime
in the 3rd century CE.[94] This change indicated that the tribalism of the Germanic people was being abandoned for
consolidated rule. Meanwhile, Rome adapted itself due to the arrival of the Germanic tribes. Emperor Severus Alexander
was killed by his own soldiers in CE 235 for example (for negotiating peace with the tribes of Germania through diplomacy
and bribery against the wishes of his men) and the general Maximin elected in his place. Maximin was himself not Roman
but was ethnically the child of a Germanic Alan and a Goth. Military expediency trumped aristocratic privilege when it
came to securing the Empire and a series of professional military emperors followed as a result.[95]
Around CE 238, the Goths make their first clear impact on Roman history, having moved from the Baltic sea to the area of
the modern Ukraine. And sometime in CE 251, they defeated a Roman army in the Balkans, killing the emperor Decius in
the process. Close to the same time that the Goths were fighting the Romans in the Baltics, there is also the first mention of
the Franks around CE 250.[96] Perennial internal conflicts among several successive emperors of both the eastern and
western Empire during the 4th century CE resulted in civil wars and damaged the overall quality of the Roman army; the
fighting also depleted the elite from within their officer corps. To compensate for their losses the Romans recruited inferior
Distribution of Germanic, Venedi (Slavic), and Sarmatian (Iranian)
tribes on the frontier of the Roman empire, 125 AD

13. untried Roman civilians and sought replacements from across the frontier region by militarily proficient barbarian troops,
a development which further strengthened the position of the Germanic peoples.[97] Attempting to control the periphery of
the Roman empire meant finding innovative ways of dealing with the Germanic people, so the Romans enlisted them as
foederati (federates) and by the late fourth century, the majority of the Roman military was made up of Germanic
warriors. Federating whole tribes of Germanic people into the Empire marked a whole new phase of encroachment and
facilitated the fragmentation of Rome from within its own borders.[98]
Among the Romans, the Germanic presence in the military was so extensive for example, that the word barbarus became a
synonym for "soldier" and the imperial budget of the military was known as the ficus barbarus.[99] Barbarians (Germanics)
composed the mobile army of emperor Constantine with many of them, particularly the more organized ones like the
Franks and Alamanni, reaching levels of high command. An example of such prominence shows in the fact that in CE 350
the Frankish general Silvanus was the high military commander of Gaul.[100] Warriors and leaders among the Germanic
peoples had an advantage over their Roman counterparts as they knew and could dexterously traverse both worlds,
whereas the Romans despised 'barbarian' culture and customs and were unable to secure trust amid the Germanic soldiers
on their payrolls. In this way, the ethnic and regional ties within the evolving bureaucratic Roman-Germanic world began
to favor the 'barbarians'.[101]
Roman Britannia was contemporaneously under constant threat during the 3rd and 4th centuries CE by northern Picts as
well as the Germanic Saxons who sailed from north of Gaul to the eastern coast of the British Isles. Late in CE 367, the
Roman garrisons in Britannia collapsed as the Germanic barbarians poured into the region from all directions.[102]
Attempting to permanently reestablish control on Britannia, the emperor Valentinian sent an experienced Roman
commander who was able to beat the invaders back after a year-long war and gain control of Londonium, but it was a
Pyrrhic victory, for the Germanic invaders had burned down standing settlements, ravaged cities on the isles, interrupted
trade and annihilated entire Roman garrisons.[103] By the middle of the 5th century, the Picts, Scots and Anglo-Saxons
began to dominate the once Roman Britannia.[104]
During the fourth and fifth centuries CE Roman emperors did their best to stave off the advance of the Germanic tribes.
While the rulers in the Eastern Empire were able to endure the frequent clashes without serious consequences to their
territorial dominion, this was not the case in the Western Empire. For upwards of two centuries, the Roman emperors
fought and confined the Germanic tribes to Rhine-Danube frontier and in far-away Britain, but all that changed in CE 378
when the Visigoths destroyed as much as two-thirds of the Roman army of the East under emperor Valens.[105] Roman
historian Ammianus Marcellinus referred to the damage inflicted by the Germanic tribes at Adrianople as an "irreparable
disaster" and ended his account of Roman history with this battle. Subsequent historians like Sir Edward Gibbon (among
others) ascribe a similar significance to this event and call the Battle of Adrianople a watershed moment between the
ancient world and the medieval one that followed; for not only did this battle reveal Rome's weakness to the Germanic
tribes and inspire them accordingly, never again were they to leave Roman soil.[106] Evidence of the trauma suffered at the
hands of the ransacking Visigoths shows up in the writings of the former bishop of Milan, Ambrose, who wrote about
melting down golden church plates early in his episcopate so as to help the victims of the calamity at Adrianople.[107]
Before considering the later migration of various Germanic peoples in the 5th century, it is worth noting that the first
recorded great migration of a Germanic tribe occurred sometime at the end of the 2nd century when the Goths left the
lower Vistula for the shores of the Black Sea.[108] For the next couple hundred years, the restless Goths were a menace to
the Roman Empire.[109] Between the 2nd and 4th centuries the Goths slowly filtered deeper into the south and eastwards,
Battle of Adrianople
Migration Period

14. making their way to what is now Kiev in Ukraine and
pressuring Rome in the process.[110] The arrival of the
nomadic Huns along the Black Sea corridor in CE 375
further accelerated the Goth's exodus across the Roman
border.[111] Germanic people from the northern coasts of
Europe had been making their way into Britain for several
centuries before the larger-scale incursions took place.[112]
By the 5th century CE, the Western Roman Empire was
losing 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 Great Britain
and 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. Roaming tribes of Germanic people 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.[113] Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Lombards made their way into Italy; Vandals, Burgundians, Franks, and
Visigoths conquered much of Gaul; Vandals and Visigoths also pushed into Spain; Vandals additionally made it into North
Africa; the Alamanni established a strong presence in the middle Rhine and Alps.[114] In Denmark the Jutes merged with
the Danes, in Sweden the Geats and Gutes merged with the Swedes. In England, the Angles merged with the Saxons and
other groups (notably the Jutes), as well as absorbing some natives, to form the Anglo-Saxons (later known as the
English).[115] Essentially - Roman civilization was overrun by these variants of Germanic peoples during the 5th
century.[116]
A direct result of the Roman retreat was the disappearance of imported products like ceramics and coins, and a return to
virtually unchanged local Iron Age production methods. According to recent views this has caused confusion for decades,
and theories assuming the total abandonment of the coastal regions to account for an archaeological time gap that never
existed have been renounced. Instead, it has been confirmed that the Frisian graves had been used without interruption
between the 4th and 9th centuries and that inhabited areas show continuity with the Roman period in revealing coins,
jewellery and ceramics of the 5th century. Also, 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, archaeological evidence from this period
indicates immigration from the north.[117]
Some of the Germanic tribes are frequently credited 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 co­opted into helping defend territory
the central government could no longer adequately administer.[n] Germanic tribes nonetheless fought against Roman
dominance when necessary. When the Roman Empire refused to allow the Visigoths to settle in Noricum for instance, they
responded by sacking Rome in CE 410 under the leadership of Alaric I.[118] Oddly enough, Alaric I did not see his
imposition in Rome as an attack against the Roman Empire per se but as an attempt to gain a favorable position within its
borders, particularly since the Visigoths held the Empire in high regard.[119]
2nd century to 5th century simplified migrations
Role in the Fall of Rome

15. Alaric certainly had no intentions to destroy the great city which
was symbolic of Roman power, but he needed to pay his army
and the spoils of the city not only afforded the ability to do that, its wealth made him "the richest general in the
empire."[120] For the next year, Alaric extracted vast sums from the city; this included 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000
pounds of silver, 5,000 pounds of oriental pepper, gilded statues from the Forum, and even the one-ton solid silver dome
which Constantine once placed over the baptismal basin next to the Lateran basilica.[121] Not only was Alaric able to bleed
Rome, he also established a Gothic confederation consisting of Theruingian and Greuthungic peoples, and he played the
eastern and western Roman Empires off against one another for his benefit.[122]
At about the same time Alaric was sacking the Empire's capital, there was a Roman exodus from the British Isles, a
departure which provided the Germanic Angles and Saxons the opportunity to occupy and control the eastern coastlands
of Britain, the southern regions of Sussex, and move into the valley of the Thames.[123] While Germanic tribes overran the
once western Roman provinces, they also continued to strive for regional ascendancy closer to Rome's center; meanwhile
the threat along the periphery from the Huns created additional difficulties for the Empire.[124]
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. The
Rhine and Danube provided the bulk of geographic separation for the Roman limes. On one side of the limes stood 'Latin'
Europe, law, Roman order, prosperous trading markets, towns and everything that constituted modern civilization for that
era; while on the other side stood barbarism, technical backwardness, illiteracy and a tribal society of fierce warriors.[125]
Then the Empire recruited entire tribal groups under their native leaders as military officers. Historian Evangelos Chrysos
claims the implications concerning the recruitment of the 'barbarians' into the Roman army during the migration period
were enormous and relates that it
"offered them experience of how the imperial army was organized, how the government arranged the
military and functional logistics of their involvement as soldiers or officers and how it administered their
practical life, how the professional expertise and the social values of the individual soldier were cultivated in
the camp and on the battlefield, how the ideas about the state and its objectives were to be implemented by
men in uniform, how the Empire was composed and how it functioned at an administrative level. This
knowledge of and experience with the Romans opened to individual members of the gentes a path which,
once taken, would lead them to more or less substantial affiliation or even solidarity with the Roman world.
To take an example from the economic sphere: The service in the Roman army introduced the individual or
Europe in 476 with Germanic kingdoms and tribes
distributed throughout Europe.
Map depicting the Germanic kingdoms of Europe
in 526 and the Eastern Roman Empire.

16. corporate members into the monetary system of the Empire since quite a substantial part of their salary was
paid to them in cash. With money in their hands the "guests" were by necessity exposed to the possibility of
taking part in the economic system, of becoming accustomed to the rules of the wide market, of absorbing
the messages of or reacting to the imperial propaganda passed to the citizens through the legends on the
coins. In addition the goods offered in the markets influenced and transformed the newcomers' food and
aesthetic tastes and their cultural horizon. Furthermore Roman civilitas was an attractive goal for every
individual wishing to succeed in his social advancement."[126]
Assisting with defense eventually shifted into administration and then outright rule, as Roman government passed into the
hands of Germanic leaders. Odoacer (who commanded the German mercenaries in Italy)[127] deposed Romulus
Augustulus, the last emperor of the West in CE 476.[128] Odoacer ruled from Rome and Ravenna, restored the Colosseum
and assigned seats to senatorial dignitaries as part of the process of consolidating his rule.[129] 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.[130] Theodoric ruled from CE
493–526, twice as long as his predecessor, and his rule is evidenced by an abundance of documents.[131] Under the
Ostrogoths a considerable degree of Roman and Germanic cultural and political fusion was achieved.[132] Germanic kings
worked in-tandem with Roman administrators to the extent possible to help ensure a smooth transition and to facilitate
the profitable administration of once Roman lands.[133] Slowly but surely, the distinction between Germanic rulers and
Roman subjects faded, followed by varying degrees of "cultural assimilation" which included the adoption of the Gothic
language by some of the indigenous people of the former Roman Empire but this was certainly not ubiquitous as Gothic
identity still remained distinctive.[134] Theodoric may have tried too hard to accommodate the various people under his
dominion; indulging "Romans and Goths, Catholics and Arians, Latin and barbarian culture" resulted in the eventual
failure of the Ostrogothic reign and the subsequent "end of Italy as the heartland of late antiquity."[135]
According to noted historian Herwig Wolfram, the Germanic peoples did not and could not "conquer the more advanced
Roman world" nor were they able to "restore it as a political and economic entity"; instead, he asserts that the empire's
"universalism" was replaced by "tribal particularism" which gave way to "regional patriotism."[136] Nonetheless, the entry
of the Germanic tribes deep into the heart of Europe and the subsequent collapse of the western Roman Empire resulted in
a "massive disruption" to long established communication networks, a system that had in many ways "bound much of the
continent together for centuries."[137] Trade networks and routes shifted accordingly, Germanic kingdoms and peoples
established boundaries and it was not until the appearance of the Arabs in Iberia and into Anatolia that Europeans began
reestablishing their networks to deal with a new threat.[138]
The transition of the Migration period to the Middle Ages proper took place over the course of the second half of the 1st
millennium. It was marked by the Christianization of the Germanic peoples and the formation of stable kingdoms
replacing the mostly tribal structures of the Migration period. Some of this stability is discernible in the fact that the Pope
recognized Theodoric's reign when the Germanic conqueror entered Rome in CE 500, despite that Theodoric was a known
practitioner of Arianism, a faith which the Council of Nicaea condemned in CE 325.[139] Theodoric's Germanic subjects
and administrators from the Roman Catholic Church cooperated in serving him, helping establish a codified system of
laws and ordinances which facilitated the integration of the Gothic peoples into a burgeoning empire, solidifying their
place as they appropriated a Roman identity of sorts.[140] The foundations laid by the Empire enabled the successor
Germanic kingdoms to maintain a familiar structure and their success can be seen as part of the lasting triumph of
Rome.[141]
Early Middle Ages

17. In continental Europe, this
Germanic evolution saw the rise
of Francia in the Merovingian
period under the rule of Clovis I
who had deposed the last
emperor of Gaul, eclipsing lesser
kingdoms such as Alemannia.[142]
The Merovingians controlled
most of Gaul under Clovis, who,
through conversion to
Christianity, allied himself with
the Gallo-Romans. While the
Merovingians were checked by
the armies of the Ostrogoth
Theodoric, they remained the most powerful kingdom in Western Europe and the
intermixing of their people with the Romans through marriage rendered the
Frankish people less a Germanic tribe and more a "European people" in a manner of
speaking.[143] Most of Gaul was under Merovingian control as was part of Italy and
their overlordship extended into Germany where they reigned over the Thuringians,
Alamans, and Bavarians.[144] Evidence also exists that they may have even had
suzerainty over south-east England.[145] Frankish historian Gregory of Tours relates that Clovis converted to Christianity
partly as a result of his wife's urging and even more so - due to having won a desperate battle after calling out to Christ.
According to Gregory, this conversion was sincere but it also proved politically expedient as Clovis used his new faith as a
means to consolidate his political power by Christianizing his army.[146][o] Against Germanic tradition, each of the four
sons of Clovis attempted to secure power in different cities but their inability to prove themselves on the battlefield and
intrigue against one another led the Visigoths back to electing their leadership.[147]
When Merovingian rule eventually weakened, they were supplanted by another powerful Frankish family, the
Carolingians, a dynastic order which produced Charles Martel, and Charlemagne.[148] The coronation of Charlemagne as
emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, CE 800 represented a shift in the power structure from the south to
the north. Frankish power ultimately laid the foundations for the modern nations of Germany and France.[149] For
historians, Charlemagne's appearance in the historical chronicle of Europe also marks a transition where the voice of the
north appears in its own vernacular thanks to the spread of Christianity, after which the northerners began writing in
Latin, Germanic, and Celtic; whereas before, the Germanic people were only known through Roman or Greek sources.[150]
In England, the Germanic Anglo-Saxon tribes reigned over the south of Great Britain from approximately 519 to the tenth
century until the Wessex hegemony became the nucleus for the unification of England.[151][152] Scandinavia was in the
Vendel period and eventually entered the Viking Age, with expansion to Britain, Ireland and Iceland in the west and as far
as Russia and Greece in the east.[153] By CE 900 the Vikings secured for themselves a foothold on Frankish soil along the
Lower Seine River valley in what is now France that became known as Normandy. Hence they became the Normans. They
established the Duchy of Normandy, a territorial acquisition which provided them the opportunity to expand beyond
Normandy into Anglo-Saxon England.[154] The subsequent Norman Conquest which followed in CE 1066 wrought
immense changes to life in England as their new Scandinavian masters altered their government, lordship, public
holdings, culture and DNA pool permanently.[155]
Frankish expansion from the early
kingdom of Clovis I (481) to the divisions
of Charlemagne's Empire (843/870).
Anglo-Saxon and British
kingdoms c. 800

18. The various Germanic tribal cultures began their transformation into the
larger nations of later history, English, Norse and German, and in the case of
Burgundy, Lombardy and Normandy blending into a Romano-Germanic
culture. Many of these later nation states started originally as "client buffer
states" for the Roman Empire so as to protect it from its enemies further
away.[156] Eventually they carved out their own unique historical paths.
The territory of modern
Germany was divided
between Germanic- and
Celtic-speaking groups in
the last centuries BCE. The
parts south of the
Germanic limes came
under limited Latin
influence in the early
centuries CE but were
swiftly conquered by
Germanic groups such as
the Alemanni after the fall
of the Western Roman
Empire. The Germanic tribes of the Migration period had settled down
by the Early Middle Ages, the latest series of movements out of
Scandinavia taking place during the Viking Age.
The Goths and Vandals were linguistically assimilated to their Latin
(Romance) substrate populations. Evidence exists that for 2nd- and 3rd-
century Goths as well as for 4th- and 5th-century Lombards that
significant population displacement throughout Roman-occupied
Europe occurred. This quite likely contributed to their linguistic
assimilation.[157] An exception to this pattern was the Crimean Goths, who preserved their dialect into the 18th century).
Burgundians and Lombards were assimilated into both Latin (French and Italian) and Germanic (German-speaking Swiss)
populations.
The Viking Age Norsemen split into an Old East Norse and an Old West Norse group, which further separated into
Icelanders, Faroese and Norwegians on one hand and Swedes and Danes on the other. In Scandinavia, there is a long
history of assimilation of and by the Sami people and Finnic peoples, namely Finns and Karelians. In today's usage, the
term "Nordic peoples" refers to the ethnic groups in all of the Nordic countries. In Great Britain, Germanic people
coalesced into the Anglo-Saxon (or English) people between the 8th and 10th centuries.
On the European continent, the Holy Roman Empire included all remaining Germanic-speaking groups from the 10th
century. In the Late Medieval to Early Modern period, some groups split off the Empire before a "German" ethnicity had
formed, consisting of Low Franconian (Dutch, Flemish) and Alemannic (Swiss) populations.
The approximate extent of
Germanic languages in the early
10th century.:
Old West Norse
Old East Norse
Old Gutnish
Old English
Continental West Germanic
languages (Old Frisian, Old Saxon,
Old Dutch, Old High German).
Crimean Gothic (East
Germanic)
Post-migration ethnogeneses
Holy Roman Empire in 1250.

19. The various Germanic peoples of the Migrations period eventually spread out over a vast expanse stretching from
contemporary European Russia to Iceland and from Norway to North Africa. The migrants had varying impacts in
different regions. In many cases, the newcomers set themselves up as overlords of the pre-existing population. Over time,
such groups underwent ethnogenesis, resulting in the creation of new cultural and ethnic identities (e.g., the Franks and
Gallo-Romans becoming the French). Thus, many of the descendants of the ancient Germanic peoples do not speak
Germanic languages, as they were to a greater or lesser degree assimilated into the cosmopolitan, literate culture of the
Roman world.[158] Even where the descendants of Germanic peoples maintained greater continuity with their common
ancestors, significant cultural and linguistic differences arose over time, as is strikingly illustrated by the different
identities of Christianized Saxon subjects of the Carolingian Empire and pagan Scandinavian Vikings.
More broadly, early Medieval Germanic peoples were often assimilated into the walha substrate cultures of their subject
populations. Thus, the Burgundians of Burgundy, the Vandals of Northern Africa, and the Visigoths of France and Iberia,
lost some Germanic identity and became part of Romano-Germanic Europe. For the Germanic Visigoths in particular, they
had intimate contact with Rome for two centuries before their domination of the Iberian Peninsula and were accordingly
permeated by Roman culture.[159] Likewise, the Franks of Western Francia form part of the ancestry of the French people.
The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain resulted in Anglo-Saxon (or English) displacement and cultural assimilation of the
indigenous culture, the Brythonic-speaking British culture, causing the foundation of a new kingdom, England. As in what
became England, indigenous Brythonic Celtic culture in some of the south-eastern parts of what became Scotland
(approximately the Lothian and Borders region) and areas of what became the Northwest of England (the kingdoms of
Rheged, Elmet, etc.) succumbed to Germanic influence c.600—800, due to the extension of overlordship and settlement
from the Anglo-Saxon areas to the south. Cultural and linguistic assimilation occurred less frequently between the
Germanic Anglo-Saxons and the indigenous people who resided in the Roman dominated areas of England, particularly in
the regions that remained previously unconquered. Anglo-Saxons occupied Somerset, the Severn valley, and Lancaster by
c. 700 where they remained dominant. Over time, the Anglo-Saxons, with their distinct culture and language, displaced
much of the extant Roman influence of old.[160]
Perhaps the final incursions by Germanic people which altered in some ways
the ethnographic map of Europe was made by the Vikings. Between the 8th
and 11th centuries, these Scandinavian/Norse traders and pirates ravaged
most of north and central Europe as well as the British Isles, spreading
eastwards as far as Russia and into Byzantium. While their initial exploits
were generally raids for plunder, they later settled and mixed with the
indigenous people of Europe, which resulted in both conquest and
colonization.[161] Other examples of assimilation during the Viking Age
include the Norsemen, who settled in Normandy along the French Atlantic
coast, 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). Known for their unique ships, there is evidence of the Viking
presence all over mainland Europe, as no lands with navigable waters or coastlines escaped their pillaging. Vast territories
in eastern England were overrun and occupied by the Vikings and the Danish King, Canute, eventually succeeded to the
English crown. Archeological remains on North America even exist which give evidence to the dynamism and territorial
ambitions of these Germanic warriors.[162]
Between c. 1150 and c. 1400, most of the Scottish Lowlands became English culturally and linguistically through
immigration from England, France and Flanders and from the resulting assimilation of native Gaelic-speaking Scots
although Lowland Gaelic was still spoken in Galloway until the 18th century. The Scots language is the resulting Germanic
Afrikaners are descended from 17th
century Dutch immigrants to South
Africa.

20. language still spoken in parts of Scotland and is very similar to the speech of the Northumbrians of northern England.
Between the 15th and 17th centuries Scots spread into more of mainland Scotland at the expense of Scottish Gaelic
although Gaelic maintained a strong hold over the Scottish Highlands, and Scots also began to make some headway into
the Northern Isles. The latter, Orkney and Shetland, though now part of Scotland, were nominally part of the Kingdom of
Norway until the 15th century. A version of the Norse language was spoken there from the Viking invasions until replaced
by Scots in the 18th and 19th centuries.[163]
Common elements of Germanic society can be deduced both from Roman
historiography and comparative evidence from the Early Medieval period.
A main element uniting Germanic societies was kingship, in origin a sacral
institution combining the functions of military leader, high priest, lawmaker
and judge. Germanic monarchy was elective; the king was elected by the free
men from among eligible candidates of a family (OE cynn) tracing their
ancestry to the tribe's divine or semi-divine founder.
To a large degree, many of the extant legal records from the Germanic tribes
seem to revolve around property transactions.[164] In early Germanic society,
the free men of property each ruled their own estate and were subject to the
king directly, without any intermediate hierarchy as in later feudalism. Free
men without landed property could swear fealty to a man of property who as
their lord would then be responsible for their upkeep, including generous
feasts and gifts. This system of sworn retainers was central to early Germanic society, and the loyalty of the retainer to his
lord generally replaced his family ties.
Early Germanic law reflects a hierarchy of worth within the society of free men, reflected in the differences in weregild.
Among the Anglo-Saxons, a regular free man (a ceorl) had a weregild of 200 shillings (i.e. solidi or gold pieces), classified
as a twyhyndeman "200-man" for this reason, while a nobleman commanded a fee of six times that amount
(twelfhyndeman "1200-man"). Similarly, among the Alamanni the basic weregild for a free man was 200 shillings, and the
amount could be doubled or tripled according to the man's rank. Unfree serfs did not command a weregild, and the
recompense paid in the event of their death was merely for material damage, 15 shillings in the case of the Alamanni,
increased to 40 or 50 if the victim had been a skilled artisan.
The social hierarchy is not only reflected in the weregild due in the case of the violent or accidental death of a man, but also
in differences in fines for lesser crimes. Thus the fines for insults, injury, burglary or damage to property differ depending
on the rank of the injured party.[p] They do not usually depend on the rank of the guilty party, although there are some
exceptions associated with royal privilege.[q]
Free women did not have a political station of their own but inherited the rank of their father if unmarried, or their
husband if married. The weregild or recompense due for the killing or injuring of a woman is notably set at twice that of a
man of the same rank in Alemannic law.
Culture
Law
Germanic bracteate from Funen,
Denmark

21. All freemen had the right to participate in general assemblies or things, where disputes between freemen were addressed
according to customary law. The king was bound to uphold ancestral law, but was at the same time the source for new laws
for cases not addressed in previous tradition. This aspect was the reason for the creation of the various Germanic law codes
by the kings following their conversion to Christianity: besides recording inherited tribal law, these codes have the purpose
of settling the position of the church and Christian clergy within society, usually setting the weregilds of the members of
the clerical hierarchy parallel to that of the existing hierarchy of nobility, with the position of an archbishop mirroring that
of the king.
In the case of a suspected crime, the accused could avoid punishment by presenting a fixed number of free men (their
number depending on the severity of the crime) prepared to swear an oath on his innocence. Failing this, he could prove
his innocence in a trial by combat. Corporal or capital punishment for free men does not figure in the Germanic law codes,
and banishment appears to be the most severe penalty issued officially. This reflects that Germanic tribal law did not have
the scope of exacting revenge, which was left to the judgement of the family of the victim, but to settle damages as fairly as
possible once an involved party decided to bring a dispute before the assembly. A fascinating component of early Germanic
laws were the varying distinctions concerning the physical body, as each body part had a personal injury value and
corresponding legal claims for personal injury viewed matters like gender, rank and status as a secondary interest when
deliberating cases.[165]
Generally speaking, Roman legal codes eventually provided the model for many Germanic laws and they were fixed in
writing along with Germanic legal customs.[166] Traditional Germanic society was gradually replaced by the system of
estates and feudalism characteristic of the High Middle Ages in both the Holy Roman Empire and Anglo-Norman England
in the 11th to 12th centuries, to some extent under the influence of Roman law as an indirect result of Christianisation, but
also because political structures had grown too large for the flat hierarchy of a tribal society. The same effect of political
centralization took hold in Scandinavia slightly later, in the 12th to 13th century (Age of the Sturlungs, Consolidation of
Sweden, Civil war era in Norway), by the end of the 14th century culminating in the giant Kalmar Union. Elements of tribal
law, notably the wager of battle, nevertheless remained in effect throughout the Middle Ages, in the case of the Holy
Roman Empire until the establishment of the Imperial Chamber Court in the early German Renaissance. In the federalist
organization of Switzerland, where cantonal structures remained comparatively local, the Germanic thing survived into the
21st century in the form of the Landsgemeinde, albeit subject to federal law.
Historical records of the Germanic tribes in Germania east of the Rhine and west of the Danube do not begin until quite
late in the ancient period, so only the period after 100 BCE can be examined. What is clear is that the Germanic idea of
warfare was quite different from the pitched battles fought by Rome and Greece. Instead the Germanic tribes focused on
raids. Warfare of varying size however was a distinctive feature of barbarian culture.[167]
The purpose of these was generally not to gain territory, but rather to capture resources and secure prestige. These raids
were conducted by irregular troops, often formed along family or village lines, in groups of 10 to about 1,000. Leaders of
unusual personal magnetism could gather more soldiers for longer periods, but there was no systematic method of
gathering and training men, so the death of a charismatic leader could mean the destruction of an army. Armies also often
consisted of more than 50 percent noncombatants, as displaced people would travel with large groups of soldiers, the
elderly, women, and children. War leaders who were able to secure ample booty for their retainers were able to grow
accordingly by attracting warrior bands from nearby villages.[167]
Large bodies of troops, while figuring prominently in the history books, were the exception rather than the rule of ancient
warfare. Thus a typical Germanic force might consist of 100 men with the sole goal of raiding a nearby Germanic or foreign
village. Thus, most warfare was at their barbarian neighbors.[167] According to Roman sources, when the Germanic Tribes
Warfare

22. did fight pitched battles, the infantry often adopted wedge formations, each
wedge being led by a clan head. Legitimacy for leaders among the Germans
resided in their ability to successfully lead armies to victory. Defeat on the
battlefield at the hands of the Romans or other "barbarians" often meant the
end for a ruler and in some cases, being absorbed by "another, victorious
confederation."[168]
Though often defeated by the Romans, the Germanic tribes were
remembered in Roman records as fierce combatants, whose main downfall
was that they failed to join together into a collective fighting force under a
unified command, which allowed the Roman Empire to employ a "divide and
conquer" strategy against them.[169] On occasions when the Germanic tribes
worked together, the results were impressive. Three Roman legions were
ambushed and destroyed by an alliance of Germanic tribes headed by
Arminius at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, the Roman Empire
made no further concentrated attempts at conquering Germania beyond the
Rhine.[170]
During the 4th and 5th centuries CE, Visigoths and Vandals militarily
organized themselves to sufficiently challenge and sack Rome in CE 410 and
again in CE 455. Then in CE 476, the last Roman emperor was deposed by a German chieftain, an event which effectively
ended Roman predominance in western Europe.[171] Germanic tribes eventually overwhelmed and conquered the ancient
world. That military transition was additionally spurred by the arrival of the Vikings from the 8th to 10th centuries, giving
rise to modern Europe and medieval warfare.[172]
For an analysis of Germanic tactics versus the Roman empire see: Roman infantry versus Gallic and the Germanic tribes
Weapons used by the Germanic tribes varied. Some of them used axes, throwing javelins, spears, bows and arrows along
with swords. Most of the swords used by the Germanic warriors were those captured from Roman soldiers until the 4th
century when German blacksmiths began making the best steel in Europe.[173] Body armor was rarely worn and when it
was, it was light by comparison to what the Romans employed; only war leaders wore helmets on the battlefield.[174]
Commandeering of Roman weaponry was widespread and the acquisition of the superior Roman armaments allowed the
Germanic leaders to exert their power in ways not previously available. It also meant fierce inter-Germanic rivalry which
constituted the larger power blocks of the Germanic world.[175] Much like their predecessors, the Vikings too used axes,
swords, long knives, spears, oblong shields, leather or metal helmets and mail or leather coats for protection; the latter
being luxuries most could not afford.[176]
To the greatest extent, Germanic fighting units consisted of infantry who would emerge from cover and attack, but they
also utilized skilled cavalrymen at times, something the Visigoths used decisively to aid in their victory at Adrianople.
Cavalry warfare was limited in northern Europe due to the lack of suitably large horses for mounted troops. Caesar
provided his Germanic armies with Roman mounts to enable them greater mobility and to enhance their fighting
efficiency.[177] Unlike their western Celtic neighbors, the use of chariots was not picked up by the early Germans.[178]
Notwithstanding the use of an occasional fortified position, the Germanic warriors preferred to fight in the open and
normally assumed the offensive rather than fight defensively.[179] Emboldening themselves for fierce attacks, the Germanic
Osterby Head, a bog body with a
Suebian knot
Weaponry
Tactics

23. warriors would rouse themselves to a high-pitched level of excitement and charge headlong against their enemies, which
while effective for ambush operations, lacked in terms of the organizational skill needed for prolonged siege warfare.[180]
The berserker mentality employed by the Germanic tribes against Rome was still in effect during the Viking era of the 8th
and 9th centuries as they too believed that by summoning their gods and working themselves up, they would possess
superhuman strength and be protected during battle. Such resolution led them to believe that dying in such a manner was
heroic and would transport the fallen fighter straight into Valhalla where they would be embraced by the warrior maidens
known as the Valkyries.[180][r] The later military development of armored knights and fortified castles was a response in
part to the relentless plundering and raiding by the Vikings, which meant that the Germanic tribes who had settled
mainland Europe and the British Isles had to adapt themselves so as to combat another Germanic tribe of interlopers.[181]
Traces of the earliest pastoralism of the Germanic peoples appear in central Europe in the form of elaborate cattle burials
along the Elbe and Vistula Rivers from around 4000–3000 BCE.[182] These archaeological remnants were left by the
Globular Amphora culture who cleared forests for herding cattle and sometime after 3000 BCE began using wheeled carts
and plows to cultivate their lands. Central to survival for their assistance in tilling the soil and supplying food, cattle
became an economic resource to these early people.[183] Germanic settlements were typically small, rarely containing
much more than ten households, often less, and were usually located by clearings in the woods.[s] Settlements remained of
a fairly constant size throughout the period. The buildings in these villages varied in form, but normally consisted of
farmhouses surrounded by smaller buildings such as granaries and other storage rooms. The universal building material
was timber. Cattle and humans usually lived together in the same house.
Although the Germans practiced both agriculture and husbandry, the latter was extremely important both as a source of
dairy products and as a basis for wealth and social status, which was measured by the size of an individual's herd.[184] The
diet consisted mainly of the products of farming and husbandry and was supplied by hunting to a very modest extent.
Barley and wheat were the most common agricultural products and were used for baking a certain flat type of bread as well
as brewing beer. Evidence from a Saxon village known as Feddersen Wierde near Cuxhaven, Germany (which existed
between BCE 50 to CE 450) shows that the Germanic people cultivated oats and rye, used manure as fertilizer, and that
they practiced crop-rotation.[185]
The fields were tilled with a light-weight wooden ard, although heavier models also existed in some areas. Common
clothing styles are known from the remarkably well-preserved corpses that have been found in former marshes on several
locations in Denmark, and included woolen garments and brooches for women and trousers and leather caps for men.
Other important small-scale industries were weaving, the manual production of basic pottery and, more rarely, the
fabrication of iron tools, especially weapons.[12] The Corded Ware culture and the Funnelbeaker culture (circa. 2900–2300
BCE) of these north and central European peoples coincide one another and provide evidence of how they lived, traded
and buried their dead.[186]
After 1300 BCE the societies of Jutland and Northern Germany along with the Celtic people experienced a major
revolution in technology during the Late Bronze Age, shaping tools, containers and weapons through the improved
techniques of working bronze. Both the sword and the bow and arrow as well as other weaponry proliferate and an arms
race of sorts between the tribes ensued as they tried to outpace one another. Trade was taking place to a greater degree and
simple gems and amber from the Mediterranean indicate that long-distance exchange of goods was occurring.[187] When
the Iron Age (1500—1200 BCE) arrived, the Germanic people showed greater mastery of ironworks than their Celtic
contemporaries but they did not have the extensive trade networks during this period that their southern neighbors
enjoyed with the Greco-Roman world.[188]
Economy

24. Widening trade between the Germanic tribes and Rome started later following the Empire's wars of conquest when they
looked to the Germanic people to supply them with slaves, leather and quality iron. One of the reasons the Romans may
have drawn borders along the Rhine, besides the sizable population of Germanic warriors on one side of it, was that the
Germanic economy was not robust enough for them to extract much booty nor were they convinced they could acquire
sufficient tax revenue from any additional efforts of conquest. Drawing a distinctive line between themselves and
Germanic people also incentivized alliances and trade as the Germanic people sought a share of the imperial wealth.[189]
Roman coinage was coveted by the Germanic people who preferred silver to gold coins, mostly likely indications that a
market economy was developing. Tacitus does mention the presence of a bartering system being observable among the
Germanic people, but this was not exclusive, as he also writes of their use of "gold and silver for the purpose of commerce",
adding rather sardonically in his text, that what they exchanged was nothing more than "petty merchandise.[78] Such
observations from Tacitus aside, fine metalwork, iron and glassware was soon being traded by the Germanic peoples along
the coast of the North Sea of Denmark and the Netherlands.[190]
The writings of Tacitus allude to the Germanic peoples being aware of a shared ethnicity, in that, they either knew or
believed that they shared a common biological ancestor with one another. Just how pervasive this awareness may have
been is certainly debatable, but other factors like language, clothing, ornamentation, hair styles, weapon types, religious
practices and shared oral history were likely just as significant in tribal identity for the Germanics.[191] Members of a
Germanic tribe told tales about the exploits of heroic founding figures who were more or less mythologized. Village life
consisted of free men assembled under a chieftain, all of whom shared common cultural and political traditions. Status
among the early Germanic tribes was often gauged by the size of a man's cattle herd or by one's martial prowess.[192]
Before their conversion to Christianity, the Germanic peoples of Europe were made up of several tribes, each functioning
as an economic and military unit and sometimes united by a common religious cult. Kinship, especially close kinship, was
very important to life within a tribe but generally was not the source of a tribe's identity. In fact, several elements of
ancient Germanic life tended to weaken the role of kinship: the importance of the retinues surrounding military chieftains,
the ability of strong leaders to unite people who were not closely related, and feuds and other conflicts within a tribe that
might lead to permanent divisions. The retinue (often called "comitatus" by scholars, following the practice of ancient
Roman writers) consisted of the followers of a chieftain, who depended on the retinue for military and other services and
who in return provided for the retinue's needs and divided with them the spoils of battle.[193] This relationship between a
chieftain and his followers became the basis for the more complicated feudal system that developed in medieval Europe. A
chieftain's retinue might include close relatives, but it was not limited to them. Eventually the rising power of individual
chieftains and kings from among the military leadership of Germanic tribes and confederations curtailed and in many
ways replaced the power once enjoyed by tribal assemblies.[194] A code of ethics in battle prevailed among the Germanic
kin. According to Tacitus, the "greatest disgrace that can befall" a warrior of a clan among the Germanic tribes was the
abandonment of their shield during combat, as this almost certainly resulted in social isolation.[195] Within tribal
Germanic society, their social hierarchy was linked intrinsically to war and this warrior code maintained the fidelity
between chiefs and their young warriors.[196]
Feuds were the standard means for resolving conflicts and regulating behavior. Peace within the tribe was about
controlling violence with codes identifying exactly how certain types of feuds were to be settled.[191] Those closely related
to a person who had been injured or killed were supposed to exact revenge on or monetary payment from the offender.
This duty helped reaffirm the bonds between extended family members. Yet such feuds weakened the tribe as a whole,
sometimes leading to the creation of a new tribe as one group separated from the rest. Clans of Germanic people consisted
of groupings of about 50 households in total with societal rules for each specific clan.[197] Recent scholarship suggests that,
despite the obligation to take part in feuds and other customs involving kinship ties, extended families did not form
Kinship patterns

25. independent units among the early Germanic peoples. Though most members of a tribe would have been more or less
distantly related, common descent was not the main source of a tribe's identity, and extended families were not the main
social units within a tribe. Traditional theories have emphasized the supposedly central role in Germanic culture of clans
or large groups with common ancestry. But there is little evidence that such clans existed, and they were certainly not an
important element of social organization. As historian Alexander C. Murray concludes, "kinship was a crucial factor in all
aspects of barbarian activity, but its uses and groupings were fluid, and probably on the whole not long lasting."[198]
Internal competition within the factions of a tribe occasionally resulted in internecine warfare which weakened and
sometime destroyed a group, as appears to have been the case for the Cherusci tribe during Rome's earlier period.[199]
The most important family relationships among the early Germanic peoples were within the individual household, a fact
based on the archaeological evidence from their settlements where the long-houses appeared to be central in their
existence. Within the household unit, an individual was equally bound to both the mother and the father's side of the
family.[200] Fathers were the main figures of authority,[197] but wives also played an important and respected role. Some
Germanic tribes even believed that women possessed magical powers and were feared accordingly.[201] Tacitus describes
how, during battles, Germanic warriors were encouraged and cared for by their wives and mothers. He also notes that
during times of peace, women did most of the work of managing the household. Along with the children, they apparently
did most of the household chores as well. Children were valued, and according to Tacitus, limiting or destroying one's
offspring was considered shameful. Mothers apparently breast-fed their own children rather than using nurses. Besides
parents and children, a household might include slaves, but slavery was uncommon, and according to Tacitus, slaves
normally had households of their own. Their slaves (usually prisoners of war) were most often employed as domestic
servants.[197] Polygamy and concubinage were rare but existed, at least among the upper classes.[t] When a certain number
of families resided on the same territory, this constituted a village (Dorf in German). The overall territory occupied by
people from the same tribe was designated in the writings of Tacitus as a civitas, with each of the individual civitas divided
into pagi (or cantons), which were made up of several vici. In cases where the tribes were grouped into larger
confederations or a group of kingdoms, the term pagus was applied (Gau in German).[202] Extensive contact with Rome
altered the egalitarian structure of tribal Germanic society. As individuals rose to prominence, a distinction between
commoner and nobility developed and with it the previous constructs of folkright shared equally across the tribe was
replaced in some cases by privilege.[173] As a result, Germanic society became more stratified. Elites within the Germanic
tribes who learned the Roman system and emulated the way they established dominion were able to gain advantages and
exploit them accordingly.[203]
Important changes began taking place by the 4th century CE as Germanic peoples, while still cognizant of their unique clan
identities, started forming larger confederations of a similar culture. Gathering around the dominant tribes among them
and hearkening to the most charismatic leaders brought the various "barbarians" tribes closer together. On the surface this
change appeared to the Romans as welcome since they preferred to deal with a few strong chiefs to control the populations
that they feared across the Rhine and Danube, but it eventually made these Germanic rulers of confederated peoples more
and more powerful.[204] While strong, they were still not federated to one another since they possessed no sense of "pan-
Germanic solidarity", but this started to change noticeably by the 5th century CE at Rome's expense.[205]
Based on the writings of Tacitus, most of the "barbarians" were content with one wife which indicates a general trend
towards monogamy. For those higher within their social hierarchy however, polygamy was sometimes "solicited on
account of their rank".[206] Of note, Tacitus observed that "the wife does not bring a dowry to her husband, but receives one
from him" and wedding gifts related to a marriage consisted of things like oxen, saddles and various armaments. Revealing
the warlike nature of their society, Tacitus also reported that wives came to their husbands "as a partner in toils and
dangers; to suffer and to dare equally with him, in peace and in war.[206]
Marriage

26. The age at first marriage among ancient Germanic tribes, according to Tacitus, was late for women compared to Roman
women:
The youths partake late of the pleasures of love, and hence pass the age of puberty unexhausted: nor are the
virgins hurried into marriage; the same maturity, the same full growth is required: the sexes unite equally
matched and robust; and the children inherit the vigor of their parents.[207]
For Germanic women of later antiquity, marriage obviously had its appeal since it offered greater security and better
placement in their social hierarchy.[208] Where Aristotle had set the prime of life at 37 years for men and 18 for women, the
Visigothic Code of law in the 7th century placed the prime of life at twenty years for both men and women, after which
both presumably married. Thus it can be presumed that ancient Germanic brides were on average about twenty and were
roughly the same age as their husbands.[209] Tacitus, however, had never visited the German-speaking lands and most of
his information on Germania comes from secondary sources. In addition, Anglo-Saxon women, like those of other
Germanic tribes, are marked as women from the age of twelve onward, based on archaeological finds, implying that the
age of marriage coincided with puberty.[210] Generally, there were two forms of marriage among the Germanic peoples,
one involving the participation of the parents and the other, those that did not. Known as Friedelehe, the latter form
consisted of marriage between a free man and a free woman, since marriage between free persons and slaves was
forbidden by law.[211] Evidence of Germanic patriarchy is evident later in the 7th century CE Edict of Rothari of the
Lombards which stated that women were not allowed to live of their own freewill and that they had to be subject to a man
and if no one else, they were to be "under the power of the king".[212]
For Germanic kings, warrior chieftains, senators and Roman nobility, a certain degree of intermarriage was undertaken to
strengthen their ties to one another and to the Empire, making marriage or connubium as the Romans connoted the bond,
an instrument of politics.[213] Earlier treaty terms in the late 4th century CE had forbidden "foreign" Goths to intermarry
with Romans.[214] Some of the marriage attempts of the 6th century CE were deliberately planned for the sake of royal
succession. Imperial policy had to be carefully charted between the Roman-Germanic claimants to kingship and the
maintenance of Roman imperial administration as the federated Germanic kings attempted to put their stamp on Roman
rule and replace Roman armies with their own warriors. Roman leaders were not oblivious to the clever tactics
(intermarriage and offspring) employed by Germanic chieftains and adopted creative treaties to either appease them or
temper their ambitions.[215]
Prior to the Middle Ages, Germanic peoples followed what is now referred to as Germanic paganism: "a system of
interlocking and closely interrelated religious worldviews and practices rather than as one indivisible religion" and as such
consisted of "individual worshippers, family traditions and regional cults within a broadly consistent framework".[216] It
was polytheistic in nature, with some underlying similarities to other Indo-Germanic traditions. Despite the unique
practices of some tribes, there was a degree of cultural uniformity among the Germanic people concerning religion.[217][u]
Germanic ideology and religious practices were pervaded and colored to a large degree by war, particularly the notion of a
heroic death on the battlefield, as this brought the god(s) a "blood sacrifice."[220] [v]
Archaeological findings suggest that the Germanic barbarians practiced some of the same 'spiritual' rituals as the Celts,
including human sacrifice, divination, and the belief in spiritual connection with the natural environment around
them.[221] Germanic priestesses were feared by the Romans, as these tall women with glaring eyes, wearing flowing white
gowns often wielded a knife for sacrificial offerings. Captives might have their throats cut and be bled into giant cauldrons
Religion