Much of the history of pre-modern European society was shaped by the migration of various groups of peoples into and across the European landscape. The Celts moved from their homeland in Central Europe and settled throughout much of Western Europe, bringing their language and culture with them. The Romans were yet another migrant group, and undoubtedly one of the most culturally impactful groups because they enforced their political, legal, and religious customs in the territories they settled. Similarly, the German-speaking tribes who moved into Roman territory as the Roman Empire fell; the Vikings, who emerged from Scandinavia in the late 8th century CE and settled throughout much of Western Europe; and Muslim peoples, who emerged from the Arabian Peninsula in the mid-7th century CE and settled in Spain and Sicily, had a significant influence on the formation of early European culture. We'll examine all of these groups and their impact on the history and culture of Western Europe in the pre-modern period.

1. Pre-modern European Migrations: Germanic Migrations
Map from Peter Hunter Blair, Roman Britain and Early England.
• Angles, Saxons, and Britain
• Conquest of Britain from the 420s to
590s
• Conflict with the British
• Ethelbert of Kent converts c. 597
• Ethelbert’s law code, c. 600
• Redwald of East Anglia and Sutton
Hoo, c. 625
• Edwin of Northumbria converts c.
627
• Bede’s History of the English Church
and People, c. 735
• Anglo-Saxon dialect retained for laws
and poetry; Latin the language of the
church

2. Left—reconstruction of the Sutton Hoo mound 1 burial. Right—photo
of the remains of the ship burial c. 1939. Images from Wikipedia.

3. Mound 17, Sutton Hoo burial site, East Anglia, late 6th early 7th century AD

4. Drinking horns (l) and shoulder clasps (r) from Mound 1 burial, Sutton Hoo, early 7th
century.

5. Taplow buckle, found in Kent, but with Frankish styling, 600 AD, British Museum.

6. Gandersheim casket, made in eastern England, 7th century, Herzog Anton-Ulrich
Museum, Braunschweig, Germany.

7. Left—a Kentish brooch, late 6th to early 7th centuries AD, Liverpool, Merseyside Country
Museum; right—the Franks Casket, made in Northumbria, c. 700, British Museum (top—
front panel detail of Wayland the Smith (l) and the Adoration of the Magi (r); bottom left—
left panel, depicting Romulus and Remus; bottom right—rear panel, depicting the First
Jewish Revolt).

8. Left—Tassilo Chalice, found in Austria but artistic style is Anglo-Saxon, c. 780 AD,
Kremsmünster Cathedral; right—manuscript page from Bede’s History of the English
Church and People, c. 735 AD, British Library.

9. Anglo-Saxon versus Latin and modern English
• Gospel of St. Matthew, 7:24.
• Ælċ þāra þe þās mīn word ġe-hīerþ, and þā wyrcþ, biþ ġe-līċ þæm
wīsan were, sē his hūs ofer stān ġe-timbrode.
• Omnis ergo qui audit verba mea haec, et facit ea, assimilabitur viro
sapienti, qui aedificavit domum suam supra petram.
• Whoever, then, hears these commandments of mine and carries
them out, is like a wise man who built his house on rock.

10. Pre-modern European Migrations: Germanic Migrations
Left map from Lynn Hunt, The Making of the West, Volume 1, 3rd edition; right map from Barbara
Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages, 3rd edition.
• Visigothic Spain, 507-714
• Visigoths settle in southern Gaul,
418
• Battle of Vouille, 507
• Visigoths pushed into Spain by
the Franks
• Morbus Gothorum—the sickness of
the Goths
• Muslims invade from North Africa in
711
• Kingdom of Asturias
• Al-Andalus

11. Left—buckle of Visigothic make, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; right—votive crown
of Recceswinth, from the Treasure of Guarrazar, National Archaeological Museum of
Spain, Madrid.