Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who once occupied Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and early medieval Germanic languages and are thus equated at least approximately with Germanic-speaking peoples, although different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic".[1] The Romans called the area in North-Central Europe in which the Germanic peoples lived Germania. According to its largest definition it stretched between the Vistula in the east and Rhine in the west, and from southern Scandinavia to the upper Danube.[2] In discussions of the Roman period, the Germanic peoples are sometimes referred to as Germani or ancient Germans, although many scholars consider the second term problematic since it suggests identity with present-day Germans. The very concept of "Germanic peoples" has become the subject of controversy among contemporary scholars.[3] Some scholars call for its total abandonment as a modern construct since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence.[3] Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity.[4] While several historians and archaeologists continue to use the term "Germanic peoples" to refer to historical people groups from the 1st to 4th centuries CE, the term is no longer used by most historians and archaeologists for the period around the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages.[5]
Not to be confused with Germans.
Scholars generally agree that it is possible to refer to Germanic-speaking peoples after 500 BCE.[6] Archaeologists usually connect the early Germanic peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age, which is found in Denmark (southern Scandinavia) and northern Germany from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE, around the same time that the First Germanic Consonant Shift is theorized to have occurred; this sound change led to recognizably Germanic languages.[7][a] From northern Germany and southern Scandinavia, the Germanic peoples expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with the Celtic, Iranic, Baltic, and Slavic peoples. Roman authors first described Germanic peoples near the Rhine in the 1st century BCE, while the Roman Empire was establishing its dominance in that region. Under Emperor Augustus (27 BCE–14 CE), the Romans attempted to conquer a large area of Germania, but they withdrew after a major Roman defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE. The Romans continued to control the Germanic frontier closely by meddling in its politics, and they constructed a long fortified border, the Limes Germanicus. From 166 to 180 CE, Rome was embroiled in a conflict against the Germanic Marcomanni, Quadi, and many other peoples known as the Marcomannic Wars. The wars reordered the Germanic frontier, and afterwards, new Germanic peoples appear for the first time in the historical record, such as the Franks, Goths, Saxons, and Alemanni. During the Migration Period (375–568), various Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and eventually took control of parts of it and established their own independent kingdoms after the collapse of Western Roman rule. The most powerful of them were the Franks, who conquered many of the others. Eventually, the Frankish king Charlemagne claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor for himself in 800.
Archaeological finds suggest that Roman-era sources portrayed the Germanic way of life as more primitive than it actually was. Instead, archaeologists have unveiled evidence of a complex society and economy throughout Germania. Germanic-speaking peoples originally shared similar religious practices. Denoted by the term Germanic paganism, they varied throughout the territory occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples. Over the course of Late Antiquity, most continental Germanic peoples and the Anglo-Saxons of Britain converted to Christianity, but the Saxons and Scandinavians converted only much later. The Germanic peoples shared a native script from around the first century or before, the runes, which was gradually replaced with the Latin script, although runes continued to be used for specialized purposes thereafter.
Traditionally, the Germanic peoples have been seen as possessing a law dominated by the concepts of feuding and blood compensation. The precise details, nature and origin of what is still normally called "Germanic law" are now controversial. Roman sources state that the Germanic peoples made decisions in a popular assembly (the thing) but that they also had kings and war leaders. The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples probably shared a common poetic tradition, alliterative verse, and later Germanic peoples also shared legends originating in the Migration Period.
The publishing of Tacitus's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced the emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the Romantic period, such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by romantic nationalism. For those scholars, the "Germanic" and modern "German" were identical. Ideas about the early Germans were also highly influential among and were influenced and co-opted by the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later by the Nazis, which led in the second half of the 20th century to a backlash against many aspects of earlier scholarship.
Economy and material culture[edit]
Agriculture and population density[edit]
Unlike agriculture in the Roman provinces, which was organized around the large farms known as villae rusticae, Germanic agriculture was organized around villages. When Germanic peoples expanded into northern Gaul in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, they brought this village-based agriculture with them, which increased the agricultural productivity of the land; Heiko Steuer suggests this means that Germania was more agriculturally productive than is generally assumed.[353] Villages were not distant from each other but often within sight, revealing a fairly high population density, and contrary to the assertions of Roman sources, only about 30% of Germania was covered in forest, about the same percentage as today.[354]
Based on pollen samples and the finds of seeds and plant remains, the chief grains cultivated in Germania were barley, oats, and wheat (both Einkorn and emmer), while the most common vegetables were beans and peas. Flax was also grown.[355] Agriculture in Germania relied heavily on animal husbandry, primarily the raising of cattle, which were smaller than their Roman counterparts[356] Both cultivation and animal husbandry methods improved with time, with examples being the introduction of rye, which grew better in Germania, and the introduction of the three-field system.[357]
Crafts[edit]
It is unclear if there was a special class of craftsmen in Germania, however archaeological finds of tools are frequent.[358] Many everyday items such as dishes were made out of wood, and archaeology has found the remains of wooden well construction.[359] The 4th-century CE Nydam and Illerup ships show highly developed knowledge of ship construction, while elite graves have revealed wooden furniture with complex joinery.[360] Products made from ceramics included cooking, drinking, and storage, vessels, as well as lamps. While originally formed by hand, the period around 1 CE saw the introduction of the potter's wheel.[361] Some of the ceramics produced on potter's wheels seem to have been done in direct imitation of Roman wares,[362] and may have been produced by Romans in Germania or by Germani who had learned Roman techniques while serving in the Roman army.[363] The shape and decoration of Germanic ceramics vary by region and archaeologists have traditionally used these variations to determine larger cultural areas.[364] Many ceramics were probably produced locally in hearths, but large pottery kilns have also been discovered, and it seems clear that there were areas of specialized production.[362]
Modern reception[edit]
The rediscovery of Tacitus's Germania in the 1450s was used by German humanists to claim a glorious classical past for their nation that could compete with that of Greece and Rome,[407] and to equate the "Germanic" with the "German".[408] While the humanists' notion of the "Germanic" was initially vague, later it was narrowed and used to support a notion of German(ic) superiority to other nations.[409] Equally important was Jordanes's Getica, rediscovered by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini in the mid-15th century and first printed in 1515 by Konrad Peutinger, which depicted Scandinavia as the "womb of nations" (Latin: vagina nationum) from which all the historical northeastern European barbarians migrated in the distant past.[410] While treated with suspicion by German scholars, who preferred the indigenous origin given by Tacitus, this motif became very popular in contemporary Swedish Gothicism, as it supported Sweden's imperial ambitions.[411] Peutinger printed the Getica together with Paul the Deacon's History of the Lombards, so that the Germania, the Getica, and the History of the Lombards formed the basis for the study of the Germanic past.[412] Scholars did not clearly differentiate between the Germanic peoples, Celtic peoples, and the "Scythian peoples" until the late 18th century with the discovery of Indo-European and the establishment of language as the primary criterion for nationality. Before that time, German scholars considered the Celtic peoples to be part of the Germanic group.[413]
The beginning of Germanic philology proper starts around the turn of the 19th century, with Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm being the two most significant founding figures. Their oeuvre included various monumental works on linguistics, culture, and literature.[414] Jacob Grimm offered many arguments identifying the Germans as the "most Germanic" of the Germanic-speaking peoples, many of which were taken up later by others who sought to equate "Germanicness" (German: Germanentum) with "Germanness" (German: Deutschtum).[415] Grimm also argued that the Scandinavian sources were, while much later, more "pure" attestations of "Germanness" than those from the south, an opinion that remains common today.[416] German nationalist thinkers of the völkisch movement placed a great emphasis on the connection of modern Germans to the Germania using Tacitus to prove the purity and virtue of the German people, which had allowed them to conquer the decadent Romans.[417] German historians used the Germanic past to argue for a liberal, democratic form of government and a unified German state.[418] Contemporary Romantic nationalism in Scandinavia placed more weight on the Viking Age, resulting in the movement known as Scandinavism.[419]
In the late 19th century, Gustaf Kossinna developed several widely accepted theories tying archaeological finds of specific assemblages of objects. Kossina used his theories to extend Germanic identity back to the Neolithic period and to state with confidence when and where various Germanic and other peoples had migrated within Europe.[420] In the 1930s and 40s, the Nazi Party made use of notions of Germanic "purity" reaching back into the earliest prehistoric times.[10] Nazi ideologues also used the "Germanic" nature of peoples such as the Franks and Goths to justify territorial annexations in northern France, Ukraine, and the Crimea.[421] Scholars reinterpreted Germanic culture to justify the Nazis' rule as anchored in the Germanic past, emphasizing noble leaders and warlike retinues who dominated surrounding peoples.[422] After 1945, these associations led to a scholarly backlash and re-examining of Germanic origins.[10] Many medieval specialists have even demanded that scholars avoid the term Germanic altogether since it is too emotionally charged, adding that it has been politically abused and creates more confusion than clarity.[423]
Classical and medieval sources