Misplaced Pages

#474525

195-404: A thing , also known as a folkmoot , assembly , tribal council , and by other names , was a governing assembly in early Germanic society , made up of the free people of the community presided over by a lawspeaker . Things took place regularly, usually at prominent places accessible by travel. They provided legislative functions, as well as social events and trade opportunities. In modern usage,

390-681: A cohort of Chauci and Frisii had been trapped and burned. The emperor Constantius Chlorus campaigned successfully against several Germanic peoples during the internecine civil wars that brought him to sole power over the Roman Empire . Among them were the Frisii and Chamavi , who were described in the Panegyrici Latini (Manuscript VIII) as being forced to resettle within Roman territory as laeti (i.e., Roman-era serfs ) in c.  296 . This

585-520: A "stretch of time for an assembly". In English, the term is attested from 685 to 686 in the older meaning "assembly"; later, it referred to a being, entity or matter (sometime before 899), and then also an act, deed, or event (from about 1000). The original sense of "meeting, assembly" did not survive the shift to Middle English. The meaning of personal possessions, commonly in the plural, first appears in Middle English around 1300, and eventually led to

780-465: A Danish king Chlochilaichus who was killed while invading Frankish territory in the early 6th century, suggesting that, in this instance, Beowulf might have a basis in historical facts. However, Gregory was writing little more than fifty years after the events and may have based his story on eyewitness accounts, yet he makes no mention of Frisia or the Frisians. The poems are not considered by scholars to give

975-491: A Germanic language", are sometimes referred to as "Germanic-speaking peoples". Today, the term "Germanic" is widely applied to "phenomena including identities, social, cultural or political groups, to material cultural artefacts, languages and texts, and even specific chemical sequences found in human DNA". Several scholars continue to use the term to refer to a culture existing between the 1st to 4th centuries CE, but most historians and archaeologists researching Late Antiquity and

1170-696: A Gothic group in modern Ukraine under the rule of Ermanaric , were among the first peoples attacked by the Huns, apparently facing Hunnic pressure for some years. Following Ermanaric's death, the Greuthungi's resistance broke and they moved toward the Dniester river. A second Gothic group, the Tervingi under King Athanaric , constructed a defensive earthwork against the Huns near the Dniester. However, these measures did not stop

1365-705: A Gothic ruler of the Amal dynasty, seems to have consolidated power over a large part of the Goths in the Hunnic domain. For the next 20 years, the former subject peoples of the Huns would fight among each other for preeminence. The arrival of the Saxons in Britain is traditionally dated to 449, however, archaeology indicates they had begun arriving in Britain earlier. Latin sources used Saxon generically for seaborne raiders, meaning that not all of

1560-610: A Roman flotilla was captured by a Germanic one. However, the war did not end well for the Germans. Led by Cerialis , the Romans ultimately forced a humiliating peace on the Batavi and stationed a legion on their territory. In the course of the war, both the Frisii and the Chauci had auxiliaries serving under the Romans. In an assault by Civilis at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensis (at modern Cologne ),

1755-707: A certain Gannascus of the Canninefates led the Frisii and the Chauci to rebel. They raided along the then-wealthy coast of Gallia Belgica . The Roman military commander, Corbulo , campaigned successfully against the Germanic tribes, For the Chauci and for the Frisii this meant Roman occupation, with the Romans specifying where they must live, with a fort built among them, and forcing a Roman-style senate, magistrates, and constitution upon them. The Frisii are next mentioned in 54, when they occupied empty, Roman-controlled land near

1950-532: A clear organizational structure. Iceland was divided into four administrative quarters during the Viking Age with a fixed number of thirty-nine goðis "lawmakers": twelve goðis in the northern quarter and nine each in the eastern, southern, and western quarters. The main distinction between Iceland and greater Scandinavia lies in the organization of the Icelandic Althing ( Alþingi ), the main assembly during

2145-475: A close association between chieftains' farms and sites interpreted as assemblies or court sites. These areas were considered neutral ground where the landowning elite could meet for political reasons and for Norse rituals . This view is based partly on Norse sagas ' narratives of Viking chieftains and the distribution of large grave mounds. Ultimately, this neutrality was important for thing participants' cooperation; royal officials required cooperation to look after

SECTION 10

#1732848789475

2340-613: A common identity. Scholars generally agree that it is possible to refer to Germanic languages from about 500 BCE. Archaeologists usually associate the earliest clearly identifiable Germanic speaking peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age in central and northern Germany and southern Denmark from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE. This existed around the same time that the First Germanic Consonant Shift

2535-866: A common language. Several ancient sources list subdivisions of the Germanic tribes. Writing in the first century CE, Pliny the Elder lists five Germanic subgroups: the Vandili, the Inguaeones, the Istuaeones (living near the Rhine), the Herminones (in the Germanic interior), and the Peucini Basternae (living on the lower Danube near the Dacians). In chapter 2 of the Germania , written about

2730-516: 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

2925-630: A copyist's error as justification. The Frisiavones (or Frisiabones) are mentioned in Pliny the Elder 's Natural History (AD 79). They are listed as a people of the islands in and near the Rhine River, as are the Frisii. They also appear as a people of northern Gaul in the chapter on Gallia Belgica , their name given between those of the Sunici and Betasi (not to be confused with the Batavi ). Tangible evidence of

3120-607: A field or common, like Þingvellir, the old location of the Icelandic Alþing. The parliament of the Isle of Man is still named after the meeting place of the thing, Tynwald , which etymologically is the same word as þingvellir ; there is still an annual public assembly at Tynwald Hill each July 5, where the new Manx laws are read out and petitions delivered). Other equivalent place names can be found across northern Europe: in Scotland , there

3315-497: A group of mutually intelligible dialects . They share distinctive characteristics which set them apart from other Indo-European sub-families of languages, such as Grimm's and Verner's law , the conservation of the PIE ablaut system in the Germanic verb system (notably in strong verbs ), or the merger of the vowels a and o qualities ( ə , a , o > a; ā , ō > ō ). During

3510-728: A half-century later, Tacitus lists only three subgroups: the Ingvaeones (near the sea), the Herminones (in the interior of Germania), and the Istvaeones (the remainder of the tribes); Tacitus says these groups each claimed descent from the god Mannus , son of Tuisto . Tacitus also mentions a second tradition that there were four sons of either Mannus or Tuisto from whom the groups of the Marsi, Gambrivi, Suebi, and Vandili claim descent. The Herminones are also mentioned by Pomponius Mela , but otherwise, these divisions do not appear in other ancient works on

3705-569: A high degree of Celtic-Germanic shared material culture and social organization. Some evidence of linguistic convergence between Germanic and Italic languages , whose Urheimat is supposed to have been situated north of the Alps before the 1st millennium BCE, have also been highlighted by scholars. Shared changes in their grammars also suggest early contacts between Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages ; however, some of these innovations are shared with Baltic only, which may point to linguistic contacts during

3900-426: A lancehead) and linguistic cognates attested in the later Old Norse , Old Saxon and Old High German languages: fremja , fremmian and fremmen all mean 'to carry out'. In the absence of earlier evidence, it must be assumed that Proto-Germanic speakers living in Germania were members of preliterate societies. The only pre-Roman inscriptions that could be interpreted as Proto-Germanic, written in

4095-422: A later Roman governor raised the requirements and exacted payment, at first decimating the herds of the Frisii, then confiscating their land, and finally taking wives and children into bondage. By AD 28 the Frisii had had enough. They hanged the Roman soldiers collecting the tax and forced the governor to flee to a Roman fort, which they then besieged. The propraetor of Germania Inferior , Lucius Apronius , raised

SECTION 20

#1732848789475

4290-421: A local family's attempt to claim supremacy are standard features of thingsteads. It is common for assembly sites close to communication routes, such as navigable water routes and clear land routes. The thing met at regular intervals, legislated, elected chieftains and kings , and judged according to the law, which was memorized and recited by the lawspeaker (judge). The thing's negotiations were presided over by

4485-591: A local production using a self-descriptive country name (i.e., 'FRISIA') would be unheard of in that era. Frisia appears in the Old English heroic poem Beowulf , which tells a story of events of the early 6th century, as well as in the Widsith and several other poems. In Beowulf , the Geatish king Hygelac is killed while raiding Frisia. It has been noted that Gregory of Tours ( c.  538 –594) mentioned

4680-489: A name for any group of people and was revived as such only by the humanists in the 16th century. Previously, scholars during the Carolingian period (8th–11th centuries) had already begun using Germania and Germanicus in a territorial sense to refer to East Francia . In modern English, the adjective Germanic is distinct from German , which is generally used when referring to modern Germans only. Germanic relates to

4875-522: A native script—known as runes —from around the first century or before, 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

5070-586: A policy of trying to prevent strong leaders from emerging among the barbarians, using treachery, kidnapping, and assassination, paying off rival tribes to attack them, or by supporting internal rivals. The Migration Period is traditionally cited by historians as beginning in 375 CE, under the assumption that the appearance of the Huns prompted the Visigoths to seek shelter within the Roman Empire in 376. The end of

5265-574: A reference to the Picts and Orkney and a place 'ultra mare Frenessicum'. The 'Cair' in 'Cair Peris' is reasonably taken to be Welsh 'Caer' (fort), while 'Peris' is a matter of speculation and conjecture, including the supposition that it is a reference to 'Frisians'. In the context of the Historia , the 'mare Frenessicum' coincides nicely with the Firth of Forth . While the Historia is often useful to scholars, it

5460-576: A relatively late period, at any rate after the initial breakup of Balto-Slavic into Baltic and Slavic languages , with the similarities to Slavic being seen as remnants of Indo-European archaisms or the result of secondary contacts. According to some authors the Bastarnae , or Peucini , were the first Germani to be encountered by the Greco-Roman world and thus to be mentioned in historical records. They appear in historical sources going as far back as

5655-399: A reliable account of historical events, as they largely rely on literary conventions, lore and tradition. As a reflection of these conventions and as a mirror of the society in which they emerged, they are, nevertheless, an important source. The Historia Brittonum by Nennius gives a list of 33 ancient cities of Britain, among them 'Cair Peris', its location unspecified. It also contains

5850-666: A renewed political crisis in Rome, the Rhine frontier had collapsed, and in order to restore it, the Roman magister militum Flavius Aetius engineered the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom in 435/436, possibly with Hunnic mercenaries, and launched several successful campaigns against the Visigoths. In 439, the Vandals conquered Carthage , which served as an excellent base for further raids throughout

6045-512: A riding surrounding the wapentake, the wapentake would merely be a local assembly coordinating the power of the riding. In Scandinavian York's case, it would be under the king's command at what is now King's Square, York . The Kingdom of East Anglia controlled the Danelaw , which had been organized as the Five Boroughs. The Five were fortifications defending the land against Wessex , or against

Thing (assembly) - Misplaced Pages Continue

6240-589: A separate identity in Roman eyes until at least 296, when Frisian, Frankish and Chamavian groups were forcibly resettled as laeti . Archaeological findings suggest that they may have been transported to Flanders and Southwestern England. The area where the original Frisii lived was largely deserted during the Migration Period , probably due to political instability and piracy, as well as climatic deterioration and frequent flooding caused by sea level rise . When changing environmental and political conditions made

6435-494: A shift to a cooler, wetter climate in the region as well as by the introduction of malaria and other epidemic diseases. In the 3rd and 4th centuries the population of Frisia steadily decreased, and by the 5th century it dropped dramatically. Archaeological surveys indicate that only small pockets of the original population stayed behind (e.g. in the Groningen coastal marshes). The coastal lands remained largely unpopulated for

6630-557: A term corresponding to Germanic-speaking peoples, this new definition—which used the Germanic language as the main criterion—presented the Germani as a people or nation ( Volk ) with a stable group identity linked to language. As a result, some scholars treat the Germani (Latin) or Germanoi (Greek) of Roman-era sources as non-Germanic if they seemingly spoke non-Germanic languages. For clarity, Germanic peoples, when defined as "speakers of

6825-488: A territorial definition ("those living in Germania ") and an ethnic definition ("having Germanic ethnic characteristics"), and the two definitions did not always align. In the 3rd century, when Romans encountered Germanic-speaking peoples living north of the Lower Danube who fought on horseback, such as Goths and Gepids, they did not call them Germani . Instead, they connected them with non-Germanic-speaking peoples such as

7020-557: A thing was made by Tacitus in 98 CE. Tacitus suggested that the things were annual delegate-based meetings that served legal and military functions. The oldest written reference to a thing is on a stone pillar found along Hadrian's Wall at Housesteads Roman Fort in Northumberland in the United Kingdom. It is dated 43–410 CE and reads: DEO MARTI THINCSO ET DUABUS ALAISIAGIS BEDE ET FIMMILENE ET N AUG GERM CIVES TUIHANTI VSLM To

7215-642: A war-god or a mark of ownership engraved by its possessor. The inscription Fariarix ( * farjōn- 'ferry' + * rīk- 'ruler') carved on tetradrachms found in Bratislava (mid-1st c. BCE) may indicate the Germanic name of a Celtic ruler. By the time Germanic speakers entered written history, their linguistic territory had stretched farther south, since a Germanic dialect continuum (where neighbouring language varieties diverged only slightly between each other, but remote dialects were not necessarily mutually intelligible due to accumulated differences over

7410-734: Is Dingwall in the Scottish Highlands and Tingwall, occurring both in Orkney and Shetland , and further south there is Tinwald , in Dumfries and Galloway and – in England – Thingwall , a village on the Wirral Peninsula . In Sweden, there are several places named Tingvalla, the modern Swedish form of Þingvellir, and the Norwegian equivalent is found in the place name Tingvoll . In Dublin , Ireland ,

7605-526: Is Thingwall on the Wirral . In the Yorkshire and former Danelaw areas of England, wapentakes —another name for the same institution—were used in public records. Several places ending in the -by "village" place name suffix originally possessed their laws, by-laws , and jurisdiction subject to the wapentake in which they served, which often extended over a surrounding ground called a thorpe "hamlet". If there were

7800-588: Is also the source of storyline details that have no discernible provenance. It was written more than 500 years after the last unambiguous reference to the ancient Frisii (the Panegyrici Latini in c.  297 ), and at a time when medieval Frisia and the Frisians were playing a dominant role in North Sea trade. The idea that the Frisians might have settled in Scotland and Ireland has triggered several imaginative histories. Some 19th-century writers even suggested that

7995-473: Is equally inconsistent. Additionally, there is no linguistic or archaeological evidence for these subgroups. New archaeological finds have tended to show that the boundaries between Germanic peoples were very permeable, and scholars now assume that migration and the collapse and formation of cultural units were constant occurrences within Germania. Nevertheless, various aspects such as the alliteration of many of

Thing (assembly) - Misplaced Pages Continue

8190-535: Is given and includes the Frisians, as well as the Suebi, Goths, Basques, Danes, Jutes, Saxons, and Britons. The eulogies of this age were intended to praise the high status of the subject, and the sudden reappearance of a list of old tribal names fitted into poetic meters is given little historical value. The context is poetic license rather than historical accuracy. In the Ravenna Cosmography , composed about 700 on

8385-401: Is little evidence for a common Germanic identity. The Anglo-Saxonist Leonard Neidorf writes that historians of the continental-European Germanic peoples of the 5th and 6th centuries are "in agreement" that there was no pan-Germanic identity or solidarity. Whether a scholar favors the existence of a common Germanic identity or not is often related to their position on the nature of the end of

8580-495: Is not near the known location of the Frisii, which is acceptable if the Frisavones are a separate people, but not if they are a part of a greater Frisian tribe. Theodor Mommsen ( The Provinces of the Roman Empire from Caesar to Diocletian , 1885) believed that the Germanic tribes of the region consisted of two parts, one having come under Roman influence and the other having remained outside of Roman influence, and he concluded that

8775-661: Is purely orthographical), in German as Ding , in Dutch and Afrikaans as ding , and in modern Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , Faroese , Gutnish , and Norn as ting . The place where a thing was held was called a "thingstead" or "thingstow". An alternative Proto-Germanic form of the word 'thing' was *þingsō , whence Gothic þeihs 'time'. All of these terms derive from * þingą meaning "appointed time," possibly originating in Proto-Indo-European * ten- , "stretch," as in

8970-416: Is related to a lack of stable frontiers in this area such as were maintained by Roman armies along the Rhine and Danube. The geographer Ptolemy (2nd century CE) applied the name Germania magna ("Greater Germania", Greek : Γερμανία Μεγάλη ) to this area, contrasting it with the Roman provinces of Germania Prima and Germania Secunda (on the west bank of the Rhine). In modern scholarship, Germania magna

9165-421: Is sometimes also called Germania libera ("free Germania"), a name coined by Jacob Grimm around 1835. Caesar and, following him, Tacitus, depicted the Germani as sharing elements of a common culture. A small number of passages by Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention Germanic tribes or individuals speaking a language distinct from Gaulish. For Tacitus ( Germania 43, 45, 46), language

9360-514: Is the last reference to the ancient Frisii in the historical record. However, they appear once more, now in the archaeological record. The discovery of a type of pottery unique to 4th century Frisia known as Tritzum earthenware shows that an unknown number of them were resettled in Flanders and Kent under the aforementioned Roman coercion. If there were any Frisii left in Frisia, they fell victim to

9555-446: Is theorized to have occurred, leading to recognizably Germanic languages. Germanic languages expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with Celtic , Iranic , Baltic , and Slavic peoples before they were noted by the Romans. Roman authors first described the Germani 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),

9750-593: Is thought to possibly reflect a Germanic and Slavic component. The identification of the Jastorf culture with the Germani has been criticized by Sebastian Brather , who notes that it seems to be missing areas such as southern Scandinavia and the Rhine-Weser area, which linguists argue to have been Germanic, while also not according with the Roman era definition of Germani , which included Celtic-speaking peoples further south and west. A category of evidence used to locate

9945-598: Is unlikely that Germanic populations spoke a single dialect, and traces of early linguistic varieties have been highlighted by scholars. Sister dialects of Proto-Germanic itself certainly existed, as evidenced by the absence of the First Germanic Sound Shift (Grimm's law) in some "Para-Germanic" recorded proper names, and the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language was only one among several dialects spoken at that time by peoples identified as "Germanic" by Roman sources or archeological data. Although Roman sources name various Germanic tribes such as Suevi, Alemanni, Bauivari , etc., it

SECTION 50

#1732848789475

10140-439: Is unlikely that the members of these tribes all spoke the same dialect. Definite and comprehensive evidence of Germanic lexical units only occurred after Caesar 's conquest of Gaul in the 1st century BCE, after which contacts with Proto-Germanic speakers began to intensify. The Alcis , a pair of brother gods worshipped by the Nahanarvali , are given by Tacitus as a Latinized form of * alhiz (a kind of ' stag '), and

10335-485: The Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language , the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, existed in or near the archaeological culture known as the late Jastorf culture , of the central Elbe in present day Germany, stretching north into Jutland and east into present day Poland. If the Jastorf Culture is the origin of the Germanic peoples, then the Scandinavian peninsula would have become Germanic either via migration or assimilation over

10530-401: The Cimbrian War (113–101 BCE) against the Romans, in which the Teutons and Cimbri were victorious over several Roman armies but were ultimately defeated. The first century BCE was a time of the expansion of Germanic-speaking peoples at the expense of Celtic-speaking polities in modern southern Germany and the Czech Republic. Before 60 BCE, Ariovistus , described by Caesar as king of

10725-407: The Corded Ware culture towards modern-day Denmark, resulting in cultural mixing with the earlier Funnelbeaker culture . The subsequent culture of the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 2000/1750 – c. 500 BCE) shows definite cultural and population continuities with later Germanic peoples, and is often supposed to have been the culture in which the Germanic Parent Language , the predecessor of

10920-423: The Early Middle Ages . In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of the Roman empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths . Another term, ancient Germans , is considered problematic by many scholars since it suggests identity with present-day Germans . Although

11115-576: The Eastern Settlement of Greenland . These two sites were located through written sources and archeological evidence. Between these two Greenlandic sites, several overlapping characteristics support the hypothesis that these booth sites are assemblies. However, not all "assembly features" previously seen in Scandinavia appear at every assembly site, and there are also characteristics that have either not been recorded in Greenland or are unique to Greenland. The temporary turf structures of Greenland have only been recorded in Iceland and would not have been seen at

11310-438: The Etruscan alphabet , have not been found in Germania but rather in the Venetic region. The inscription harikastiteiva \\\ip , engraved on the Negau helmet in the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE, possibly by a Germanic-speaking warrior involved in combat in northern Italy, has been interpreted by some scholars as Harigasti Teiwǣ ( * harja-gastiz 'army-guest' + * teiwaz 'god, deity'), which could be an invocation to

11505-401: The Germani and Celtic peoples , usually identified with the archaeological La Tène culture , found in southern Germany and the modern Czech Republic. Early contacts probably occurred during the Pre-Germanic and Pre-Celtic periods, dated to the 2nd millennium BCE, and the Celts appear to have had a large amount of influence on Germanic culture from up until the first century CE, which led to

11700-414: The Germani as a large category of peoples distinct from the Gauls and Scythians was Julius Caesar , writing around 55 BCE during his governorship of Gaul. In Caesar's account, the clearest defining characteristic of the Germani people was that their homeland was east of the Rhine , opposite Gaul on the west side. Caesar sought to explain both why his legions stopped at the Rhine and also why

11895-473: The Germani may instead be called "ancient Germans" or Germani by using the Latin term in English. The modern definition of Germanic peoples developed in the 19th century, when the term Germanic was linked to the newly identified Germanic language family . Linguistics provided a new way of defining the Germanic peoples, which came to be used in historiography and archaeology. While Roman authors did not consistently exclude Celtic-speaking people or have

SECTION 60

#1732848789475

12090-461: The Germani were more dangerous than the Gauls to the empire. Explaining this threat he also classified the Cimbri and Teutons , who had previously invaded Italy, as Germani . Although Caesar described the Rhine as the border between Germani and Celts, he also describes the Germani cisrhenani on the west bank of the Rhine, who he believed had moved from the east. It is unclear if these Germani were actually Germanic speakers. According to

12285-420: The Germani , led a force including Suevi across the Rhine into Gaul near Besançon , successfully aiding the Sequani against their enemies the Aedui at the Battle of Magetobriga . Ariovistus was initially considered an ally of Rome. In 58 BCE, with increasing numbers of settlers crossing the Rhine to join Ariovistus, Julius Caesar went to war with them, defeating them at the Battle of Vosges . In

12480-444: The Germani , though they did not live in Germania, and they were beginning to look like Sarmatians through intermarriage. The Osi and Cotini lived in Germania, but were not Germani , because they had other languages and customs. The Aesti lived on the eastern shore of the Baltic and were like Suebi in their appearance and customs, although they spoke a different language. Ancient authors did not differentiate consistently between

12675-443: The Germani . There are a number of inconsistencies in the listing of Germanic subgroups by Tacitus and Pliny. While both Tacitus and Pliny mention some Scandinavian tribes, they are not integrated into the subdivisions. While Pliny lists the Suebi as part of the Herminones, Tacitus treats them as a separate group. Additionally, Tacitus's description of a group of tribes as united by the cult of Nerthus ( Germania 40) as well as

12870-418: The Huns , Sarmatians , and Alans , who shared a similar culture. Romans also called them "Gothic peoples", ( gentes Gothicae ) even if they did not speak a Germanic language, and they often referred to the Goths as " Getae ", equating them to a non-Germanic people residing in the same region. The writer Procopius described these new "Getic" peoples as sharing similar appearance, laws, Arian religion, and

13065-403: The Nazis . During the second half of the 20th century, the controversial misuse of ancient Germanic history and archaeology was discredited and has since resulted in a backlash against many aspects of earlier scholarship. The etymology of the Latin word Germani , from which Latin Germania and English Germanic are derived, is unknown, although several proposals have been put forward. Even

13260-427: The Pre-Germanic linguistic period (2500–500 BCE), the proto-language was almost certainly influenced by an unknown non-Indo-European language , still noticeable in the Germanic phonology and lexicon . Although Proto-Germanic is reconstructed without dialects via the comparative method , it is almost certain that it never was a uniform proto-language. The late Jastorf culture occupied so much territory that it

13455-424: The Rhine , settling into houses and sowing and plowing fields. The Romans attempted to persuade them to leave, and even invited two Frisii kings to Rome to meet Nero , who ordered them to leave. The Frisii refused, whereupon a Roman military force coerced them, killing any who resisted. In AD 69 the Batavi and other tribes rose against Roman rule in the Revolt of the Batavi , becoming a general uprising by all

13650-468: The Saxon tribes towards modern-day England. The Germanic languages are traditionally divided between East , North and West Germanic branches. The modern prevailing view is that North and West Germanic were also encompassed in a larger subgroup called Northwest Germanic. Further internal classifications are still debated among scholars, as it is unclear whether the internal features shared by several branches are due to early common innovations or to

13845-452: The Storting , has historically been divided into two chambers named the Lagting and the Odelsting , which translates loosely into the "Thing of the Law" and the "Thing of the Allodial rights ". However, for much of the Storting's recent history, the division into Lagting and Odelsting has been mostly ceremonial, and the Storting has generally operated as a unicameral parliament. A constitutional amendment passed in February 2007 abolished

14040-586: The Thingmote was a raised mound, 40 foot high and 240 foot in circumference, where the Norsemen assembled and made their laws. It stood south of the river, where Saint Andrew's Church now stands, until 1685. It is contested between scholars to what extent things were sites of economic transactions and commerce and arenas for political and legal decisions. In Norway, it is clear that the assemblies functioned as an administrative level for economic transactions and taxes to

14235-505: The Vikings , depending on who ruled there; together with Lindsey, Lincolnshire , which was divided into three ridings like Yorkshire. Again, the naming of the two roads named Inner and Outer Ting Tong on a hill-top in Devon between Budleigh Salterton, Woodbury and Exmouth is widely derided as fanciful, but may be derived from Thing-Tun, a dun (hill fort) or tun (settlement) around the place where

14430-522: The landsting , which also took other decisions regarding the island. The landsting ' s authority was successively eroded after the island was occupied by the Teutonic Order in 1398. In late medieval times, the thing comprised twelve representatives for the farmers, free-holders or tenants. As a representative legislative body, the things in Iceland were similar to those in greater Scandinavia but had

14625-544: The 1st to 4th centuries CE. Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for the term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. 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

14820-572: The 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, migrations of East Germanic gentes from the Baltic Sea coast southeastwards into the hinterland led to their separation from the dialect continuum. By the late 3rd century CE, linguistic divergences like the West Germanic loss of the final consonant -z had already occurred within the "residual" Northwest dialect continuum. The latter definitely ended after the 5th- and 6th-century migrations of Angles , Jutes and part of

15015-652: The 3rd century BCE through the 4th century CE. Another eastern people known from about 200 BCE, and sometimes believed to be Germanic-speaking, are the Sciri (Greek: Skiroi ), who are recorded threatening the city of Olbia on the Black Sea. Late in the 2nd century BCE, Roman and Greek sources recount the migrations of the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones whom Caesar later classified as Germanic. The movements of these groups through parts of Gaul , Italy and Hispania resulted in

15210-662: The Celtic word for their war cries, gairm , which simplifies into 'the neighbours' or 'the screamers'. Regardless of its language of origin, the name was transmitted to the Romans via Celtic speakers. It is unclear that any people group ever referred to themselves as Germani . By late antiquity , only peoples near the Rhine, especially the Franks and sometimes the Alemanni, were called Germani or Germanoi by Latin and Greek writers respectively. Germani subsequently ceased to be used as

15405-581: The Cherusci—initially an ally of Rome—drew a large Roman force into an ambush in northern Germany, and destroyed the three legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . Marboduus and Arminius went to war with each other in 17 CE; Arminius was victorious and Marboduus was forced to flee to the Romans. Following the Roman defeat at the Teutoburg Forest, Rome gave up on

15600-660: The Early Middle Ages no longer use it. Apart from the designation of a language family (i.e., "Germanic languages"), the application of the term "Germanic" has become controversial in scholarship since 1990, especially among archaeologists and historians. Scholars have increasingly questioned the notion of ethnically defined people groups ( Völker ) as stable basic actors of history. The connection of archaeological assemblages to ethnicity has also been increasingly questioned. This has resulted in different disciplines developing different definitions of "Germanic". Beginning with

15795-573: The Franks and Frisians, together with the Langobards as guests and subjects of the legendary king Cormac mac Airt . In later literary traditions, such as Layamon's Brut , Frisians are also listed as subjects of King Arthur . Their country, however, was often conflated with Phrygia , the homeland of the Trojans . Based on older traditions might have been the 15th-century Eachtra Thaidg Mhic Céin , which tells

15990-504: The Frisiavones ". Suggestions that the Frisiavones were actually the Frisii center on the similarity in names, combined with the Roman classification of 'Lesser Frisii' to the west of the Zuiderzee and 'Greater Frisii' to the east of it (which provides a reason as to why the Frisii might have been known by two different names). However, Pliny's placement of the Frisiavones in northern Gaul

16185-460: The Frisiavones in northern Gaul, saying that it "is beyond doubt incorrect". The Panegyrici Latini in c.  297 is the last mention of the Frisii by that name. There is no mention of them by any other name for nearly three centuries, when the name re-emerges as 'Frisians'. These later references are all connected to the ascendancy of the Franks under the Merovingians , who referred to

16380-502: The Frisiavones were the same people as the Frisii. However, his reasoning parsed the accounts of Tacitus and Pliny selectively: he interpreted the 'Lesser Frisii' and 'Greater Frisii' of Tacitus to refer to the Roman-influenced Frisavones and the non-Roman-influenced Frisii; he considered Pliny's account that mentioned both the Frisiavones and the Frisii to be consistent with the model; and he rejected Pliny's account placing

16575-533: The Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi with their allies, which was known as the Marcomannic Wars . After this major disruption, 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), such Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and eventually established their own " barbarian kingdoms " within

16770-574: The Germanic peoples divided and fractious. Rome established relationships with individual Germanic kings that are often discussed as being similar to client states ; however, the situation on the border was always unstable, with rebellions by the Frisians in 28 CE, and attacks by the Chauci and Chatti in the 60s CE. The most serious threat to the Roman order was the Revolt of the Batavi in 69 CE, during

16965-465: 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

17160-407: The Germans in the region, including the Frisii. Things went well for the Germans at first. One of the early leaders, Brinno of the Canninefates tribe, quickly defeated a Roman force of two cohorts and took their camp. The capable Civilis ultimately succeeded to leadership of the Germanic side and inflicted heavy casualties on the Romans, even besieging Roman strongholds such as Vetera. On the sea,

17355-470: The Greuthungi. The Goths and their allies defeated the Romans first at Marcianople , then defeated and killed emperor Valens in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, destroying two-thirds of Valens' army. Following further fighting, peace was negotiated in 382, granting the Goths considerable autonomy within the Roman Empire. However, these Goths—who would be known as the Visigoths —revolted several more times, finally coming to be ruled by Alaric . In 397,

17550-668: The Gulating provides that the handling of these weapons should be controlled and regulated. This is seen at Haugating , the thing for Vestfold in Norway, which was located in Tønsberg at Haugar (from the Old Norse haugr meaning hill or mound). This site was one of Norway's most important places for the proclamation of kings. In 1130, Harald Gille called together a meeting at the Haugating, where he

17745-565: The Huns and the majority of the Tervingi abandoned Athanaric; they subsequently fled—accompanied by a contingent of Greuthungi—to the Danube in 376, seeking asylum in the Roman Empire. The emperor Valens chose only to admit the Tervingi, who were settled in the Roman provinces of Thrace and Moesia . Due to mistreatment by the Romans, the Tervingi revolted in 377, starting the Gothic War , joined by

17940-662: The Huns had largely conquered them by 406. One Gothic group under Hunnic domination was ruled by the Amal dynasty , who would form the core of the Ostrogoths . The situation outside the Roman empire in 410s and 420s is poorly attested, but it is clear that the Huns continued to spread their influence onto the middle Danube. In 428, the Vandal leader Geiseric moved his forces across the strait of Gibraltar into north Africa. Within two years, they had conquered most of north Africa. By 434, following

18135-514: The Huns interfered in a Frankish succession dispute, leading in 451 to an invasion of Gaul. Aetius, by uniting a coalition of Visigoths, part of the Franks, and others, was able to defeat the Hunnic army at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains . In 453, Attila died unexpectedly, and an alliance led by Ardaric's Gepids rebelled against the rule of his sons, defeating them in the Battle of Nedao . Either before or after Attila's death, Valamer ,

18330-603: The Lagting and Odelsting, making this de facto unicameralism official following the 2009 election . On the lower administrative level the governing bodies on the county level in Norway are called Fylkesting, the Thing of the County. The names of the judicial courts of Norway contain for the most part the affix ting . The primary level of courts is called the Tingrett , with the same meaning as

18525-719: The Lawspeaker told the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung (c. 980–1022) that the people, not the king, held power in Sweden; the king realized that he was powerless against the thing and gave in. The main things in Sweden were the Thing of all Swedes , the Thing of all Geats , and the Lionga thing . The island of Gotland had twenty things in late medieval times, each represented at the island-thing called landsting by its elected judge. New laws were decided at

18720-554: The Marcomanni and Quadi, and Commodus forbid them to hold assemblies unless a Roman centurion was present. The period after the Marcomannic Wars saw the emergence of peoples with new names along the Roman frontiers, which were probably formed by the merger of smaller groups. These new confederacies or peoples tended to border the Roman imperial frontier. Many ethnic names from earlier periods disappear. The Alamanni emerged along

18915-738: The Mediterranean and became the basis for the Vandal Kingdom . The loss of Carthage forced Aetius to make peace with the Visigoths in 442, effectively recognizing their independence within the boundaries of the empire. During the resulting peace, Aetius resettled the Burgundians in Sapaudia in southern Gaul. In the 430s, Aetius negotiated peace with the Suevi in Spain, leading to a practical loss of Roman control in

19110-526: The Middle Ages. The thing was led by law-speakers called asega "lawspeaker". Every pagus had its own thing, but due to a lack of written sources, it isn't easy to establish where the thingsteads were. Thing sites are being presumed by historians at Naaldwijk in the pagus Maasland (Land of the River Meuse), at Katwijk in the pagus Rijnland "land of the Rhine", at Heemskerk in the pagus Kennemerland, at De Waal in

19305-758: The Proto-Germanic homeland is founded on traces of early linguistic contacts with neighbouring languages. Germanic loanwords in the Finnic and Sámi languages have preserved archaic forms (e.g. Finnic kuningas , from Proto-Germanic * kuningaz 'king'; rengas , from * hringaz 'ring'; etc.), with the older loan layers possibly dating back to an earlier period of intense contacts between pre-Germanic and Finno-Permic (i.e. Finno-Samic ) speakers. Shared lexical innovations between Celtic and Germanic languages, concentrated in certain semantic domains such as religion and warfare, indicates intensive contacts between

19500-457: The Proto-Germanic language, developed. However, it is unclear whether these earlier peoples possessed any ethnic continuity with the later Germanic peoples. Generally, scholars agree that it is possible to speak of Germanic-speaking peoples after 500 BCE, although the first attestation of the name Germani is not until much later. Between around 500 BCE and the beginning of the common era , archeological and linguistic evidence suggest that

19695-566: The Rhine as a border. Starting in 13 BCE, there were Roman campaigns across the Rhine for a 28-year period. First came the pacification of the Usipetes, Sicambri, and Frisians near the Rhine, then attacks increased further from the Rhine, on the Chauci , Cherusci , Chatti and Suevi (including the Marcomanni ). These campaigns eventually reached and even crossed the Elbe, and in 5 CE Tiberius

19890-703: The Rhine for an indeterminate distance, bounded by the Baltic Sea and the Hercynian Forest . Pliny the Elder and Tacitus placed the eastern border at the Vistula . The Upper Danube served as a southern border. Between there and the Vistula Tacitus sketched an unclear boundary, describing Germania as separated in the south and east from the Dacians and the Sarmatians by mutual fear or mountains. This undefined eastern border

20085-473: The Roman Empire . Defenders of continued use of the term Germanic argue that the speakers of Germanic languages can be identified as Germanic people by language regardless of how they saw themselves. Linguists and philologists have generally reacted skeptically to claims that there was no Germanic identity or cultural unity, and they may view Germanic simply as a long-established and convenient term. Some archaeologists have also argued in favor of retaining

20280-621: The Roman emperor Flavius Constantius , the Visigoths were settled as Roman allies in Gaul between modern Toulouse and Bourdeaux. Other Goths, including those of Athanaric, continued to live outside the empire, with three groups crossing into the Roman territory after the Tervingi. The Huns gradually conquered Gothic groups north of the Danube, of which at least six are known, from 376 to 400. Those in Crimea may never have been conquered. The Gepids also formed an important Germanic people under Hunnic rule;

20475-675: The Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania (c. 98 CE), it was among this group, specifically the Tungri , that the name Germani first arose, before it spread to further groups. Tacitus reported that in his time many of the peoples west of the Rhine within Roman Gaul were still considered Germani . Caesar's division of the Germani from the Celts was not taken up by most writers in Greek. Caesar and authors following him regarded Germania as stretching east of

20670-593: The Roman territory. The revolt ended following several defeats, with Civilis claiming to have only supported the imperial claims of Vespasian , who was victorious in the civil war. The century after the Batavian Revolt saw mostly peace between the Germanic peoples and Rome. In 83 CE, Emperor Domitian of the Flavian dynasty attacked the Chatti north of Mainz (Mogontiacum). This war would last until 85 CE. Following

20865-609: The Romans appear to have reserved the right to choose rulers among the barbarians on the frontier. Following sixty years of quiet on the frontier, 166 CE saw a major incursion of peoples from north of the Danube during the reign of Marcus Aurelius , beginning the Marcomannic Wars . By 168 (during the Antonine plague ), barbarian hosts consisting of Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatian Iazyges, attacked and pushed their way to Italy. They advanced as far as Upper Italy, destroyed Opitergium/Oderzo and besieged Aquileia. The Romans had finished

21060-470: The Romans attempted to conquer a large part of Germania between the Rhine and Elbe , but withdrew after their shocking defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE. The Romans continued to manage the Germanic frontier carefully, meddling in cross-border politics, and constructing a long fortified border, the Limes Germanicus . From 166 to 180 CE, Rome was embroiled in a conflict against

21255-616: The Saxons, a term used generically in Latin for Germanic-speaking pirates. A system of defenses on both sides of the English Channel , the Saxon Shore , was established to deal with their raids. From 250 onward, the Gothic peoples formed the "single most potent threat to the northern frontier of Rome". In 250 CE a Gothic king Cniva led Goths with Bastarnae, Carpi, Vandals, and Taifali into

21450-507: The Storting (Big Thing) today. Towards the end of the Viking age , royal power became centralized, and the kings consolidated power and control over assemblies. As a result, things lost most of their political role and began to function mainly as courts in the later Middle Ages. In the period between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, Norway went through a state-formation process that elevated

21645-673: The Swedish Tingsrätt , and four of the six Norwegian Courts of Appeal are named after historical Norwegian regional Things ( Frostating , Gulating , Borgarting and Eidsivating ). In Dutch , the word geding refers to a lawsuit or trial , most noticeably with the term kort geding (literally: short thing ) which refers to an injunction . Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical Antiquity and

21840-525: The Swedish and Finnish court system, which are called tingsrätt ( Finnish : käräjäoikeus ), the 'court of the thing'. Similarly, prior to 1953, the Danish legislature was known as Rigsdagen , which comprised the two houses of the Folketing "People's Thing" and Landsting "Land Thing". The latter, which was reserved for people of means, was abolished by the constitution of 1953. The Norwegian parliament,

22035-513: The Thing used to meet. Thynghowe was an important Danelaw meeting place, or thing, located in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire , England. It was lost to history until its rediscovery in 2005–06 by local history enthusiasts Lynda Mallett and Stuart Reddish. The site lies amidst the old oaks of an area known as the Birklands in Sherwood Forest. Experts believe it may also indicate the boundary of

22230-547: The Thing'. "Mars of the Thing" may be interpreted in analogy with the week-day name (the Germanic Tuesday corresponding to Latin Martis dies 'the day of Mars '; cf. Interpretatio germanica ) as Tīwaz of the Thing. The god Tīwaz (Old English Tíw , Old Norse Týr ) was likely important in early Germanic times and has numerous places in England and Denmark named after him. The possible theonyms Beda and Fimmilena in

22425-521: The Viking period and the Middle Ages. Unlike other European societies in the Middle Ages, Iceland was unique for relying on the Althing's legislative and judicial institutions at the national level rather than an executive branch of government. Þingvellir was the site of the Althing, and it was a place where people came together once a year to bring cases to court, render judgments, and discuss laws and politics. At

22620-416: The ancient Germani or the broader Germanic group. In modern German, the ancient Germani are referred to as Germanen and Germania as Germanien , as distinct from modern Germans ( Deutsche ) and modern Germany ( Deutschland ). The direct equivalents in English are, however, Germans for Germani and Germany for Germania although the Latin Germania is also used. To avoid ambiguity,

22815-427: The annual Althing, the thirty-nine goðis along with nine others served as voting members of the Law Council ( Lögrétta ), a legislative assembly. The Lögrétta reviewed the laws which the lawspeaker recited, made new laws, set fines and punishments and were informed of sentences of outlawry and banishment passed by the courts in local spring assemblies. Besides the Althing, there were local assembly districts in each of

23010-457: The area and successfully conquered what would become their new homelands. Medieval and later accounts of 'Frisians' refer to these 'new Frisians' rather than to the ancient Frisii. What little is known of the Frisii is provided by a few Roman accounts, most of them military. Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) said their lands were forest-covered with tall trees growing up to the edge of the lakes. They lived by agriculture and raising cattle. In

23205-425: The assembly sites of Viking-age Sweden . Further, the booth sites at Brattahlíð and Garðar were close to high-status farms. Taken together, it indicates that trade would have taken place at these sites, and given the sparse nature of the Greenlandic settlement, it is reasonable that the participants of a thing would have taken the opportunity for social interaction or trade when gathered with others. In England, there

23400-452: The basis of antique maps and itineraries , the Danes, Saxons en Frisians ("Frisones", "Frigones", "Frixones", or "Frixos") are mentioned together several times. The Frisians ("Fresin" or "Freisin") are (unlike the Saxons) also mentioned in 7th-century Irish lists of the 72 peoples of the world, contained in the Auraicept na n-Éces and in In Fursundud aile Ladeinn , as well as in the poem Cú-cen-máthair by Luccreth moccu Chiara . Here

23595-452: The civil wars following the death of Nero known as the Year of the Four Emperors . The Batavi had long served as auxiliary troops in the Roman army as well as in the imperial bodyguard as the so-called Numerus Batavorum , often called the Germanic bodyguard. The uprising was led by Gaius Julius Civilis , a member of the Batavian royal family and Roman military officer, and attracted a large coalition of people both inside and outside of

23790-419: The confrontation with Rome as things that could cause a sense of shared "Germanic" culture. Despite being cautious of the use of Germanic to refer to peoples, Sebastian Brather , Wilhelm Heizmann and Steffen Patzold nevertheless refer to further commonalities such as the widely attested worship of deities such as Odin , Thor and Frigg , and a shared legendary tradition . The first author to describe

23985-495: The control and power of the king. On the regional level, it has been assumed that the king would have taken control of the organization of assemblies via local representatives. Today, few thingsteads from Norway are known for sure, and as new assembly sites are found, scholars question whether these are old jurisdiction districts which the king used as a foundation for his organization or whether he created new administrative units. In southeast Norway in particular, one hypothesis for why

24180-421: The course of the same period. Alternatively, Hermann Ament  [ de ] has stressed that two other archaeological groups must have belonged to the Germani , one on either side of the Lower Rhine and reaching to the Weser , and another in Jutland and southern Scandinavia. These groups would thus show a "polycentric origin" for the Germanic peoples. The neighboring Przeworsk culture in modern Poland

24375-441: The crisis. From the later third century onward, the Roman army relied increasingly on troops of Barbarian origin, often recruited from Germanic peoples, with some functioning as senior commanders in the Roman army. In the 4th century, warfare along the Rhine frontier between the Romans and Franks and Alemanni seems to have mostly consisted of campaigns of plunder, during which major battles were avoided. The Romans generally followed

24570-644: The cult of the Alcis controlled by the Nahanarvali ( Germania 43) and Tacitus's account of the origin myth of the Semnones ( Germania 39) all suggest different subdivisions than the three mentioned in Germania chapter 2. The subdivisions found in Pliny and Tacitus have been very influential for scholarship on Germanic history and language up until recent times. However, outside of Tacitus and Pliny there are no other textual indications that these groups were important. The subgroups mentioned by Tacitus are not used by him elsewhere in his work, contradict other parts of his work, and cannot be reconciled with Pliny, who

24765-420: The distance) covered a region roughly located between the Rhine , the Vistula , the Danube , and southern Scandinavia during the first two centuries of the Common Era . East Germanic speakers dwelled on the Baltic sea coasts and islands, while speakers of the Northwestern dialects occupied territories in present-day Denmark and bordering parts of Germany at the earliest date when they can be identified. In

24960-488: The disunited eastern Empire submitted to some of his demands, possibly giving him control over Epirus . In the aftermath of the large-scale Gothic entries into the empire, the Franks and Alemanni became more secure in their positions in 395, when Stilicho , the barbarian generalissimo who held power in the western Empire, made agreements with them. In 401, Alaric invaded Italy, coming to an understanding with Stilicho in 404/5. This agreement allowed Stilicho to fight against

25155-398: The east) are named in that regard. The earliest mention of the Frisii tells of Drusus ' 12 BC war against the Rhine Germans and the Chauci. The Romans did not attack them after devastating the lands of the Rhine Germans, but merely passed through their territory and along their coast in order to attack the Chauci. The account says that the Frisii were "won over", suggesting a Roman suzerainty

25350-455: 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 members of the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later co-opted by

25545-420: The empire, laying siege to Philippopolis . He followed his victory there with another on the marshy terrain at Abrittus , a battle which cost the life of Roman emperor Decius . In 253/254, further attacks occurred reaching Thessalonica and possibly Thrace . In 267/268 there were large raids led by the Herules in 267/268, and a mixed group of Goths and Herules in 269/270. Gothic attacks were abruptly ended in

25740-400: The end of the war with the Chatti, Domitian reduced the number of Roman soldiers on the upper Rhine and shifted the Roman military to guarding the Danube frontier, beginning the construction of the limes , the longest fortified border in the empire. The period afterwards was peaceful enough that the emperor Trajan reduced the number of soldiers on the frontier. According to Edward James ,

25935-413: The existence of the Frisavones includes several inscriptions found in Britain, from Roman Manchester and from Melandra Castle near modern Glossop in Derbyshire . The Melandra Castle inscription reads "CHO. T. FRISIAVO C. VAL VITALIS", which may be expanded to become " Cohortis Primae Frisiauonum Centurio Valerius Vitalis ", which may be translated as " Valerius Vitalis, Centurion of the First Cohort of

26130-448: The first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine , to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine . The term Germani is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from

26325-450: The first of them was Maroboduus of the Marcomanni, who had led his people away from the Roman activities into Bohemia , which was defended by forests and mountains, and had formed alliances with other peoples. In 6 CE, Rome planned an attack against him but the campaign was cut short when forces were needed for the Illyrian revolt in the Balkans. Just three years later (9 CE), the second of these Germanic figures, Arminius of

26520-450: The following years Caesar pursued a controversial campaign to conquer all of Gaul on behalf of Rome, establishing the Rhine as a border. In 55 BCE he crossed the Rhine into Germania near Cologne . Near modern Nijmegen he also massacred a large migrating group of Tencteri and Usipetes who had crossed the Rhine from the east. Throughout the reign of Augustus—from 27 BCE until 14 CE—the Roman empire expanded into Gaul, with

26715-435: The force of Radagaisus , who had crossed the Middle Danube in 405/6 and invaded Italy, only to be defeated outside Florence. That same year, a large force of Vandals, Suevi, Alans, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine , fighting the Franks but facing no Roman resistance. In 409, the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans crossing the Pyrenees into Spain, where they took possession of the northern part of the peninsula. The Burgundians seized

26910-556: The four quarters of Iceland, and each year a Spring Assembly ( vorþing ) was brought together by three goðis who lived in each local assembly district ( samþingsgoðar ). The four quarters also had courts ( fjórðungsdómar ) that met at the Althing after a constitutional reform around 965. The goðis appointed the judges for these courts from the farmers in their districts. In the early twentieth century, scholars identified two potential Greenlandic thing sites at Brattahlíð in Eiríksfjörður and Garðar in Einarsfjörður; both are located in

27105-519: The god Mars Thincsus and the two Alaisiagae, Beda and Fimmilena, and to the Divinity of the Emperor the Germanics, being tribesmen of Tuihanti, willingly and deservedly fulfilled their vow. The pillar was raised by a Frisian auxiliary unit of the Roman army deployed at Hadrian's Wall. The name Tuihanti refers to the current region Twente , which is in the east of the Netherlands . However, these Tuihanti tribesmen have been interpreted by different historians as Frisians. Deo Mars Thincsus means 'god Mars of

27300-501: The interests of larger numbers of people. In Norway, the thing was a space where free men and elected officials met and discussed matters of collective interest, such as taxation. Though some scholars say that the things were dominated by the most influential members of the community, the heads of clans and wealthy families, other scholars describe how every free man could put forward his case for deliberation and share his opinions. History professor Torgrim Titlestad describes how Norway, with

27495-401: The invaders belonged to the continental Saxons. According to the British monk Gildas (c. 500 – c. 570), this group had been recruited to protect the Romano-British from the Picts , but had revolted. They quickly established themselves as rulers on the eastern part of the island. Frisii During the 1st century BC, Romans took control of the Rhine delta but Frisii to

27690-467: The king would have established new thing sites might be that they were a "strategic geopolitical response to the threat from the Danish king in the beginning of the 11th century." Since the record of Norwegian thing sites is not comprehensive, it is not favorable to rely on archeological and topographical characteristics to determine whether they were established before the state-formation period. In northern and southwestern Norway, there appears to have been

27885-415: The king's interests in local areas. In this regard, Norwegian things became an arena for cooperation between the royal representatives and the farmers. Based on what is known from later medieval documents, one deep-rooted custom of Norwegian law areas was the bearing of arms coming from the old tradition of the wapentake "weapon-take", which refers to the rattling of weapons at meetings to agree. The Law of

28080-435: The king. The role of commerce at the thing is more undetermined in Iceland in particular because of the role of saga literature in influencing conclusions about things. Þingvellir was thought of as a trading place as a result of saga passages and law texts that refer to trade: As shown in the Laxdæla saga , meetings at Þingvellir required people to travel from long distances and gather together for an extended period, thus it

28275-429: The kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria . English Heritage has recently inspected the site, and has confirmed it was known as the Thynghowe in 1334 and 1609. It functioned as a place where people came to resolve disputes and settle issues. Thynghowe is an Old Norse name, although the site may be older than the Danelaw, perhaps even Bronze Age. Howe is derived from the Old Norse word haugr "mound". This often indicates

28470-448: The land around modern Speyer , Worms , and Strasbourg, territory that was recognized by the Roman Emperor Honorius . When Stilicho fell from power in 408, Alaric invaded Italy again and eventually sacked Rome in 410; Alaric died shortly thereafter. The Visigoths withdrew into Gaul where they faced a power struggle until the succession of Wallia in 415 and his son Theodoric I in 417/18. Following successful campaigns against them by

28665-425: The language from which it derives is a subject of dispute, with proposals of Germanic, Celtic , and Latin, and Illyrian origins. Herwig Wolfram , for example, thinks Germani must be Gaulish . The historian Wolfgang Pfeifer more or less concurs with Wolfram and surmises that the name Germani is likely of Celtic etymology and is related to the Old Irish word gair ('neighbours') or could be tied to

28860-554: The late 1st century the Romans referred to the 'Greater Frisii' as living to the east of the Lake Flevo , and the 'Lesser Frisii' to the west of it, so-called for their proportional power, and with the settlements of both stretching along the border of the Rhine to the ocean. In his Germania Tacitus would describe all the Germanic peoples of the region as having elected kings with limited powers and influential military leaders who led by example rather than by authority. The people lived in spread-out settlements. He specifically noted

29055-424: The later diffusion of local dialectal innovations. The Germanic-speaking peoples speak an Indo-European language . The leading theory for the origin of Germanic languages, suggested by archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence, postulates a diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Pontic–Caspian steppe towards Northern Europe during the third millennium BCE, via linguistic contacts and migrations from

29250-492: The lawspeaker and the chieftain or the king. More and more scholarly discussions centre around the things being forerunners to democratic institutions as we know them today. The Icelandic Althing is considered to be the oldest surviving parliament in the world, the Norwegian Gulating also dating back to 900-1300. While the things were not democratic assemblies in the modern sense of an elected body, they were built around ideas of neutrality and representation, effectively representing

29445-525: The meaning of this word in English and other languages has shifted to mean not just an assemblage of some sort but simply an object of any kind. Thingstead ( Old English : þingstede ) or "thingstow" ( Old English : þingstōw ) is the English term for the location where a thing was held. The word appears in Old Norse, Old English, and modern Icelandic as þing , in Middle English (as in modern English ), Old Saxon , Old Dutch , and Old Frisian as thing (the difference between þing and thing

29640-678: The members of a clan were obliged to avenge injuries against their dead and mutilated relatives. As a result, feuding is often seen as the most common form of conflict resolution used in Viking society. However, things are in a more general sense, balancing structures used to reduce tribal feuds and avoid social disorder in North Germanic cultures. They played an essential role in Viking society as forums for conflict resolution, marriage alliances, power display, honor, and inheritance settlements. In Sweden, assemblies were held at natural and man-made mounds, often burial mounds . Specifically in Scandinavia, unusually large runestones and inscriptions suggesting

29835-624: The migration period is usually set at 568 when the Lombards invaded Italy. During this time period, numerous barbarian groups invaded the Roman Empire and established new kingdoms within its boundaries. These Germanic migrations traditionally mark the transition between antiquity and the beginning of the early Middle Ages . The reasons for the migrations of the period are unclear, but scholars have proposed overpopulation, climate change, bad harvests, famines, and adventurousness as possible reasons. Migrations were probably carried out by relatively small groups rather than entire peoples. The Greuthungi ,

30030-559: The modern sense of "object". This semantic development from "assembly" to "object" is mirrored in the evolution of the Latin causa ("judicial lawsuit", "case") to modern French chose , Spanish / Italian / Catalan cosa , and Portuguese coisa (all meaning "object" or "thing") and the cognate to English sake (purpose), sak in Norwegian and Swedish, sag in Danish, zaak in Dutch, saak in Afrikaans, and Sache in German, which in languages like Old Norse meant "accusation, lawsuit," but today also carries

30225-401: The name of the Swedish Assembly of Finland ( Svenska Finlands folkting ), a semi-official body representing the Finland Swedish , and those of the three distinct elected Sámi assemblies which are all called Sameting in Norwegian and Swedish ( Northern Sami Sámediggi ). The Swedish national legislature, since medieval times , has borne a different style, Riksdag , which is cognate to

30420-520: The name of the Frisians is included in a metrical rhyme, wedged between the Franks and the Langobards . The alliterative verse , probably derived from an unknown Frankish source, is also used in Beowulf and Widsith as "Froncum and Frysum" or "mid Froncum … ond mid Frysum". It must have been the base for a popular medieval riddle, Old French "franc o frison", and its Dutch derivate "frank en vrij" ('frankish and free'). The 12th-century Book of Leinster , obviously citing an older tradition, lists

30615-420: The next one or two centuries. As soon as conditions improved, Frisia received an influx of new settlers, mostly from regions later characterized as Saxon , and these would eventually be referred to as ' Frisians ', though they were not necessarily descended from the ancient Frisii. It is these 'new Frisians' who are largely the ancestors of the medieval and modern Frisians . Their Old Frisian language, however,

30810-424: The north of the river managed to maintain some level of independence. There was a lot of interaction, however, as Frisian and Chaucian mercenary bands enlisted in the Roman army and Roman traders established themselves north of the limes. There may have been Roman military outposts on Frisian territory. Some or all of the Frisii may have merged with Frankish and Saxon migrants in late Roman times, but they would retain

31005-413: The office of a tribune of the first cohort of the 'Frixagi', once stationed at Vindobala (at modern Rudchester) on Hadrian's Wall . Efforts have sometimes been made to connect this auxiliary unit with the Frisii by supposing that the original document must have said "Frisiavonum" and a later copyist mistakenly wrote "Frixagorum". Some works make the claim in passing, perhaps citing someone else's claim of

31200-406: The old name of the German national assembly, Reichstag . In Sweden, however, ting is used to name the subnational county councils, which are called Landsting . That name was also used in medieval times for the tings that governed the historical Landskap provinces, that were superseded by the counties in the 17th century. The name ting is also found in the names of the first level instances of

31395-437: The old, local magnate families attempting to maintain control. The battle for power between the king and local magnates is most visible through runic inscriptions at thing sites used to make power statements. Swedish assembly sites could be characterized by several typical features: large mounds, rune-stones, and crossings between roads by land or water to allow for greater accessibility. A famous incident took place when Þorgnýr

31590-433: The pagus Texel, at Franeker in the pagus Westergo and at Dokkum in the pagus Oostergo . From the 12th century the thing called Upstalsboom took place on the level of the civitas. At Upstalsboom , near the current town of Aurich in the East Frisia region, Germany, delegates and judges from all seven Frisian Sealands used to gather once a year. The assembly of things were typically held at a specially designated place, often

31785-476: The people who had resettled the lands of the ancient Frisii as 'Frisians'. The interpretation of these references to 'Frisians' as references to the ancient Frisii has occasionally been made. The Byzantine scholar Procopius , writing c.  565 in his Gothic Wars (Bk IV, Ch 20), said that "Brittia" in his time (a different word from his more usual "Bretannia") was occupied by three peoples: Angles, Frisians (Φρἰσσονες) and Britons. Procopius said that he

31980-431: The policies of indigenous groups. The Frisii were little more than occasional and incidental players in Roman accounts of history, which focus on Roman actions that were of interest to Roman readers. As a consequence, references to them are disjointed and offer little useful information about them. When Drusus brought Roman forces through Frisii lands in 12 BC and "won them over", he placed a moderate tax on them. However,

32175-453: The possibility of fully integrating this region into the empire. Rome launched successful campaigns across the Rhine between 14 and 16 CE under Tiberius and Germanicus, but the effort of integrating Germania now seemed to outweigh its benefits. In the reign of Augustus's successor, Tiberius, it became state policy to expand the empire no further than the frontier based roughly upon the Rhine and Danube, recommendations that were specified in

32370-439: The presence of a prehistoric burial mound. The Frisian Kingdom knew three levels of things: the highest level of the civitas , the middle level of the pagus , and the lowest level of the centena ( hundredth ). The pagi are the oldest building block, and they probably took place three times a year and were attended by all freemen. Early-medieval Frisia consisted of about 16 pagi. The other thing levels only became relevant during

32565-401: The province. Despite the peace, the Suevi expanded their territory by conquering Mérida in 439 and Seville in 441. By 440, Attila and the Huns had come to rule a multi-ethnic empire north of the Danube; two of the most important peoples within this empire were the Gepids and the Goths. The Gepid king Ardaric came to power around 440 and participated in various Hunnic campaigns. In 450,

32760-401: The region attractive again it was repopulated in the 5th century by Anglo-Saxon settlers from Northwestern Germany and Southwestern Denmark, who adopted the old name Frisii. These new ' Frisians ' lived in the coastal fringe stretching roughly from present-day Bruges to Bremen , including many of the smaller offshore islands . They incorporated the remainer of indigenous groups that lived in

32955-441: The sagas, and place names, "such as the 'Disting' market that is said to have been held during the thing meetings at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden." The national legislatures of Iceland , Norway and Denmark all have names that incorporate thing : The legislatures of the self-governing territories of Åland , Faroe Islands , Greenland and Isle of Man also have names that refer to thing : In addition, thing can be found in

33150-460: The same inscription relate to the bodthing and fimelthing , two specific types of assemblies were recorded in Old Frisian codices from around 1100 onward. Perhaps the distinction was that the fixed thing was protected by the god Thincsus, the extraordinary thing by Beda, and the informative or non-decision-making thing by Fimmilena. The Anglo-Saxon folkmoot ( Old English : folcgemōt ; Middle English : folkesmōt ; Norwegian : folkemøte )

33345-428: The sense "thing, object". Today the term lives on in the English term hustings and in the names of national legislatures and political and judicial institutions of some Nordic countries (e.g. the Icelandic parliament, the Alþing ) and the Isle of Man (the Tynwald ). In modern German and Dutch, the day Tuesday is named after the thing, namely ' Dienstag ' and ' dinsdag .' The first detailed description of

33540-441: The siege and attacked the Frisii, but was defeated at the Battle of Baduhenna Wood after suffering heavy losses. For whatever reason, the Romans did not seek revenge and the matter was closed. The prestige of the Frisii among the neighboring Germanic tribes was raised considerably after these events. After their experiences with the predatory Roman governor and Lucius Apronius, the Frisii became disaffected towards Rome. In AD 47,

33735-485: The story of slave raiders from the country of the Frisians ("cricha Fresen"), living on the edges of a landscape full of huge sheep and colourfull fowl. Coins with the obverse and reverse inscriptions 'AVDVLFVS FRISIA' and 'VICTVRIA AVDVLFO', as well as 'FRISIA' and 'AVDVLFVS' have been found at Escharen , a village in the Dutch province of North Brabant . The stylistic quality suggests that they are of Northern Frankish origin of that era rather than Frisian, besides which

33930-444: The term Germanic due to its broad recognizability. Archaeologist Heiko Steuer defines his own work on the Germani in geographical terms (covering Germania ), rather than in ethnic terms. He nevertheless argues for some sense of shared identity between the Germani , noting the use of a common language, a common runic script , various common objects of material culture such as bracteates and gullgubber (small gold objects) and

34125-421: The territory of the Western Roman empire itself. Over time, the Franks became the most powerful of them, conquering 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

34320-402: The thing sites, displayed an advanced political system over a thousand years ago, one that was characterized by high participation and democratic ideologies. These things also served as courts of law, and if one of the smaller things could not reach agreement, the matter at hand would be brought to one of the bigger things, which encompassed larger areas. The legislature of Norway is still known as

34515-410: The tribal names in Tacitus's account and the name of Mannus himself suggest that the descent from Mannus was an authentic Germanic tradition. All Germanic languages derive from the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), which is generally thought to have been spoken between 4500 and 2500 BCE. The ancestor of Germanic languages is referred to as Proto- or Common Germanic , and likely represented

34710-595: The upper Rhine and are mentioned in Roman sources from the third century onward. The Goths begin to be mentioned along the lower Danube, where they attacked the city of Histria in 238. The Franks are first mentioned occupying territory between the Rhine and Weser. The Lombards seem to have moved their center of power to the central Elbe. Groups such as the Alamanni, Goths, and Franks were not unified polities; they formed multiple, loosely associated groups, who often fought each other and some of whom sought Roman friendship. The Romans also begin to mention seaborne attacks by

34905-400: The war by 180, through a combination of Roman military victories, the resettling of some peoples on Roman territory, and by making alliances with others. Marcus Aurelius's successor Commodus chose not to permanently occupy any territory conquered north of the Danube, and the following decades saw an increase in the defenses at the limes . The Romans renewed their right to choose the kings of

35100-416: The weakness of Germanic political hierarchies in reference to the Frisii, when he mentioned the (apparently Celtic) names of two kings of the 1st century Frisii and added that they were kings "as far as the Germans are under kings". Early Roman accounts of war and raiding do not mention the Frisii as participants, though the neighboring Canninefates (to the west and southwest, in the delta) and Chauci (to

35295-425: The whims of nature, civil strife and piracy. After several hundred years of favorable conditions, the natural environment in the low-lying coastal regions of northwestern Europe began to deteriorate c.  250 AD and gradually worsened over the next 200 years. Rising sea levels and storm surges combined to flood some areas. Many deserted village sites were silted over. The situation was probably aggravated by

35490-423: The will of Augustus and read aloud by Tiberius himself. Roman intervention in Germania led to a shifting and unstable political situation, in which pro- and anti-Roman parties vied for power. Arminius was murdered in 21 CE by his fellow Germanic tribesmen, due in part to these tensions and for his attempt to claim supreme kingly power for himself. In the wake of Arminius's death, Roman diplomats sought to keep

35685-462: The word sapo ('hair dye') is certainly borrowed from Proto-Germanic * saipwōn- (English soap ) , as evidenced by the parallel Finnish loanword saipio . The name of the framea , described by Tacitus as a short spear carried by Germanic warriors, most likely derives from the compound * fram-ij-an- ('forward-going one'), as suggested by comparable semantical structures found in early runes (e.g., raun-ij-az 'tester', on

35880-443: The work of the "Toronto School" around Walter Goffart , various scholars have denied that anything such as a common Germanic ethnic identity ever existed. Such scholars argue that most ideas about Germanic culture are taken from far later epochs and projected backwards to antiquity. Historians of the Vienna School, such as Walter Pohl , have also called for the term to be avoided or used with careful explanation, and argued that there

36075-423: The years after 270, after a Roman victory in which the Gothic king Cannabaudes was killed. The Roman limes largely collapsed in 259/260, during the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284), and Germanic raids penetrated as far as northern Italy. The limes on the Rhine and upper Danube was brought under control again in 270s, and by 300 the Romans had reestablished control over areas they had abandoned during

36270-423: Was a characteristic, but not defining feature of the Germanic peoples. Many of the ascribed ethnic characteristics of the Germani represented them as typically "barbarian", including the possession of stereotypical vices such as "wildness" and of virtues such as chastity. Tacitus was at times unsure whether a people were Germanic or not. He expressed uncertainty about the Peucini , who he says spoke and lived like

36465-462: Was able to show strength by having a Roman fleet enter the Elbe and meet the legions in the heart of Germania . Once Tiberius subdued the Germanic people between the Rhine and the Elbe, the region at least up to Weser —and possibly up to the Elbe —was made the Roman province Germania and provided soldiers to the Roman army. However, within this period two Germanic kings formed larger alliances. Both of them had spent some of their youth in Rome;

36660-421: Was analogous, the forerunner to the witenagemōt "royal council" and a precursor of the modern Parliament of the United Kingdom . In the Viking Age, things were the public assemblies of the free men of a country, province, or a hundred ( Swedish : härad, hundare , Danish : herred ). They functioned as parliaments and courts at different levels of society—local, regional, and supra-regional. Their purpose

36855-441: Was declared King of Norway . Sigurd Magnusson was proclaimed king in 1193 at the Haugating. Magnus VII was acclaimed hereditary King of Norway and Sweden at the Haugating in August 1319. Similar to Norway, thing sites in Sweden experienced changes in administrative organization beginning in the late tenth and eleventh century. This resulted from the power struggle between the rising Christian royal power establishing itself and

37050-449: Was imposed, although the Romans never outright took over the lands of the Frisii. Over the course of time the Frisii would provide Roman auxiliaries through treaty obligations, but the tribe would also appear in its own right in concert with other Germanic tribes, opposing the Romans. Accounts of wars therefore mention the Frisii on both sides of the conflict, though the actions of troops under treaty obligation must have been separate from

37245-443: Was inevitable that entertainment, food, tools, and other goods would have played a role in the gatherings. The main question is whether trade was conducted in the assembly or on the margins of the gathering. Similarly, there are unanswered questions about the connection between trade and assembly in Greenland. Research on Scandinavian trade and assembly is burgeoning, and thus far evidence has mostly been found in written sources, such as

37440-440: Was more intricately related to Old English spoken by their relatives settling abroad, than to the Old Saxon language spoken by the people staying behind in Germany. Arguing against the replacement theory, recent excavations in the coastal dunes of Kennemerland show clear indication of a permanent habitation. One of the entries of the Notitia Dignitatum reads "Tribunus cohortis primae Frixagorum Vindobala", referring to

37635-401: Was relating information from an informant, likely a member of a Frankish delegation to the court at Byzantium, and did not assert the information as fact. Other information that he related included the assertion that there were no horses in Britain, that Hadrian's Wall separated the temperate parts of the island from the uninhabitable parts, and that 'countless people' had attested that Britain

37830-478: Was the home of dead souls. His information about Britain, while occasionally useful, is not considered authoritative. The Frisians are unlike the Saxons not mentioned in the 6th-century Frankish Table of Nations , nor in the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville . Venantius Fortunatus was a poet to the Frankish Merovingian court and wrote a eulogy to the Merovingian king Chilperic , who had died in 584. A list of peoples who were said to fear Chilperic's power

38025-400: Was to solve disputes and make political decisions, and thingsteads were often places for public religious rites. According to Norway's Law of the Gulating , only free men of full age could participate in the assembly. According to written sources, women were present at some things despite being left out of decision-making bodies, such as the Icelandic Althing . For prechristian Norse clans ,

#474525