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27-773: Jordanes mentioned "Merens" as a nation paying tribute to the Gothic ruler Ermanarich . According to the Primary Chronicle , the Varangians also forced the Meryans to pay tribute. This event is dated to 859, although the chronology is not reliable. Oleg of Novgorod forced the Meryans to take part in his 882 campaigns against Smolensk and Kiev . They are also mentioned as the participants of Oleg's campaign against Constantinople in 907. Merya began to be assimilated by East Slavs when their territory became incorporated into Kievan Rus' in

54-456: A monk , a religiosus or a member of the clergy. Some manuscripts say that he was a bishop, and some even say bishop of Ravenna , but the name Jordanes is not known in the lists of bishops of Ravenna. Jordanes wrote Romana , about the history of Rome , but his best-known work is his Getica , which was written in Constantinople about 551 AD. Jordanes wrote his Romana at

81-553: A high-level notarius , or secretary, of a small client state on the Roman frontier in Scythia Minor , modern southeastern Romania and northeastern Bulgaria . Jordanes was notarius , or secretary to Gunthigis Baza , a nephew of Candac and a magister militum of the leading Ostrogoth clan of the Amali . That was ante conversionem meam ("before my conversion"). The nature and

108-676: A leading dynasty of the Goths , a Germanic people who confronted the Roman Empire during the decline of the Western Roman Empire . They eventually became the royal house of the Ostrogoths and founded the Ostrogothic Kingdom . The Amal clan was claimed to have descended from the divine. Jordanes writes: Now the first of these heroes, as they themselves relate in their legends,

135-619: Is inspired by genetic links to the Meryan people. in 2010 a film was made about the Neo-Meryan people. In Moscow there exists a "Meryan society", and Meryan festivals have been done in Moscow. In 2010, the Neo-Meryans were featured in the award-winning film Silent Souls . Jordanes Jordanes ( / dʒ ɔːr ˈ d eɪ n iː z / ; Greek : Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes ,

162-538: Is more likely that this was a fictitious claim designed to bolster Athalaric 's legitimacy. Jordanes states "Hermanaric, the son of Achiulf, begat Hunimund, and Hunimund begat Thorismud. Now Thorismud begat Beremud, Beremud begat Veteric, and Veteric likewise begat Eutharic." The last attested member of the Amali house was Theodegisclus, son of Theodahad . In the Nibelungenlied and some other medieval German epic poems,

189-569: Is the Scandinavian god of war. Hulmul or Humli-Hulmul, is considered the divine father of the Danish people . Ermanaric (also referred to as Ermanaricus or Hermanaric), is identified as a Greuthungian king who ruled territories in modern Ukraine . Ermanaric signals the tenth generation, and the first generation to be backed by historical record. The origins of the Amal Dynasty is unclear. Until

216-603: The Alani with their leader, Candac by name, received Scythia Minor and Lower Moesia . Paria, the father of my father Alanoviiamuth (that is to say, my grandfather), was secretary to this Candac as long as he lived. To his sister's son Gunthigis, also called Baza, the Master of the Soldiery, who was the son of Andag the son of Andela, who was descended from the stock of the Amali , I also, Jordanes, although an unlearned man before my conversion,

243-709: The Billungs , Dukes of Saxony, also known as the Amelungs or von Ömlingen, and the Solovjovs, Barons of the Russian Empire from 1727 (in German sources, known as the von Solowhoff or Solowhoff von Greutungen). The Solovjovs specifically claimed Ermanaric as their ancestor. Via Amerigo Vespucci (the Italian version of " Amalaric ," or " Amal ruler "), the Amali were the ultimate namesakes of

270-635: The Getae with the Goths. Many historical records which originally related to Dacians and Getae were thus wrongly attributed to Goths. Arne Søby Christensen and Michael Kulikowski argue that in his Getica Jordanes also supplemented his Gothic history with many fictional events such as a Gothic war against Egypt. Caracalla in 214 received the titles "Geticus Maximus" and "Quasi Gothicus" after battles with Getae and Goths. Amal dynasty The Amali – also called Amals , Amalings or Amalungs – were

297-740: The 10th century. Their assimilation in the Upper Volga region seems to have been complete by the 13th century. The Life of Abraham of Galich claims that, when arriving to the Lake Galich in the 14th century, he found there some "pagan people called Merya". The Meryans were an important part of the development of the Russian nation. The sites of Sarskoye Gorodishche near Lake Nero and island Nero and Kleshchin near Lake Pleshcheyevo were formerly proposed as Meryan "capitals", although this notion has been largely abandoned. A large boulder supposedly venerated by

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324-499: The Balthi are recalled as families of "kings and heroes." However, Wolfram has argued that the tradition of the Amal was popular even before the time of Cassiodorus. This is shown in the naming of the royals, like Theodoric's daughters, Ostrogotho and Amalasuintha , and his sister, Amalafrida , who were all given Amal names. At least two prominent noble families claimed descent from Amali:

351-520: The Egyptian pharaoh Vesosis (47). The less fictional part of Jordanes's work begins when the Goths encounter Roman military forces in the third century AD. The work concludes with the defeat of the Goths by the Byzantine general Belisarius . Jordanes concludes the work by stating that he writes to honour those who were victorious over the Goths after a history spanning 2,030 years. Jordanes wrongly equated

378-556: The Merya survives near Kleshchin (see Blue Stone ). Not a single word of the Merya language was documented. The Meryans mostly lived around rivers, and many river hydronyms are still of Meryan origin. Based on toponyms , onomastics and words in Russian dialects some people have tried to reconstruct the key features of the Meryan language. The first reconstructions were done in 1985 by O. B. Tkachenko. The latest book about Merya reconstructions

405-519: The behest of a brother Castalius, who apparently knew that Jordanes possessed the twelve volumes of the History of the Goths by Cassiodorus . Castalius wanted a short book about the subject, and Jordanes obliged with an excerpt based on memory, possibly supplemented with other material to which he had access. The Getica sets off with a geography/ethnography of the North, especially of Scandza (16–24). He lets

432-513: The behest of a certain Vigilius. Although some scholars have identified this person with Pope Vigilius , there is nothing else to support the identification besides the name. The form of address that Jordanes uses and his admonition that Vigilius "turn to God " would seem to rule out this identification. In the preface to his Getica , Jordanes writes that he is interrupting his work on the Romana at

459-583: The details of the conversion remain obscure. The Goths had been converted with the assistance of Ulfilas (a Goth), made bishop on that account. However, the Goths had adopted Arianism . Jordanes's conversion may have been a conversion to the trinitarian Nicene Creed , which may be expressed in anti-Arianism in certain passages in Getica . In the letter to Vigilius he mentions that he was awakened vestris interrogationibus – "by your questioning". Alternatively, Jordanes's conversio may mean that he had become

486-578: The disruption caused by the Huns, as well as the similarity of groups previously treated as discrete ethnic groups. A separate branch of the family were members of the Visigoths . Sigeric , a brief usurper to the Visigothic throne in 415, may have been a member of the Amali. The Visigothic Eutharic married Theoderic's daughter Amalasuntha , and is said to have been an Amal by Cassiodorus and Jordanes; however, it

513-666: The family's legacy was remembered in oral tradition far into the Middle Ages, long after any stories about Amal himself had ceased to circulate. Jordanes, possibly drawing upon Cassiodorus ' Origo Gothica , describes the Goths moving to the Black Sea, where they split into two factions, the Amali, who would later become the Ostrogoths, and the Balthi , who become the Visigoths. Both the Amali and

540-516: The followers of Dietrich von Bern are referred to as 'Amelungen'. In other cases, Amelung is reinterpreted as the name of one of Dietrich's ancestors. The Kaiserchronik also refers to Dietrich/Theoderic's family as the 'Amelungen', and in a letter of bishop Meinhard von Bamberg, as well as the Annals of Quedlinburg , 'Amulungum'/'Amelung' ("the Amelung") is used to refer to Dietrich himself. This shows that

567-407: The history of the Goths commence with the emigration of Berig with three ships from Scandza to Gothiscandza (25, 94), in a distant past. In the pen of Jordanes, Herodotus's Getian demigod Zalmoxis becomes a king of the Goths (39). Jordanes tells how the Goths sacked " Troy and Ilium" just after they had recovered somewhat from the war with Agamemnon (108). They are also said to have encountered

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594-530: The later history of the Goths. Getica has been the object of much critical review. Jordanes wrote in Late Latin rather than the classical Ciceronian Latin. According to his own introduction, he had only three days to review what Cassiodorus had written and so he must also have relied on his own knowledge. Jordanes writes about himself almost in passing: The Sciri , moreover, and the Sadagarii and certain of

621-630: The mid-20th century there was a tendency to see the Tervingi and Greuthungi mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus as having evolved into the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, respectively. The Greuthungi had become vassals of the Huns , and were considered to have regained their independence under the Amali Theodemir , father of Theoderic the Great . However, this idea has since been discredited by historians, who have emphasised

648-441: Was Gapt, who begat Hulmul. And Hulmul begat Augis; and Augis begat him who was called Amal, from whom the name of the Amali comes. Athal begat Achiulf and Oduulf. Now Achiulf begat Ansila and Ediulf, Vultuulf and Ermanaric . This provides the following stemma for the earliest rulers of the Goths, before outlining in more detail the two divisions that arose from the son, Achiulf of Athal, the last in this early lineage: Gapt or Gaut

675-431: Was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, widely believed to be of Gothic descent , who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, one on Roman history ( Romana ) and the other on the Goths ( Getica ). The latter, along with Isidore of Seville 's Historia Gothorum , is one of only two extant ancient works dealing with the early history of the Goths . Other writers, such as Procopius , wrote works on

702-447: Was published in 2019. The Meryans are thought to have been closely connected with the Muroma people (whose language has even been suggested to have been a dialect of Meryan). Rahkonen claims that the eastern Volkhov Chudes were very close to Meryans, culturally and linguistically. Some people from the former Meryan territory have recently began to identify themselves as "Meryan", which

729-508: Was secretary. Paria was Jordanes's paternal grandfather. Jordanes writes that he was secretary to Candac , dux Alanorum , an otherwise unknown leader of the Alans. Jordanes was asked by a friend to write Getica as a summary of a multi-volume history of the Goths by the statesman Cassiodorus that existed then but has since been lost. Jordanes was selected for his known interest in history and because of his own Gothic background. He had been

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