Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany . The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia , one of the German stem duchies , representing the historic settlement area of the Germanic tribe alliances named Alemanni and Suebi .
46-453: Günzburg is a surname of Swabian origin. Ginsberg , Ginsburg , Gensburg , Ginsburgh , Ginzberg , Ginzborg , and Ginzburg are variants of the surname. The Günzburg ( Cyrillic : Гинзбург Ginzburg , Гинцбург Gintsburg ; Yiddish : גינזבורג Ginzburg , גינצבורג Gintsburg ) family originated in the town of Günzburg , Bavaria . It is believed that the family went there from the city of Ulm , Württemberg , and that for this reason
92-671: A "Prince of Swabia" and integrated the Shrievalty of Swabia in the realm of Further Austria . The Swabian League of Cities was first formed on 20 November 1331, when twenty-two imperial cities of the former Duchy of Swabia banded together in support of the Emperor Louis IV , who in return promised not to mortgage any of them to any imperial vassal . Among the founding cities were Augsburg , Heilbronn , Reutlingen , and Ulm . The counts of Württemberg , Oettingen , and Hohenberg were induced to join in 1340. The defeat of
138-475: A long and distinguished heritage in classical literature , and the Germania fits squarely within the tradition established by authors from Herodotus to Julius Caesar . Tacitus himself had already written a similar—albeit shorter—essay on the lands and peoples of Britannia in his Agricola (chapters 10–13). Tacitus himself is thought to have never travelled to Germania , thus his information
184-480: A major role in the formation of the core concepts of Nazi ideology. The mainstream German reception is much less sensationalist and sees Tacitus's description as more patronizing than laudatory, a predecessor of the classical noble savage concept which started in the 17th and 18th centuries in western European literature. The Codex Aesinas is believed to be portions of the Codex Hersfeldensis –
230-529: A walled settlement or town, hence common usage in town names such as Hamburg (from Old German: Hammaburg , lit. "castle above the river bend"). The river name Günz is ultimately derived from the Indo-European root *gheu- , meaning "to pour". Thus, Günzburg refers to a "fortified town by the river Günz". Swabia This territory would include all of the Alemannic German area, but
276-418: Is on record a lawsuit instituted by Baer Günzburg of Grodno against a Jewish family of that city who had adopted the same name under the decree of 1804. The court sustained the right of Jewish families to adopt any name they chose, and the number of Günzburg families accordingly increased. The name is composed of two German elements. Burg means "castle" or "citadel". This commonly was also used to describe
322-571: Is second-hand at best. Ronald Syme supposed that Tacitus closely copied the lost Bella Germaniae of Pliny the Elder , since the Germania is in some places outdated: in its description of Danubian groups, says Syme, "they are loyal clients of the Empire ... Which is peculiar. The defection of these peoples in the year 89 during Domitian's war against the Dacians modified the whole frontier policy of
368-1022: Is traditionally spoken in the upper Neckar basin (upstream of Heilbronn ), along the upper Danube between Tuttlingen and Donauwörth , in Upper Swabia , and on the left bank of the Lech , in an area centered on the Swabian Alps roughly stretching from Stuttgart to Augsburg . Many Swabian surnames end with the suffixes -le , -(l)er , -el , -ehl , and -lin , typically from the Middle High German diminutive suffix -elîn (Modern Standard German -lein ). Examples would be: Schäuble , Egeler , Rommel , and Gmelin . The popular German surname Schwab as well as Svevo in Italy are derived from this area, both meaning literally "Swabian". Germania (Tacitus) The Germania , written by
414-619: Is very rare, and that an adulterous woman is shunned afterward by the community regardless of her beauty. In chapter 45, Tacitus mentions that the people to the north of the Germanic peoples, the Sitones , "resemble [the Suevi Scandinavians] in all respects but one - woman is the ruling sex." "This," Tacitus comments, "is the measure of their decline, I will not say below freedom, but even below decent slavery." Ethnography had
460-674: The British Royal Family that has ruled since 1714. Smaller feudal dynasties eventually disappeared, however; for example, branches of the Montforts and Hohenems lived until modern times, and the Fürstenberg survive still. The region proved to be one of the most divided in the empire, containing, in addition to these principalities, numerous free cities , ecclesiastical territories, and fiefdoms of lesser counts and knights . A new Swabian League ( Schwäbischer Bund )
506-649: The Franconian War . The Reformation caused the league to be disbanded in 1534. The territory of Swabia as understood today emerges in the early modern period. It corresponds to the Swabian Circle established in 1512. The Old Swiss Confederacy was de facto independent from Swabia from 1499 as a result of the Swabian War , while the Margraviate of Baden had been detached from Swabia since
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#1732772045465552-611: The Great Interregnum . In the following years, the original duchy gradually broke up into many smaller units. Rudolf I of Habsburg , elected in 1273 as emperor, tried to restore the duchy, but met the opposition of the higher nobility who aimed to limit the power of the emperor. Instead, he confiscated the former estates of the Hohenstaufen as imperial property of the Holy Roman Empire, and declared most of
598-739: The Istaevones , deriving their ancestry from three sons of Mannus , son of Tuisto , their common forefather. In chapter 4, he mentions that they all have common physical characteristics, blue eyes ( truces et caerulei oculi = "sky-coloured, azure, dark blue, dark green"), reddish hair ( rutilae comae = "red, golden-red, reddish yellow"), and large bodies, vigorous at the first onset but not tolerant of exhausting labour, tolerant of hunger and cold, but not of heat or thirst. In chapter 7, Tacitus describes their government and leadership as somewhat merit-based and egalitarian, with leadership by example rather than authority, and punishments are carried out by
644-795: The Kingdom of Württemberg , the Grand Duchy of Baden , and the Principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as sovereign states. Much of Eastern Swabia became part of Bavaria , forming what is now the Swabian administrative region of Bavaria. The Kings of Bavaria assumed the title Duke in Swabia , with the in indicating that only parts of the Swabian territory was ruled by them, unlike their other title Duke of Franconia which made clear that
690-928: The Mare Suevicum ("Suebian Sea") after the Suiones , and ends his description of the Suiones and Sitones with "Here Suebia ends" ( Hic Suebiae finis ). By the mid-3rd century, groups of the Suebi form the core element of the new tribal alliance known as the Alamanni , who expanded towards the Roman Limes east of the Rhine and south of the Main. The Alamanni were sometimes referred to as Suebi even at this time, and their new area of settlement came to be known as Suebia. In
736-774: The Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus around 98 AD and originally entitled On the Origin and Situation of the Germans ( Latin : De origine et situ Germanorum ), is a historical and ethnographic work on the Germanic peoples outside the Roman Empire . The Germania begins with a description of the lands, laws, and customs of the Germanic people (chapters 1–27); it then describes individual peoples, beginning with those dwelling closest to Roman lands and ending on
782-612: The Turks . Ever since its discovery, treatment of the text regarding the culture of the early Germanic peoples in ancient Germany remains strong, especially in German history, philology, and ethnology studies, and to a lesser degree in Scandinavian countries, as well. Beginning in 16th-century German humanism, German interest in Germanic antiquity remained acute throughout the period of Romanticism and nationalism . A scientific angle
828-568: The migration period , the Suebi (Alamanni) crossed the Rhine in 406 and some of them established the Kingdom of the Suebi in Galicia. Another group settled in parts of Pannonia , after the Huns were defeated in 454 in the Battle of Nedao . The Alemanni were ruled by independent kings throughout the 4th to 5th centuries but fell under Frankish domination in the 6th ( Battle of Tolbiac 496). By
874-646: The Duke of Württemberg was soon restored. The region was quite divided by the Reformation. While secular princes such as the Duke of Württemberg and the Margrave of Baden-Durlach , as well as most of the Free Cities, became Protestant , the ecclesiastical territories (including the bishoprics of Augsburg , Konstanz and the numerous Imperial abbeys ) remained Catholic , as did the territories belonging to
920-697: The Emperor Maurice in his Strategikon later that century. In the ninth century, the Frankish Table was incorporated into the Historia Brittonum , which ensured a wide diffusion to at least some of the Germania 's information. Guibert of Nogent , writing his autobiography around 1115, quotes Germania . Germania survives in a single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey ( Codex Hersfeldensis ) in 1425. This
966-532: The Empire." While Pliny may have been the primary source, scholars have identified others; among them are Caesar 's Gallic Wars , Strabo , Diodorus Siculus , Posidonius , Aufidius Bassus , and numerous nonliterary sources, presumably based on interviews with traders and soldiers who had ventured beyond the Rhine and Danube borders, and Germanic mercenaries in Rome. One of the minor works of Tacitus, Germania
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#17327720454651012-400: The German language and culture after the unification of Germany in 1871 (aside from Austria) and the establishment of modern Austria and Germany . During the medieval period, a self-designation of "Germani" was virtually never used; the name was only revived in 1471, inspired by the rediscovered text of Germania , to invoke the warlike qualities of the ancient Germans in a crusade against
1058-685: The Habsburgs ( Further Austria ), the Sigmaringen branch of the House of Hohenzollern , and the Margrave of Baden-Baden . In the wake of the territorial reorganization of the empire of 1803 by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , the shape of Swabia was entirely changed. All the ecclesiastical estates were secularized, and most of the smaller secular states, and almost all of the free cities, were mediatized , leaving only
1104-737: The Prussian Hohenzollern Province ), or the modern districts of Tübingen (excluding the former Baden regions of the Bodenseekreis district), Stuttgart , and the administrative region of Bavarian Swabia . In the Middle Ages , the term Swabia indicated a larger area, covering all the lands associated with the Frankish stem duchy of Alamannia stretching from the Vosges Mountains in the west to
1150-481: The best-known progenitor of the family and some of his immediate descendants, as well as certain others, called themselves " Ulma-Günzburg ". It is also an Ashkenazi Jewish surname . When, early in the emancipation period, the Jews of Russia and of Austria were ordered by their governments to adopt family names, it was natural that many of them should choose a name so respected and pleasing as that of Günzburg. There
1196-672: The broad Lech river in the east: Like all of Southern Germany , what is now Swabia was part of the La Tène culture , and as such has a Celtic (Gaulish) substrate. In the Roman era, it was part of the Raetia province. The name Suebia is derived from that of the Suebi . It is used already by Tacitus in the 1st century, albeit in a different geographical sense: He calls the Baltic Sea
1242-471: The cities formerly belonging to Hohenstaufen to be Free Imperial Cities , and the more powerful abbeys within the former duchy to be Imperial Abbeys. The rural regions were merged into the Imperial Shrievalty ( Reichslandvogtei ) of Swabia, which was given as Imperial Pawn to Duke Leopold III of Austria in 1379 and again to Sigismund, Archduke of Austria in 1473/1486. He took the title of
1288-494: The city league by Count Eberhard II of Württemberg in 1372 led to the formation of a new league of fourteen Swabian cities on 4 July 1376. The emperor refused to recognise the newly revitalised Swabian League, seeing it as a rebellion, and this led to an " imperial war " against the league. The renewed league defeated an imperial army at the Battle of Reutlingen on 14 May 1377. Burgrave Frederick V of Hohenzollern finally defeated
1334-713: The late 5th century, the area settled by the Alemanni extended to Alsace and the Swiss Plateau , bordering on the Bavarii to the east, the Franks to the north, the remnants of Roman Gaul to the west, and the Lombards and Goths , united in the Kingdom of Odoacer , to the south. The name Alamannia was used by the 8th century, and from the 9th century, Suebia was occasionally used for Alamannia , while Alamannia
1380-659: The later Carolingian period , Swabia became once again de facto independent, by the early 10th century mostly ruled by two dynasties, the Hunfriding counts in Raetia Curiensis and the Ahalolfings ruling the Baar estates around the upper Neckar and Danube rivers. The conflict between the two dynasties was decided in favour of Hunfriding Burchard II at the Battle of Winterthur (919). Burchard's rule as duke
1426-769: The league in 1388 at Döffingen . The next year the city league disbanded according to the resolutions of the Reichstag at Eger . The major dynasties that arose out of medieval Swabia were the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns , who rose to prominence in Northern Germany. Also stemming from Swabia are the local dynasties of the dukes of Württemberg and the margraves of Baden . The Welf family went on to rule in Bavaria and Hanover , and are ancestral to
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1472-401: The lost Germania manuscript brought to Rome from Hersfeld Abbey. It was rediscovered in 1902 by priest-philologist Cesare Annibaldi in the possession of Count Aurelio Balleani of Iesi . Temporarily transferred to Florence for the controls at the state body of the fine arts, the manuscript was severely damaged during the 1966 flood . It was later restored and brought back to Iesi, and in 1994,
1518-413: The men to battle and offer encouragement. He says that the men are often motivated to fight for the women because of an extreme fear of losing them to captivity. Tacitus says (chapter 18) that the Germanic peoples are mainly content with one wife, except for a few political marriages, and specifically and explicitly compares this practice favorably to other cultures. He also records (chapter 19) that adultery
1564-533: The modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the thirteenth century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography roughly coincides with the Swabian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire as it stood during the early modern period , now divided between the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg . Swabians ( Schwaben , singular Schwabe ) are the natives of Swabia and speakers of Swabian German . Their number
1610-411: The priests. He mentions (chapter 8) that the opinions of women are given respect. In chapter 11, Tacitus describes a form of folk assembly rather similar to the public things recorded in later Germanic sources: in these public deliberations, the final decision rests with the men of the group as a whole. Tacitus further discusses the role of women in chapters 7 and 8, mentioning that they often accompany
1656-534: The term. Baden's residents mostly refer to themselves as Alemanni (versus the Swabians ). SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006. This corresponds to roughly 10% of the total population of the Swabian region, or roughly 1% of the total population of Germany. As an ethno-linguistic group, Swabians are closely related to other speakers of Alemannic German , i.e. Badeners , Alsatians , and German-speaking Swiss . Swabian German
1702-581: The twelfth century. Fearing the power of the greater princes, the cities and smaller secular rulers of Swabia joined to form the Swabian League in the fifteenth century. The League was quite successful, notably expelling the Duke of Württemberg in 1519 and putting in his place a Habsburg governor, but the league broke up a few years later over religious differences inspired by the Reformation , and
1748-636: The uttermost shores of the Baltic, among the amber-gathering Aesti , the Fenni , and the unknown peoples beyond them. Tacitus says (chapter 2) that physically, the Germanic peoples appear to be a distinct nation, not an admixture of their neighbors, since nobody would desire to migrate to a climate as horrid as that of Germania. They are divided into three large branches, the Ingaevones , the Irminones , and
1794-408: The whole of Franconia had become part of their kingdom. In contemporary usage, Schwaben is sometimes taken to refer to Bavarian Swabia exclusively, correctly however it includes the larger Württemberg part of Swabia. Its inhabitants attach great importance to calling themselves Swabians. Baden, historically part of the duchy of Swabia and also of the Swabian Circle, is no longer commonly included in
1840-419: Was acknowledged as such by the newly elected king Henry the Fowler , and in the 960s the duchy under Burchard III was incorporated in the Holy Roman Empire under Otto I . The Hohenstaufen dynasty, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries, arose out of Swabia, but following the execution of Conradin , the last Hohenstaufen, on 29 October 1268, the duchy was not reappointed during
1886-479: Was brought to Italy, where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II , first examined and analyzed the book. This sparked interest among German humanists , including Conrad Celtes , Johannes Aventinus , and Ulrich von Hutten and beyond. The peoples of medieval Germany (the Kingdom of Germany in the Holy Roman Empire ) were heterogenous, separated in distinct kingdoms , such as the Bavarians , Franconians , and Swabians , distinctions which remain evident in
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1932-402: Was estimated at close to 0.8 million by SIL Ethnologue as of 2006, compared to a total population of 7.5 million in the regions of Tübingen , Stuttgart and Bavarian Swabia . Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined. However, today it is normally thought of as comprising the former Swabian Circle , or equivalently the former state of Württemberg (with
1978-469: Was formed in 1488, opposing the expansionist Bavarian dukes from the House of Wittelsbach and the revolutionary threat from the south in the form of the Swiss . In 1519, the League conquered Württemberg and sold it to Charles V after its duke Ulrich seized the Free Imperial City of Reutlingen during the interregnum that followed the death of Maximilian I. It helped to suppress the Peasants' Revolt in 1524–26 and defeat an alliance of robber barons in
2024-498: Was increasingly used to refer to Alsace specifically. By the 12th century, Suebia rather than Alamannia was used consistently for the territory of the Duchy of Swabia . Swabia was one of the original stem duchies of East Francia , the later Holy Roman Empire , as it developed in the 9th and 10th centuries. Due to the foundation of the important abbeys of St. Gallen and Reichenau , Swabia became an important center of Old High German literary culture during this period. In
2070-404: Was introduced with the development of Germanic philology by Jacob Grimm . Because of its influence on the ideologies of Pan-Germanism and Nordicism , Jewish-Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano in 1956 described Germania and the Iliad as "among the most dangerous books ever written". Christopher Krebs , a professor at Stanford University, claims in a 2012 study that Germania played
2116-420: Was not widely cited or used before the Renaissance . In antiquity, Lucian appears to imitate a sentence from it. It was largely forgotten during the Middle Ages . In the West, it was cited by Cassiodorus in the sixth century and used more extensively by Rudolf of Fulda in the ninth. In the East, it was used by the anonymous author of the Frankish Table of Nations in the early sixth century and possibly by
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