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83-567: The origin of the Danes remains undetermined, but several ancient historical documents and texts refer to them and archaeology has revealed and continues to reveal insights into their culture, cultural beliefs, beliefs organization and way of life. The Danes first appear in written history in the 6th century with references in Jordanes' Getica (551 CE), by Procopius , and by Gregory of Tours . In his description of Scandza , Jordanes says that

166-495: A Gothic magister militum Gunthigis, Jordanes would have been in a position to know traditions concerning the Gothic peoples without necessarily relying on anyone else. However, there is no evidence for this in the text, and some of the instances where the work refers to carmina prisca can be shown to depend on classical authors. Cassiodorus was a native Italian ( Squillace , Bruttium ), who rose to become advisor and secretary to

249-400: A Gothic chronicler . Modern scholars have struggled to find any confirming evidence that his claims about such sources can give credibility to the more doubtful parts of the work. Like many other classical writers, Jordanes equated the earlier Getae to the later Goths. He specified that he did this on the testimony of Orosius Paulus . In a passage that has become controversial, he identifies

332-530: A cursory abridgement of it mixed with 6th-century ethnic names. Some scholars claim that, while acceptance of Jordanes' text at face value may be too naïve, a totally skeptical view is not warranted. For example, Jordanes writes that the Goths originated in Scandinavia in 1490 BC. Although the chronology is untenable, one Austrian historian, Herwig Wolfram , believes that there might be a kernel of truth in

415-533: A demand for a new referendum from the Danish population in South Schleswig and some Danish politicians, including prime minister Knud Kristensen . However, the majority in the Danish parliament refused to support a referendum in South Schleswig, fearing that the "new Danes" were not genuine in their change of nationality. This proved to be the case and, from 1948 the Danish population began to shrink again. By

498-481: A genuine 3rd-century source. On the other hand, a Danish scholar, Arne Søby Christensen , claims that the Getica is an entirely fabricated account, and that the origin of the Goths that Jordanes outlines is a construction based on popular Greek and Roman myths, as well as misinterpretation of recorded names from Northern Europe. The purpose of this fabrication, according to Christensen, may have simply been to preserve

581-423: A king holding a ducal title of which he as king was the fount and liege lord . The title and anomaly survived presumably because it was already co-regally held by the king's sons. Between 1544 and 1713/20, the ducal reign had become a common dominium , with the royal House of Oldenburg and its cadet branch House of Holstein-Gottorp jointly holding the stake. A third branch, the short-lived House of Haderslev ,

664-467: A main root of the dispute between the German states and Denmark in the 19th century, when the ideas of romantic nationalism and the nation-state gained popular support. The title of duke of Schleswig was inherited in 1460 by the hereditary kings of Norway, who were also regularly elected kings of Denmark simultaneously, and their sons (unlike Denmark, which was not hereditary). This was an anomaly –

747-583: A majority of 80% to remain part of Germany. In Southern Schleswig, no referendum was held, as the likely outcome was apparent. The name Southern Schleswig is now used for all of German Schleswig. This decision left substantial minorities on both sides of the new border. Following the Second World War , a substantial part of the German population in Southern Schleswig changed their nationality and declared themselves as Danish. This change

830-546: A memory of a people who, at the time, looked liked they were about to cease to exist. Canadian scholar Walter Goffart suggests another incentive, arguing that the Getica was part of a conscious plan by Justinian I and the propaganda machine at his court to affirm that the Goths and their barbarian cousins did not belong to the Roman world, thus justifying the claims of the Eastern Roman Empire to hegemony over

913-537: A new common constitution (the so-called November Constitution ) for Denmark and Schleswig in 1863. This was met by German states in two ways: The defeated Danish king had to leave Schleswig and Holstein to Austria and Prussia. They created a condominium over Schleswig and Holstein. Under the Gastein Convention of 14 August 1865, Lauenburg was given to Prussia, while Austria administered Holstein, and Prussia administered Schleswig. However, tensions between

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996-401: A new cultural dividing line in the duchy because German was used for church services and teaching in the diocese of Schleswig and Danish was used in the diocese of Ribe and the archdeaconry of Haderslev. This line corresponds remarkably closely with the present border. In the 17th century, a series of wars between Denmark and Sweden—which Denmark lost—devastated the region economically. However,

1079-872: A permanent camp on the Isle of Sheppey in south east England and settling followed from 865, when brothers Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless wintered in East Anglia . Halfdan and Ivar moved north and captured Northumbria in 867 and York as well. Danelaw – a special rule of law – was soon established in the settled areas and shaped the local cultures there for centuries. Cultural remains are still noticeable today. The Danes first arrived in Ireland in 795 CE, at Rathlin Island , initiating subsequent raids and fortified trade settlements, so called longphorts . During

1162-514: A son of his predecessor Eric I – Earl of Schleswig, a title used for only a short time before the recipient began to style himself duke . In the 1230s, Southern Jutland (the Duchy of Slesvig) was allotted as an appanage to Abel Valdemarsen , Canute's great-grandson, a younger son of Valdemar II of Denmark . Abel, having wrested the Danish throne to himself for a brief period, left his duchy to his sons and their successors, who pressed claims to

1245-589: A source of continuous dispute. The Treaty of Heiligen was signed in 811 between the Danish King Hemming and Charlemagne , by which the border was established at the Eider. During the 10th century, there were several wars between East Francia and Denmark. In 1027, Conrad II and Canute the Great again fixed their mutual border at the Eider. In 1115, King Niels created his nephew Canute Lavard –

1328-489: A treaty of 1907 with Germany that, by the agreement between Austria and Prussia, the frontier between Prussia and Denmark had finally been settled. The Treaty of Versailles provided for plebiscites to determine the allegiance of the region. Thus, two referendums were held in 1920, resulting in the partition of the region. Northern Schleswig voted by a majority of 75% to join Denmark, whereas Central Schleswig voted by

1411-524: Is important to some medieval historians because it mentions the campaign in Gaul of one Riothamus , "King of the Brettones," a possible source of inspiration for the early stories of King Arthur . One of the major questions concerning the historicity of the work is concerning the periods before the Goths enter the written record in the third century. Although there is a range of views, the earliest parts of

1494-616: The western part . A manuscript of the text was rediscovered in Vienna in 1442 by the Italian humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini . Its editio princeps was issued in 1515 by Konrad Peutinger , followed by many other editions. The classic edition is that of 19th-century German classical scholar Theodor Mommsen (in Monumenta Germaniae Historica , auctores antiqui , v. i.). The best surviving manuscript

1577-546: The 1920 plebiscites and partition , each side applying its preferred name to the part of the territory remaining in its possession – though both terms can, in principle, still refer to the entire region. Northern Schleswig was, after the 1920 plebiscites, officially named the Southern Jutland districts ( de sønderjyske landsdele ), while Southern Schleswig then remained a part of the Prussian province, which became

1660-571: The Dani were of the same stock as the Suetidi ("Swedes") and expelled the Heruli and took their lands. The Old English poems Widsith and Beowulf , as well as works by later Scandinavian writers (notably by Saxo Grammaticus ( c. 1200)), provide some of the original written references to the Danes. According to the 12th-century author Sven Aggesen , the mythical King Dan gave his name to

1743-761: The German Confederation of which Holstein (and Lauenburg ) was a member state. Although Schleswig was never a part of the Confederation, the Confederation (and the short-lived German Empire of that time) treated Schleswig largely as such. The ideological argument was not only an ethnic but also a historical one: the German side referred to a medieval treaty that claimed that Schleswig and Holstein should be forever united (in Low German: up ewig ungedeelt ). The federal and then imperial troops consisted mainly of Prussian divisions. Under pressure of

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1826-718: The German state of Schleswig-Holstein in 1946. From early medieval times, the area's significance was its role as a buffer zone between Denmark and the powerful Holy Roman Empire to the south, as well as being a transit area for the transfer of goods between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea , connecting the trade route through Russia with the trade routes along the Rhine and the Atlantic coast (see also Kiel Canal ). In

1909-650: The Loire Valley on larger raid expeditions. Many large scale raids followed all across the coasts and in-land rivers of Western Europe in subsequent decades. In the beginning of the 900s, Vikings had established an encampment and base in the lower parts of the Seine river around Rouen . In an effort to stop or reduce the relentless raids, Charles the Simple made a treaty in Saint-Clair-sur-Epte with

1992-654: The Venedi , a people mentioned by Tacitus , Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy , with the Slavs of the 6th century. Since as early as 1844, this passage has been used by some scholars in eastern Europe to support the idea that there was a distinct Slavic ethnicity long before the last phase of the Late Roman period. Others have rejected this view because of the absence of concrete archaeological and historiographical data. The book

2075-480: The origin and history of the Goths , although to what extent it should be considered history or origin mythology is a matter of dispute. The Getica begins with a discussion of a large island named Scandza , which faces the mouth of the Vistula river and had been described by the writers Claudius Ptolemy and Pomponius Mela . Jordanes reports this island to be the original home of many different peoples including

2158-806: The 10th century, and the Valenciennes manuscript of the 9th century. Jordanes' work had been well known prior to Mommsen's 1882 edition. It was cited in Edward Gibbon 's classic 6 volumes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), and had been earlier mentioned by Degoreus Whear (1623) who refers to both Jordanes' De regnorum ac temporum successione and to De rebus Geticis . In his Preface, Jordanes presents his plan Jordanes admits that he did not then have direct access to Cassiodorus's book, and could not remember

2241-473: The 19th century therefore had a clear Danish nationalist connotation of laying a claim to the territory and objecting to the German claims. "Olsen's Map", published by the Danish cartographer Olsen in the 1830s, used this term, arousing a storm of protests by the duchy's German inhabitants. Even though many Danish nationalists, such as the National Liberal ideologue and agitator Orla Lehmann , used

2324-505: The 24th year of the emperor Justinian , which began April 1, 551. In Getica he mentions a plague of nine years previous. This is probably the Plague of Justinian , which began in Egypt in 541, reached Constantinople in 542 and Italy in 543. The time is too early to identify a direction of change toward any specific Romance language, as none had appeared yet. This variability, however, preceded

2407-609: The Danelaw in England and countryside and newly established towns in Ireland, the Netherlands and northern France. In the early 11th century, King Cnut the Great (died 1035) ruled the extensive North Sea Empire for nearly 20 years, consisting of Denmark, England, Norway, southern Sweden and parts of northern Germany. During the 10th century the royal seat of the Danes was moved from Lejre to Jelling in central Jutland, marking

2490-533: The Danes in the Iron Age. There are several archaeological artefacts in and from Denmark however, made as early as the 500s, depicting Daniel among the lions, so the Danes must have had some knowledge of and influence from Arian cultures. In the Nordic Iron Age, the Danes were based in present-day Zealand and Scania (and neighbouring parts of present-day Sweden). Until around the 6th century, Jutland

2573-968: The Danes. The Danes spoke Proto-Norse which gradually evolved into the Old Norse language by the beginning of the Viking Age . They spoke dǫnsk tunga (Danish tongue), which the Danes shared with the people in Norway and Sweden and later in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Like previous and contemporary people of Scandinavia, the Danes used runes for writing, but did not write much apparently, as they have left no literary legacy except for occasional rune stones and carvings in wood and various items like weapons, utensils and jewellery. As previous and contemporary peoples of Scandinavia (the Vikings),

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2656-478: The German Confederation, and ethnically entirely German with no Danish population, use of that name implied that both provinces should belong to Germany and that their connection with Denmark should be weakened or altogether severed. After the German conquest in 1864, the term Sønderjylland became increasingly dominant among the Danish population, even though most Danes still had no objection to

2739-601: The Getae ), commonly abbreviated Getica , written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the origin and history of the Gothic people , which is now lost. However, the extent to which Jordanes actually used the work of Cassiodorus is unknown. It is significant as the only remaining contemporaneous resource that gives an extended account of

2822-493: The Gothic kings in various high offices. His and the Goths' most successful years were perhaps the reign of Theodoric . The policy of Theodoric's government at that time was reconciliation and in that spirit he incorporated Italians into the government whenever he could. He asked Cassiodorus to write a work on the Goths that would, in essence, demonstrate their antiquity, nobility, experience and fitness to rule. Theodoric died in 526 and Cassiodorus went on to serve his successors in

2905-585: The Gothic kings was done for Witiges , who was removed to Constantinople in 540. A number of token kings ruled from there while Belisarius established that the Goths were not going to reinvade and retake Italy (which was however taken again by the Lombards after Justinian's death). Cassiodorus retired in 540 to his home town of Squillace, where he used his wealth to build a monastery with school and library, Vivarium . The events, persons and peoples of Getica are put forward as being up to many centuries prior to

2988-547: The Goths after a history of 2030 years. Because the original work of Cassiodorus has not survived, the work of Jordanes is one of the most important sources for the period of the migration of the European tribes, and the Ostrogoths and Visigoths in particular, from the 3rd century AD. Jordanes mentioned that his work, perhaps via Cassiodorus, also drew upon Gothic "folk songs" ( carmina prisca ) as an important source, and

3071-449: The Goths, who have swarmed like bees from there (16-25). Jordanes commences the history of the Goths with the emigration of a Gothic king named Berig with three ships from Scandza to Gothiscandza (25, 94), in the distant past. In the account of Jordanes (or Cassiodorus), Herodotus' Getian demi-god Zalmoxis becomes a king of the Goths (39). Jordanes tells how the Goths sacked " Troy and Ilium" just after they had recovered somewhat from

3154-616: The Mierow source cited below). Mierow's list of cited authors is summarized as follows: The early Late Latin of Jordanes evidences a certain variability in the structure of the language which has been taken as an indication that the author no longer had a clear standard of correctness. Jordanes tells us in Getica that he interrupted work on the Romana to write Getica , and then finished Romana . Jordanes states in Romana that he wrote it in

3237-583: The Viking Age, they established many coastal towns including Dublin (Dyflin), Cork , Waterford (Veðrafjǫrðr) and Limerick (Hlymrekr) and Danish settlers followed. There were many small skirmishes and larger battles with the native Irish clans in the following two centuries, with the Danes sometimes siding with allied clans. In 1014 CE, at the Battle of Clontarf , the Vikings were eventually defeated and

3320-597: The Viking chieftain of Rollo in 911, granting Rollo and his Danish men authority over the area now known as Normandy . This prompted Scandinavian settlers to establish themselves here and in the course of the next couple of centuries, the Norman culture emerged in Normandy. Important historical documents that tell about the tribal Danes include: Getica De origine actibusque Getarum ( The Origin and Deeds of

3403-1061: The ablative). Gender may change. Verbs may change voice . One obvious change in a modern direction is the indeclinability of many formerly declined nouns, such as corpus . Also, the -m accusative ending disappears, leaving the preceding vowel or replacing it with -o (Italian, Romanian), as in Danubio for Danubium . Syntax . Case variability and loss of agreement in prepositional phrases ( inter Danubium Margumque fluminibus ), change of participial tense ( egressi [...] et transeuntes ), loss of subjunctive in favor of indicative , loss of distinction between principal and subordinate clauses, confusion of subordinating conjunctions. Semantics . Different vocabulary appears: germanus for frater , proprius for suus , civitas for urbs , pelagus for mare , etc. Schleswig The Duchy of Schleswig ( Danish : Hertugdømmet Slesvig ; German : Herzogtum Schleswig ; Low German : Hartogdom Sleswig ; North Frisian : Härtochduum Slaswik )

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3486-402: The appearance of the first French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, etc. After those languages developed, the scholastics gradually restored classical Latin as a means of scholarly communication. Jordanes refers to himself as agrammaticus before his conversion. This obscure statement is sometimes taken to refer to his Latin. Variability, however, characterizes all Late Latin, and besides, the author

3569-583: The bodies were entombed in wooden coffins originally, but only the iron nails remained. Towards the end of the Early Middle Ages , Schleswig formed part of the historical Lands of Denmark as Denmark unified out of a number of petty chiefdoms in the 8th to 10th centuries in the wake of Viking expansion. The southern boundary of Denmark in the region of the Eider River and the Danevirke was

3652-550: The claim, proposing that a clan of the Gutae may have left Scandinavia and contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Gutones in eastern Pomerania (see Wielbark culture ). An example of more believable material concerning the more recent centuries is the name of King Cniva , which David S. Potter thinks is genuine because, since it doesn't appear in the fictionalized genealogy of Gothic kings given by Jordanes, he must have found it in

3735-446: The classical standard, which Jordanes would certainly have known. For example, Grecia replaces Graecia ; Eoropam replaces Europam ; Atriatici replaces Adriatici . Inflection . Substantives migrate between declensions , verbs between conjugations . Some common changes are fourth to second ( lacu to laco ), second declension adjective to third ( magnanimus to magnanimis ), i -stems to non- i -stems ( mari to mare in

3818-473: The coast of Aquitaine . Several other smaller skirmishes with aggressive Vikings from primarily Danish territory have been recorded, including the first raid on the Seine in 820, but it was not until the year 834 before Viking activity in France took off on a grand scale. In that year, Danes established a lasting base on Noirmoutier island, a central spot for the European salt trade at the time, and poured into

3901-472: The concern of many scholars, as this information possibly bears on how much of Getica is based on Cassiodorus . There are two main theories, one expressed by the Mierow source below, and one by the O'Donnell source below. Mierow's is earlier and does not include a letter cited by O'Donnell. Gothic sovereignty came to an end with the reconquest of Italy by Belisarius , military chief of staff for Justinian , ending in 539. Cassiodorus' last ghost writing for

3984-594: The distinction between unfree labour and paid work was often vague. The feudal system was gradually abolished in the late 18th century, starting with the crown lands in 1765 and later the estates of the nobility. In 1805 all serfdom was abolished and land tenure reforms allowed former peasants to own their own farms. From around 1800 to 1840, the Danish-speaking population on the Angeln peninsula between Schleswig and Flensburg began to switch to Low German and in

4067-676: The duchy be incorporated into the Danish kingdom under the slogan "Denmark to the Eider". This caused a conflict between Denmark and the German states over Schleswig and Holstein , which led to the Schleswig-Holstein question of the 19th century. When the National Liberals came to power in Denmark in early 1848, it provoked an uprising of ethnic Germans in the duchies. This led to the First Schleswig War (1848–51). The Schleswig-Holsteiners were supported by

4150-500: The earliest records, no distinction is made between North Jutland and South Jutland. Roman sources place the homeland of the tribe of Jutes north of the river Eider and that of the Angles south of it. The Angles in turn bordered the neighbouring Saxons . By the early Middle Ages, the region was inhabited by three groups: During the 14th century, the population on Schwansen began to speak Low German alongside Danish, but otherwise

4233-469: The early 1950s, it had nevertheless stabilised at a level four times higher than the pre-war number. In the Copenhagen-Bonn declaration of 1955, West Germany (later Germany as a whole) and Denmark promised to uphold the rights of each other's minority population. Today, both parts co-operate as a cross-border Euroregion : Region Sønderjylland–Schleswig . As Denmark and Germany are both part of

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4316-547: The emergence of a unified Danish state. In May 1931, scientists of the National Museum of Denmark announced that they had unearthed eighteen Viking graves with the remains of eighteen men in them. The discovery came during excavations in Schleswig. The skeletons indicated that the men were bigger proportioned than twentieth-century Danish men. Each of the graves was laid out from east to west. Researchers surmised that

4399-511: The ethno-linguistic borders remained remarkably stable until around 1800, with the exception of the population in the towns that became increasingly German from the 14th century onwards. During the early Viking Age , Hedeby – Scandinavia's biggest trading centre – was located in this region, which is also the location of the interlocking fortifications known as the Danewerk or Danevirke . Its construction, and in particular its great expansion around 737, has been interpreted as an indication of

4482-414: The exact words, but that he felt confident that he had retained the substance in its entirety. He goes on to say that he added relevant passages from Latin and Greek sources, composed the Introduction and Conclusion, and inserted various things of his own authorship. Due to this mixed origin, the text has been examined in an attempt to sort out the sources for the information it presents. Former notarius to

4565-444: The first written accounts of Denmark's history, and hence the Danes, his sources are largely surviving legends, folk lore and word of mouth. The royal seat and capital of the Danes was located on Zealand near Lejre and constituted what has later been dubbed the Lejre Kingdom, ruled by the Skjöldung dynasty. Some time around the middle of the First Millennium , both Jutland and Angeln became part of Danish kingdom or kingdoms. So

4648-399: The foundation and consolidation of the Kingdom of Denmark. In the British Isles , Danes landed three Viking ships at the isle of Portland, Dorset in 786 CE, where they met and killed a local reeve and his men. In 793 CE, a Viking raid and plunder of the monastery at Lindisfarne took place, but no further activity in England followed until 835 CE. In that year, the Danes raided and built

4731-403: The largest settlement in Scandinavia and remained so until its eventual destruction in the later half of the 11th century. From around 800 CE, the Danes began a long era of well-organised raids across the coasts and rivers of Europe. Some of the raids were followed by a gradual succession of Danish settlers and during this epoch, large areas outside Scandinavia were settled by the Danes, including

4814-403: The late Viking Age, but the transition was not rapid and definitive and older customs from the Norse religion remained to be practised to various degrees. Some sources, such as the Beowulf , point to a very early Arianism in Denmark, but it has been a matter of intense academic debate for many years whether these sources reflect later adjustments or an actual early Germanic Christianity among

4897-474: The manuscripts after that remains unknown. The fact that Jordanes once obtained them from a steward indicates that the wealthy Cassiodorus was able to hire at least one full-time custodian of them and other manuscripts of his; i.e., a private librarian (a custom not unknown even today). Jordanes says in the preface to Getica that he obtained them from the librarian for three days in order to read them again (relegi). The times and places of these readings have been

4980-405: The name Schleswig , it began to assume a clear German nationalist character in the mid 19th century – especially when included in the combined term "Schleswig-Holstein". A central element of the German nationalistic claim was the insistence on Schleswig and Holstein being a single, indivisible entity (as they had been declared to be in the Treaty of Ribe 1460). Since Holstein was legally part of

5063-514: The narratives are considered mainly mythological, and the account becomes more reliable as it approaches the 6th century. Whether or not Cassiodorus was the main collator of the information about the earliest Goths, not only contains chronologically untenable parts, but also shows evidence of being to at least partly derived by culling ancient Greek and Latin authors for descriptions of peoples who might have been Goths. Furthermore, it seems that Jordanes distorted Cassiodorus's narrative by presenting

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5146-412: The nobility responded with a new agricultural system that restored prosperity. In the period 1600 to 1800 the region experienced the growth of manorialism of the sort common in the rye-growing regions of eastern Germany. The manors were large holdings with the work done by feudal peasant farmers. They specialized in high quality dairy products. Feudal lordship was combined with technical modernization, and

5229-450: The other great powers, Prussia had to retreat (in summer 1848 and again in summer 1850). This left the Schleswig-Holstein rebels to their fate. In 1851 the rebel government and its army were disbanded. In the London Protocol of 1852 the great powers confirmed that the king of Denmark was the duke of the duchies but also the status of the duchies as being distinct from Denmark proper. Denmark again attempted to integrate Schleswig by creating

5312-407: The remaining Danish settlers gradually assimilated with the Irish population. The first Vikings appeared in Frisia , now part of the Netherlands and Germany, in 800 CE, when Danes plundered coastal settlements and later the trade town of Dorestad became a frequent target of raids. During this time, Frisia was ruled by the Franks and in the mid-9th century, the Danish chieftain of Roric received

5395-470: The same capacity. He had not by any means forgotten the task assigned to him by his former king. In 533 a letter ostensibly written by King Athalaric to the senate in Rome, but ignored by Cassiodorus, mentions the great work on the Goths, now complete, in which Cassiodorus " restored the Amali with the illustriousness of their race ." The work must have been written at Ravenna , seat of the Gothic kings, between 526 at latest and 533. What Cassiodorus did with

5478-454: The same period many North Frisians also switched to Low German. This linguistic change created a new de facto dividing line between German and Danish speakers north of Tønder and south of Flensburg. From around 1830, large segments of the population began to identify with either German or Danish nationality and mobilized politically. In Denmark, the National Liberal Party used the Schleswig question as part of their agitation and demanded that

5561-406: The three duchies being governed jointly by Austria and Prussia . In 1866, they became a part of Prussia. In the 19th century, there was a naming dispute concerning the use of Schleswig or Slesvig and Sønderjylland ( Southern Jutland ). Originally the duchy was called Sønderjylland but in the late 14th century the name of the city Slesvig (now Schleswig ) started to be used for

5644-405: The throne of Denmark for much of the next century, so that the Danish kings were at odds with their cousins, the dukes of Slesvig. Feuds and marital alliances brought the Abel dynasty into a close connection with the German Duchy of Holstein by the 15th century. The latter was a fief subordinate to the Holy Roman Empire , while Schleswig remained a Danish fief. These dual loyalties were to become

5727-400: The time of Jordanes. Taken at face value, they precede any other history of Scandinavia. Jordanes does cite some writers well before his time, to whose works he had access but we do not, and other writers whose works are still extant. Mierow gives a summary of these, which is reviewed below, and also states other authors he believed were used by Jordanes but were not cited in Getica (refer to

5810-484: The tribal Danes were practitioners of the Norse religion . Around 500 CE, many of the gods of the Norse pantheon had lost their previous significance, except a few such as Thor , Odin and Frey who were increasingly worshipped. During the 10th century of the late Viking Age, the Danes officially adopted Christianity , as evidenced by several rune stones, documents and church buildings. The new Christian influences also show in their art, jewellery and burial practices of

5893-413: The two German powers culminated in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Following the Peace of Prague , the victorious Prussians annexed both Schleswig and Holstein, creating the Province of Schleswig-Holstein . Provision for the cession of northern Schleswig to Denmark was made pending a popular vote in favour of this. In 1878, however, Austria-Hungary went back on this provision, and Denmark recognized in

5976-409: The use of Schleswig as such (it is etymologically of Danish origin) and many of them still used it themselves in its Danish version Slesvig . An example is the founding of De Nordslesvigske Landboforeninger (The North Schleswig Farmers Association). In 1866, Schleswig and Holstein were legally merged into the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein . The naming dispute was resolved with

6059-542: The war with Agamemnon (108). They are also said to have encountered the Egyptian pharaoh Vesosis (47). The less-fictional part of Jordanes' work begins when the Goths encounter Roman military forces in the 3rd century AD. The work concludes with the defeat of the Goths by the Byzantine general Belisarius , which was recent in the time of Jordanes. Jordanes states that he writes to honour those who were victorious over

6142-453: The western parts of the Netherlands as a fief and established here. The Danes were probably involved in Frisia much earlier as Gregory of Tours (c. 538–594 CE) mentions a Danish king Chlochilaichus who was killed there while invading Frankish territory in the early 6th century. The first known Viking raid in what now constitutes France, commenced in 799, when an attack was fought off on

6225-425: The whole territory. The term Sønderjylland was hardly used between the 16th and 19th centuries, and in this period the name Schleswig had no special political connotations. However, around 1830 some Danes started to re-introduce the archaic term Sønderjylland to emphasize the area's history before its association with Holstein and its connection with the rest of Jutland . Its revival and widespread use in

6308-620: Was a duchy in Southern Jutland ( Sønderjylland ) covering the area between about 60 km (35 miles) north and 70 km (45 mi) south of the current border between Germany and Denmark . The territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany. The region is also called Sleswick in English. Unlike Holstein and Lauenburg , Schleswig

6391-479: Was already extinct in 1580 by the time of John the Elder . Following the Protestant Reformation , when Latin was replaced as the medium of church service by the vernacular languages, the diocese of Schleswig was divided and an autonomous archdeaconry of Haderslev created. On the west coast, the Danish diocese of Ribe ended about 5 km (3 mi) north of the present border. This created

6474-404: Was caused by a number of factors, most importantly the German defeat and an influx of a large number of refugees from the former Prussian eastern provinces, whose culture and appearance differed from the local Germans, who were mostly descendants of Danish families who had changed their nationality in the 19th century. The change in demographics created a temporary Danish majority in the region and

6557-459: Was never a part of the German Confederation . Schleswig was instead a fief of Denmark, and its inhabitants spoke Danish, German, and North Frisian. Both Danish and German National Liberals wanted Schleswig to be part of a Danish or German national state in the 19th century. A German uprising in March 1848 caused the First Schleswig War which ended in 1852. The Second Schleswig War (1864) ended with

6640-442: Was not writing just after his conversion (for the meaning of the latter, see under Jordanes ), but a whole career later, after associating with many Latin speakers and having read many Latin books. According to him, he should have been grammaticus by that time. More likely, his style reflects the way Latin was under the Goths. Some of the variabilities are as follows (Mierow): Orthography . The spelling of many words differs from

6723-492: Was southern Schleswig (now the northernmost part of Germany) – the site of Danevirke , a large set of fortifications reportedly built by Danes to mark the southern border of their realm. It was extended several times in later centuries. Beginning in the 8th century, the Danes initiated the construction of trading towns across their realm, including Hedeby , Ribe , Aarhus and Viborg and expanded existing settlements such as Odense and Aalborg . Hedeby quickly grew to become

6806-648: Was the Heidelberg manuscript , written in Heidelberg , Germany , probably in the 8th century, but this was destroyed in a fire at Mommsen's house on July 7, 1880. Subsequently, another 8th-century manuscript was discovered, containing chapters I to XLV, and is now the 'Codice Basile' at the Archivio di Stato in Palermo. The next of the manuscripts in historical value are the Vaticanus Palatinus of

6889-573: Was the homeland of two other Germanic tribes: the Jutes in what is now North Jutland, and the Angles in South Jutland (especially Angeln ). The Widsith mentions two semi-mythical kings in relation to the Danes of the Iron Age. Sigar who ruled the "Sea-Danes" and Offa who ruled both Danes and Angles . Centuries later, Saxo lists for the first time the Danes entire lineage of semi-mythical kings, starting from King Dan. As Saxo's texts are

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