149-729: The Jutes ( / dʒ uː t s / JOOTS ) were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the departure of the Romans . According to Bede , they were one of the three most powerful Germanic nations, along with the Angles and the Saxons : Those who came over were of the three most powerful nations of Germany—Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes are descended
298-491: 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
447-721: 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
596-726: 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
745-697: A South Saxon army in about 685, was able to kill Hlothhere, and replace him as ruler of Kent. In the 680s, the Kingdom of Wessex was in the ascendant, the alliance between the South Saxons and the Mercians and their control of southern England, put the West Saxons under pressure. Their king Cædwalla , probably concerned about Mercian and South Saxon influence in Southern England, conquered
894-971: 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
1043-450: 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
1192-744: 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
1341-573: 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
1490-426: 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
1639-494: A law dominated by the concepts of feuding and blood compensation . The precise details, nature and origin of what is still normally called " Germanic law " are now controversial. Roman sources state that the Germanic peoples made decisions in a popular assembly (the thing ) but that they also had kings and war leaders. The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples probably shared a common poetic tradition, alliterative verse , and later Germanic peoples also shared legends originating in
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#17327733019551788-862: A people called the Eudoses, a tribe who possibly developed into the Jutes. The Jutes have also been identified with the Eotenas ( ēotenas ) involved in the Frisian conflict with the Danes as described in the Finnesburg episode in the Old English poem Beowulf . Theudebert , king of the Franks, wrote to the Emperor Justinian and in the letter claimed that he had lordship over a nation called
1937-674: A pivotal region between the Northern and the Western Germanic dialects . It has not been possible to prove whether Jutish has always been a Scandinavian dialect which later became heavily influenced by West Germanic dialects, or whether Jutland was originally part of the West Germanic dialectal continuum . An analysis of the Kentish dialect by linguists indicates that there was a similarity between Kentish and Frisian. Whether
2086-601: 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
2235-587: 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
2384-742: 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
2533-567: 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
2682-494: 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
2831-620: 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 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
2980-648: 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
3129-583: Is discussion about who crafted the jewellery (found in the archaeological sites of Kent). Suggestions include crafts people who had been trained in the Roman workshops of northern Gaul or the Rhineland. It is also possible that those artisans went on to develop their own individual style. By the late 6th century grave goods indicate that west Kent had adopted the distinctive east Kent material culture. The Frankish princess Bertha arrived in Kent around 580 to marry
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#17327733019553278-478: 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
3427-645: Is known about them. They settled in what became East Sussex sometime before the end of the 8th century. A 12th-century source suggested that they were conquered by Offa of Mercia , in 771. They were also recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ( ASC ) as being an autonomous grouping as late as the 11th century. The foundation legend of the Kingdom of the South Saxons is given by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , which states that in
3576-401: 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
3725-599: Is no archaeological evidence for occupation by Anglo-Saxons in that area of Sussex between the 5th and 8th centuries. Medieval sources and place name evidence suggest that people had begun living there by the late 8th century. Some of the Saxon charters that date from the Kingdom of Sussex provide evidence which suggests the existence of two separate dynasties in Sussex. The charters of King Northelm (or Nunna), who ruled Sussex in
3874-816: 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 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
4023-416: 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
4172-569: Is related to the Old Irish word gair ('neighbours') or could be tied to 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
4321-421: 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
4470-604: 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
4619-412: Is unknown, although several proposals have been put forward. Even 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
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4768-678: 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
4917-498: 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
5066-728: 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
5215-535: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , has been contested by some findings in archaeology. One alternative hypothesis to the foundation legend suggests, because previously inhabited sites on the Frisian and north German coasts had been rendered uninhabitable by flooding, that the migration was due to displacement. Under this alternative hypothesis, the British provided land for the refugees to settle on in return for peaceful coexistence and military cooperation. Ship construction in
5364-525: The Anglo-Saxons of Britain converted to Christianity, but the Saxons and Scandinavians converted only much later. The Germanic peoples shared 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
5513-580: 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
5662-609: 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
5811-599: 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
5960-747: 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 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
6109-401: 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
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6258-414: 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
6407-461: 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
6556-420: 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
6705-444: 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
6854-443: 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
7003-418: 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
7152-429: The Meonwara (southern Hampshire). In 686 Bede tells us that Jutish Hampshire extended to the western edge of the New Forest ; however, that seems to include another Jutish people, the Ytene , and it is not certain that these two territories formed a continuous coastal block. Towards the end of the Roman occupation of England, raids on the east coast became more intense and the expedient adopted by Romano-British leaders
7301-427: 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
7450-467: 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 the 1st to 4th centuries CE. Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for
7599-468: 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
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#17327733019557748-428: The Saxones Eucii . The Eucii are thought to have been Jutes and may have been the same as a little-documented tribe called the Euthiones . The Euthiones are mentioned in a poem by Venantius Fortunatus (583) as being under the suzerainty of Chilperic I of the Franks. The Euthiones were located somewhere in northern Francia , modern day Flanders , an area of the European mainland opposite to Kent. Bede inferred that
7897-416: The gens Hestingorum (the people of Hastings) by Offa of Mercia in 771. Mercian overlordship was ended when they were defeated in 825, by Egbert of Wessex , at the Battle of Ellandun . Egbert went on to annex the territories of Essex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex, suggesting that by this time the Haestingas had been subsumed into Sussex. However it is known that the Haestingas retained a distinct identity till
8046-428: The 11th century as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the Haestingas as having been harried by the Danes in 1011. The 19th century writer, Grant Allen argued that the Hastings region was predestined to be a separate region between the rest of Sussex and Kent, to later join with Sussex. Effectively isolated, the region was separated from the rest of Sussex and England by the marshland of the Pevensey Levels lying to
8195-463: 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
8344-420: The 2nd or 3rd century adopted the use of iron fastenings, instead of the old sewn fastenings, to hold together the plank built boats of the Jutland peninsula. This enabled them to build stronger sea going vessels. Vessels going from Jutland to Britain probably would have sailed along the coastal regions of Lower Saxony and the Netherlands before crossing the English Channel. This was because navigation techniques of
8493-504: 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
8642-445: The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were evangelised the script of the Latin alphabet was introduced by Irish Christian missionaries . However, they ran into problems when they were unable to find a Latin equivalent to some of the Anglo-Saxon phonetics. They overcame this by modifying the Latin alphabet to include some runic characters. This became the Old English Latin alphabet . The runic characters were eventually replaced by Latin characters by
8791-413: 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
8940-600: 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
9089-436: The Geats resided in southern Sweden and also in Jutland (where Beowulf would have lived). The evidence adduced for this hypothesis includes: However, the tribal names possibly were confused in the above sources in both Beowulf (8th–11th centuries) and Widsith (late 7th – 10th century). The Eoten (in the Finn passage) are clearly distinguished from the Geatas . The Finnish surname Juutilainen , which comes from
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#17327733019559238-409: 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 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
9387-428: 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
9536-430: The Germanic way of life as more primitive than it actually was. Instead, archaeologists have unveiled evidence of a complex society and economy throughout Germania. Germanic-speaking peoples originally shared similar religious practices. Denoted by the term Germanic paganism , they varied throughout the territory occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples. Over the course of Late Antiquity , most continental Germanic peoples and
9685-470: 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,
9834-540: The Haestingas may have been of Frankish origin; however, other historians have rejected this, arguing that it is based on a misinterpretation of place-name evidence. Towards the end of the 8th century, Kent did not have a secure leadership and the kingdom of Wessex was pursuing an expansionist campaign under Cædwalla ; the result was that Kent found itself being raided frequently by the West Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 686 reported that Cædwalla ravaged Kent with his brother Mul . The following year it said that
9983-413: 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
10132-515: 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
10281-453: 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 ,
10430-414: The Isle of Wight was the last area of Anglo-Saxon England to be evangelised in 686, when Cædwalla of Wessex invaded the island, killing the local king Arwald and his brothers. The Jutes used a system of partible inheritance known as gavelkind , which was practised in Kent until the 20th century. The custom of gavelkind was also found in other areas of Jutish settlement. In England and Wales, gavelkind
10579-466: The Jutes settled in England, they are divided on where they actually came from. The chroniclers, Procopius , Constantius of Lyon , Gildas , Bede, Nennius , and also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Alfred the Great and Asser provide the names of tribes who settled Britain during the mid-fifth century, and in their combined testimony, the four tribes mentioned are the Angli , Saxones , Iutae and Frisii . The Roman historian Tacitus refers to
10728-565: The Jutish kingdom of Kent was founded, around the middle of the 5th century, Roman ways and influences must have still had a strong presence. The Roman settlement of Durovernum Cantiacorum became Canterbury. The people of Kent were described as Cantawara , a Germanised form of the Latin Cantiaci . Although not all historians accept Bede's scheme for the settlement of Britain into Anglian, Jutish and Saxon areas as perfectly accurate,
10877-572: The Jutish homeland was on the Jutland peninsula. However, analysis of grave goods of the time have provided a link between East Kent, south Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, but little evidence of any link with Jutland. There is evidence that the Jutes who migrated to England came from northern Francia or from Frisia. Historians have posited that Jutland was the homeland of the Jutes, but when the Danes invaded
11026-622: The Jutish settlements in Hampshire. Therefore, it is possible that the German folk arriving in the 5th century that landed in the Selsey area would have been directed north to Southampton Water. From there into the mouth of the Meon valley and would have been allowed to settle near the existing Romano-British people. The Jutish kingdom in Hampshire that Bede describes has various placenames that identify
11175-638: The Jutland Peninsula in about AD 200, some of the Jutes would have been absorbed by the Danish culture and others may have migrated to northern Francia and Frisia. In Scandinavian sources from the Middle Ages, the Jutes are only sporadically mentioned, now as subgroup of the Danes. There is a hypothesis , suggested by Pontus Fahlbeck in 1884, that the Geats were Jutes. According to this hypothesis
11324-470: The Kentish system underlaid the 5th century farming practices of Sussex. He hypothesised that Sussex was probably settled by Jutes before the arrival of the Saxons, with Jutish territory stretching from Kent to the New Forest. The north Solent coast had been a trading area since Roman times. The old Roman roads between Sidlesham and Chichester and Chichester to Winchester would have provided access to
11473-647: The Latin Germania is also used. To avoid ambiguity, 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
11622-568: 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
11771-771: 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
11920-564: The Migration Period. The publishing of Tacitus 's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced the emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the Romantic period , such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm , developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by romantic nationalism . For those scholars, the "Germanic" and modern "German" were identical. Ideas about
12069-794: The Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes". The Saxons populated Essex , Sussex and Wessex ; the Jutes Kent , the Isle of Wight and Hampshire ; and the Angles East Anglia , Mercia and Northumbria (leaving their original homeland, Angeln , deserted). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also lists Wihtgar and Stuf as founders of the Wihtwara (Isle of Wight) and a man named Port and his two sons Bieda and Maeglaof as founders of
12218-769: 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
12367-457: 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
12516-633: 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
12665-793: 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
12814-531: 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 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
12963-473: 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
13112-738: 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;
13261-466: 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 the first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of
13410-693: 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
13559-609: 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
13708-680: 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
13857-548: 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), 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
14006-585: 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
14155-560: The archaeological evidence indicates that the peoples of west Kent were culturally distinct from those in the east of Kent, with west Kent sharing the 'Saxon' characteristics of its neighbours in the southeast of England. Brooches and bracteates found in east Kent, the Isle of Wight and southern Hampshire showed a strong Frankish and North Sea influence from the mid-fifth century to the late sixth century compared to north German styles found elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon England. There
14304-539: The brothers Hengist and Horsa in the year 449 were invited to Sub-Roman Britain by Vortigern to assist his forces in fighting the Picts . They landed at Wippidsfleet ( Ebbsfleet ), and went on to defeat the Picts wherever they fought them. Hengist and Horsa sent word home to Germany asking for assistance. Their request was granted and support arrived. Afterward, more people arrived in Britain from "the three powers of Germany;
14453-621: 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
14602-419: 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
14751-531: 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
14900-441: 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
15049-802: 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
15198-695: 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
15347-488: 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
15496-573: The early Germans were also highly influential among members of the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later co-opted by 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,
15645-475: 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
15794-597: The end of the 14th century. The language that the Anglo-Saxon settlers spoke is known as Old English . There are four main dialectal forms, namely Mercian , Northumbrian , West Saxon and Kentish . Based on Bede's description of where the Jutes settled, Kentish was spoken in what are now the modern-day counties of Kent , Surrey , southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight . However, historians are divided on what dialect it would have been and where it originated from. The Jutish peninsula has been seen by historians as
15943-400: 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 ,
16092-416: The fear of God, he among the rest destroyed the city of Rochester In 681 Wulfhere of Mercia advanced into southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Shortly after he gave the Isle of Wight and Meonwara to Æthelwealh of Sussex . In Kent, Eadric was for a time co-ruler alongside his uncle Hlothhere with a law code being issued in their names. Ultimately, Eadric revolted against his uncle and with help from
16241-560: 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
16390-450: 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
16539-554: 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
16688-497: 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. Haestingas The Haestingas , Heastingas or Hæstingas were one of the tribes of Anglo-Saxon Britain . Not very much
16837-578: The king Æthelberht of Kent . Bertha was already a Christian and had brought a bishop, Liudhard , with her across the Channel. Æthelberht rebuilt an old Romano-British structure and dedicated it to St Martin allowing Bertha to continue practising her Christian faith. In 597 Pope Gregory I sent Augustine to Kent, on a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons , There are suggestions that Æthelberht had already been baptised when he "courteously received"
16986-562: The kingdom of the Gewissae , he also took the Isle of Wight, which till then was entirely given over to idolatry, and by cruel slaughter endeavoured to destroy all the inhabitants thereof, and to place in their stead people from his own province. Cædwalla killed Aruald, the king of the Isle of Wight . Aruald's two younger brothers, who were heirs to the throne, escaped from the island but were hunted down and found at Stoneham , Hampshire . They were killed on Cædwalla's orders. The Isle of Wight
17135-523: 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
17284-406: The land of the South Saxons and took over the Jutish areas in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight . Bede describes how Cædwalla brutally suppressed the South Saxons and attempted to slaughter the Jutes of the Isle of Wight and replace them with people from "his own province", but maintained that he was unable to do so, and Jutes remained a majority on the island. After Cædwalla had possessed himself of
17433-527: The late 7th and early 8th century regularly attest a second king by the name of Watt (or Wattus). The historian C.T. Chevalier has suggested that Watt may have ruled the Haestingas. This is because place-names with the name Watt or What occur in the Hastings region, but are not found in western Sussex. The theory has been seen as plausible by other historians. Chevalier goes on to suggest that
17582-480: 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
17731-529: The later fifth century during the Migration Period, as part of a larger wave of Germanic migration into Britain. During the period after the Roman occupation and before the Norman conquest, people of Germanic descent arrived in Britain, ultimately forming England. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle provides what historians regard as foundation legends for Anglo-Saxon settlement. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes how
17880-581: The locations as Jutish. These include Bishopstoke ( Ytingstoc ) and the Meon Valley ( Ytedene ). In Kent, Hlothhere had been ruler since 673/4. He must have come into conflict with Mercia , because in 676 the Mercian king Æthelred invaded Kent and according to Bede : In the year of our Lord's incarnation 676, when Ethelred, king of the Mercians, ravaged Kent with a powerful army, and profaned churches and monasteries, without regard to religion, or
18029-624: 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 ,
18178-418: The more probable explanation is that the Haestingas were Jutes who migrated from Kent. The Frankish princess Bertha had arrived in Kent around 580 to marry the king Æthelberht of Kent . Bertha was already a Christian and had brought a bishop, Liudhard , with her across the Channel. Kent was the earliest Anglo-Saxon kingdom to be evangelized and it would have been at this time the simplified Christian burial
18327-424: The number of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries there. To the east of Pevensey , beyond the Saxon Shore fort of Anderitum , on the other side of the estuary and marsh and from there to the border with the Kingdom of Kent , lived a group known as the Haestingas. They gave their name to Hastings . Not very much is known of the Haestingas but they were believed to be a separate people to the South Saxons; however, there
18476-448: The people of Kent killed his brother Mul by "burning" him and that Cædwalla overran Kent (presumably in response to his brother's violent death). In 688 Caedwalla went on a pilgrimage to Rome, why he did this is not reported but he died while he was there. Stability was then returned to Kent under the new king Wihtred and also with Ine becoming king of Wessex. The people of Kent agreed to pay compensation ( Weregild ) to Wessex for
18625-444: The people of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, and those also in the province of the West Saxons who are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight. There is no consensus amongst historians on the origins of the Jutes. One hypothesis is that they originated from the Jutland Peninsula but after a Danish invasion of that area, migrated to the Frisian coast. From the Frisian coast they went on to settle southern Britain in
18774-474: The pope's mission. Æthelberht was the first of the Anglo-Saxon rulers to be baptised. The simplified Christian burial was introduced at this time. Christian graves were usually aligned East to West, whereas with some exceptions pagan burial sites were not. The lack of archaeological grave evidence in the land of the Haestingas is seen as supporting the hypothesis that the peoples there would have been Christian Jutes who had migrated from Kent. In contrast to Kent,
18923-453: 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
19072-401: 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,
19221-404: The taking of Mul's life. The agreement may have included some ceding of border territory, and it has been hypothesized that the overlordship of Haestingas would have been ceded to Ine as part of this treaty. The southern kingdoms lived in relative peace for the next quarter century. The peace was shattered by the ascent of Mercian power; the chronicler Simeon of Durham records the defeat of
19370-444: 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
19519-436: 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 a common identity. Scholars generally agree that it
19668-584: The time required the ship to be moored up overnight. Marine archaeology has suggested that migrating ships would have sheltered in various river estuaries on the route. Artefacts and parts of ships, of the period, have been found that support this theory. It is likely that the Jutes initially inhabited Kent and from there they occupied the Isle of Wight, southern Hampshire and also possibly the area around Hastings in East Sussex ( Haestingas ). J E A Jolliffe compared agricultural and farming practices across 5th century Sussex to that of 5th century Kent. He suggested that
19817-410: 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
19966-439: The two can be classed as the same dialect or whether Kentish was a version of Jutish, heavily influenced by Frisian and other dialects, is open to conjecture. Germanic people The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages . In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of
20115-595: 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
20264-400: 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
20413-401: The west and the forest of the Weald to the north, while Romney Marsh separates the region from Kent to the east. The kingdom of the Haestingas went on to join Sussex and become the rape of Hastings . It has been suggested that the Haestingas were of Frankish origin, based on Watt being a sub-king to the South Saxons and there being a place-name of Watten in northern France. However,
20562-423: 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
20711-462: 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
20860-440: The word "juutti", is speculated by some to have had a connection to Jutland or the Jutes. The runic alphabet is thought to have originated in the Germanic homelands that were in contact with the Roman Empire, and as such was a response to the Latin alphabet. In fact some of the runes emulated their Latin counterpart. The runic alphabet crossed the sea with the Anglo-Saxons and there have been examples, of its use, found in Kent. As
21009-443: 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
21158-430: The year AD 477 Ælle arrived at a place called Cymenshore in three ships with his three sons. Traditionally Cymenshore is thought to have been located around the Selsey area, in the south west of Sussex. However the archaeological evidence indicates that the principal area of settlement in the 5th century, for the South Saxons, has been identified as between the lower Ouse and Cuckmere rivers in East Sussex, based on
21307-423: 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
21456-423: 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
21605-462: 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;
21754-445: Was abolished by the Administration of Estates Act 1925 . Before abolition in 1925, all land in Kent was presumed to be held by gavelkind until the contrary was proved. The popular reason given for the practice remaining so long is due to the "Swanscombe Legend"; according to this, Kent made a deal with William the Conqueror whereby he would allow them to keep local customs in return for peace. Although historians are confident of where
21903-428: Was introduced. As there is little archaeological evidence for the Haestingas, it is likely that they were already Christian when they moved to Sussex. Haestingas is from Old English and means settlement of Haesta's People. Haesta would have been the chieftain or ruler and -ingas means People. It is possible that the founder may have been a forebear of the Viking leader Hastein (who invaded Kent in 892), but there
22052-412: Was then permanently under West Saxon control and the Meonwara was integrated into Wessex. Cædwalla also invaded Kent and installed his brother Mul as leader. However, it was not long before Mul and twelve others were burnt to death by the Kentishmen. After Cædwalla was superseded by Ine of Wessex , Kent agreed to pay compensation to Wessex for the death of Mul, but they retained their independence. When
22201-420: Was to enlist the help of mercenaries to whom they ceded territory. It is thought that mercenaries may have started arriving in Sussex as early as the 5th century. Before the 7th century, there is a dearth of contemporary written material about the Anglo-Saxons' arrival. Most material that does exist was written several hundred years after the events. The earlier dates for the beginnings of settlement, provided by
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