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70-396: Württemberg ( / ˈ w ɜːr t ə m b ɜːr ɡ , ˈ v ɜːr t -/ WURT -əm-burg, VURT - ; German: [ˈvʏʁtəmbɛʁk] ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia . The main town of the region is Stuttgart . Together with Baden and Hohenzollern , two other historical territories, Württemberg now forms

140-811: A Celtic (Gaulish) substrate. In the Roman era, it was part of the Raetia province. The name Suebia is derived from that of the Suebi . It is used already by Tacitus in the 1st century, albeit in a different geographical sense: He calls the Baltic Sea the Mare Suevicum ("Suebian Sea") after the Suiones , and ends his description of the Suiones and Sitones with "Here Suebia ends" ( Hic Suebiae finis ). By

210-658: A confederation of Germanic tribes on the Upper Rhine River during the first millennium. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Roman emperor Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the Agri Decumates in 260, and later expanded into present-day Alsace and northern Switzerland, leading to the establishment of the Old High German language in those regions, which by

280-462: A formal hierarchy, or they may be vague, overlapping terms, or a combination of both. In 357, there appear to have been two paramount kings (Chnodomar and Westralp) who probably acted as presidents of the confederation and seven other kings ( reges ). Their territories were small and mostly strung along the Rhine (although a few were in the hinterland). It is possible that the reguli were the rulers of

350-584: A pretext of coming to their aid. When he became ill, the Alemanni claimed to have put a hex on him. Caracalla, it was claimed, tried to counter this influence by invoking his ancestral spirits. In retribution, Caracalla then led the Legio II Traiana Fortis against the Alemanni, who lost and were pacified for a time. The legion was as a result honored with the name Germanica. The fourth-century fictional Historia Augusta , Life of Antoninus Caracalla , relates (10.5) that Caracalla then assumed

420-688: A while, our frontier having been advanced, and our military positions pushed forward, it was regarded as a remote nook of our empire and a part of a Roman province." The Alemanni were first mentioned by Cassius Dio describing the campaign of Caracalla in 213. At that time, they apparently dwelt in the basin of the Main , to the south of the Chatti. Cassius Dio portrays the Alemanni as victims of this treacherous emperor. They had asked for his help, according to Dio, but instead he colonized their country, changed their place names, and executed their warriors under

490-505: Is also explicitly marked with a Christian cross), reading god fura dih deofile ᛭ ("God for/before you, Theophilus!", or alternatively "God before you, Devil!"). Dated to between AD 660 and 690, it marks the end of the native Alemannic tradition of runic literacy. Bad Ems is in Rhineland-Palatinate , on the northwestern boundary of Alemannic settlement, where Frankish influence would have been strongest. The establishment of

560-751: Is also present in artwork, but Christian symbolism becomes more and more prevalent during the seventh century. Unlike the later Christianization of the Saxons and of the Slavs, the Alemanni seem to have adopted Christianity gradually, and voluntarily, spread in emulation of the Merovingian elite. From c. the 520s to the 620s, there was a surge of Alemannic Elder Futhark inscriptions . About 70 specimens have survived, roughly half of them on fibulae , others on belt buckles (see Pforzen buckle , Bülach fibula ) and other jewelry and weapon parts. Use of runes subsides with

630-797: Is derived from their name, from Old French aleman(t) , and from French was loaned into a number of other languages, including Middle English , which commonly used the term Almains for Germans. Likewise, the Arabic name for Germany is ألمانيا ( Almania ), the Turkish is Almanya , the Spanish is Alemania , the Portuguese is Alemanha , the Welsh is Yr Almaen and the Persian is آلمان ( Alman ). According to Gaius Asinius Quadratus (quoted in

700-696: Is described in Wallace Breem 's historical novel Eagle in the Snow . The Chronicle of Fredegar gives the account. At Alba Augusta ( Alba-la-Romaine ) the devastation was so complete, that the Christian bishop retired to Viviers , but in Gregory's account at Mende in Lozère , also deep in the heart of Gaul, bishop Privatus was forced to sacrifice to idols in the very cave where he was later venerated. It

770-622: Is likely that they had not yet come to exist. In his Germania Tacitus (AD 90) does not mention the Alemanni. He uses the term Agri Decumates to describe the region between the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers. He says that it had once been the home of the Helvetians , who had moved westwards into Gaul in the time of Julius Caesar. The people living there in Caesar's time are not Germanic. Instead, "Reckless adventurers from Gaul, emboldened by want, occupied this land of questionable ownership. After

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840-471: Is thought this detail may be a generic literary ploy to epitomize the horrors of barbarian violence. The kingdom of Alamannia between Strasbourg and Augsburg lasted until 496, when the Alemanni were conquered by Clovis I at the Battle of Tolbiac . The war of Clovis with the Alemanni forms the setting for the conversion of Clovis, briefly treated by Gregory of Tours . ( Book II.31 ) After their defeat in 496,

910-1019: Is traditionally spoken in the upper Neckar basin (upstream of Heilbronn ), along the upper Danube between Tuttlingen and Donauwörth , in Upper Swabia , and on the left bank of the Lech , in an area centered on the Swabian Alps roughly stretching from Stuttgart to Augsburg . Many Swabian surnames end with the suffixes -le , -(l)er , -el , -ehl , and -lin , typically from the Middle High German diminutive suffix -elîn (Modern Standard German -lein ). Examples would be: Schäuble , Egeler , Rommel , and Gmelin . The popular German surname Schwab as well as Svevo in Italy are derived from this area, both meaning literally "Swabian". Alamanni The Alemanni or Alamanni were

980-646: The Bavarii to the east, the Franks to the north, the remnants of Roman Gaul to the west, and the Lombards and Goths , united in the Kingdom of Odoacer , to the south. The name Alamannia was used by the 8th century, and from the 9th century, Suebia was occasionally used for Alamannia , while Alamannia was increasingly used to refer to Alsace specifically. By the 12th century, Suebia rather than Alamannia

1050-731: The Bodenseekreis district), Stuttgart , and the administrative region of Bavarian Swabia . In the Middle Ages , the term Swabia indicated a larger area, covering all the lands associated with the Frankish stem duchy of Alamannia stretching from the Vosges Mountains in the west to the broad Lech river in the east: Like all of Southern Germany , what is now Swabia was part of the La Tène culture , and as such has

1120-674: The British Royal Family that has ruled since 1714. Smaller feudal dynasties eventually disappeared, however; for example, branches of the Montforts and Hohenems lived until modern times, and the Fürstenberg survive still. The region proved to be one of the most divided in the empire, containing, in addition to these principalities, numerous free cities , ecclesiastical territories, and fiefdoms of lesser counts and knights . A new Swabian League ( Schwäbischer Bund )

1190-649: The Franconian War . The Reformation caused the league to be disbanded in 1534. The territory of Swabia as understood today emerges in the early modern period. It corresponds to the Swabian Circle established in 1512. The Old Swiss Confederacy was de facto independent from Swabia from 1499 as a result of the Swabian War , while the Margraviate of Baden had been detached from Swabia since

1260-741: The Kingdom of Württemberg , the Grand Duchy of Baden , and the Principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as sovereign states. Much of Eastern Swabia became part of Bavaria , forming what is now the Swabian administrative region of Bavaria. The Kings of Bavaria assumed the title Duke in Swabia , with the in indicating that only parts of the Swabian territory was ruled by them, unlike their other title Duke of Franconia which made clear that

1330-643: The Kingdom of the Suebi in Galicia. Another group settled in parts of Pannonia , after the Huns were defeated in 454 in the Battle of Nedao . The Alemanni were ruled by independent kings throughout the 4th to 5th centuries but fell under Frankish domination in the 6th ( Battle of Tolbiac 496). By the late 5th century, the area settled by the Alemanni extended to Alsace and the Swiss Plateau , bordering on

1400-614: The Roman Empire in the third and fourth centuries. They launched a major invasion of Gaul and northern Italy in 268, when the Romans were forced to denude much of their German frontier of troops in response to a massive invasion of the Goths from the east. Their raids throughout the three parts of Gaul were traumatic: Gregory of Tours (died ca 594) mentions their destructive force at the time of Valerian and Gallienus (253–260), when

1470-467: The Swabian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire as it stood during the early modern period , now divided between the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg . Swabians ( Schwaben , singular Schwabe ) are the natives of Swabia and speakers of Swabian German . Their number was estimated at close to 0.8 million by SIL Ethnologue as of 2006, compared to a total population of 7.5 million in

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1540-461: The blood court at Cannstatt , and for the following century, Alemannia was ruled by Frankish dukes. Following the treaty of Verdun of 843, Alemannia became a province of the eastern kingdom of Louis the German , the precursor of the Holy Roman Empire . The duchy persisted until 1268. The German spoken today over the range of the former Alemanni is termed Alemannic German , and is recognised among

1610-623: The Alemanni assembled under their "king", whom he calls Chrocus , who acted "by the advice, it is said, of his wicked mother, and overran the whole of the Gauls, and destroyed from their foundations all the temples which had been built in ancient times. And coming to Clermont he set on fire, overthrew and destroyed that shrine which they call Vasso Galatae in the Gallic tongue," martyring many Christians ( Historia Francorum Book I.32–34 ). Thus sixth-century Gallo-Romans of Gregory's class, surrounded by

1680-626: The Alemanni bucked the Frankish yoke and put themselves under the protection of Theodoric the Great of the Ostrogoths but after his death they were again subjugated by the Franks under Theudebert I in 536. Subsequently, the Alemanni formed part of the Frankish dominions and were governed by a Frankish duke. In 746, Carloman ended an uprising by summarily executing all Alemannic nobility at

1750-484: The Alemanni had been previously neutral, they were certainly further influenced by Caracalla to become thereafter notoriously implacable enemies of Rome. This mutually antagonistic relationship is perhaps the reason why the Roman writers persisted in calling the Alemanni "barbari," meaning "savages." The archaeology, however, shows that they were largely Romanized, lived in Roman-style houses and used Roman artifacts,

1820-505: The Alemanni, but that they gave themselves the name of Suebi . The Suebi are given the alternative name of Ziuwari (as Cyuuari ) in an Old High German gloss, interpreted by Jacob Grimm as Martem colentes ("worshippers of Mars "). Annio da Viterbo a scholar and historian of the 15th century claimed the Alemanni had their name from the Hebrew language , as in Hebrew the river Rhine

1890-681: The Alemanni, who were swarming over all Italy north of the Po River . After efforts to secure a peaceful withdrawal failed, Claudius forced the Alemanni to battle at the Battle of Lake Benacus in November. The Alemanni were routed, forced back into Germany, and did not threaten Roman territory for many years afterwards. Their most famous battle against Rome took place in Argentoratum ( Strasbourg ), in 357, where they were defeated by Julian , later Emperor of Rome, and their king Chnodomarius

1960-547: The Alemannic women having adopted the Roman fashion of the tunica even earlier than the men. Most of the Alemanni were probably at the time, in fact, resident in or close to the borders of Germania Superior . Although Dio is the earliest writer to mention them, Ammianus Marcellinus used the name to refer to Germans on the Limes Germanicus in the time of Trajan 's governorship of the province shortly after it

2030-646: The Duke of Württemberg was soon restored. The region was quite divided by the Reformation. While secular princes such as the Duke of Württemberg and the Margrave of Baden-Durlach , as well as most of the Free Cities, became Protestant , the ecclesiastical territories (including the bishoprics of Augsburg , Konstanz and the numerous Imperial abbeys ) remained Catholic , as did the territories belonging to

2100-528: The Federal State of Baden-Württemberg . Württemberg was formerly also spelled Würtemberg and Wirtemberg . Originally part of the old Duchy of Swabia , its history can be summarized in the following periods: After World War II, it was split into Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern owing to the different occupation zones of the United States and France . Finally, in 1952, it

2170-530: The Fowler , and in the 960s the duchy under Burchard III was incorporated in the Holy Roman Empire under Otto I . The Hohenstaufen dynasty, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries, arose out of Swabia, but following the execution of Conradin , the last Hohenstaufen, on 29 October 1268, the duchy was not reappointed during the Great Interregnum . In the following years,

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2240-676: The Frankish empire, early in the eighth century. Today, Alemannic is a linguistic term, referring to Alemannic German , encompassing the dialects of the southern two thirds of Baden-Württemberg (German State), in western Bavaria (German State), in Vorarlberg (Austrian State), Swiss German in Switzerland and the Alsatian language of the Alsace (France). The Alemanni established a series of territorially defined pagi (cantons) on

2310-685: The Habsburgs ( Further Austria ), the Sigmaringen branch of the House of Hohenzollern , and the Margrave of Baden-Baden . In the wake of the territorial reorganization of the empire of 1803 by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , the shape of Swabia was entirely changed. All the ecclesiastical estates were secularized, and most of the smaller secular states, and almost all of the free cities, were mediatized , leaving only

2380-482: The Roman Empire and by the anonymous contributor of notes assembled from the papers of Nicolas Fréret , published in 1753. This etymology has remained the standard derivation of the name. An alternative suggestion proposes derivation from *alah "sanctuary". Walafrid Strabo in the ninth century remarked, in discussing the people of Switzerland and the surrounding regions, that only foreigners called them

2450-413: The advance of Christianity. The Nordendorf fibula (early seventh century) clearly records pagan theonyms, logaþorewodanwigiþonar read as "Wodan and Donar are magicians/sorcerers", but this may be interpreted as either a pagan invocation of the powers of these deities, or a Christian protective charm against them. A runic inscription on a fibula found at Bad Ems reflects Christian pious sentiment (and

2520-480: The bishopric of Konstanz cannot be dated exactly and was possibly undertaken by Columbanus himself (before 612). In any case, it existed by 635, when Gunzo appointed John of Grab bishop. Constance was a missionary bishopric in newly converted lands, and did not look back on late Roman church history unlike the Raetian bishopric of Chur (established 451) and Basel (an episcopal seat from 740, and which continued

2590-441: The city league by Count Eberhard II of Württemberg in 1372 led to the formation of a new league of fourteen Swabian cities on 4 July 1376. The emperor refused to recognise the newly revitalised Swabian League, seeing it as a rebellion, and this led to an " imperial war " against the league. The renewed league defeated an imperial army at the Battle of Reutlingen on 14 May 1377. Burgrave Frederick V of Hohenzollern finally defeated

2660-402: The early 10th century mostly ruled by two dynasties, the Hunfriding counts in Raetia Curiensis and the Ahalolfings ruling the Baar estates around the upper Neckar and Danube rivers. The conflict between the two dynasties was decided in favour of Hunfriding Burchard II at the Battle of Winterthur (919). Burchard's rule as duke was acknowledged as such by the newly elected king Henry

2730-459: The east bank of the Rhine. The exact number and extent of these pagi is unclear and probably changed over time. Pagi , usually pairs of pagi combined, formed kingdoms ( regna ) which, it is generally believed, were permanent and hereditary. Ammianus describes Alemanni rulers with various terms: reges excelsiores ante alios ("paramount kings"), reges proximi ("neighbouring kings"), reguli ("petty kings") and regales ("princes"). This may be

2800-399: The eighth century were collectively referred to as Alamannia . In 496, the Alemanni were conquered by the Frankish leader Clovis and incorporated into his dominions . Mentioned as still pagan allies of the Christian Franks, the Alemanni were gradually Christianized during the seventh century. The Lex Alamannorum is a record of their customary law during this period. Until

2870-442: The eighth century, Frankish suzerainty over Alemannia was mostly nominal. After an uprising by Theudebald, Duke of Alamannia , however, Carloman executed the Alamannic nobility and installed Frankish dukes. During the later and weaker years of the Carolingian Empire , the Alemannic counts became almost independent, and a struggle for supremacy took place between them and the Bishopric of Constance . The chief family in Alamannia

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2940-485: The forest, where the trails were blocked by felled trees. As winter was upon them, they reoccupied a "fortification which was founded on the soil of the Alemanni that Trajan wished to be called with his own name". In this context, the use of Alemanni is possibly an anachronism, but it reveals that Ammianus believed they were the same people, which is consistent with the location of the Alemanni of Caracalla's campaigns. The Alemanni were continually engaged in conflicts with

3010-553: The later fifth century. In the mid-6th century, the Byzantine historian Agathias records, in the context of the wars of the Goths and Franks against Byzantium, that the Alemanni fighting among the troops of Frankish king Theudebald were like the Franks in all respects except religion, since they worship certain trees, the waters of rivers, hills and mountain valleys, in whose honour they sacrifice horses, cattle and countless other animals by beheading them, and imagine that they are performing an act of piety thereby. He also spoke of

3080-474: The league in 1388 at Döffingen . The next year the city league disbanded according to the resolutions of the Reichstag at Eger . The major dynasties that arose out of medieval Swabia were the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns , who rose to prominence in Northern Germany. Also stemming from Swabia are the local dynasties of the dukes of Württemberg and the margraves of Baden . The Welf family went on to rule in Bavaria and Hanover , and are ancestral to

3150-474: The line of Bishops of Augusta Raurica , see Bishop of Basel ). The establishment of the church as an institution recognized by worldly rulers is also visible in legal history. In the early seventh century Pactus Alamannorum hardly ever mentions the special privileges of the church, while Lantfrid 's Lex Alamannorum of 720 has an entire chapter reserved for ecclesial matters alone. A genetic study published in Science Advances in September 2018 examined

3220-427: The mid-3rd century, groups of the Suebi form the core element of the new tribal alliance known as the Alamanni , who expanded towards the Roman Limes east of the Rhine and south of the Main. The Alamanni were sometimes referred to as Suebi even at this time, and their new area of settlement came to be known as Suebia. In the migration period , the Suebi (Alamanni) crossed the Rhine in 406 and some of them established

3290-401: The mid-sixth century by Byzantine historian Agathias ), the name Alamanni (Ἀλαμανοι) means "all men". It indicates that they were a conglomeration drawn from various Germanic tribes. The Romans and the Greeks called them as such (Alamanni, all men, in the sense of a group composed of men of all groups in the region). This derivation was accepted by Edward Gibbon , in his Decline and Fall of

3360-449: The more powerful abbeys within the former duchy to be Imperial Abbeys. The rural regions were merged into the Imperial Shrievalty ( Reichslandvogtei ) of Swabia, which was given as Imperial Pawn to Duke Leopold III of Austria in 1379 and again to Sigismund, Archduke of Austria in 1473/1486. He took the title of a "Prince of Swabia" and integrated the Shrievalty of Swabia in the realm of Further Austria . The Swabian League of Cities

3430-441: The name Alemannicus, at which Helvius Pertinax jested that he should really be called Geticus Maximus, because in the year before he had murdered his brother, Geta . Through much of his short reign, Caracalla was known for unpredictable and arbitrary operations launched by surprise after a pretext of peace negotiations. If he had any reasons of state for such actions, they remained unknown to his contemporaries. Whether or not

3500-446: The original duchy gradually broke up into many smaller units. Rudolf I of Habsburg , elected in 1273 as emperor, tried to restore the duchy, but met the opposition of the higher nobility who aimed to limit the power of the emperor. Instead, he confiscated the former estates of the Hohenstaufen as imperial property of the Holy Roman Empire, and declared most of the cities formerly belonging to Hohenstaufen to be Free Imperial Cities , and

3570-487: The particular ruthlessness of the Alemanni in destroying Christian sanctuaries and plundering churches while the genuine Franks were respectful towards those sanctuaries. Agathias expresses his hope that the Alemanni would assume better manners through prolonged contact with the Franks, which is by all appearances, in a manner of speaking, what eventually happened. Apostles of the Alemanni were Columbanus and his disciple Saint Gall . Jonas of Bobbio records that Columbanus

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3640-399: The regions of Tübingen , Stuttgart and Bavarian Swabia . Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined. However, today it is normally thought of as comprising the former Swabian Circle , or equivalently the former state of Württemberg (with the Prussian Hohenzollern Province ), or the modern districts of Tübingen (excluding the former Baden regions of

3710-411: The remains of eight individuals buried at a seventh-century Alemannic graveyard in Niederstotzingen , Germany. This is the richest and most complete Alemannic graveyard ever found. The highest ranking individual at the graveyard was a male with Frankish grave goods. Four males were found to be closely related to him. They were all carriers of types of the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b . A sixth male

3780-409: The ruins of Roman temples and public buildings, attributed the destruction they saw to the plundering raids of the Alemanni. In the early summer of 268, the Emperor Gallienus halted their advance into Italy, but then had to deal with the Goths. When the Gothic campaign ended in Roman victory at the Battle of Naissus in September, Gallienus' successor Claudius Gothicus turned north to deal with

3850-429: The sixth century, the Alemanni were predominantly pagan, and in the eighth century, they were predominantly Christian. The intervening seventh century was a period of genuine syncretism during which Christian symbolism and doctrine gradually grew in influence. Some scholars have speculated that members of the Alemannic elite such as king Gibuld due to Visigothic influence may have been converted to Arianism even in

3920-513: The subgroups of the High German languages . Alemannic runic inscriptions such as those on the Pforzen buckle are among the earliest testimonies of Old High German . The High German consonant shift is thought to have originated around the fifth century either in Alemannia or among the Lombards ; before that the dialect spoken by Alemannic tribes was little different from that of other West Germanic peoples. Alemannia lost its distinct jurisdictional identity when Charles Martel absorbed it into

3990-479: The term. Baden's residents mostly refer to themselves as Alemanni (versus the Swabians ). SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006. This corresponds to roughly 10% of the total population of the Swabian region, or roughly 1% of the total population of Germany. As an ethno-linguistic group, Swabians are closely related to other speakers of Alemannic German , i.e. Badeners , Alsatians , and German-speaking Swiss . Swabian German

4060-409: The twelfth century. Fearing the power of the greater princes, the cities and smaller secular rulers of Swabia joined to form the Swabian League in the fifteenth century. The League was quite successful, notably expelling the Duke of Württemberg in 1519 and putting in his place a Habsburg governor, but the league broke up a few years later over religious differences inspired by the Reformation , and

4130-409: The two pagi in each kingdom. Underneath the royal class were the nobles (called optimates by the Romans) and warriors (called armati by the Romans). The warriors consisted of professional warbands and levies of free men. Each nobleman could raise an average of c. 50 warriors. The Christianization of the Alemanni took place during Merovingian times (sixth to eighth centuries). We know that in

4200-408: The whole of Franconia had become part of their kingdom. In contemporary usage, Schwaben is sometimes taken to refer to Bavarian Swabia exclusively, correctly however it includes the larger Württemberg part of Swabia. Its inhabitants attach great importance to calling themselves Swabians. Baden, historically part of the duchy of Swabia and also of the Swabian Circle, is no longer commonly included in

4270-467: Was a carrier of the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b1a1 and the maternal haplogroup U5a1a1 . Along with the five closely related individuals, he displayed close genetic links to northern and eastern Europe , particularly Lithuania and Iceland . Two individuals buried at the cemetery were found to be genetically different from both the others and each other, displaying genetic links to Southern Europe , particularly northern Italy and Spain. Along with

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4340-446: Was active in Bregenz , where he disrupted a beer sacrifice to Wodan . Despite these activities, for some time, the Alemanni seem to have continued their pagan cult activities, with only superficial or syncretistic Christian elements. In particular, there is no change in burial practice, and tumulus warrior graves continued to be erected throughout Merovingian times. Syncretism of traditional Germanic animal-style with Christian symbolism

4410-417: Was first formed on 20 November 1331, when twenty-two imperial cities of the former Duchy of Swabia banded together in support of the Emperor Louis IV , who in return promised not to mortgage any of them to any imperial vassal . Among the founding cities were Augsburg , Heilbronn , Reutlingen , and Ulm . The counts of Württemberg , Oettingen , and Hohenberg were induced to join in 1340. The defeat of

4480-469: Was formed in 1488, opposing the expansionist Bavarian dukes from the House of Wittelsbach and the revolutionary threat from the south in the form of the Swiss . In 1519, the League conquered Württemberg and sold it to Charles V after its duke Ulrich seized the Free Imperial City of Reutlingen during the interregnum that followed the death of Maximilian I. It helped to suppress the Peasants' Revolt in 1524–26 and defeat an alliance of robber barons in

4550-417: Was formed, around 98–99 AD. At that time, the entire frontier was being fortified for the first time. Trees from the earliest fortifications found in Germania Inferior are dated by dendrochronology to 99–100 AD. Ammianus relates ( xvii.1.11 ) that much later the Emperor Julian undertook a punitive expedition against the Alemanni, who by then were in Alsace, and crossed the Main (Latin Menus ), entering

4620-411: Was integrated into Baden-Württemberg . Stuttgart , the historical capital city of Württemberg, became the capital of the present state. Swabia This territory would include all of the Alemannic German area, but the modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the thirteenth century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography roughly coincides with

4690-430: Was taken prisoner to Rome. On January 2, 366, the Alemanni yet again crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers, to invade the Gallic provinces, this time being defeated by Valentinian (see Battle of Solicinium ). In the great mixed invasion of 406, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine river a final time, conquering and then settling what is today Alsace and a large part of the Swiss Plateau . The crossing

4760-561: Was that of the counts of Raetia Curiensis , who were sometimes called margraves, and one of whom, Burchard II , established the Duchy of Swabia , which was recognized by Henry the Fowler in 919 and became a stem duchy of the Holy Roman Empire . The area settled by the Alemanni corresponds roughly to the area where Alemannic German dialects remain spoken, including German Swabia and Baden , French Alsace , German-speaking Switzerland , Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg . The French-language name of Germany , Allemagne ,

4830-415: Was translated into Mannum and the people who live at its shores were called Alemannus . This was refuted by Beatus Rhenanus , a humanist of the 16th century. Rhenanus argued the term Alemanni was meant for the whole Germanic people only in late antiquity and before it was only meant to designate the population of an island in the North Sea . Early Roman writers did not mention the Alemanni, and it

4900-469: Was used consistently for the territory of the Duchy of Swabia . Swabia was one of the original stem duchies of East Francia , the later Holy Roman Empire , as it developed in the 9th and 10th centuries. Due to the foundation of the important abbeys of St. Gallen and Reichenau , Swabia became an important center of Old High German literary culture during this period. In the later Carolingian period , Swabia became once again de facto independent, by

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