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Germanic peoples

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This article is about Germanic peoples as an ethno-linguistic group. For the term Germanic as used in reference to Germanic-speaking countries in Europe, see Germanic-speaking Europe.

The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic, Suebian, or Gothic in older literature) are an ethno-linguistic Indo-European group of Northern European origin.[1] They are identified by their use of Germanic languages, which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.[2]

The term "Germanic" originated in classical times when groups of tribes living in Lower, Upper, and Greater Germania were referred to using this label by Roman scribes. The Roman use of the term "Germanic" was not necessarily based upon language, but rather referred to the tribal groups and alliances that lived in the regions of modern-day Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, and which were considered to be less civilized and more physically hardened than the Celtic Gauls.

Tribes referred to as "Germanic" by Roman authors generally lived to the north and east of the Gauls. The Germanic tribes were chronicled by Rome's historians as having had a critical impact on the course of European history during the Roman-Germanic wars, particularly at the historic Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, where the Germanic chieftain Arminius defeated three Roman legions which precipitated the Roman Empire's strategic withdrawal from Magna Germania.[1]



See also: Germania

In approximately 222 BCE, the first use of the Latin term "Germani" appears in the Fasti Capitolini inscription de Galleis Insvbribvs et Germ(aneis) which may simply be referring to Gaul or related people but this may be an inaccurate date since the inscription was erected in about 18 BCE despite referencing an earlier date. The term Germani shows up again, allegedly written by Poseidonios (from 80 BCE), but is merely a quotation inserted by the author Athenaios who wrote much later (around 190 CE).[3][4] Somewhat later, the first surviving detailed discussions of Germani and Germania are those of Julius Caesar, whose memoirs are based on first-hand experience.

From Caesar's perspective, Germania was a geographical area of land on the east bank of the Rhine from Gaul, which Caesar left outside direct Roman control. This usage of the word is the origin of the modern concept of Germanic languages, but it was not defined strictly by language. Under other classical authors this sometimes included regions of Sarmatia as well as an area under Roman control on the west bank of the Rhine. Also, at least in the south there were Celtic peoples still living east of the Rhine and north of the Alps. Caesar, Tacitus and others did note differences of culture which could be found on the east of the Rhine. But all of these cultural notes were around the theme that this was a wild and dangerous region, less civilised than Gaul, a place that required additional military vigilance when traversing the region.[5]


While saying that the Germani had ancestry over the Rhine, Caesar did not describe these tribes as recent immigrants, saying that they had defended themselves some generations earlier from the invading Cimbri and Teutones. (He thereby distinguished them from the neighbouring Aduatuci, whom he did not call Germani, but who were descended from those Cimbri and Teutones.)[6] It has been claimed, for example by Maurits Gysseling, that the placenames of this region show evidence of an early presence of Germanic languages, already in the 2nd century BCE.[9] Celtic culture and language was however clearly influential also, as can be seen in the tribal name of the Eburones, their kings' names, Ambiorix and Cativolcus, and also the material culture of the region.[10][a]


The term Germani, therefore, probably applied to a small group of tribes in northeastern Gaul who may or may not have spoken a Germanic language, and whose links to Germania are unclear. It appears that the Germanic tribes did not have a word to describe themselves, although the word Suebi, used by Caesar to broadly classify Germanic speakers was likely Germanic in origin.[b] They did however use the term walhaz to describe outsiders (mainly Celts, Romans and Greeks).[3] Roman authors frequently employed the term "barbarian" from the Latin derivative barbarus (inherited from the Greek barbaros which means "foreign") when describing Germanic peoples. Such a term presupposed a distinctive Roman intellectual and cultural superiority and their ethnographic treatises on the various "barbarian" tribes ascribed specific attributes of barbarism to each one so as to delineate the dichotomy between barbarism and civilization.[14] The more the Romans increased their presence along the periphery of their Empire, the more trade and employment for the "barbarians" became available, resulting in an economic boom along the corridors of the Danube River, which subsequently increased the Roman focus upon the Germanic peoples.[15] Use of the modern term German or Germanic is the result of 18th and 19th century classical philology which "envisioned the Germanic language group as occupying a central branch of the Indo-European language tree."[16]


Latin scholars from the 10th century utilized the adjective teutonicus (a derivative of Teutones) when referencing East Francia which in their vernacular was connoted "Regnum Teutonicum" for that area and all of its subsequent inhabitants. Modern speakers of English still employ the word "Teutons" when describing Germanic peoples as a result.[3] Historically, the Teutones were only one specific tribe, and may not have even spoken a Germanic language. For example, it is postulated by some scholars that the original Teutonic language may have been a form of Celtic.[17] The source of this confusion whereby Teutons are lumped into the same category as the others comes from their contact with the Romans in the second century B.C. when they, along with the Cimbri and the Ambrones led a frightening attack against the Romans. Teuton was the byword the Romans applied to the barbarians from the north and which they used to describe subsequent Germanic peoples.[18] Under the leadership of Gaius Marius, who built his career on barbarian antagonists (like many who followed), the Teutones became one of the archetypal enemies of the Roman Empire.[19]


One proposal for the approximate distribution of the primary Germanic dialect groups in Europe around AD 1:
  North Sea Germanic, or Ingvaeonic
  Weser-Rhine Germanic, or Istvaeonic
  Elbe Germanic, or Irminonic


Tacitus, in his Germania wrote[20] that










Linguists postulate that an early proto-Germanic language existed and was distinguishable from the other Indo-European languages as far back as 500 B.C.E.[26] The earliest known Germanic inscription was found at Negau (in what is now southern Austria) on a bronze helmet dating back to the first century BC.[27] Some of the other earliest known physical records of the Germanic language appear on stone and wood carvings in Runic script from around 200 AD.[17] Runic writing likely disappeared due to the concerted opposition of the Christian Church, which regarded runic text as heathen symbols which supposedly contained inherent magical properties that they associated with the Germanic peoples' pagan past.[28] Unfortunately, this primitive view ignores the abundance of "pious runic writing found on church-related objects" (ranging from inscriptions in the doorways of churches, on church bells and even those found on baptismal fonts) when Christianity was introduced into the Germanic North.[29][d] An important linguistic step was made by the Christian convert Ulfilas, who became a bishop to the Visigoths in AD 341; he subsequently invented an alphabet and translated the scriptures from Greek into Gothic, creating the earliest known translation of the Bible into a Germanic language.[30]

From what is known, the early Germanic tribes may have spoken "mutually intelligible dialects" derived from a common parent language but there are no written records to verify this fact.[31] Despite their common linguistic framework, by the 5th century AD, the Germanic people were linguistically differentiated and could no longer easily comprehend one another.[32] Nonetheless, the line between Germanic languages and Romance speakers in central Europe remained at the western mouth of the Rhine river and while Gaul fell under German domination and was firmly settled by the Franks, the linguistic patterns did not move much. Further west and south in Europe-proper, the linguistic presence of the Germanic languages is almost negligible. Despite the fact that the Visigoths ruled what is now Spain for upwards of 250 years, there are almost no recognizable Gothic words borrowed into Spanish.[33]

The Germanic tribes moved and interacted over the next centuries, and separate dialects among Germanic languages developed down to the present day.[34] Some groups, such as the Suebians, have a continuous recorded existence, and so there is a reasonable confidence that their modern dialects can be traced back to those in classical times.[35] By extension, but sometimes controversially, the names of the sons of Mannus, Istvaeones, Irminones, and Ingvaeones, are also sometimes used to divide up the medieval and modern West Germanic languages.[3] The more easterly groups such as the Vandals are thought to have been united in the use of East Germanic languages, the most famous of which is Gothic. The dialect of the Germanic people who remained in Scandinavia is not generally called Ingvaeonic, but is classified as North Germanic, which developed into Old Norse. Within the West Germanic group, linguists associate the Suebian or Hermionic group with an "Elbe Germanic" which developed into Upper German, including modern German.[36]


By AD 500 west Germanic speakers had apparently developed a distinct language continuum with extensive loaning from Latin (due to their ongoing contact with the Romans), whereas the east Germanic languages were dying out.[e] West Germanic languages include: German, Yiddish, Dutch, Luxemburgish, Frisian, and English. These combined West Germanic languages are spoken as a primary tongue by more than 450 million people today.[26] North Germanic languages are Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic.[38] Only a mere 20 million people or so currently speak the North Germanic languages as their native tongue.[26] Later manifestations of the western Germanic languages and their pursuant typological characteristics are due in part to the activities of the Hanseatic League where trade necessitated a lingua franca from the mainland of Scandinavia all along the navigable shores of the North Sea, and within the Baltic Sea.{[Efn|For more on this, see: Kurt Braunmüller, "Was ist Germanisch heute?" Sprachwissenschaft 25 (2000): 271–295.}}


Map of the Nordic Bronze Age culture, around 1200 BCE
The gilded side of the Trundholm sun chariot
The Dejbjerg wagon, National Museum of Denmark


Archaeological and linguistic evidence from a period known as the Nordic Bronze Age indicates that a common material culture existed between the Germanic tribes that inherited the southern regions of Scandinavia, along with the Schleswig-Holstein area and the area of what is now Hamburg, Germany.[39][3] Additional archaeological remnants from the Iron Age society that once existed in nearby Wessenstedt also show traces of this culture.[40] Exactly how these cultures interacted remains a mystery but the migrations of early proto-Germanic peoples are discernible from the remaining evidence of prehistoric cultures in Hügelgräber, Urnfield, and La Tene. Climatic change between 850 BCE to 760 BCE in Scandinavia and "a later and more rapid one around 650 BCE might have triggered migrations to the coast of Eastern Germany and further toward the Vistula.[3]


Early Iron Age

Further information: Pre-Roman Iron Age

In Northernmost Europe, in what now constitutes the European plains of Denmark and southern Scandinavia, is where the Germanic peoples most likely originated; a region that remained "remarkably stable" as far back as the Neolithic Age, when humans first began controlling their environment through the use of agriculture and the domestication of animals.[42] By as early as 750 BCE, archeological evidence gives the impression that the Germanic people were becoming more uniform in their culture.[3] As the population of the Germanic people grew, they migrated westwards into coastal floodplains due to the exhaustion of the soil in their original settlements.[43] In the second millennium BCE, the Germanic tribes expanded into the adjacent regions between the Elbe and Oder rivers.[44]


Concomitantly, during the 2nd century BCE the advent of the Celtic culture of Hallstatt and La Tene arose in nearby territories further west but the interactions between the early Germanic people and the Celts is thought to have been minimal based on the linguistic evidence.[45] Despite the absence of the Celtic influence further eastwards, there are a number of Celtic loanwords in Proto-Germanic, which at the very least indicates contact between the people of Gaul and the early Germanic cultures that resided along the Rhine river.[46] Nonetheless, material objects such as metal ornaments and pottery found near the areas east of the lower Rhine are connoted as Jastorf in nomenclature and are characteristically distinguishable from the Celtic objects found further west.[47]


Some recognizable trends in the archaeological records exist, as it is known that, generally speaking, western Germanic people while still migratory, were more geographically settled, whereas the eastern Germanics remained transitory for a longer period.[51] Three settlement patterns and solutions come to the fore, the first of which is the establishment of an agricultural base in a region which allowed them to support larger populations; second, the Germanic peoples periodically cleared forests to extend the range of their pasturage; thirdly (and the most frequent occurrence), they often emigrated to other areas as they exhausted the immediately available resources.[52] War and conquest followed as the Germanic people migrated bringing them into direct conflict with the Celts who were forced to either Germanize or migrate elsewhere as a result. West Germanic people eventually settled in central Europe and became more accustomed to agriculture and it is the various western Germanic people that are described by Caesar and Tacitus. Meanwhile, the eastern Germanic people continued their migratory habits.[53] Roman writers characteristically organized and classified people and it may very well have been deliberate on their part to recognize the tribal distinctions of the various Germanic people so as to pick out known leaders and exploit these differences for their benefit. For the most part however, these early Germanic people shared a basic culture, operated similarly from an economic perspective, and were not nearly as differentiated as the Romans implied. In fact, the Germanic tribes are hard to distinguish from the Celts on many accounts simply based on archaeological records.[54]


One of the earliest known written records of the Germanic world in classical times was in the lost work of Pytheas (fl. 4th century BCE). It is believed that Pytheas traveled to northern Europe c.  325 BCE, and his observations about the geographical environment, traditions and culture of the northern European populations became a central source of information for later historians - often the only source.[g] Authors such as Strabo, Pliny and Diodorus cite Pytheas in disbelief, although Pytheas' observations appear to have been substantially accurate.

Though Pytheas was not the first Mediterranean to explore those lands (note for example Himilco (5th century BCE), and possibly Phoenicians and Tartessians (c.  6th century BCE)), his became the first substantial surviving description of these populations. Much of the Germanic peoples' early history enters into view through Pytheas, particularly since he was also possibly the first to distinguish the Germanoi people of northern and central Europe as distinct from the Keltoi people further west.[55][56] Along with the records of a couple of other classical writers (namely Polybius (2nd century BCE) and Posidonius (c. 135 BCE – c. 51 BCE), the work of Pytheas on the Celts and early Germans influenced scores of future geographers, historians and ethnographers.[57]

Migrations of the Cimbri and the Teutons (late 2nd century BCE) and their war with Rome (113-101 BCE)


Main article: Bastarnae

An early Germanic people known as the Bastarnae were identified by Roman authors and were allegedly the first to reach the Graeco-Roman world, living in the area north of the Danube's mouth in the Black Sea. They resided primarily in the territory east of the Carpathian Mountains between the Dniester River valley and the delta of the Danube in what is now the Ukraine, Moldova and Romania and are considered the easternmost of the Germanic tribes.[58] The Bastarnae are mentioned in historical sources going back as far as the 3rd century BC all the way through the 4th century AD.[59] In 201–202 BC, the Macedonians under the leadership of King Philip V, conscripted the Bastarnae as soldiers to fight against the Romans in the Second Macedonian War.[58] They remained a presence in that area until late in the Roman empire while some settled on Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea which is why the name Peucini is also associated with the Bastarnae.[58] King Perseus enlisted the service of the Bastarnae in 171–168 BC to fight the Third Macedonian War. By 29 BC, they were subdued by the Romans and those that remained began merging with various tribes of Goths into the second century AD.[58]

Sometime in AD 250, the Gothic king Kniva employed the assistance of the Bastarnae, Carpi, various Goths, and the Taifali when he eventually laid siege to Philippopolis; he followed this victory up with another on the marshy terrain at Abrittus, a battle which cost the life of a Roman emperor and inaugurated a series of consecutive barbarian invasions of the northern Balkans and Asia Minor.[60] Historian Thomas Burns references the Bastarnae but only as an aside from the Latin poet Claudian, claiming that they were among "the oldest of the various Scythian people".[61] Burns further elaborates in stating that there are no "specific references" to the Bastarnae and that remarks about them by Claudian and later third century writers "must give us pause" for the mention of such people might merely have been a "convenient poetic device."[61] Historian Peter Heather disagrees with this position and identifies the Bastarnae as one of the Germanic tribes and asserts that they once "dominated substantial tracts of territory at the mouth of the Danube."[62] Along similar lines, the late classical scholar, Theodor Mommsen, recognized the Bastarnae and placed them in the geographic regions of Moldavia and Bessarabia during the reign of Tiberius.[63][h] This is the same region where Tacitus placed them.[64] Another historian of antiquity, J. B. Bury, counted the Bastarnae along with the Goths, Vandals, Gepids, Burgundians, Lombards, Rugians, Heruls and Sciri among the eastern Germanic peoples.[65] Later the Bastarnae were defeated by the Huns sometime during the 4th or 5th century AD which ended their regional domination.[66][58]

Collision with Rome

Main article: Germanic Wars

Late in the 2nd century BCE, Roman sources recount the migrating Germanic people of Gaul, Italy and Hispania who invaded areas considered part of Imperial Rome. Unsurprisingly, this cultural confrontation resulted in war between the Roman Republic and the Germanic tribes; particularly those of the Roman Consul under Gaius Marius.[3] The Cimbri crossed into Norticum (Austria) in 113 BCE looking for food and usable land when they confronted and defeated a Roman army. A combined force of Cimbri[i] and Teutoni squared off against additional armies from Rome in 109 and 105 BCE, vanquishing them in the process.[67] Their further incursions into Roman Italy were thrust back in 101 BCE at Vercellae by the Roman army.[68] These earlier invasions were written up by Caesar and others as presaging of a Northern danger for the Roman Republic, a danger that should be controlled.[69]




Tacitus described the Germanic people as ethnically uniform or "unmixed" with "a distinct character" and he even generalized them by claiming that "a family likeness pervades the whole." He also reported that their eyes were "stern and blue" and they had "ruddy hair" with "large bodies" that rendered them capable of "powerful exertions.[70] This image portrayed them as a fearsome people deserving Rome's attention. Caesar was wary of these "barbaric" people of Germania and invoked the threat of expansions such as that by Ariovistus' Suebi as justification for his brutal campaigns to annex Gaul to Rome between 58-51 BCE.[71] Both Ariovistus and another notable Germanic warrior king named Maroboduus attempted to rule their warrior-based empires in autocratic fashion but were killed by the treachery of other warrior-nobles who strove for their own glory.[72]

An intense Roman militarization, greater than ever before, was begun under Caesar to deal with the barbarian tribes along the frontier — particularly since he feared that the Celtic Gauls between Rome and the Germanic people would not be able to defend themselves.[73] One major Celtic people who were forced from their homeland in modern southwest Germany and Bohemia were the Boii, a migration which had major impacts on Rome and many other peoples. Later, Caesar's attention in 58 BC was drawn to the movements of the Boii's old neighbours the Helvetii, another population group forced into Gaul from the direction of modern southwest Germany and western Switzerland.[74][k] When the Gaulish Arverni and Sequani elicited assistance from the Germanic Suebi (who came to them from east of the Rhine into Gaul) against their Aedui enemies in 71 BC, the Suebi essentially remained in situ and were able to expand further into the territory along the periphery of the Roman frontier. Meanwhile, Celtic culture and influence in Gaul began to wane during the first century BC as a result.[75]

Roman expansion along the Rhine and Danube rivers resulted in the incorporation of many indigenous Celtic societies into the Roman Empire. Lands to the north and east of the Rhine emerge in the Roman records under the name Germania. Population groups from this area had a complex relationship with Rome; sometimes the peoples of Germania were at war with Rome, but at times they established trade relations, symbiotic military alliances, and cultural exchanges with one another.[76] Nevertheless, the Romans made concerted efforts to divide the Germanic tribes when the opportunity presented itself, encouraging inter-tribal rivalry so as to diminish the threat of an otherwise formidable enemy.[77] Over the following centuries, the Romans sometimes intervened, but often took advantage as their neighbors slaughtered one another using Roman-influenced techniques of war. More instances of Germani fighting Germani appear in the works of Tacitus than between Romans and Germani.[78] But it was Caesar's wars against the Germanic people that helped establish and solidify the use of the term Germania. The initial purpose of the Roman military campaigns was to protect Trans-Alpine Gaul from further incursions of the Germanic tribes by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe.[79]

Roman Empire period

Further information: Roman Iron Age

In the Augustean period there was—as a result of Roman activity as far as the Elbe River—a first definition of the "Germania magna": from the Rhine and Danube rivers in the West and South to the Vistula and the Baltic Sea in the East and North. In 9 CE, a revolt of their Germanic subjects headed by the supposed Roman ally, Arminius, (along with his decisive defeat of Publius Quinctilius Varus and the destruction of 3 Roman legions in the surprise attack on the Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest) ended in the withdrawal of the Roman frontier to the Rhine. Occupying Germany had proven too costly and with it, ended 28 years of Roman campaigning across the North European plains.[80] At the end of the 1st century, two provinces west of the Rhine called Germania inferior and Germania superior were established by the Emperor Domitian, having previously been military districts, "so as to separate this more militarized zone from the civilian populations farther west and south".[81] Important medieval cities like Aachen, Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Worms and Speyer were part of these two "militarized" Roman provinces.

Roman map of Germania in the early 2nd century



By the middle to late second century AD, migrating Germanic tribes like the Marcomanni and Quadi pushed their way to the Roman frontier along the Danube corridor, movements of people which resulted in conflicts known as the Marcomannic Wars; these conflicts ended in approximately AD 180.[85] Not long thereafter, larger confederations of Germanic people appeared, groups led by tribal leaders acting as would-be kings. The first of these conglomerations mentioned in the historical sources were the Alamanni (a term meaning "all men") who appear in Roman texts sometime in the 3rd century AD.[86] This change indicated that the tribalism of the Germanic people was being abandoned for consolidated rule. Meanwhile, Rome adapted itself due to the arrival of the Germanic tribes. Emperor Severus Alexander was killed by his own soldiers in AD 235 for example (for negotiating peace with the tribes of Germania through diplomacy and bribery against the wishes of his men) and the general Maximin elected in his place. Maximin was himself not Roman but was ethnically the child of a Germanic Alan and a Goth. Military expediency trumped aristocratic privilege when it came to securing the Empire and a series of professional military emperors followed as a result.[87]

Around AD 238, the Goths make their first clear impact on Roman history, having moved from the Baltic sea to the area of the modern Ukraine. And sometime in AD 251, they defeated a Roman army in the Balkans, killing the emperor Decius in the process. Close to the same time that the Goths were fighting the Romans in the Baltics, there is also the first mention of the Franks around AD 250.[88] Perennial internal conflicts among several successive emperors of both the eastern and western Empire during the 4th century AD resulted in civil wars and damaged the overall quality of the Roman army; the fighting also depleted the elite from within their officer corps. To compensate for their losses the Romans recruited inferior untried Roman civilians and sought replacements from across the frontier region by militarily proficient barbarian troops, a development which further strengthened the position of the Germanic peoples.[89] Attempting to control the periphery of the Roman empire meant finding innovative ways of dealing with the Germanic people, so the Romans enlisted them as foederati (federates) and by the late fourth century, the majority of the Roman military was made up of Germanic warriors. Federating whole tribes of Germanic people into the Empire marked a whole new phase of encroachment and facilitated the fragmentation of Rome from within its own borders.[90]

Among the Romans, the Germanic presence in the military was so extensive for example, that the word barbarus became a synonym for "soldier" and the imperial budget of the military was known as the ficus barbarus.[91] Barbarians (Germanics) composed the mobile army of emperor Constantine with many of them, particularly the more organized ones like the Franks and Alamanni, reaching levels of high command. An example of such prominence shows in the fact that in AD 350 the Frankish general Silvanus was the high military commander of Gaul.[92] Warriors and leaders among the Germanic peoples had an advantage over their Roman counterparts as they knew and could dexterously traverse both worlds, whereas the Romans despised ‘barbarian’ culture and customs and were unable to secure trust amid the Germanic soldiers on their payrolls. In this way, the ethnic and regional ties within the evolving bureaucratic Roman-Germanic world began to favor the 'barbarians'.[93]

Roman Britannia was contemporaneously under constant threat during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD by northern Picts as well as the Germanic Saxons who sailed from north of Gaul to the eastern coast of the British Isles. Late in AD 367, the Roman garrisons in Britannia collapsed as the Germanic barbarians poured into the region from all directions.[94] Attempting to permanently reestablish control on Britannia, the emperor Valentinian sent an experienced Roman commander who was able to beat the invaders back after a year-long war and gain control of Londonium, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, for the Germanic invaders had burned down standing settlements, ravaged cities on the isles, interrupted trade and annihilated entire Roman garrisons.[95] By the middle of the 5th century, the Picts, Scots and Anglo-Saxons began to dominate the once Roman Britannia.[96]

Battle of Adrianople

Further information: Battle of Adrianople

During the fourth and fifth centuries AD Roman emperors did their best to stave off the advance of the Germanic tribes. While the rulers in the Eastern Empire were able to endure the frequent clashes without serious consequences to their territorial dominion, this was not the case in the Western Empire. For upwards of two centuries, the Roman emperors fought and confined the Germanic tribes to Rhine-Danube frontier and in far-away Briton, but all that changed in AD 378 when the Visigoths destroyed as much as two-thirds of the Roman army of the East under emperor Valens.[97] Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus referred to the damage inflicted by the Germanic tribes at Adrianople as an "irreparable disaster" and ended his account of Roman history with this battle. Subsequent historians like Sir Edward Gibbon (among others) ascribe a similar significance to this event and call the Battle of Adrianople a watershed moment between the ancient world and the medieval one that followed; for not only did this battle reveal Rome's weakness to the Germanic tribes and inspire them accordingly, never again were they to leave Roman soil.[98] Evidence of the trauma suffered at the hands of the ransacking Visigoths shows up in the writings of the former bishop of Milan, Ambrose, who wrote about melting down golden church plates early in his episcopate so as to help the victims of the calamity at Adrianople.[99]

Migration Period

Further information: Migration Period
2nd century to 5th century simplified migrations

Before considering the later migration of various Germanic peoples in the 5th century, it is worth noting that the first recorded great migration of a Germanic tribe occurred sometime at the end of the 2nd century when the Goths left the lower Vistula for the shores of the Black Sea.[100] For the next couple hundred years, the restless Goths were a menace to the Roman Empire.[101] Between the 2nd and 4th centuries the Goths slowly filtered deeper into the south and eastwards, making their way to what is now Kiev in Ukraine and pressuring Rome in the process.[102] The arrival of the nomadic Huns along the Black Sea corridor in AD 375 further accelerated the Goth's exodus across the Roman border.[103] Germanic people from the northern coasts of Europe had been making their way into Britain for several centuries before the larger-scale incursions took place.[104]



Role in the Fall of Rome


Some of the Germanic tribes are frequently credited in popular depictions of the decline of the Roman Empire in the late 5th century. Professional historians and archaeologists have since the 1950s shifted their interpretations in such a way that the Germanic peoples are no longer seen as invading a decaying empire but as being co-opted into helping defend territory the central government could no longer adequately administer.[m] Germanic tribes nonetheless fought against Roman dominance when necessary. When the Roman Empire refused to allow the Visigoths to settle in Noricum for instance, they responded by sacking Rome in AD 410 under the leadership of Alaric I.[110] Oddly enough, Alaric I did not see his imposition in Rome as an attack against the Roman Empire per se but as an attempt to gain a favorable position within its borders, particularly since the Visigoths held the Empire in high regard.[111]



Individuals and small groups from Germanic tribes had long been recruited from the territories beyond the limes (i.e., the regions just outside the Roman Empire), and some of them had risen high in the command structure of the army. The Rhine and Danube provided the bulk of geographic separation for the Roman limes. On one side of the limes stood 'Latin' Europe, law, Roman order, prosperous trading markets, towns and everything that constituted modern civilization for that era; while on the other side stood barbarism, technical backwardness, illiteracy and a tribal society of fierce warriors.[117] Then the Empire recruited entire tribal groups under their native leaders as military officers. Historian Evangelos Chrysos claims the implications concerning the recruitment of the ‘barbarians’ into the Roman army during the migration period were enormous and relates that it


Assisting with defense eventually shifted into administration and then outright rule, as Roman government passed into the hands of Germanic leaders. Odoacer (who commanded the German mercenaries in Italy)[119] deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the West in AD 476.[120] Odoacer ruled from Rome and Ravenna, restored the Colosseum and assigned seats to senatorial dignitaries as part of the process of consolidating his rule.[121] The presence of successor states controlled by a nobility from one of the Germanic tribes is evident in the 6th century – even in Italy, the former heart of the Empire, where Odoacer was followed by Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, who was regarded by Roman citizens and Gothic settlers alike as legitimate successor to the rule of Rome and Italy.[122] Theodoric ruled from AD 493–526, twice as long as his predecessor, and his rule is evidenced by an abundance of documents.[123] Under the Ostrogoths a considerable degree of Roman and Germanic cultural and political fusion was achieved.[124] Germanic kings worked in-tandem with Roman administrators to the extent possible to help ensure a smooth transition and to facilitate the profitable administration of once Roman lands.[125] Slowly but surely, the distinction between Germanic rulers and Roman subjects faded, followed by varying degrees of "cultural assimilation" which included the adoption of the Gothic language by some of the indigenous people of the former Roman Empire but this was certainly not ubiquitous as Gothic identity still remained distinctive.[126] Theodoric may have tried too hard to accommodate the various people under his dominion; indulging "Romans and Goths, Catholics and Arians, Latin and barbarian culture" resulted in the eventual failure of the Ostrogothic reign and the subsequent "end of Italy as the heartland of late antiquity."[127]


Early Middle Ages

The transition of the Migration period to the Middle Ages proper took place over the course of the second half of the 1st millennium. It was marked by the Christianization of the Germanic peoples and the formation of stable kingdoms replacing the mostly tribal structures of the Migration period. Some of this stability is discernible in the fact that the Pope recognized Theodoric's reign when the Germanic conqueror entered Rome in AD 500, despite that Theodoric was a known practitioner of Arianism, a faith which the Council of Nicaea condemned in AD 325.[131] Theodoric's Germanic subjects and administrators from the Roman Catholic Church cooperated in serving him, helping establish a codified system of laws and ordinances which facilitated the integration of the Gothic peoples into a burgeoning empire, solidifying their place as they appropriated a Roman identity of sorts.[132] The foundations laid by the Empire enabled the successor Germanic kingdoms to maintain a familiar structure and their success can be seen as part of the lasting triumph of Rome.[133]

In continental Europe, this Germanic evolution saw the rise of Francia in the Merovingian period under the rule of Clovis I who had deposed the last emperor of Gaul, eclipsing lesser kingdoms such as Alemannia.[134] The Merovingians controlled most of Gaul under Clovis, who, through conversion to Christianity, allied himself with the Gallo-Romans. While the Merovingians were checked by the armies of the Ostrogoth Theodoric, they remained the most powerful kingdom in Western Europe and the intermixing of their people with the Romans through marriage rendered the Frankish people less a Germanic tribe and more a "European people" in a manner of speaking.[135] Most of Gaul was under Merovingian control as was part of Italy and their overlordship extended into Germany where they reigned over the Thuringians, Alamans, and Bavarians.[136] Evidence also exists that they may have even had suzerainty over south-east England.[137] Frankish historian Gregory of Tours relates that Clovis converted to Christianity partly as a result of his wife's urging and even more so - due to having won a desperate battle after calling out to Christ. According to Gregory, this conversion was sincere but it also proved politically expedient as Clovis used his new faith as a means to consolidate his political power by Christianizing his army.[138][n] Against Germanic tradition, each of the four sons of Clovis attempted to secure power in different cities but their inability to prove themselves on the battlefield and intrigue against one another led the Visigoths back to electing their leadership.[139]

When Merovingian rule eventually weakened, they were supplanted by another powerful Frankish family, the Carolingians, a dynastic order which produced Charles Martel, and Charlemagne.[140] The coronation of Charlemagne as emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, AD 800 represented a shift in the power structure from the south to the north. Frankish power ultimately laid the foundations for the modern nations of Germany and France.[141] For historians, Charlemagne's appearance in the historical chronicle of Europe also marks a transition where the voice of the north appears in its own vernacular thanks to the spread of Christianity, after which the northerners began writing in Latin, Germanic, and Celtic; whereas before, the Germanic people were only known through Roman or Greek sources.[142]

In England, the Germanic Anglo-Saxon tribes reigned over the south of Great Britain from approximately 519 to the tenth century until the Wessex hegemony became the nucleus for the unification of England.[143][144] Scandinavia was in the Vendel period and eventually entered the Viking Age, with expansion to Britain, Ireland and Iceland in the west and as far as Russia and Greece in the east.[145] By AD 900 the Vikings secured for themselves a foothold on Frankish soil along the Lower Seine River valley in what is now present-day France, thereafter establishing the Duchy of Normandy, a territorial acquisition which provided them the opportunity to expand beyond Normandy into Anglo-Saxon England.[146] The subsequent Norman Conquest which followed in AD 1066 wrought immense changes to life in England as their new Scandinavian masters altered their government, lordship, public holdings, culture and DNA pool permanently.[147]


Post-migration ethnogeneses




On the European continent, the Holy Roman Empire included all remaining Germanic-speaking groups from the 10th century. In the Late Medieval to Early Modern period, some groups split off the Empire before a "German" ethnicity had formed, consisting of Low Franconian (Dutch, Flemish) and Alemannic (Swiss) populations.




Afrikaners are descended from 17th century Dutch immigrants to South Africa.





Germanic bracteate from Funen, Denmark





The social hierarchy is not only reflected in the weregild due in the case of the violent or accidental death of a man, but also in differences in fines for lesser crimes. Thus the fines for insults, injury, burglary or damage to property differ depending on the rank of the injured party.[o] They do not usually depend on the rank of the guilty party, although there are some exceptions associated with royal privilege.[p]








Large bodies of troops, while figuring prominently in the history books, were the exception rather than the rule of ancient warfare. Thus a typical Germanic force might consist of 100 men with the sole goal of raiding a nearby Germanic or foreign village. Thus, most warfare was at their barbarian neighbors.[159] According to Roman sources, when the Germanic Tribes did fight pitched battles, the infantry often adopted wedge formations, each wedge being led by a clan head. Legitimacy for leaders among the Germans resided in their ability to successfully lead armies to victory. Defeat on the battlefield at the hands of the Romans or other "barbarians" often meant the end for a ruler and in some cases, being absorbed by "another, victorious confederation."[160]


During the 4th and 5th centuries AD, Visigoths and Vandals militarily organized themselves to sufficiently challenge and sack Rome in AD 410 and again in AD 455. Then in AD 476, the last Roman emperor was deposed by a German chieftain, an event which effectively ended Roman predominance in western Europe.[163] Germanic tribes eventually overwhelmed and conquered the ancient world. That military transition was additionally spurred by the arrival of the Vikings from the 8th to 10th centuries, giving rise to modern Europe and medieval warfare.[164]



Weapons used by the Germanic tribes varied. Some of them used axes, throwing javelins, spears, bows and arrows along with swords. Most of the swords used by the Germanic warriors were those captured from Roman soldiers until the 4th century when German blacksmiths began making the best steel in Europe.[165] Body armor was rarely worn and when it was, it was light by comparison to what the Romans employed; only war leaders wore helmets on the battlefield.[166] Commandeering of Roman weaponry was widespread and the acquisition of the superior Roman armaments allowed the Germanic leaders to exert their power in ways not previously available. It also meant fierce inter-Germanic rivalry which constituted the larger power blocks of the Germanic world.[167] Much like their predecessors, the Vikings too used axes, swords, long knives, spears, oblong shields, leather or metal helmets and mail or leather coats for protection; the latter being luxuries most could not afford.[168]


To the greatest extent, Germanic fighting units consisted of infantry who would emerge from cover and attack, but they also utilized skilled cavalrymen at times, something the Visigoths used decisively to aid in their victory at Adrianople. Calvary warfare was limited in northern Europe due to the lack of suitably large horses for mounted troops. Caesar provided his Germanic armies with Roman mounts to enable them greater mobility and to enhance their fighting efficiency.[169] Unlike their western Celtic neighbors, the use of chariots was not picked up by the early Germans.[170] Notwithstanding the use of an occasional fortified position, the Germanic warriors preferred to fight in the open and normally assumed the offensive rather than fight defensively.[171] Emboldening themselves for fierce attacks, the Germanic warriors would rouse themselves to a high-pitched level of excitement and charge headlong against their enemies, which while effective for ambush operations, lacked in terms of the organizational skill needed for prolonged siege warfare.[172] The berserker mentality employed by the Germanic tribes against Rome was still in effect during the Viking era of the 8th and 9th centuries as they too believed that by summoning their gods and working themselves up, they would possess superhuman strength and be protected during battle. Such resolution led them to believe that dying in such a manner was heroic and would transport the fallen fighter straight into Valhalla where they would be embraced by the warrior maidens known as the Valkyries.[172][q] The later military development of armored knights and fortified castles was a response in part to the relentless plundering and raiding by the Vikings, which meant that the Germanic tribes who had settled mainland Europe and the British Isles had to adapt themselves so as to combat another Germanic tribe of interlopers.[173]


Traces of the earliest pastoralism of the Germanic peoples appear in central Europe in the form of elaborate cattle burials along the Elbe and Vistula Rivers from around 4000–3000 BCE.[174] These archaeological remnants were left by the Globular Amphora culture who cleared forests for herding cattle and sometime after 3000 BCE began using wheeled carts and plows to cultivate their lands. Central to survival for their assistance in tilling the soil and supplying food, cattle became an economic resource to these early people.[175] Germanic settlements were typically small, rarely containing much more than ten households, often less, and were usually located by clearings in the woods.[r] Settlements remained of a fairly constant size throughout the period. The buildings in these villages varied in form, but normally consisted of farmhouses surrounded by smaller buildings such as granaries and other storage rooms. The universal building material was timber. Cattle and humans usually lived together in the same house.

Although the Germans practiced both agriculture and husbandry, the latter was extremely important both as a source of dairy products and as a basis for wealth and social status, which was measured by the size of an individual's herd.[176] The diet consisted mainly of the products of farming and husbandry and was supplied by hunting to a very modest extent. Barley and wheat were the most common agricultural products and were used for baking a certain flat type of bread as well as brewing beer. Evidence from a Saxon village known as Feddersen Wierde near Cuxhaven, Germany (which existed between BC 50 to AD 450) shows that the Germanic people cultivated oats and rye, used manure as fertilizer, and that they practiced crop-rotation.[177]




Kinship patterns




The most important family relationships among the early Germanic peoples were within the individual household, a fact based on the archaeological evidence from their settlements where the long-houses appeared to be central in their existence. Within the household unit, an individual was equally bound to both the mother and the father's side of the family.[192] Fathers were the main figures of authority,[189] but wives also played an important and respected role. Some Germanic tribes even believed that women possessed magical powers and were feared accordingly.[193] Tacitus describes how, during battles, Germanic warriors were encouraged and cared for by their wives and mothers. He also notes that during times of peace, women did most of the work of managing the household. Along with the children, they apparently did most of the household chores as well. Children were valued, and according to Tacitus, limiting or destroying one's offspring was considered shameful. Mothers apparently breast-fed their own children rather than using nurses. Besides parents and children, a household might include slaves, but slavery was uncommon, and according to Tacitus, slaves normally had households of their own. Their slaves (usually prisoners of war) were most often employed as domestic servants.[189] Polygamy and concubinage were rare but existed, at least among the upper classes.[s] When a certain number of families resided on the same territory, this constituted a village (Dorf in German). The overall territory occupied by people from the same tribe was designated in the writings of Tacitus as a civitas, with each of the individual civitas divided into pagi (or cantons), which were made up of several vici. In cases where the tribes were grouped into larger confederations or a group of kingdoms, the term pagus was applied (Gau in German).[194] Extensive contact with Rome altered the egalitarian structure of tribal Germanic society. As individuals rose to prominence, a distinction between commoner and nobility developed and with it the previous constructs of folkright shared equally across the tribe was replaced in some cases by privilege.[165] As a result, Germanic society became more stratified. Elites within the Germanic tribes who learned the Roman system and emulated the way they established dominion were able to gain advantages and exploit them accordingly.[195]

Important changes began taking place by the 4th century AD as Germanic peoples, while still cognizant of their unique clan identities, started forming larger confederations of a similar culture. Gathering around the dominant tribes among them and hearkening to the most charismatic leaders brought the various "barbarians" tribes closer together. On the surface this change appeared to the Romans as welcome since they preferred to deal with a few strong chiefs to control the populations that they feared across the Rhine and Danube, but it eventually made these Germanic rulers of confederated peoples more and more powerful.[196] While strong, they were still not federated to one another since they possessed no sense of "pan-Germanic solidarity", but this started to change noticeably by the 5th century AD at Rome's expense.[197]


Based on the writings of Tacitus, most of the "barbarians" were content with one wife which indicates a general trend towards monogamy. For those higher within their social hierarchy however, polygamy was sometimes "solicited on account of their rank".[198] Of note, Tacitus observed that "the wife does not bring a dowry to her husband, but receives one from him" and wedding gifts related to a marriage consisted of things like oxen, saddles and various armaments. Revealing the warlike nature of their society, Tacitus also reported that wives came to their husbands "as a partner in toils and dangers; to suffer and to dare equally with him, in peace and in war.[198]



Where Aristotle had set the prime of life at 37 years for men and 18 for women, the Visigothic Code of law in the 7th century placed the prime of life at twenty years for both men and women, after which both presumably married. Thus it can be presumed that ancient Germanic brides were on average about twenty and were roughly the same age as their husbands.[200] Tacitus, however, had never visited the German-speaking lands and most of his information on Germania comes from secondary sources. In addition, Anglo-Saxon women, like those of other Germanic tribes, are marked as women from the age of twelve onward, based on archaeological finds, implying that the age of marriage coincided with puberty.[201] Evidence of Germanic patriarchy is evident later in the 7th century AD Edict of Rothari of the Lombards which stated that women were not allowed to live of their own freewill and that they had to be subject to a man and if no one else, they were to be "under the power of the king".[202] For Germanic women of later antiquity, marriage obviously had its appeal given their reduced status otherwise.

For Germanic kings, warrior chieftains, senators and Roman nobility, a certain degree of intermarriage was undertaken to strengthen their ties to one another and to the Empire, making marriage or connubium as the Romans connoted the bond, an instrument of politics.[203] Earlier treaty terms in the late 4th century AD had forbidden "foreign" Goths to intermarry with Romans.[204] Some of the marriage attempts of the 6th century AD were deliberately planned for the sake of royal succession. Imperial policy had to be carefully charted between the Roman-Germanic claimants to kingship and the maintenance of Roman imperial administration as the federated Germanic kings attempted to put their stamp on Roman rule and replace Roman armies with their own warriors. Roman leaders were not oblivious to the clever tactics (intermarriage and offspring) employed by Germanic chieftains and adopted creative treaties to either appease them or temper their ambitions.[205]


Roman bronze figurine depicting praying German with a Suebian knot.

Prior to the Middle Ages, Germanic peoples followed what is now referred to as Germanic paganism: "a system of interlocking and closely interrelated religious worldviews and practices rather than as one indivisible religion" and as such consisted of "individual worshippers, family traditions and regional cults within a broadly consistent framework".[206] It was polytheistic in nature, with some underlying similarities to other Indo-Germanic traditions. Nevertheless, there is little cultural uniformity among the Germanic people concerning religion. Archaeological findings suggest that the Germanic barbarians practiced some of the same 'spiritual' rituals as the Celts, including human sacrifice, divination, and the belief in spiritual connection with the natural environment around them.[207] Germanic priestesses were feared by the Romans, as these tall women with glaring eyes, wearing flowing white gowns often wielded a knife for sacrificial offerings. Captives might have their throats cut and be bled into giant cauldrons or have their intestines opened up and the entrails thrown to the ground for prophetic readings.[208] Spiritual rituals frequently occurred in consecrated groves or upon islands on lakes where perpetual fires burned.[209]

Many of the deities found in Germanic paganism appeared under similar names across the Germanic peoples, most notably the god known to the Germans as Wodan or Wotan, to the Anglo-Saxons as Woden, and to the Norse as Óðinn, as well as the god Thor – known to the Germans as Donar, to the Anglo-Saxons as Þunor and to the Norse as Þórr. Pagan beliefs amid the Germanic tribes were reported by some of the earlier Roman historians and in the 6th century AD another instance of this appears when the Byzantine historian and poet, Agathias, remarked that the Alamannic religion was "solidly and unsophisticatedly pagan."[210] Christianity had no relevance for the pagan barbarians until their contact and integration with Rome.[211]

While the Germanic peoples were slowly converted to Christianity by varying means, many elements of the pre-Christian culture and indigenous beliefs remained firmly in place after the conversion process, particularly in the more rural and distant regions. Of particular note is the survival of the pagan fascination with the forest in the retention of Christmas tree even today. Many of the Germanic tribes actually revered forests as sacred places and left them unmolested. Conversion to Christianity broke this pagan obsession with protecting the forest in some locations and allowed once migrant tribes to settle in places where they previously refused to cultivate the soil or chop down trees based on religious belief. To that end, the Christianisation of Germanic peoples facilitated the clearing of forests and therewith provided "a broad and stable basis for the medieval economy of Central Europe" by leveraging the vast forest resources available to them.[212] The Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals were Christianized while they were still outside the bounds of the Empire; however, they converted to Arianism rather than orthodox Catholicism, and were soon regarded as heretics.[213] The one great written remnant of the Gothic language is a translation of portions of the Bible made by Ulfilas, the missionary who converted them.[214] Goths, Vandals, and other Germanic peoples often offered political resistance prior to their conversion to Christianity.[215] The Lombards were not converted until after their entrance into the Empire, but received Christianity from Arian Germanic groups sometime during the 5th century.[216]

Paganism and Christianity were still being practiced across the empire when Constantine died in AD 337, despite his conversion; he did however ban pagan rituals at select religious temples.[217] Sometime between AD 391–392, the barbarian king Theodosius I made an official proclamation which outlawed pagan religions in his region of influence with various successors like Justinian doing likewise.[217] The Franks were converted directly from paganism to Catholicism under the leadership of Clovis in about AD 496 without an intervening time as Arians.[218] Eventually the Gothic tribes turned away from their Arian faith and in AD 589 converted to Catholicism.[219] Several centuries later, Anglo-Saxon and Frankish missionaries and warriors undertook the conversion of their Saxon neighbors. A key event was the felling of Thor's Oak near Fritzlar by Boniface, apostle of the Germans, in AD 723. When Thor failed to strike Boniface dead after the oak hit the ground, the Franks were amazed and began their conversion to the Christian faith.[t]

Eventually for many Germanic tribes, the conversion to Christianity was achieved by armed force, successfully completed by Charlemagne, in a series of campaigns (the Saxon Wars), that also brought Saxon lands into the Frankish empire.[220] Massacres, such as the Bloody Verdict of Verden, where as many as 4500 people were beheaded according to one of Charlemagne's chroniclers, were a direct result of this policy.[221]



Distribution of Y-chromosomal haplogroup I1a in Europe.

It is suggested by geneticists that the movements of Germanic peoples has had a strong influence upon the modern distribution of the male lineage represented by the Y-DNA haplogroup I1, which is believed to have originated with one man, who lived approximately 4,000 to 6,000 years somewhere in Northern Europe, possibly modern Denmark (see Most Recent Common Ancestor for more information). There is evidence of this man's descendants settling in all of the areas that Germanic tribes are recorded as having subsequently invaded or migrated to.[223][u] However, it is quite possible that Haplogroup I1 is pre-Germanic, that is I1 may have originated with individuals who adopted the proto-Germanic culture, at an early stage of its development or were co-founders of that culture. Should that earliest Proto-Germanic speaking ancestor be found, his Y-DNA would most likely be an admixture of the aforementioned I1, but would also contain R1a1a, R1b-P312 and R1b-U106, a genetic combination of the haplogroups found among current Germanic speaking peoples.[224]

Haplogroup I1 accounts for approximately 40% of Icelandic males, 40%–50% of Swedish males, 40% of Norwegian males, and 40% of Danish Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups. Haplogroup I1 peaks in certain areas of Northern Germany and Eastern England at more than 30%. Haplogroup R1b and haplogroup R1a collectively account for more than 40% of males in Sweden; over 50% in Norway, 60% in Iceland, 60–70% in Germany, and between 50%–70% of the males in England and the Netherlands depending on region.[225] However this might simply be because of more ancient similar settlement patterns of pre-Germanic, Celtic and certainly pre-Roman, populations once established, are often difficult to change and that post-agriculture populations became more fixed and genes often don't correspond necessarily to either language or culture. Nonetheless, the presence of R1b-P312 and R1b-L21 among the modern Germanic speaking population is reflective of the Germanic presence in former Celtic regions in the Alps, the Netherlands, and lowland Britain where they likely absorbed people along the way.[226] Peaking in northern Europe, the R1b-U106 marker seems particular interesting in distribution and provides some helpful genetic clues regarding the historical trek made by the Germanic people.[227]

Modern Germanic peoples include the Afrikaners, Austrians, Danes, Dutch, English, Flemish, Frisians, Germans, Icelanders, Lowland Scots, Norwegians, and Swedes.[228][229]

Germanic antiquity in later historiography

The Renaissance revived interest in pre-Christian Classical Antiquity and only in a second phase in pre-Christian Northern Europe.[230] The Germanic peoples of the Roman era are often lumped with the other agents of the "barbarian invasions", the Alans and the Huns, as opposed to the civilized "Roman" identity of the Holy Roman Empire.[231]


The pace of publication increased during the 17th century with Latin translations of the Edda (notably Peder Resen's Edda Islandorum of 1665). The Viking revival of 18th century Romanticism finally establishes the fascination with anything "Nordic".[234] The beginning of Germanic philology proper begins in the early 19th century, with Rasmus Rask's Icelandic Lexicon of 1814, and was in full bloom by the 1830s, with Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie giving an extensive account of reconstructed Germanic mythology and his Deutsches Wörterbuch of Germanic etymology.[235] Apart from linguistic studies, the subject of what became of the Roman era Germanic tribes, and how they influenced the Middle Ages and the development of modern Western culture was a subject discussed in the Enlightenment by such as writers as Montesquieu and Giambattista Vico.



See also


  3. ^ The Cherusci people are the progenitors of Arminius, who once a Roman general, betrayed his erstwhile Roman legions by attacking them using the combined forces of Germanic tribes in 9 AD at Teutoberg Forest, a move which ended the Roman Empire's efforts to expand east of the Rhine.[23]



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  223. ^ Genographic Project of National Geographic
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  235. ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 912.

Bibliography and further reading

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External links