Chattuarii

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The approximate positions of some Germanic peoples reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 1st century. Lower Rhine 10BC.png
The approximate positions of some Germanic peoples reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 1st century.
The Hettergouw at the lower Rhine in the Frankish Empire, named after the Hetware. Hettergouw.jpg
The Hettergouw at the lower Rhine in the Frankish Empire, named after the Hetware.

The Chattuarii, also spelled Attuarii, were a Germanic tribe who eventually became a part of the Franks.

Contents

They lived to the east of the Rhine delta, north of the Lippe, outside the Roman empire, but close. In the area which is now the border between Germany and the Netherlands. In the 4th century they were described as Franks tribe living at the Rhine itself in this area. Their name survived as the name of a Frankish Gau (territory), (Latin : pagus ), the pagus Hattuariensis or pagus Hetterun.

Name and language

The Chattuarri are believed to have spoken a Germanic language, and their Germanic name has been reconstructed as *Chattwarijiz by Günter Neumann.Neumann 1981 , p. 391

Modern scholars note that the Chattuarii name transparently means something like "Chatti dwellers". The second element in the name is common among Germanic peoples, especially in this region, such as Chasuarii “dwellers on the river Hase”, Ampsivarii "dwellers on the river Ems", and the Angrivarii. Scholars generally believe the name of the Chattuari can be interpreted as "inhabitants of the Chatti-lands", in parallel with the post-Roman names of the "Baiuvarii", which is typically interpreted as a name indicating that this people had once been inhabitants of the old homeland of the Boii, and the Boructuarii, who are believed to have been living where the Bructeri once lived. [1]

Wagner and Rübekeil note that the name has a Germanic ending, and is always spelled with "-tt-", not "-tth-", unlike the name of the Chatti. They therefore propose that these were Germanic speaking newcomers to the region, probably Suebi, and without the same Celtic heritage. [2] Petrikovits sees this name as evidence that Chatti had also originally lived in a more northerly region, east of the Rhine delta. [3] He noted how Dio Cassius described how the Chatti, like their offshoots the Batavi, Cananefates and Mattiaci, were assigned land by the Romans shortly before they first appear in the historical records. [4]

History

According to Velleius Paterculus, in 4 AD, the emperor Tiberius crossed the Rhine, first attacking a tribe which commentators interpret variously as the Cananefates or Chamavi, both being in the area of the modern Netherlands, then the Chattuari, and then the Bructeri between Ems and Lippe, in what is now Germany, somewhere in the west of Westphalia. [5]

In about 23 AD Strabo mentioned the Chattuari as one of the non-nomadic northern Germanic tribes in a group along with the Cherusci, the Chatti, and the Gamabrivii. He also contrasted them with other non-nomadic tribes supposedly near the Ocean, the Sugambri, the "Chaubi", the Bructeri, and the Cimbri, "and also the Cauci, the Caülci, the Campsiani". Strabo listed them among the tribes who allied under the Cherusci, and were made poor after being defeated by Germanicus. They apparently appeared at his triumph in 17 AD along with the Caülci, Campsani, Bructeri, Usipi, Cherusci, Chatti, Landi, and Tubanti.

Gallienus reigned solo from 260 to 268 AD, and during this period the document known as the Laterculus Veronensis, which was made about 314 AD, notes that the Romans lost five civitates (cities, and the countries around them) on the other side of the Rhine. The three which are legible are those of the Usipii, Tubantes, and "Gallovari". The last are generally believed to be the Chattuarii. [6]

360 AD, the Chattuari appear again in the historical record again, living on the Rhine, and one of the first tribes to be known as Franks. Ammianus Marcellinus reports that Emperor Julian, crossed the Rhine border from the Roman base at Xanten and...

...entered the district belonging to a Frank tribe, called the Attuarii, men of a turbulent character, who at that very moment were licentiously plundering the districts of Gaul. He attacked them unexpectedly while they were apprehensive of no hostile measures, but were reposing in fancied security, relying on the ruggedness and difficulty of the roads which led into their country, and which no prince within their recollection had ever penetrated. [7]

Medieval survival of the name

Under the Franks, the name of the Chattuari was used for what became two early medieval gaus on either side of the Rhine, north of the Ripuarian Franks, whose capital was in Cologne. On the eastern side, they were near the Ruhr river, and across the Rhine they settled near the Niers river, between the Maas and the Rhine, where the Romans had much earlier settled the Germanic Cugerni. This western gau (Dutch: Hettergouw, German: Hattuarien) is mentioned in the Treaty of Meerssen, in the year 870 AD. [8]

Some of them were also settled in France as laeti, lending their name to the pagus attuariorum (French Atuyer, comprising Oscheret at that time) south of Langres in the 3rd century.

The Chattuarii may also appear in the Old English poem Beowulf as "Hetwaras" where they appear to form a league together with the Hugas (who may be the Chauci) and the Frisians to fight against a Geatish raiding force from what is now Sweden. The Geats are defeated and their king Hygelac is killed. Beowulf the hero of the story is the only person to escape. According to Widsith, the Hætwera had a ruler named Hun. [9]

Notes

  1. ↑ Neumann 1981 , p. 391, Petrikovits 1981 , p. 379, Wagner 2011 , pp. 278–279, Jungandreas 1981 , p. 378, but contrast with Lanting & van der Plicht 2010 , p. 62 who think there must have been a geographical term "Chatti"
  2. ↑ Wagner 2011 , pp. 278–279, Rübekeil 2002 , pp. 1242, 1247
  3. ↑ Petrikovits 1981, p. 379.
  4. ↑ Petrikovits 1981 , pp. 379–380 citing Dio Cassius, Roman History, 54.36.3.
  5. ↑ Lanting & van der Plicht 2010 , p. 62 citing Velleius Paterculus, 2, 105
  6. ↑ Liccardo, Salvatore (2023), Old Names, New Peoples: Listing Ethnonyms in Late Antiquity, Brill, doi:10.1163/9789004686601, ISBN   978-90-04-68660-1
  7. ↑ Marcellinus, Ammianus, "XX.10.2", Roman History
  8. ↑ Nonn 1983, pp. 744ff.
  9. ↑ Petrikovits 1981b.

Bibliography

See also

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