The list of early Germanic peoples is a register of ancient Germanic cultures, tribal groups, and other alliances of Germanic tribes and civilisations in ancient times. This information comes from various ancient historical documents, beginning in the 2nd century BC and extending into late antiquity. By the Early Middle Ages, early forms of kingship had begun to have a historical impact across Europe, with the exception of Northern Europe, where influences from the Vendel Period (from AD 550 to 800) and the subsequent Viking Age (until AD 1050) can be seen in the Germanic context.
The associations and locations of the numerous peoples and groups in ancient sources are often subject to heavy uncertainty and speculation, and classifications of ethnicity regarding a common culture or a temporary alliance of heterogeneous groups are disputed. It is uncertain whether certain groups are Germanic in the broader linguistic sense or whether they consisted of speakers of a Germanic language.
The names listed below are not terms for ethnic groups in any modern sense but the names of groups that were perceived in ancient and late antiquity as Germanic. It is essentially an inventory of peoples, groups, alliances and associations stretching from the Barbaricum region east of the Rhine to the north of the Danube (also known as Germania), especially those that arrived during the Migration Period.
Settlement area reconstruction of Germanic tribes in the Provincial Roman Period
This section needs expansionwith: more Germanic tribes and more information about them like their ancient names (in Greek and Latin), descriptions, locations and sources, and more references (footnotes), like it was on the older revisions of this article in English. You can help by adding to it. (January 2018)
The first column contains the English name and its variants, if one is common, otherwise the traditional ancient name. The second column contains ancient names of Latin and Greek authors, the latter both in transcription and in Greek. The third column gives a brief description followed by a location.
The fifth column gives important sources of tradition for the group in question. The few main ancient sources for names and location of Germanic tribes are not linked. These are:
From various Elbe Germanic tribes, among them probably Suebian tribes, armies and followers from the 3rd century on population group, which emerged from provincial Roman soil (Agri decumates)
Along with the Teutons and Ambrones after 120 BC incidence in Gaul and Italy
Originally probably Himmerland, Jutland. Most consider this tribe a confederation of Northern German Celtic tribes before their defeat against the Romans. If Celtic most likely a Q-Celtic speaking people.
Collective name for the Northern European Germanic tribes, which undertook raids in the 8th and 11th century to the south (England, Ireland, Francia, Sicily and the Mediterranean, present-day Russia), also synonymous with the Vikings
Possibly a mistaken transliteration of the Greek name Ούίρουνοι = Oúírounoi; O and not Q, mistaken O for a Q? Initial Greek Ou = W; Viruni in Latin; possibly a variant of Varini? Ουαρίνοι – Ouarínoi = Warínoi
Similar to the Vikings' and Normans' name for the northern European Germanic people, who came on their journeys into contact with Slavic peoples (there also as Rus') and over the Volga and the Black Sea to Byzantium
Some sources also give a date of 750 BC for the earliest expansion out of southern Scandinavia and northern Germany along the North Sea coast towards the mouth of the Rhine.Map 3: One proposed theory for approximate distribution of the primary Germanic dialect groups, and matching peoples, in Europe around the year 1 AD: North Germanic peoples:
Finnaithae (old name for Finnveden, the name derives from an old Germanic word for hunters – finn, they were not necessarily Finnic or Saami) (they lived in Finnveden, Western Småland)
Hocings (tribe or clan of Hnæf, son of Hoc Healfdene – Hoc, the Half Dane, mentioned by Widsith, may have been the same chieftain known as Haki by the Norsemen, mentioned in the Ynglinga Saga)
Doelir (possibly a tribe that lived inland, in the valleys of Dalen, Telemark, Tokke, Telemark, many of the counties were based on older tribal lands or territories)
Firdir (tribe that lived in today's Sogn og Fjordane county, Firdafylke was one of two historic counties, many of the counties were based on older tribal lands or territories)
Horðar (in Hordaland, known before as Hordafylke, many of the counties were based on older tribal lands or territories) (not originating from the Charudes/Harudes in Jutland)
Vikings (in the Western Europe) / Varangians (in the Eastern Europe) (generic word for warriors, marauders and traders of Scandinavian or Norse i.e. North Germanic origin that went to or returned from other lands regardless of the tribe, they were not a specific Norse tribe or a Norse ethnic group, their arising in History is called Viking Age) (they contributed to the formation of the Rus’ people and Kievan Rus' loose federation that was ruled by the VarangianRurik dynasty) / Ascomanni (name for the Vikings by Adam of Bremen)
Old Swabians (Danube Suebi that migrated westward) (they had a close relation with the Upper Rhine Alemanni and were descendants from common ancestors but they migrated in an East towards West migration route through the Danube from what is today's Moravia and from there from the Elbe basin in even older times, until they settled in Swabia) (ancestors of Swabian German speakers)
Sedusii (a Germanic tribe that dwelled across the eastern region of the Rhine river and was part of the Suebic tribal confederation, mentioned by Julius Caesar)
Eudoses / Eutes / Euthiones (ancestors of the Jutes or a variant name of "Jutes"; Eutes > Iutes > Yutes > Jutes) (Endoses? possibly a variant of the name "Eudoses")
Holtsaetan / Holtsaeten / Holtsati / Holsatians / Holcetae (Holt Saetan – "Forest / Wood Settlement" or "Forest / Wood Settlers" – from which Holstein originate its name, and not from "Forest Stone"[18]) (a Nordalbingian tribe, North of the Elbe river, part of the Saxon tribal confederation)
Salii / Salians (before formation of the Franks) (originally they only inhabited the northern Low Rhine area, in Salland) (later, those that stayed in Salland, were conquered and assimilated by the Saxons)
Salian Franks (originally they inhabited the northern Low Rhine area, specifically today's Salland, later they expanded in the Low Countries, and most stayed there; even later, many migrated outside Eastern Austrasia, that included Rhineland, and beyond Silva Carbonaria and the Arduenna Silva, outside the original area of Frankish settlement where Gallo-Romans were the majority, scattered throughout the territory of the Kingdom of the Franks, roughly today's France, especially the northern regions, Western Austrasia and Neustria, they were later assimilated by the Gallo-Roman majority) (later, those that stayed in Salland, were conquered and assimilated by the Saxons)
Daliterni (mentioned solely by Avienius in his 6th c. Ora maritima as a tribe on the river Rhône;[20] they have been connected to the Dala, a Rhôhne tributary flowing through Leuk, and to the better attested Veragri, a Gallic tribe located in present-day Switzerland, in the Valaiscanton; without naming the Daliterni, Livy refers to tribes in Valais as gentes semigermanae, i.e. half-Germanic peoples)[21]
Germani Cisrhenani / Tungri? (a collective name for 7 tribes) (names' etymologies of many of the tribes were Celtic; Belgic people? Chiefs anthroponyms were also Celtic)
Many of the authors relating ethnic names of Germanic peoples speculated concerning their origin, from the earliest writers to approximately the Renaissance. One cross-cultural approach over this more than a millennium of historical speculation was to assign an eponymous ancestor of the same name as, or reconstructed from, the name of the people. For example, Hellen was the founder of the Hellenes.
Although some Enlightenment historians continued to repeat these ancient stories as though fact, today they are recognised as manifestly mythological. There was, for example, no Franko, or Francio, ancestor of the Franks. The convergence of data from history, linguistics and archaeology have made this conclusion inevitable. A list of the mythical founders of Germanic peoples follows.
↑ Heinrich Beck et al. (editor): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. volume 36/37 (register volume 1 and 2): Authors, keywords, subject index, abbreviations, 2nd edition. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN978-3-11-019146-2, p. 20 ff.; "PDF; 499 kB"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 23 September 2013. Retrieved 2013-09-21.. In: degruyter.com, Retrieved 5 December 2017.
1 2 Cornelius Tacitus: Germania. Transmitted and explained by Arno Mauersberger. VMA-Verlag, Wiesbaden [1981?], p. 142, DNB-IDN810365324 (Latin, German; licensed edition of Dieterich's publishing house accountant, Leipzig).
↑ Maurits Gysseling: Toponymisch Woordenboek van België, Nederland, Luxemburg, Noord-Frankrijk en West-Duitsland. Ghent 1960, DNB-IDN560536216, p. 956 (kantl.be, Retrieved 5 December 2017; Dutch).
↑ L. S.: Visbu´rgii. In: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. 2 volumes. Edited by William Smith. Walton and Maberly, John Murray, London 1854, OCLC1000689106 (perseus.tufts.edu, Retrieved 5 December 2017).
↑ Kinder, Hermann (1988), Penguin Atlas of World History, vol.I, London: Penguin, p.108, ISBN0-14-051054-0 .
↑ James Westfall-Thompson, Feudal Germany (1928), p. 167ff. ("Old Saxony" chapter).
↑ "For the Saxon “nation” was really a loose collection of clans of kindred stock." in James Westfall-Thompson, Feudal Germany (1928), p. 167ff. ("Old Saxony" chapter).
↑ James Westfall-Thompson, Feudal Germany (1928), p. 167ff. ("Old Saxony" chapter).
↑ James Westfall-Thompson, Feudal Germany (1928), p. 167ff. ("Old Saxony" chapter).
↑ "For the Saxon “nation” was really a loose collection of clans of kindred stock. For example, the Nordalbingians alone were divided into lesser groups: Holsteiners, Sturmarii, Bardi, and the men of Ditmarsch." in James Westfall-Thompson, Feudal Germany (1928), p. 167ff. ("Old Saxony" chapter).
↑ Johnson, Charles F. (1899). English Words. Harper & Brothers – via Internet Archive.
The Angles were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name, which probably derives from the Angeln peninsula, is the root of the name England, as well as ultimately the word English for its people and language. According to Tacitus, writing around 100 AD, a people known as Angles (Anglii) lived beyond the Lombards and Semnones, who lived near the River Elbe.
The Jutes were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the departure of the Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic nations, along with the Angles and the Saxons:
Those who came over were of the three most powerful nations of Germany—Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, and those also in the province of the West Saxons who are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight.
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literature date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland.
The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were the Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony which became a Carolingian "stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like them, Germanic-speaking, including the Franks and Thuringians to the south. The Frisians to the west, and the Angles and other German-speaking peoples to their northeast, were among the peoples who were originally referred to as "Saxons" in the context of early raiding and settlements in Roman Britain and Gaul. To their east were Obotrites and other Slavic-speaking peoples.
The Suebi were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names such as the Marcomanni, Quadi, Hermunduri, Semnones, and Lombards. New groupings formed later, such as the Alamanni and Bavarians, and two kingdoms in the Migration Period were simply referred to as Suebian.
Wends is a historical name for Slavs who inhabited present-day northeast Germany. It refers not to a homogeneous people, but to various people, tribes or groups depending on where and when it was used. In the modern day, communities identifying as Wendish exist in Slovenia, Austria, Lusatia, the United States, and Australia.
The Irminones, also referred to as Herminones or Hermiones, were a large group of early Germanic tribes settling in the Elbe watershed and by the first century AD expanding into Bavaria, Swabia, and Bohemia. Notably this included the large sub-group of the Suevi, that itself contained many different tribal groups, but the Irminones also included for example the Chatti.
The Norsemen were a North Germanic linguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the predecessor of the modern Germanic languages of Scandinavia. During the late eighth century, Scandinavians embarked on a large-scale expansion in all directions, giving rise to the Viking Age. In English-language scholarship since the 19th century, Norse seafaring traders, settlers and warriors have commonly been referred to as Vikings. Historians of Anglo-Saxon England distinguish between Norse Vikings (Norsemen) from Norway, who mainly invaded and occupied the islands north and north-west of Britain, as well as Ireland and western Britain, and Danish Vikings, who principally invaded and occupied eastern Britain.
The Geats, sometimes called Goths, were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited Götaland in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the Late Middle Ages. They are one of the progenitor groups of modern Swedes, along with the tribes of Swedes and Gutes. The name of the Geats also lives on in the Swedish provinces of Västergötland and Östergötland, the western and eastern lands of the Geats, and in many other toponyms.
The Swedes were a North Germanic tribe who inhabited Svealand in central Sweden and one of the progenitor groups of modern Swedes, along with Geats and Gutes. They had their tribal centre in Gamla Uppsala.
The Ingaevones were a Germanic cultural group living in the Northern Germania along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Lower Saxony in classical antiquity. Tribes in this area included the Angles, Chauci, Saxons, and Jutes.
The Danes were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting southern Scandinavia, including the area now comprising Denmark proper, northern and eastern England, and the Scanian provinces of modern-day southern Sweden, during the Nordic Iron Age and the Viking Age. They founded what became the Kingdom of Denmark. The name of their realm is believed to mean "Danish March", viz. "the march of the Danes", in Old Norse, referring to their southern border zone between the Eider and Schlei rivers, known as the Danevirke.
The Varini, Warni or Warini were one or more Germanic peoples who originally lived in what is now northeastern Germany, near the Baltic Sea.
The Dulgubnii are a Germanic tribe mentioned in Tacitus' Germania as living in what is today northwest Germany. Tacitus describes them being to the north of the Angrivarii and Chamavi, and as having moved from the north into the area once belonging to the Bructeri, between Ems, Lippe, and Weser. In this same area as the Dulgubnii, north of the Chamavi and Angrivarii, were the Chasuarii, and north of these, on the North Sea coast, where the Chauci. The Chasuarii's name is thought to derive from the River Hase which feeds into the middle of the Ems from the east, just northwest of the area associated with the Angrivarii, on the Weser. So from Tacitus, it appears that the Dulgubnii probably lived near the Weser.
Old Saxony was the homeland of the Saxons during the Early Middle Ages. It corresponds roughly to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, eastern part of modern North Rhine-Westphalia state (Westphalia), Nordalbingia and western Saxony-Anhalt (Eastphalia), which all lie in northwestern Germany. It had four provinces: Nordalbingia, Eastphalia, Westphalia and Angria, these provinces, in turn, were divided into smaller territories, the gaue, which are equivalent to modern Districts of Germany (Kreise), and were equivalent to the English shires.
The Angles were a dominant Germanic tribe in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and gave their name to the English, England and to the region of East Anglia. Originally from Angeln, present-day Schleswig-Holstein, a legendary list of their kings has been preserved in the heroic poems Widsith and Beowulf, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
The Kingdom of the East Angles, informally known as the Kingdom of East Anglia, was a small independent kingdom of the Angles during the Anglo-Saxon period comprising what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Fens, the area still known as East Anglia.
North Germanic peoples, Nordic peoples and in a medieval context Norsemen, were a Germanic linguistic group originating from the Scandinavian Peninsula. They are identified by their cultural similarities, common ancestry and common use of the Proto-Norse language from around 200 AD, a language that around 800 AD became the Old Norse language, which in turn later became the North Germanic languages of today.
A number of royal genealogies of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, collectively referred to as the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, have been preserved in a manuscript tradition based in the 8th to 10th centuries.
Otto Bremer: Ethnographie der germanischen Stämme. In: Hermann Paul (editor): Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie. volume 2, part 1: Literaturgeschichte. 2nd, improved and enlarged edition. Karl Trübner Verlag, Strasbourg 1900, pp.735–930.
Günter Neumann: Namenstudien zum Altgermanischen (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde – Ergänzungsbände. volume 59). Edited by Heinrich Hettrich, Astrid van Nahl. de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2008, ISBN978-3-11-021044-6, urn:nbn:de:101:1-2016061717834.
Ludwig Rübekeil: Völkernamen Europas. In: Ernst Eichler et al. (editor): Namenforschung. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Onomastik. volume 2, de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 1996, ISBN3-11-020343-X, pp.1330–1343.
Moritz Schönfeld: Wörterbuch der altgermanischen Personen- und Völkernamen nach der Überlieferung des klassischen Altertums (= Germanische Bibliothek. department 1: Elementar- und Handbücher. series 4: Wörterbücher. volume 2). Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 1911, DNB-IDN362646430; Reprints each as 2nd, unchanged edition: (= Germanische Bibliothek. series 3 [much 2]). Winter, Heidelberg 1965, DNB-IDN454448473; Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1965, DNB-IDN454448465.
Reinhard Wenskus: Stammesbildung und Verfassung. Das Werden der frühmittelalterlichen gentes. 2nd, unchanged edition. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne/Vienna 1977, ISBN3-412-00177-5.
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