Goths

This article is about the Germanic tribes. For the late 20th century youth subculture, see Goth. "Gothic" has various other applications, some of them relating to Goths.

The Goths were an East Germanic tribe which according to their own traditions originated in Scandinavia (specifically Gotland and Götaland). They migrated southwards and conquered parts of the Roman empire. Two closely related tribes, the Gutar and the Götar, who remained in Scandinavia and are often called GothsTemplate:Fn, are separately treated, as Gotlanders and Geats respectively.

File:Illus0381.jpg

Invasion of the Goths: a late 19th century painting by O. Fritsche portrays the Goths as cavalrymen.

History

Our only source for early Gothic history is Jordanes' Getica, (published 551), a condensation of the lost twelve-volume history of the Goths written in Italy by Cassiodorus. Jordanes may not even have had the work at hand to consult from, and this early information should be treated with caution. Cassiodorus was well placed to write of Goths, for he was an essential minister of Theodoric the Great, who apparently had heard some of the Gothic songs that told of their traditional origins, related in turn by Jordanes with the remark "for so the story is generally told in their early songs, in almost historic fashion." The Gothic bards accompanied themselves on a stringed instrument that Latin writers associated with the cithara, which was more familiar to them.

They were settled for some time in the Vistula Basin (called Gothiscandza by Jordanes), whence they migrated towards the south-east. They battled with, and temporarily subjugated, the ancestors of the Slavs (there were many Gothic loanwords in proto-Slavic), who lived between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea and ultimately settled in 'Scythia' a vast undefined region that includes modern Ukraine and Belarus (called Oium by Jordanes). A united tribe until the third century, it was during that period that they split into the eastern Goths or Ostrogoths and the western Goths or Visigoths.

Though many of the fighting nomads who followed them were to prove more bloody, the Goths were feared because the captives they took in battle were sacrificed to their god of war, Tyz [1](the one-Handed Tyr), and the captured arms hung in trees as a token-offering. Their kings and priests came from a separate aristocracy, according to Cassiodorus/Jordanes, and their mythic kings of ancient times were honored as gods. Their mythic lawgiver, named Deceneus, traditionally dated about the 1st century BC, ordered their laws, which they possessed by the 6th century in written form and called belagines.

A force of Goths launched one of the first major "barbarian" invasions of the Roman Empire in 267 (Hermannus Contractus, quoting Eusebius, has "263: Macedonia, Graecia, Pontus, Asia et aliae provinciae depopulantur per Gothos"). A year later, they suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Naissus and were driven back across the Danube River by 271. This group then settled on the other side of the Danube from Roman territory and established an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia, as the Visigoths. In the meantime, the Goths still in Ukraine established a vast and powerful kingdom along the Black Sea. This group became known as the Ostrogoths.

The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early sixth century under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom for nearly two decades.

For the later history of the Goths, see Visigoths and Ostrogoths.

Origins

Explaining the origins of the Goths, Jordanes recounted:

The same mighty sea has also in its arctic region, that is in the north, a great island named Scandza, from which my tale (by God's grace) shall take its beginning. For the race whose origin you ask to know burst forth like a swarm of bees from the midst of this island and came into the land of Europe. [...] Now from this island of Scandza, as from a hive of races or a womb of nations, the Goths are said to have come forth long ago under their king, Berig by name. As soon as they disembarked from their ships and set foot on the land, they straightway gave their name to the place. And even to-day it is said to be called Gothiscandza. Soon they moved from here to the abodes of the Ulmerugi [ Rugians ], who then dwelt on the shores of Ocean, where they pitched camp, joined battle with them and drove them from their homes.

In the 1st century, Tacitus located the Gothones in Northern Poland:

Beyond the Lygians dwell the Gothones, under the rule of a king; and thence held in subjection somewhat stricter than the other German[ic] nations, yet not so strict as to extinguish all their liberty. Immediately adjoining are the Rugians and Lemovians upon the coast of the ocean, and of these several nations the characteristics are a round shield, a short sword and kingly government.

Due to the central role that the Goths have played in history, their origins have been discussed for a long time. Although no alternative theory has been proposed for the appearance of Germanic tribes in northern Poland, some historians have expressed doubts that the Goths originated in Scandinavia. This is due to the fact that, disregarding Jordanes, the earliest literary evidence for the Goths (Tacitus and Pliny the Elder) puts them at the Vistula in 1st century AD.

On the other hand, the German scholar Wenskus has pointed out that if Jordanes had wanted to invent a fictive past for the Goths, he would have claimed that they were descended from a prestigious ___location such as Troy or Rome. He would not have placed their origins in the barbaric North. Moreover, he was writing for fellow Goths who were familiar with their traditions. Besides Jordanes' account, there is both linguistic and archaeological support for the Scandinavian origin.

Archaeology

The green area is the traditional extent of Götaland and the dark pink area is the island of Gotland. The red area is the extent of the Wielbark Culture in the early 3rd century, and the orange area is the Chernyakhov Culture, in the early 4th century. The dark blue area is the Roman Empire

In Poland, the earliest material culture identified with the Goths is the Wielbark Culture [2], which replaced the local Oksywie culture in the 1st century AD. However, as early as the late Nordic Bronze Age and early Pre-Roman Iron Age (ca 1300 BC - ca 300 BC), this area had influences from southern Scandinavia [3]. In fact, the Scandinavian influence on Pomerania and northern Poland from ca 1300 BC (period III) and onwards was so considerable that this region is sometimes included in the Nordic Bronze Age culture (Dabrowski 1989:73). During the period ca 600 BC - ca 300 BC the warm and dry climate of southern Scandinavia (2-3 degrees warmer than today) deteriorated considerably, which not only dramatically changed the flora, but forced people to change their way of living and to leave settlements.

The Goths are believed to have crossed the Baltic Sea sometime between the end of this period, ca 300 BC, and AD 100, and in the traditional province of Ostrogothia, in Sweden, archaeological evidence shows that there was a general depopulation during this period. The settlement in Poland probably corresponds to the introduction of Scandinavian burial traditions, such as the stone circles and the stelae, which indicates that the early Goths preferred to bury their dead according to Scandinavian traditions. The Polish archaeologist Tomasz Skorupka states that a migration from Scandinavia is regarded as a matter of certainty:

File:Stonecircle.JPG

The stone circle was one of the Scandinavian burial traditions used by the Goths in Pomerania

Despite many controversial hypotheses regarding the ___location of Scandia (for example, in the island of Gotlandia and the provinces of Västergotland and Östergotland), the fact that the Goths arrived on Polish land from the North after crossing the Baltic Sea by boats is certain.[4]

However, the Gothic culture also appears to have had continuity from earlier cultures in the area[5], suggesting that the immigrants mixed with earlier populations, perhaps providing their separate aristocracy. The Oxford scholar Heather suggests that it was a relatively small migration from Scandinavia (1996:25). This scenario would make their migration across the Baltic similar to many other population movements in history, such as the Anglo-Saxon Invasion, where migrants have imposed their own culture and language on an indigenous one. The Wielbark culture shifted south-eastwards towards the Black Sea area from the mid-2nd century, and interestingly it was oldest part of the Wielbark culture, located west of the Vistula and which had Scandinavian burial traditions, that pulled up its stakes and moved[6]. In the Ukraine, they imposed themselves as the rulers of the local, probably Slavic, Zarubintsy culture forming the new Chernyakhov Culture (ca 200 - ca 400).

There is archaeological and historical evidence of continued contacts between the Goths and the Scandinavians during their migrations.

Linguistics

According to at least one theory, there are closer linguistic connections between Gothic and Old Norse than between Gothic and the West Germanic languages (see East Germanic languages and Gothic). Moreover, there were two tribes that probably are closely related to the Goths and remained in Scandinavia, the Gotlanders and the Geats, and these tribes were considered to be Goths by Jordanes (see Scandza).

The names Geats, Goths and Gutar are closely related tribal names. Geat was originally Proto-Germanic *Gautoz and Goths and Gutar were *Gutaniz. According to Andersson (1996), *Gautoz and *Gutaniz are two ablaut grades of a Proto-Germanic word (*geutan) with the meaning "to pour" (modern Swedish gjuta, modern German giessen) designating the tribes as "pourers of semen", i.e. "men, people". Interestingly, Gapt, the earliest Gothic hero, recorded by Jordanes, is generally regarded as a corruption of Gaut. ´

A compound name, *Gut-þiuda, the "Gothic people", appears in the Gothic Calendar (aikklesjons fullaizos ana gutþiudai gabrannidai). Besides the Goths, this way of naming a tribe is only found in Sweden (see Suiones and Suiþioð).

Gut- is identical to that of Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea, and its inhabitans the Gutar (Gotlanders). The number of similarities that existed between the Gothic language and Old Gutnish, made the prominent linguist Elias Wessén consider Old Gutnish to be a form of Gothic. The most famous example is that both Gutnish and Gothic used the word lamb for both young and adult sheep. Still, some claim that Gutnish is not closer to Gothic than any other Germanic dialect.

The fact is that virtually all of those phonetic and grammatical features that characterize the North Germanic languages as a separate branch of the Germanic language family (not to mention the features that distinguish various Norse dialects) seem to have evolved at a later stage than the one preserved in Gothic. Gothic in turn, while being an extremely archaic form of Germanic in most respects, has nevertheless developed a certain number of unique features that it shares with no other Germanic language (see Gothic language).

However, this does not exclude the possibility of the Goths, the Gotlanders and the Geats being related as tribes. Similarly, the Saxon dialects of Germany are hardly closer to Anglo-Saxon than any other West Germanic language that hasn't undergone the High German consonant shift (see Grimm's law), but the tribes themselves are definitely identical. The Jutes (Dan. jyder) of Jutland (Dan. Jylland, in Western Danmark) are at least etymologically identical to the Jutes that came from that region and invaded Britain together with the Angles and the Saxons in the 5th century AD. Nevertheless, there are no remaining written sources to associate the Jutes of Jutlandia with anything but North Germanic dialects, or the Jutes of Britain with anything but West Germanic dialects. Thus, language is not always the best criterion for tribal or ethnic tradition and continuity.

Interestingly, the Gotlanders (Gutar) did have oral traditions of a mass migration towards southern Europe written down in the Gutasaga. If the facts are related, that would be a unique case of a tradition that survived in more than a thousand years and that actually pre-dates most of the major splits in the Germanic language family.

Symbolic meaning

In Medieval and Modern Spain, the Visigoths were thought to be the origin of the Spanish nobility (compare Gobineau for a similar French idea). Somebody acting with arrogance would be said to be "haciéndose de los godos" ("making himself to come from the Goths"). Because of this, in Chile, Argentina and the Canary Islands, godo is an ethnic slur used against European Spaniards, who in the early colony period would feel superior to the Creoles.

This claim of Gothic origins led to a clash with the Swedish delegation at the Council of Basel, 1434. Before the assembled cardinals and delegations could undertake the theological discussions, they had to decide how to sit during the proceedings. The delegations from the more prominent nations were to sit closest to the Pope, and there were also disputes about who was to have the finest chairs and who was to have their chairs on mats. In some cases they compromised so that some would have half a chair leg on the rim of a mat. In this infected conflict, the bishop of Växjö, Nicolaus Ragnvaldi claimed that the Swedes were the descendants of the great Goths, and that the people of Västergötland (Westrogothia in Latin) were the Visigoths and the people of Östergötland (Ostrogothia in Latin) were the Ostrogoths. The Spanish delegation then retorted that it was only the lazy and unenterprising Goths who had remained in Sweden, whereas the heroic Goths, on the other hand, had left Sweden, invaded the Roman empire and settled in Spain (Ergo 12-1996).

References

Andersson, Thorsten. (1996) "Göter, goter, gutar" in Journal Namn och Bygd, Uppsala.

Mastrelli, Carlo Alberto in Volker Bierbauer et al, I Goti, Milan: Electa Lombardia, Elemond Editori Associati, 1994.

Graf E.C. Oxenstierna: Die Urheimat der Goten. Leipzig, Mannus-Buecherei 73, 1945 (later printed in 1948).

Bell-Fialkoff, A.: The Role of Migration in the History of the Eurasian Steppe, London: Macmillan, 2000.

Dabrowski, J. (1989) Nordische Kreis un Kulturen Polnischer Gebiete. Die Bronzezeit im Ostseegebiet. Ein Rapport der Kgl. Schwedischen Akademie der Literatur Geschichte und Alter unt Altertumsforschung über das Julita-Symposium 1986. Ed Ambrosiani, B. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien. Konferenser 22. Stockholm.

Findeisen, Joerg-Peter: Schweden - Von den Anfaengen bis zur Gegenwart, Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1998.

Heather, Peter: The Goths (Blackwell, 1996)

Hermodsson, Lars: Goterna - ett krigafolk och dess bibel, Stockholm, Atlantis, 1993.

Kaliff, Anders: Gothic Connections. Contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast 1000 BC – 500 AD. 2001.

Nordgren, I.: The Well Spring of the Goths : About the Gothic peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent (2004)

Nordgren, I.: Goterkällan - om goterna i Norden och på kontinenten, Skara: Vaestergoetlands museums skriftserie nr 30, 2000.

Rodin, L. - Lindblom, V. - Klang, K.: Gudaträd och västgötska skottkungar - Sveriges bysantiska arv, Göteborg: Tre böcker, 1994.

Schaetze der Ostgoten, Stuttgart: Theiss, 1995. Studia Gotica - Die eisenzeitlichen Verbindungen zwischen Schweden und Suedosteuropa - Vortraege beim Gotensymposion im Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm 1970.

Tacitus: Germania, (with introduction and commentary by J.B. Rives),Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.

Wenskus, Reinhard: Stammesbildung und Verfassung. Das Werden der Frühmittelalterlichen Gentes (Köln 1961).

External links

Notes

Template:Fnb E.g. Microsoft Encarta (on Swedish history), translations from Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon or Latin and the Primary Chronicle and modern scholarly works on Germanic tribes [7].