Goths

in Ravenna.]] The Goths (Gothic: *Gutans) were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe, who played an important role in the history of the Roman Empire after they appeared on its lower Danube frontier in the third century.

The first recorded incursion of Goths into the Roman Empire took place in 238. Written records about the Goths prior to this date are scarce, the most important source is Jordanes’ 6th-century, semi-fictional Getica which describes a migration from Scandza, believed to be located somewhere in modern Götaland (Sweden), to Gothiscandza, which is believed to be the lower Vistula region in modern Pomerania (Poland), and from there to the coast of the Black Sea (Scythia, now Ukraine, Romania and Moldova). The Pomeranian Wielbark culture and the Chernyakhov culture northeast of the lower Danube are widely believed to be the archaeological traces of this migration.

During the third and fourth centuries, the Goths were divided into at least two distinct groups, the Thervingi and the Greuthungi, separated by the Dniester River. They repeatedly attacked the Roman Empire during the Gothic war of 375–82. In the late fourth century, the Huns invaded the Gothic region from the east. While many Goths were subdued and integrated into the Hunnic Empire, others were pushed towards the Roman Empire and converted to Arian Christianity by the half-Gothic missionary Wulfila, who devised a Gothic alphabet to translate the Bible.

In the fifth and sixth centuries, the Goths separated into two tribes, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Both established powerful successor states of the Western Roman Empire. In Italy the Ostrogothic Kingdom established by Theodoric the Great was defeated by the forces of the Eastern Roman Empire after the Gothic war of 535–54. The fifth-century Visigothic Kingdom in Aquitaine was pushed to Hispania by the Franks in 507, converted to Catholicism by the late sixth century, and in the early eighth century fell to the Muslim Moors. While its influence continued to be felt in small ways in some west European states, the Gothic language and culture largely disappeared during the Middle Ages. In the 16th century a small remnant of a Gothic dialect was described as surviving in the Crimea.

Etymology

, south Sweden, a possible original homeland of the Goths.]] The Goths have had many names, possibly due to their population being composed of many separate ethnic groups. People known by similar names were key elements of the Germanic migrations. Nevertheless, they believed (as does the mainstream of scholarship) that the names derived from a single prehistoric ethnonym owned by a uniform culture of south Scandinavia in the middle 1st millennium BC, the original "Goths". People with a modern form of that name still reside there.

Etymologically, the ethnonym of the Goths derives from the stem Guton-", which gave Proto-Germanic *Gutaniz (also surviving in Gutar, the self-designation of the Gotlanders). Related, but not identical, is the Scandinavian tribal name Geat, from the Proto-Germanic *Gautoz (plural *Gautaz). Both *Gautoz and *Gutaniz are derived (specifically they are two ablaut grades) from the Proto-Germanic word *geutan, meaning "to pour". The Indo-European root of the "pour" derivation would be *gheu-d- as it is listed in the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD). *gheu-d- is a centum form. The AHD relies on Julius Pokorny for the same root. The ethnonym has been connected with the name of a river flowing through Västergötland in Sweden, the Göta älv, which drains Lake Vänern into the Kattegat.

Old Norse records do not distinguish between the Goths from the Gutar (Gotlanders) and both are called Gotar in Old West Norse. The Old East Norse term for both Goths and Gotlanders seems to have been Gutar (for instance, in the Gutasaga and in the runic inscription of the Rökstone). However, the Geats are clearly differentiated from the Goths, or Gutar, in both Old Norse and Old English literature.

At some time in European prehistory, consonant changes according to Grimm's Law created a *g from the *gh and a *t from the *d. This same law more or less rules out *ghedh-, The *dh in that case would become a *d instead of a *t.

According to the rules of Indo-European ablaut, the full grade (containing an *e), *gheud-, might be replaced with the zero-grade (the *e disappears), *ghud-, or the o-grade (the *e changes to an *o), *ghoud-, accounting for the various forms of the name. The zero-grade is preserved in modern times in the Lithuanian ethnonym for Belarusians, Gudai (earlier Baltic Prussian territory before Slavic conquests by about 1200 CE), and in certain Prussian towns in the territory around the Vistula River in Gothiscandza, today Poland (Gdynia, Gdansk). The use of all three grades suggests that the name derives from an Indo-European stage; otherwise, it would be from a line descending from one grade. However, when and where the ancestors of the Goths assigned this name to themselves and whether they used it in Indo-European or proto-Germanic times remain unsolved questions of historical linguistics and prehistoric archaeology.

Supporting the view against migration from the North, other scholars consider that the Lithuanian name Gudai ‘Byelorussians’ < *-dh- has nothing to do with the Goths < *-t- but must be derived from Prussian gudde ‘woods’, like the Polish place-names Gdańsk and Gdynia.

According to Jordanes’ Getica, written in the mid-6th century, the earliest migrating Goths sailed from Scandza under King Berig in three ships and named the place at which they landed after themselves. it is called Gothiscandza}} ("Scandza of the Goths"). From there they entered the land of the "Ulmerugi" (Rugii) who were spread along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, expelled them, that one shipload "dwelled in the province of Spesis on an island surrounded by the shallow waters of the Vistula." Today's Gdansk, a large city, is located at the mouth of the Vistula. However, as the terrain has changed due to the deposition of mud, archaeological efforts have been frustrated and the origin of the city remains undetermined. The city's name is generally considered to be derived from "Goth" but not necessarily from Gothiscandza. Thus, Jordanes’ story cannot be ruled out as a legend of the origin of Gdansk.

Independent confirmation of Jordanes' account requires confirmation itself in some cases: specifically, the passage attributed by Pliny to the voyager Pytheas. In this passage, Pytheas states that the "Gutones, a people of Germany," inhabit the shores of an estuary of at least 6,000 stadia (the Baltic Sea) called Mentonomon, where amber is cast up by the waves. Lehmann (mentioned above under Etymology) accepted this view but a manuscript variant states Guiones rather than Gutones. No other mention of the Guiones has yet been found.

In Pliny's only other mention of the Gutones, he states that the Vandals are one of the five races of Germany, and that the Vandals include the Burgodiones, the Varinnae, the Charini and the Gutones. The location of those Vandals is not stated, but there is a match with his contemporary Ptolemy's east German tribes. As those Gutones are put forward as Pliny's interpretation, not Pytheas’, the early date is unconfirmed, but not necessarily invalid.

Archaeological records – Wielbark Culture

. The green area is the traditional extent of Götaland. 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 purple area is the Roman Empire]] , Venedi, Gythones and Ingaevones on the right upper corner of the map Edited by Willem and Joan Blaeu, 1645.]] s]] The earliest material culture associated with the Goths on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea is the Wielbark Culture, centered around the modern region of Pomerania in northern Poland. This culture replaced the local Oksywie or Oxhöft culture in the 1st century, when a Scandinavian settlement was established in a buffer zone between the Oksywie culture and the Przeworsk culture.

This area was influenced by southern Scandinavian culture from as early as the late Nordic Bronze Age and early Pre-Roman Iron Age (ca. 1300 – ca. 300 BC). In fact, the Scandinavian influence on Pomerania and today's 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.

During the period ca. 600 – ca. 300 BC the warm, dry climate of southern Scandinavia deteriorated considerably. This dramatically changed the flora and forced people to change their way of living. Some settlements were abandoned.

The Goths are believed to have crossed the Baltic Sea sometime between the end of this period (ca 300 BC) and AD 100. Early archaeological evidence in the traditional Swedish province of Östergötland suggests a general depopulation during this period. However, this is not confirmed in more recent publications. The settlement in today's Poland may correspond to the introduction of Scandinavian burial traditions, such as the stone circles and the stelae especially common on the island of Gotland and other parts of southern Sweden.

The Polish archaeologist Tomasz Skorupka argues that a migration from Scandinavia took place: "despite many controversial hypotheses regarding the location of Scandia… the fact that the Goths arrived on today's Polish land from the North after crossing the Baltic Sea by boats is certain."

Migration to the Black Sea

Mangup (Ukraine)]] The arrival of Germanic-speaking invaders along the coast of the Black Sea is generally explained as a gradual migration of the Goths from what is now Poland to Ukraine, reflecting the tradition of Jordanes and old songs. Michael Kulikowski challenges this view, dismissing both written and archaeological evidence for the theories concerned with the pre-238 history of the Goths as too weak.

The first Greek references to the Goths call them Scythians, since this area along the Black Sea historically had been occupied by an unrelated people of that name. The term as applied to the Goths appears to be geographical rather than ethnological in reference.

Written sources – Jordanes

Jordanes was a man of Gothic extraction living in the Roman Empire. Jordanes and his grandfather had served as officials of Gothic chieftains. According to his Getica, a history of the Goths written in retrospect in the mid-6th century, the Goths entered Oium, part of Scythia, under their 5th king, Filimer, where they defeated the Spali before moving to the vicinity of the Black Sea. There they became divided into the Visigoths ruled by the Balthi family and the Ostrogoths ruled by the Amali family. Jordanes parses Ostrogoths as "eastern Goths", and Visigoths as "Goths of the western country."

Archaeological records – Chernyakhov culture

Beginning in the middle 2nd century, the Wielbark culture shifted to the southeast, towards the Black Sea. The part of the Wielbark culture that moved was the oldest portion, located west of the Vistula and still practicing Scandinavian burial traditions. In Ukraine, they installed themselves as the rulers of the local Zarubintsy culture, forming the new Chernyakhov Culture (ca. 200 – ca. 400). They were ultimately assimilated into the local population.

One theory claims that the Goths maintained contact with southern Sweden during their migration. Chernyakhov settlements tend to cluster in open ground in river valleys. The houses include sunken-floored dwellings, surface dwellings, and stall-houses. The largest known settlement (Budesty-Budești) is 35 hectares. Most settlements are open and unfortified, although some forts have also been discovered. Chernyakhov cemeteries feature both cremation and inhumation burials; among the latter the head is to the north. Some graves were left empty. Grave goods often include pottery, bone combs, and iron tools, but hardly ever weapons.

Diffusion theory

According to Michael Kulikowski, the theories explaining the appearance of the Goths at the Danubian frontier of the Roman Empire by a prior migration from the north are flawed. Kulikowski refers to Rolf Hachmann, who "disproved the Skandinavian connection" in 1970, and explains the prevalent scholarly opinion as follows: "the topic is text-hindered: consciously or not, the archaeological question is always structured by Jordanes, is dismissed by him as an unreliable source for early Gothic history. According to Kulikowski, the formation of the Goths at the Danube frontier should be seen as an analogy to the formation of the Franks and Alamanni at the Rhenish frontier, "prompted by both the example of Roman provincial life and the threat of the Roman army", and as "the product of the provincialization of Dacia and the lower Danube provinces".

Frederik Kortlandt follows Kulikowsky's reasoning that a migration of the Goths from the Southern Baltic coast to the Black Sea along the Bug river is unlikely, because of discontinuities between the Przeworsk and Černjahov cultures, the lack of evidence that the Goths have crossed through the homeland of the Slavs assumed to be in that area, the unlikeliness of a migration taking place from the richer upland forest into the poorer lowland steppe as well as not following a direct route to the more a developed areas near the Roman border, including the crossing of the upper Danube like other Germanic tribes before. Kortland concludes that "it seems probable that the historical Goths followed the course of the Danube downstream and entered the Ukraine from the southwest." He further cites linguistic findings connecting the Gothic dialects to High German rather than Swedish, and conducted an analysis of Greek loanwords showing that the Goths had borrowed the Latinized version rather than immediately from the Greek, and concludes that this supports a first contact with the Romans further west and a subsequent eastward migration. Although Kortlandt's linguistic argument might be reasonable, he is rather confused in the archaeological aspect. It is the Wielbark culture, and not the Przeworsk, that archaeologists link with the Gothic migration to the Black Sea, and moreover, despite beginning at different times, all three cultures become contemporary in Late Antiquity.

The Goths on the Roman borders

In the first attested incursion in Thrace the Goths were mentioned as Boranoi by Zosimus, and then as Boradoi by Gregory Thaumaturgus. The first incursion of the Roman Empire that can be attributed to Goths is the sack of Histria in 238, several such raids followed in the following decades.

Written sources about the Goths on the Roman borders

Ambrose: The prologue of De Spiritu Sancto (On the Holy Ghost) makes passing reference to Athanaric's royal titles before 376. Comment on Saint Luke:„Chuni in Halanos, Halani in Gothos, Gothi in Taifalos et Sarmatas insurexerunt" Ammianus Marcellinus: Res Gestae Libri XXXI.

Aurelius Victor: The Caesars, a history from Augustus to Constantius II

Basil of Cesareea: Letters

Cassiodorus: A lost history of the Goths used by Jordanes

Claudian: Poems

Dexippus: Scythica which was used by Zosimus for his New hystory

Epitome de Caesaribus

Eunapius of Sardis: Live of the Sophists

Eutropius: Breviary

Gregory Thaumaturgus: Canonical letter

Gregory of Nyssa

Historia Augusta: A history from Hadrian to Carus. However, large portions are known to be fraudulent and the factual accuracy of the remainder is disputed.

Jerome: Chronicle

Jordanes

Julian

Lactantius: On the death of the Persecutors

Olympiodorus of Thebes

Orosius: History against pagans

Panegyrici latini

Paulinus: Life of bishop Ambrose of Milan

Philostorgius: Greek church history

Sozomen

Synesius: De regno and De providentia

Tacitus: Germania, chapters 17,

Themistius: Speeches

Theoderet of Cyrrhus

Theodosian Code

Zosimus

Within the Roman Empire

site in northeastern Bulgaria]]

Major sources for Gothic history include Ammianus Marcellinus' Res gestae, which mentions Gothic involvement in the civil war between emperors Procopius and Valens of 365 and recounts the Gothic refugee crisis and revolt of 376–82, and Procopius' de bello gothico, which describes the Gothic war of 535–52.

In the 3rd century, there were at least two groups of Goths: the Thervingi and the Greuthungi. The Thervingi launched one of the first major barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire in 262, sailing into the Aegean and laying waste to the islands and the countryside in 267; they were unable, however, to take any fortified cities. They suffered a devastating defeat a year later at the Battle of Naissus, and were destroyed by 271. Some survivors were resettled within the empire, while others were incorporated into the Roman army.

Later, an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia was established. In 332, Constantine helped the Sarmatians to settle on the north banks of the Danube to defend against the Goths' attacks and thereby enforce the Roman Empire's border. Around 100,000 Goths were killed in battle, and Ariaricus, son of the King of the Goths, was captured. In 334, Constantine evacuated approximately 300,000 Sarmatians from the north bank of the Danube after a revolt of the Sarmatians' slaves. From 335 to 336, Constantine, continuing his Danube campaign, defeated many Gothic tribes.

Both the Greuthungi and Thervingi became heavily Romanized during the 4th century due to the influence of trade with the Byzantines, as well as their membership of a military covenant, which was based in Byzantium and involved pledges of military assistance. The Goths converted to Arianism during this time. Hunnic domination of the Gothic kingdom in Scythia began in the 370s according to Ammianus. and confirmed by the Eunapius and the later Zosimus. Under pressure of the Huns, the chieftain Fritigern approached the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens in 376 with a portion of the Thervingi and asked to be allowed to settle with his people on the south bank of the Danube. Valens permitted this, and even assisted the Goths in their crossing of the river (probably at the fortress of Durostorum). Following a famine, however, the Gothic War of 376–82 ensued, and the Goths and the local Thracians rebelled. The Roman Emperor Valens was killed at the Battle of Adrianople.

The Goths remained divided as the Visigoths and Ostrogoths during the fifth century. These two tribes were among the Germanic peoples who clashed with the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period. A Visigothic force led by Alaric I sacked Rome in 410. Honorius granted the Visigoths Aquitania, where they defeated the Vandals and conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula by 475.

In the meantime, the Ostrogoths broke away from Hunnic rule following the Battle of Nedao in 454. At the request of emperor Zeno, Theodoric the Great conquered all of Italy beginning in 488. The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early sixth century under Theodoric the Great, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom following the death of Alaric II at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. Procopius interpreted the name Visigoth as "western Goths" and the name Ostrogoth as "eastern Goth", reflecting the geographic distribution of the Gothic realms at that time.

The Ostrogothic kingdom persisted until 553 under Teia, when Italy returned briefly to Byzantine control. This restoration of imperial rule was reversed by the conquest of the Langobards in 568. The Visigothic kingdom lasted until 711 under Roderic, when it fell to the Muslim Umayyad invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).

In the late 6th century, Goths were settled as foederati in parts of Asia Minor. Their descendants, who formed the elite Optimatoi regiment, still lived there in the early 8th century. While they were largely assimilated, their Gothic origin was still well-known: the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor calls them Gothograeci.

Isidore of Seville, in his 6th century work Etymology, recorded that Getae was the first name for the Goths, who lived in an area between the Danube and the Carpathians. They were considered "Dachians", referring to the province of Dacia (present-day Romania).

Languages

The Gothic language is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th century copy of a 4th century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable corpus. All others, including Burgundian and Vandalic, are known, if at all, only from proper names that survived in historical accounts, and from loan-words in other languages like Spanish and French.

As a Germanic language, Gothic is a part of the Indo-European language family. It is the Germanic language with the earliest attestation but has no modern descendants. The oldest documents in Gothic date back to the 4th century. The language was in decline by the mid-6th century, due in part to the military defeat of the Goths at the hands of the Franks, the elimination of the Goths in Italy, and geographic isolation (in Spain the Gothic language lost its last and probably already declining function as a church language when the Visigoths converted to Catholicism in 589). The language survived as a domestic language in the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) as late as the 8th century, and Frankish author Walafrid Strabo wrote that it was still spoken in the lower Danube area and in isolated mountain regions in Crimea in the early 9th century (see Crimean Gothic). Gothic-seeming terms found in later (post-9th century) manuscripts may not belong to the same language.

The existence of such early attested corpora makes it a language of considerable interest in comparative linguistics.

Symbolic legacy

The Gutar (Gotlanders) themselves had oral traditions of a mass migration towards southern Europe, recorded in the Gutasaga. If the facts are related, this would be a unique case of a tradition that endured for more than a thousand years and that actually pre-dates most of the major splits in the Germanic language family.

The Goths' relationship with Sweden became an important part of Swedish nationalism, and until the 19th century the Swedes were commonly considered to be the direct descendants of the Goths. Today, Swedish scholars identify this as a cultural movement called Gothicismus, which included an enthusiasm for things Old Norse.

Beginning in 1278, when Magnus III of Sweden ascended to the throne, a reference to Gothic origins was included in the title of the King of Sweden: In 1973, with the death of King Gustaf VI Adolf, the title was changed to simply "King of Sweden."

In Medieval and Modern Spain, the Visigoths were believed to be the origin of the Spanish nobility (compare Gobineau for a similar French idea). By the early 7th century, the ethnic distinction between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans had all but disappeared, but recognition of a Gothic origin, e.g. on gravestones, still survived among the nobility. The 7th century Visigothic aristocracy saw itself as bearers of a particular Gothic consciousness and as guardians of old traditions such as Germanic namegiving; probably these traditions were on the whole restricted to the family sphere (Hispano-Roman nobles did service for Visigothic nobles already in the 5th century and the two branches of Spanish aristocracy had fully adopted similar customs two centuries later).

In Spain, a man acting with arrogance would be said to be "haciéndose los godos" ("making himself to act like the Goths"). Thus, in Chile, Argentina and the Canary Islands, godo was an ethnic slur used against European Spaniards, who in the early colony period often felt superior to the people born locally (criollos).

The Spanish and Swedish claims of Gothic origins led to a clash at the Council of Basel in 1434. Before the assembled cardinals and delegations could engage in theological discussion, they had to decide how to sit during the proceedings. The delegations from the more prominent nations argued that they should sit closest to the Pope, and there were also disputes over 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 conflict, Nicolaus Ragvaldi, bishop of Växjö, 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 retorted that it was only the lazy and unenterprising Goths who had remained in Sweden, whereas the heroic Goths had left Sweden, invaded the Roman empire and settled in Spain.

See also

Descendants and related peoples:

Crimean Goths

Gepids

Greuthungi

Ostrogoths

Geats (possibly)

Thervingi

Vandals

Visigoths

Other:

Sources

References

Bibliography

Downloadable Google Books.

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.

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

Heather, Peter: The Goths (Blackwell, 1996)

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

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

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

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

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

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Category:Ancient peoples Category:Ancient Germanic peoples Category:Germanic peoples Category:Ethnic groups in Europe Category:History of the Germanic peoples Category:Iron Age Europe Category:Late Antiquity Category:Migration Period Category:Romania in the Early Middle Ages