Germanic peoples

The Germanic peoples were the groups of northern Europe in classical antiquity and the early Middle Ages who spoke Germanic languages, or whom Roman writers called Germani. They lived across a broad area from southern Scandinavia to the Rhine, the upper Danube and the Vistula, and some, such as the Goths, moved much further east. Modern Germanic languages, among them English, German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages, grew from their speech, but the ancient groups should not be equated with any modern nation.

The term is debated. Roman authors, beginning with Julius Caesar around 55 BCE, used Germani for peoples living mostly east of the Rhine, mixing geography with stereotype. The modern definition, linked to the Germanic language family, took shape in the nineteenth century. Since about 1990 many historians and archaeologists have questioned whether these peoples ever shared a common identity; some would drop the term altogether, while linguists and others defend it as a convenient label for speakers of related languages.

Germanic languages belong to the Indo-European family. A leading theory links their arrival in the north to movements from the steppe in the third millennium BCE and mixing with earlier farming communities in what is now Denmark. The Nordic Bronze Age, from around 2000 or 1750 BCE to about 500 BCE, shows clear continuity with later Germanic peoples, though whether this was also ethnic continuity is uncertain. Scholars generally agree that Germanic-speaking peoples can be spoken of from about 500 BCE. Many archaeologists connect the earliest clearly Germanic speakers with the Jastorf culture of northern Germany and southern Denmark; others argue for several centres, including southern Scandinavia. Shared words show long contact with the Celts.

According to some scholars, the first Germanic people known to Greek and Roman writers were the Bastarnae, recorded from the third century BCE. The Cimbri and Teutones fought Rome between 113 and 101 BCE. Augustus tried to conquer the land up to the Elbe, but after Rome was defeated in 9 CE at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, it withdrew. After the Marcomannic Wars of 166 to 180 CE new and larger groupings appear in the sources, including the Franks, Goths, Saxons and Alemanni.

The migration period is usually dated from 375 to 568 CE. Under pressure from the Huns, Gothic groups crossed the Danube in 376, defeated and killed the emperor Valens at Adrianople in 378, and sacked Rome in 410. Vandals, Suevi, Alans and Burgundians crossed the Rhine around 406. In the lands of the western Roman Empire new kingdoms arose, ruled by the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards and Franks, while Angles, Saxons and Jutes settled in Britain. Most migrating groups were probably small. The Franks became the strongest power, and their king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in 800.

Germanic paganism varied from place to place, though gods such as Odin (Woden), Thor and Frigg were widely worshipped. Much of what is known comes from Norse texts of the thirteenth century. The Goths took up Arian Christianity in the fourth century, and the missionary bishop Wulfila translated the Bible into Gothic. The Franks became Nicene Christians after Clovis converted in 496, but Scandinavians largely converted only in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Germanic peoples shared a runic script from around the first century CE or earlier, and a tradition of alliterative verse and heroic legend. Archaeology shows a more complex society and economy than Roman writers suggested.

From the fifteenth century, Tacitus's Germania was used by German humanists to claim a glorious ancient past. Nineteenth-century scholars such as Jacob Grimm often treated "Germanic" and "German" as the same, and the idea was taken up by nationalists and later by the Nazis to support claims of racial purity and conquest. After 1945 this misuse was discredited.

Our 400 BCE map labels a territory "Germanic tribes". The outline covers parts of Sweden and Norway only, a narrow and approximate picture of the early Germanic-speaking world, which also extended into Denmark and northern Germany.