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A Source Book for Mediæval History

Note {9} — I. THE GERMANS AND THE EMPIRE TO 1073

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The chapters devoted to the enumeration and description of the separate tribes have been summarized, the purpose being to show the location and the names of the tribes in the time of Tacitus; the student should compare these with the situation as shown by a map of Europe at the time of the migrations. Note that very few of these names appear at the time of the migrations; this is because most of the tribes had lost their identity before that time, being united into larger groups, or absorbed by other peoples, as by the Huns, Romans, etc. Of the tribes mentioned before the Suebi, most were later united into the confederations of the Franks, Alamanni, and Saxons; thus the Chatti, Chamavi, Chasuarii, etc., are found among the Franks; the Tencteri, Usipii among the Alamanni; the Chauci, Cherusci, Angrivarii among the Saxons. The Frisii remained in the same region and were finally added to the Frankish kingdom by Karl Martel; their name still exists in the Friesland of modern Holland. The Ubii were settled by M. Agrippa on land near Cologne, the Roman town Colonia Agrippina. The Agri Decumates or "tithe lands" were the territory contained within the triangle formed by the upper Rhine, the upper Danube, and a line of fortifications, called the Limes. This advanced frontier was established by Trajan (98–117). The territory received its name from the fact that the colonists who settled there paid a tithe or tenth of the produce to the state as rent. Under the name Suebi, Tacitus classes a great many tribes, some of whom are not even of German race. The real nature of the Suevic Confederation is a matter of great uncertainty. Some of the tribes mentioned by Tacitus under this head appear later; the Semnones are conjectured to be the tribe later known as the Suevi, who joined the Vandals in their raid and remained in northern Spain until conquered by the West Goths; the Lombards remained a separate tribe and moved south into Pannonia and then into Italy; a portion of the Angli joined the Saxons in their invasion of England; the rest were apparently united with the Warini in the Thuringian kingdom, the principal tribe of which was the Hermunduri; the Marcomanni and the Quadi, perhaps with some other tribes, composed the later Bavarians; the Lugii, or Lygians, are mentioned by later Roman writers as among the Germans who threatened the Danube frontier, but the name disappeared after that; the Gutones are the Goths; the Suiones and Sithones are Scandinavian Germans; the Peucini are the same as the Bastarnae, who were given lands on the Danube by Emperor Probus (276–282); the Veneti are the Wends, a Slavic tribe; the Fenni, the modern Finns.

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