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Goths
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Goths (Gothic: 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽𐍃 *Gutans[citation needed]) were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe. The historian Jordanes claimed that the Goths arrived from semi-legendary Scandza, believed to be somewhere in modern Götaland (Sweden), and that a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the 2nd century, lending their name to the region of Gothiscandza, believed to be the lower Vistula region in modern Pomerelia (Poland). The archaeological Wielbark (Willenberg) culture is associated with the arrival of the Goths and their subsequent agglomeration with the indigenous population. But the reliability of Jordanes, who wrote in the 6th century, is disputed,[1] and there is also no archaeological evidence for a substantial emigration from Scandinavia.[2]
From the mid-second century onward, groups of Goths started migrating to the southeast along the River Vistula,[citation needed] reaching Scythia at the coast of the Black Sea in modern Ukraine where they left their archaeological traces in the Chernyakhov culture.
Throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries, the Scythian Goths were divided into at least two distinct entities, the Thervingi and the Greuthungi, divided by the Dniester River. They repeatedly harried the Roman Empire during the Gothic Wars and later adopted Arianism. In the late 4th 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.
The Goths were converted to Christianity by the Arian (half-) Gothic missionary, Wulfila, who then found it necessary to leave Gothic country for Moesia (Bulgaria) with his congregation, where he translated the Bible into Gothic, devising a script for this purpose.
In the 5th and 6th centuries, they became divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, who established powerful successor-states of the Western Roman Empire in the Iberian peninsula and Italy. In Italy, the Ostrogothic Kingdom established by Theodoric the Great was defeated by the forces of the Eastern Roman Empire after the Gothic Wars. In Hispania, the Visigoths, converted to Catholicism by late sixth century, would survive until the early eighth century, when it fell to Islam after the Muslim conquest.
The Gothic language and culture disappeared except for fragments in other cultures. In the 16th century a small remnant of a Gothic dialect was described as surviving in the Crimea.[3]
Etymology
The Goths have had many names and have acquired population from many ethnic sources. People under similar names were key elements of the Germanic migrations. Nevertheless they believed, and this belief is supported by the mainstream of scholarship,[4] that the names derived from a single prehistoric ethnonym owned by a uniform culture of south Scandinavia in the mid-first millennium BC, the original "Goths". People of a modern form of that name still live there.
Etymologically, the ethnonym of the Goths derives from a stem Guton-",[5] which gave Proto-Germanic *Gutaniz (also surviving in Gutar, the self-designation of the Gotlanders). Related, but not the same, 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".[6] 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.[7] 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.[8]
Old Norse records do not separate 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 distinguished from the Goths/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.
A compound name, Gut-þiuda, at root the "Gothic people", appears in the Gothic Calendar (aikklesjons fullaizos ana gutþiudai gabrannidai). Parallel occurrences indicate that it may mean "country of the Goths": Old Icelandic Sui-þjòd, "Sweden"; Old English Angel-þēod, "Anglia"; Old Irish Cruithen-tuath, "country of the Picts.[5]. Evidently this way of forming a country- or people-name is not unique to Germanic.
Gapt, an early Gothic hero, recorded by Jordanes, is generally regarded as a corruption of Gaut.
Early records at the Baltic Sea
Written sources - Tacitus, Jordanes and Pliny
Tacitus characterized the Goths as well as the neighboring Rugii and Lemovii saying they carried round shields and short swords, and obeyed their regular authority.[9][10][11]
According to Jordanes' Getica, written in retrospect in the mid-6th century, the earliest migrating Goths sailed from Scandza under King Berig[12] in three ships[13] and named the place at which they landed after themselves. Today, says Jordanes, it is called Gothiscandza ("Scandza of the Goths").[14] From there they entered the land of the "Ulmerugi" (Rugii), who were spread along southern coast of Baltic Sea, expelled them,[9], and also subdued the Vandals, their neighbours.
As for the location of Gothiscandza, Jordanes says[15] 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 at the mouth of the Vistula, but the terrain has changed due to the deposition of mud. The origin of the city remains undetermined. The name is generally conceded to be from "Goth" but not necessarily from Gothiscandza. That this is a legend of the origin of Gdansk cannot be ruled out.
Independent confirmation of Jordanes' account in some cases itself needs confirmation: specifically the passage attributed by Pliny[16] to the voyager Pytheas, in which the latter 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.[17] No other trace of Guiones has even been found.
In Pliny's only other mention of the Gutones[18] he says 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.[19] 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
