Goth migrations

[Fibur]

The Goths are certainky one of the most influential people in the history of late antiquity (even if they did no manage to be as successful as the Franks in the end). However, much of their own history remains nearly unknown.
Let's look at our sources concerning their history before the first contacts with the Roman Empire:
- Cassiodorus and his "History of the Goths" in six volumes, unfortunately lost.
- Jordanes and his "Getica", heavily inspired by Cassiodorus' works.

Concerning Goth society itself, we may use the "Passion of St Sabas" which gives us an interesting hinsight on their political organization.

I would like to ask a few questions, and hope that the specialists of these boards will give us their points of view.

Did the Goths originate from Scandinavia as Jordanes claim?
How occured the separation between Wisigoths and Ostrogoths?

[Frostwulf]

I'm no expert but from the minor reading I have done there is "strong" evidence that the Gothic language has a connection with the North Germanic dialects. Also there is names like the Baltic island of Gotland and Ostergotland in Sweden. Read Wolfram or Heather for more information on these people.

[Fibur]

Thanks for the answer.
I've read Wolfram about this, and if I remember well, he thniks that there was no actual migration from Scandinavia to the Baltic, but rather a strong cultural influence.As for the names, I don't think it proves anything.

[Edelward]

While ancestors of continental Germanics were advancing from Sweden trough Denmark to Germany and parts of Lowlands from 750 to 400 BC,ancestors of Eastern Germanics so called Gothic confederacy of Goths,Burgunds,Longobards,Vandals and Gepids (Gaupt-Gaut-Goth) were migrating from Sweden,Northen Denmark,Gotland and Bornholm
to modern Poland and father ,from 300 to 150 BC .The language of Eastern Germanics was more related to Old Norse or Northern Germanic or Scandinavian then to Western Germanics .
But in places they supposedly came from you still find names like town Götene which is possibly related to name Gotynia ,called by Poles now ,town Gdynia (in German Gotehafen) near Gdansk which also etymologically originated from Goths-Gotascansk.
Formally Visigoths had not kings but dukes-reiks of possibly Baltic dynasty who formally obeyed the
High King of Ostgoths whose dynasty descended from Odin,it also was possibly the case with Burgunds and Gepids.
Anywhere when in The 30 Years War Swedish army has found Silver bible in Prague, written by Goths in V AC,even simple army-men understood that language is related to Swedish.

[Last Roman]

High King of Ostgoths whose dynasty descended from Odin

wait, you dont mean Odin as in the Norse god Odin do you?

[Edelward]

wait, you dont mean Odin as in the Norse god Odin do you?

As much as Roman Emperors or Alexander were descendants of Juppie or Zeus or whomever they
were calling for founders of their dynasties .You want to score on sarcastic remarks concerning ancient religions-how smart.Your remark is nothing more then flame-baiting trolling - of a roman fan boy,who can't face word Goth without revulsion .
Ludicus -Germanics all came from Scandinavia so your reference is irrelevant ,not to mention that Soviet and Poland invested lots of attempts to erase all possible traces of whomever Germanic speaking in Eastern Europe . Polish attempt to identify earlier cultures of Western Baltic region with proto-Slavs has failed too.This fellow -Witold Mańczak-is dumb already because he's ignorant on the fact that in the times of Goths Danish and Swedish were yet people of one language which why Iceland chroniclers were calling Swedes as the people of ' Dansk tunga '-Danish tongue up to the Eleventh century ,while he said-**closer to Danish than to Swedish ** .
Of course since Burgundies and Longobards got to Swiss ,Italy and France man could assume
they brought some Eastern Germanic with them to South Germany,yet Swiss later adopted Western Germanic -Allemanic,abandoning Burgundian so try to figure it out.
Finally Swedes came from Middle Sweden old Uppsala dynasty Yngling means descendant of Frey, and in the Gesta Danorum they are called the sons of Frey by Saxon Grammaticus.As it was often case with Germanic royal dynasties religiosly established 'divine' descendence was a mandate of Heaven to rule.Eventaly any Greek founder of city-polis had at least one divine ancestor so it wasn't uncommon religious phenomena.Swedes took over Southern Sweden in medieval times in AD 1000 with Olof Skötkonung first king of both Svea and Göta .So ancient Goths are not technically Swedes .But people from the territory of modern Sweden .

[Last Roman]

As much as Roman Emperors or Alexander were descendants of Juppie or Zeus or whomever they
were calling for founders of their dynasties .You want to score on sarcastic remarks concerning ancient religions-how smart.Your remark is nothing more then flame-baiting trolling - of a roman fan boy,who can't face word Goth without revulsion .

um, what? I was simply asking a question. And if you knew anything about me, you'd quickly find I'm hardly a "Roman fan boy"

so how 'bout you just chill, mmkay?

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

While ancestors of continental Germanics were advancing from Sweden trough Denmark to Germany and parts of Lowlands from 750 to 400 BC,ancestors of Eastern Germanics so called Gothic confederacy of Goths,Burgunds,Longobards,Vandals and Gepids (Gaupt-Gaut-Goth) were migrating from Sweden,Northen Denmark,Gotland and Bornholm
to modern Poland and father ,from 300 to 150 BC .

Or maybe people who called themselves something like "Goths" were related to other people in Sweden etc who gave themselves a similar name for similar reasons. Or they shared a noble class. Or they admired each other. Or they worshipped the same god and both groups named themselves after him. Or a combination of the above. Or none of the above.

You're massively oversimplifying things and applying simplistic Nineteenth Century ideas about "migrations" that are generally no longer accepted.

The language of Eastern Germanics was more related to Old Norse or Northern Germanic or Scandinavian then to Western Germanics .

In some ways. In other ways it was quite different. The fact remains that all Germanic languages were related. The similarity between Gothic and the early forms of ON simply indicate longer close contact - we can't go much beyond that.

Formally Visigoths had not kings but dukes-reiks of possibly Baltic dynasty

It was the "Balthigg" dynasty, not the "Baltic".

who formally obeyed the High King of Ostgoths

Apart from the many times and long periods in which they didn't.

whose dynasty descended from Odin,

We have virtually no idea of who the Ostrogoths thought the founder of the Amaligg family was. That the eponymous Amal was somehow Odin/connected to Odin is more Nineteenth Century speculation, since those guys liked to trace everything neatly back to (later) Norse mythology.

Anywhere when in The 30 Years War Swedish army has found Silver bible in Prague, written by Goths in V AC,even simple army-men understood that language is related to Swedish.

Gothic is as closely related to modern Swedish as it is to modern English. Your whole post is a confused jumble of outdated Swedish nationalists attempts at pretending the Goths were, somehow, "Swedish". No modern scholar takes that jingoistic nonsense seriously and most now accept that the whole idea that a conglomerate people like the Goths had any single point of origin is plain silly.

[Ludicus]

This seems interesting:

Witold Mańczak has argued that Gothic is closer to Upper German than to Middle German, closer to High German than to Low German, closer to German than to Scandinavian, closer to Danish than to Swedish, and that the original homeland of the Goths must therefore be located in the southernmost part of the Germanic territories, not in Scandinavia (1982, 1984, 1987a, 1987b, 1992).

I think that his argument is correct and that it is time to abandon Iordanes’ classic view that the Goths came from Scandinavia. We must therefore reconsider the grounds for adopting the latter position and the reasons why it always has remained popular….

…A final point to be noted is that Baltic loanwords from Gothic were transmitted through Slavic (cf. Stender-Petersen 1927: 134 and Green 1998: 172-174), which suggests that the Balts never had direct contact with the Goths but were separated from them by the Slavs.

Frederick Kortland, Prof of descriptive and comparative linguistics
http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art198e.pdf

[Edelward]

Gothic is as closely related to modern Swedish as it is to modern English.

English language originates from Scandinavian immigrants Angles Saxons Jutae o whom biggest part were from Denmark ./Not to forget The Geat-Beowulf who serviced to Angle King in Denmark /
You also know of course that is medieval Gutnic man refers to while comparing .

Your whole post is a confused jumble of outdated Swedish nationalists attempts at pretending the Goths were, somehow, "Swedish". No modern scholar takes that jingoistic nonsense seriously and most now accept that the whole idea that a conglomerate people like the Goths had any single point of origin is plain silly.

I find your ideas to be a misleading oversimplification .If I argue that Goths originated from Scandinavia it is due to Götar or Gutnar names similarity to Goths name or ,generally, due to the Germanic grammar differences compare to known IE ,signifying certain temporary separation from the rest of IE for all proto-Germanic,which I place in Southern Scandinavia .
It is my right to support a theory and placing label 'nationalism' makes this theory to look dumb It is nothing more a sophistry trick.What you think that I believe that their(Goths) being there(Eastern Europe) few centuries for almost 2 thousand years before give Scandinavians any benefits or some claims on those lands ,no I don't, it is incredibly laughable and naive. I even don't care much about that what was connected to their South European history phase ,only state what I think is their origin . So what da heck is wrong in having a theory = ?!?
I bet such way of thinking you produce here is flawed-it brings corruption into debate.Everyone here has to support at least one thing - individuals right to have ideas .

[Keravnos]

While ancestors of continental Germanics were advancing from Sweden trough Denmark to Germany and parts of Lowlands from 750 to 400 BC,ancestors of Eastern Germanics so called Gothic confederacy of Goths,Burgunds,Longobards,Vandals and Gepids (Gaupt-Gaut-Goth) were migrating from Sweden,Northen Denmark,Gotland and Bornholm
to modern Poland and father ,from 300 to 150 BC .The language of Eastern Germanics was more related to Old Norse or Northern Germanic or Scandinavian then to Western Germanics .
But in places they supposedly came from you still find names like town Götene which is possibly related to name Gotynia ,called by Poles now ,town Gdynia (in German Gotehafen) near Gdansk which also etymologically originated from Goths-Gotascansk.
Formally Visigoths had not kings but dukes-reiks of possibly Baltic dynasty who formally obeyed the
High King of Ostgoths whose dynasty descended from Odin,it also was possibly the case with Burgunds and Gepids.
Anywhere when in The 30 Years War Swedish army has found Silver bible in Prague, written by Goths in V AC,even simple army-men understood that language is related to Swedish.

Or to put this into a map...


Please consult this wikipedia article. It is very informative, I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goths

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

Or to put this into a map...

That map oversimplifies things as well. The archaeological link between the Wielbark Culture of northern Poland and anything in Scandinavia at the same time, for example, is very weak - stone circles on graves and that's about it.

Please consult this wikipedia article. It is very informative, I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goths

It's not bad, but it's still skewed heavily towards the idea of some kind of Swedish "origin", hedged around with a lot of "maybes" and ignoring plenty of counter arguments. Have a look at the "Discussion" page for just a taste of how complex and, ultimately, unknowable this issue is.

The best we can say is that there is a possibility that some people came from Scandinavia and influenced the existing Wielbark Culture and maybe this was remembered and recorded by Jordanes. To go any further than that is to venture into fantasy land (usually nationalistic fantasy land, which is often like Mordor ...)

[Inhuman One]

I have been a bit fascinated by the Goths, but also by the Carthaginians. The worst enemies of Rome, and both are gone now.

[Keravnos]

Agreed. Even so, it is a way to explain how a germanic speaking people was found in present day Ukraine in such a short time, whereas up until the first decades of CE era, the area was under Celtic influence. (Lugii mostly).

Or the fact that once the Goths were conquered they didn't stay under Huns rule, they migrated (again). I think what they did (that we know of historically) was a repeat of the long journey described in that map.

Besides, it is well documented that Celts tried to expand to what is present day Ukraine at around 200 BCE, but were thwarted by the Scythians and Sarmatians. The idea that a sedentary people would try to take over the steppes shouldn't be discarded as fallacy, not as there are many historical evidence that supports it.

I understand that the fringe will take this idea and run with it (yep, talking about Stormfront). I fail to understand how they could, however. Goths of the past were a multinational/all encompassing tribal confederation. NOT Aryan "master race" fanatics. When they fled towards Rome they were a broken people who only wanted to survive, not goose stepping automatons looking for "lebensraum".

[diegis]

Goths was in my opinion (and as archeology shows-see Cherneakov/Santana de Mures culture) a mix of diferent peoples, dacian and germanic mostly (some sarmatians too). They have generaly a geto-dacian culture (material and even spiritual) with some sarmatian influences, and at least a part of their leaders spoke a germanic related language. It is not clear how germanic peoples get here, but the ipotesis that they come from scandinavian peninsula is not stand too strong. It is possible however that few of them to come from northern areas, but definately the "classic" Goths was formed in the area of northeast Romania, south west Ukraine, mostly from peoples already there (dacians and some sarmatians), mixed with some germanic related peoples too.

[Keravnos]

Goths was in my opinion (and as archeology shows-see Cherneakov/Santana de Mures culture) a mix of diferent peoples, dacian and germanic mostly (some sarmatians too). They have generaly a geto-dacian culture (material and even spiritual) with some sarmatian influences, and at least a part of their leaders spoke a germanic related language. It is not clear how germanic peoples get here, but the ipotesis that they come from scandinavian peninsula is not stand too strong. It is possible however that few of them to come from northern areas, but definately the "classic" Goths was formed in the area of northeast Romania, south west Ukraine, mostly from peoples already there (dacians and some sarmatians), mixed with some germanic related peoples too.

I believe it is more than possible. Just think of "Terror Cimbricus".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimbri



What if some Germans headed for NW Romania/Eastern Ukraine instead? I believe this is what happened in the case of the Goths.

[diegis]

I believe it is more than possible. Just think of "Terror Cimbricus".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimbri



What if some Germans headed for NW Romania/Eastern Ukraine instead? I believe this is what happened in the case of the Goths.

Halsall (2007, p. 132)The Cernjachov culture is a mixture of all sorts of influences, but most come from existing cultures in the region ^

Matthews (, p. 90) argue that it shows that the local Daco-Getans played the leading role in the creation of the Culture





<< However, Guy Halsall challenges some of Heather's conclusions. He sees no chronological development from the Wielbark to Chernyakhov culture, given that the latter stage of the Wielbark culture is synchronous with Chernyakhov, and the two regions have minimal territorial overlap. "Although it is often claimed that Cernjachov metalwork derives from Wielbark types, close examination reveals no more than a few types with general similarities to Wielbark types"[13]. Michael Kulikowski also challenges the Wielbark connection, highlighting that the greatest reason for Wielbark-Cehrnyakhov connection derives from a "negative characteristic" (ie the absence of weapons in burials), which is less convincing proof than a positive one. He argues that the Chernyakhov culture could just as likely have been an indegenous development of local Pontic, Carpic or Dacian cultures, or a blended culture resulting from Przeworsk and steppe interactions. Furthermore, he altogether denies the existence of Goths prior to the third century. Kulikowsky states that no Gothic people, nor even a noble kernal, migrated from Scandinavia or the Baltic. >>

This are some quotes (from wikipedia) of authors who deal with Goths and the culture atributed to them. And if you look at the many ancient chronicars (not just Jordanes, since he inspired a lot from previous chronicars) who name them "Gets/Getae" (name gived usualy by Greeks and some Romans to Dacians) you will see that the majority of so called Goths was in fact Gets/Dacians (a part of so called "Free Dacians"), mixed at some point however, with some germanic relatd peoples and probably Sarmatians too.

[Keravnos]

The Chernyakhov culture ends in the fifth century A.D, attributed to the arrival of the Huns[18]. The collapse of the culture is no longer explained in terms of population displacement, although there was an outmigration of Goths. Rather, more recent theories explain the collapse of the Chernyakhov culture in terms of a disruption of the heirarchical political structure which maintained it. John Mathews suggests that, despite its cultural homogeneity, a sense of ethnic distinction was kept between the disparate peoples. Some of the autochthonous elements persist[19], and become even more widspread, after the demise of the Gothic elite - a phenomenon associated with the rise and expansion of the early Slavs.

In the third century, the tribe split into two: the Ostrogoths remained in Scythia, while the Visigoths migrated to Dacia.

They remained in Dacia until 376 AD, when one of their two leaders, Fritigern, appealed to the Roman emperor Valens to be allowed to settle with his people on the south bank of the Danube. Here, they hoped to find refuge from the Huns, who lacked the ability to cross the wide river in force.

[SigniferOne]

I understand that the fringe will take this idea and run with it (yep, talking about Stormfront). I fail to understand how they could, however. Goths of the past were a multinational/all encompassing tribal confederation.

Really, this is a Stormfront talking point? I'm surprised, because Goths were ultimately wiped out and proved to be a footnote in history. Teutons, Saxons, now that's another story... Oh I forgot those were already taken by the Nazis... Yikes, the creepy world of trying to raise up one's self-esteem by automatic worth...