The ancient Germans lived in the center. Ancient Germans

History of the origin of ancient Germanic tribes.
(my research)

For a long time (since 1972), I independently (this is my hobby, which I continue to do to this day) collected all the information on the ancient history of all the peoples of the world.

This was information on various sciences– in archaeology, ethnography, anthropology. This information was extracted from various historical reference books, scientific books, popular magazines, newspapers and television, and last years from the Internet. Over the course of 30 years (by 2002), I had collected a lot of scientific information and I thought that I was close to my goal - to create a historical atlas of all peoples, tribes and cultures starting from the most ancient times. But using all the information, such an atlas did not work out, and I began to re-read all the religious literature, myths and legends. Only after this, and also after reading the books of Blavatsky, Roerich and other authors who analyzed myths and legends, did I get a complete picture of the origin of all the peoples of the world starting from 17 million years ago. After that, I completed the creation of my historical atlas, this happened in 2006. Attempts to publish the atlas were unsuccessful, since all the publishers demanded money in advance; it turns out that only those who have a lot of money can publish a book. And no one (especially publishers) cares whether people need such a book. Based on my atlas, as well as my book “The Fiction of Ancient History,” I can now chronologically sequence the history of the origin of any people in the world. And I decided to carry out my research using the example of the origin of the Germanic tribes.
Germanic languages ​​belong to the Germanic group of languages ​​and are part of the Indo-European family of peoples of the world, therefore, the separation of ancient Germanic tribes from the total mass of all ancient Indo-Europeans cannot be considered without considering the issue of the origin of the Indo-Europeans.
Approximately 18-13 thousand days ago in northern Europe (on the continent of Arctida in the Northern Arctic Ocean) the Hyperborean civilization existed and flourished, that is, until the Great Glaciation in the 13th millennium BC). But gradually the continent of Arctina began to go under water (settle to the bottom of the ocean). This has always happened on Earth - some territories rise, others fall, and in our time this also happens, but we don’t notice human life so short that we cannot notice global changes on the planet.
By the end of the 15th millennium BC. Arctida sank to the bottom of the ocean so much that its main population began to live in the northern part of Eastern Europe(Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions, Northern Urals and northern Scandinavia). In the 13th millennium BC. In northern Europe there was a sharp cooling, and glaciers appeared there.
As a result of the advance of glaciers, the Hyperboreans and their descendants began to move south. This migration marked the end of the Hyperborean civilization. Gradually, the Hyperboreans disappeared (only their descendants remained), although some researchers are of the opinion that some of them reached Mediterranean Sea and participated in the creation of new civilizations there (in the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece).
The bulk of the descendants of the Hyperboreans remained in the north of Eastern Europe, they no longer had that knowledge, they were even greatly degraded (they reached the primitive communal level of development).
About 7500 BC. The Shigir archaeological culture arose in the territory between the Urals (including the Urals) and the Baltic states. The tribes of this culture were the starting point for the emergence of the Finno-Ugric and Indo-European peoples.
Around 4800 BC. Indo-European tribes finally separated from the general mass of Shigirs. Three groups of Indo-European tribes were formed - Narva (Narva archaeological culture occupied the territory of modern Latvia, Lithuania, Nogorod and Pskov regions), Upper Volga (Upper Volga archaeological culture occupied the territory from the Novgorod region along the southern bank of the Upper Volga, up to Tatarstan, including the Oka basin) and Aryan (these are the ancestors of the Indo-Persian peoples, they occupied the territory east of the Upper Volga, including Southern Urals and south Western Siberia).
By 3900 BC. all three groups of Indo-European peoples expanded their territories. The Nar group populated the territory of Estonia, the Upper Volga group populated the upper reaches of the Dnieper and Don, and the Aryans populated the territory from the Irtysh to Middle Volga.
By 3100 BC, the Narva group almost did not change the territory of its residence (apparently there was only an increase in population density); the Upper Volga peoples also expanded their territory slightly. At the same time, the Aryan group of tribes, having mastered cattle breeding well, occupied vast areas of the steppes from the Irtysh to the Dniester. At the place where the Aryan peoples lived, archaeologists discovered the Yamnaya (ancient Yamnaya) archaeological culture.
To begin with, we will agree that the history of the emergence of any new people is a complex process and we cannot say that any particular people originated from any other particular people. Over the long history of the formation of a people, various processes have taken place - mergers different nations, the absorption of one (weaker or smaller) people by another, the division of large nations into smaller ones. And such processes happen repeatedly over many years.
To study the issue of the origin of the Germanic tribes, I will begin my research with the tribes of the Narva culture, I repeat that by 3100 BC these tribes lived in the territory of the Baltic states. For now, I will conditionally call these tribes proto-Germans. I will conduct all research in chronological order based on changes in historical atlas maps.
By 2300 BC. tribes of the Narva culture penetrated to the other side of the Baltic - to the southern coast of Scandinavia. Formed new culture- the culture of boat-shaped axes, the tribes of which occupied the territory of southern Scandinavia and the Baltic states. I will also conditionally call the tribes of this culture proto-Germans.
By 2300 BC, other events had occurred among the Indo-European peoples. In the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, on the western outskirts of the tribes of the Yamnaya (ancient Yamnaya) culture (these are Indo-European tribes), a new culture was formed - the culture of the Corded Ware tribes (these are tribes of shepherds - Indo-Europeans), the tribes of this culture began to move west and north, merging and interacting with related tribes of the Narva and Upper Volga cultures. As a result of this interaction, new cultures arose - the aforementioned culture of boat-shaped axes and the Middle Dnieper culture (it can be conditionally attributed to the culture of the ancient Proto-Slavs).
By 2100 BC, the culture of the boat-shaped axes was divided into the culture of the boat-shaped axes itself (proto-Germanic tribes) and the Baltic culture (which can conditionally be called the culture of the proto-Balts). And to the west of the Middle Dnieper culture, the Zlata culture arose (in the territory of western Ukraine and Belarus), this culture can be attributed to both the future Proto-Germans and the future Proto-Slavs. But the westward movement of the Corded Ware tribes at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC was temporarily stopped by tribes who were moving towards them. These were the Bell Beaker tribes (ancient Iberians, relatives of modern Basques). These ancestors of the Iberians even pushed the Indo-Europeans completely out of Poland. Based on the tribes of the Zlata culture pushed to the northeast, a new culture arose - the southeastern Baltic. This situation among the tribes in central Europe continued until about 1600 BC.
But by 1500 BC, a new culture had formed in the center of Europe, occupying a vast territory (northern Ukraine, almost all of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the eastern outskirts of modern Germany) - this is the Trzciniec culture. The tribes of this culture are also difficult to attribute to a specific branch of the Indo-Europeans; they also occupied an intermediate place between the ancient Slavs and the ancient Germans. And in most of Germany, another Indo-European culture arose - the Saxo-Thuringian. The tribes of this culture also did not have a specific ethnicity and occupied an intermediate place between the ancient Celts and the ancient Germans. Such ethnic ambiguity of many cultures was characteristic of ancient times. The languages ​​of tribal associations were constantly changing, interacting with each other. But already at this time it was clear that the tribes of the ancient Indo-Europeans (Western groups) were already beginning to dominate Europe.
By 1300 BC, the entire territory of modern Germany was occupied by tribes of burial mounds; this culture developed on the basis of the pre-existing Saxo-Thuringian culture and the arrival of new tribes of Indo-Europeans in the east. This culture can already be conditionally attributed to the ancient Celts, although these tribes also participated in the creation of the tribes of the ancient Germans.
By 1100 BC, the culture of the burial mound tribes was pushed (or went on its own) to the west and turned into a new culture - the Hallstatt culture, which occupied a vast territory (western Germany, eastern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and western Yugoslavia). The tribes of this culture can already be confidently attributed to the ancient Celts; only the tribes located in Yugoslavia subsequently created their own special community - the Illyrians (ancestors of the Albanians). The eastern part of Germany and Poland were at that time occupied by tribes of the Lusatian culture, which arose on the basis of the Trzciniec culture. The tribes of this culture cannot yet be specifically attributed to either the ancient Germans or the ancient Slavs, although these tribes participated in the creation of these peoples.
This situation persisted until 700 BC, when from the south of Scandinavia the boat-axe tribes moved south to the territory of Denmark and northern Germany, where, as a result of their mixing with the western tribes of the Lusatian culture, a completely new culture arose - the Jastorf culture. The tribes of this culture can with all confidence be called ancient Germans. The first written information about the Germans from ancient authors appeared in the 4th century BC, and in the 1st century BC, the Romans already directly encountered and fought with the tribes of the ancient Germans. Already in those days, the following Germanic tribes (tribal unions) existed - Goths, Angles, Vandals, Suevi, Chauci, Lombards, Hermundurs, Sigambri, Marcomanni, Quadi, Cherusci.
Over time, the diversity of Germanic tribes increases - more and more new tribes appear: Alemanni, Franks, Burgundians, Gepids, Jutes, Teutons, Frisians and others. All these tribes influenced the formation of the German people, as well as other Anglo-Saxon peoples (English, Dutch, Flemings, Danes). But still, the (approximate) date of the formation of the ancient Germanic peoples should be considered 700 BC (the date of the emergence of the Jastorf culture in northern Germany and Denmark).

About 4-5 thousand years ago, Indo-European tribes came to the Baltic states and the North Sea coast. At that time, representatives of some other ethnic group lived there, whose origin is still unknown to science. As a result of the mixing of aliens with the indigenous inhabitants of these territories, the German people arose. Over time, the tribes began to leave their ancestral home and settled almost throughout Europe. The word “Germans” itself, which first appeared in the writings of Roman authors in the 4th century. BC e., has Celtic roots. The Germans drove the Celts out of Western Europe and they themselves populated their lands.

Ancient Germanic tribes: areas of settlement

Researchers identify three main branches of Germanic tribes:

  • North Germanic. They lived in the north of the Scandinavian Peninsula. They are the ancestors of modern Norwegians, Danes and Swedes.
  • West German. This group of tribes, which included the Lombards, Angles, Saxons, Teutons and many others, populated the Rhine basin.
  • East German. The tribes included the Goths, Vandals and Burgundians. This group occupied the expanses from the Baltic to the Black Seas.

The Great Migration of Peoples and the Formation of Barbarian Kingdoms

In the 4th century from the Asian steppes towards fertile lands Southern Europe Formidable hordes of Huns began to advance under the leadership of Attila. The impending threat set the entire population of Eurasia in motion. Entire peoples and tribes moved west to avoid confrontation with the Turkic nomads. These events went down in history as the Great Migration of Peoples. The Germans played one of the key roles in this process. Moving west, they inevitably had to collide with the Roman Empire. Thus began a long struggle between barbarians and Romans, which ended in 476 with the fall of Rome and the emergence of numerous barbarian kingdoms on the territory of the empire. The most significant of them include:

  • Vandal in North Africa;
  • Burgundian in Gaul;
  • Frankish on the Rhine;
  • Lombard in Northern Italy.

The appearance of the first rudiments of statehood among the ancient Germans dates back to the 3rd century. This phenomenon was characterized by the destruction of the tribal system, increased property inequality and the formation of large tribal unions. This process was suspended due to the invasion of the Huns, but after the nomadic threat had passed, it continued with renewed vigor in the fragments of the Roman Empire. It should be noted that the number of former Roman citizens significantly exceeded the number of conquerors. This became the reason for the fairly peaceful coexistence of representatives of the two civilizations. The barbarian kingdoms grew out of a synthesis of ancient and Germanic traditions. Many Roman institutions were preserved in the kingdoms, and due to the lack of literate people in the barbarian environment, the Roman elite occupied not the last place in government.

The heterogeneity and immaturity of the barbarian kingdoms led to the death of most of them. Some of them were subordinated to the powerful Byzantine Empire, and some became part of the influential kingdom of the Franks.

Life and social structure

The ancient Germans lived mainly by hunting and robberies. The head of the tribe was the leader - the king, however, he always coordinated important decisions with his military squad, elders and the people's assembly. All free members of the community who were able to bear arms had the right to participate in the meeting (in some tribes this could also be women). As the tribal elite became richer, the first estates began to emerge among the Germans. Society was divided into noble, free and semi-free. Slavery among the Germans also existed, but it was patriarchal in nature. Slaves were not the property of their owners without rights, as in Rome, but rather junior members of the family.

Until the 2nd-3rd centuries, the Germans led a predominantly nomadic lifestyle, however, they had to coexist next to the then powerful Roman Empire. Any attempts to penetrate beyond the Roman border ramparts were harshly suppressed. As a result, in order to feed themselves, the Germans had to switch to sedentism and arable farming. Land ownership was collective and belonged to the community.

The cultural influence of the Celts and sedentism contributed to the development of crafts. The Germans learned to mine metal and collect amber, make weapons, and tan leather. Archaeologists have found many ceramics, jewelry and wooden crafts, made by German craftsmen.

As Rome weakened and discipline weakened in the border garrisons, the Germans began to increasingly penetrate into the territory of the empire. Strong ties (mainly economic) began to emerge between the two cultures. Many Germans even went to serve in the Roman army.

After the emergence of the barbarian kingdoms, the basis of social and land relations became feudal ties, which grew out of the relationship between warriors and the former king (and now the king). Later, these connections would become the basis of social life in medieval Europe.

Beliefs

Historians have been able to piece together the most complete picture only about the religious beliefs of the North German tribes, since their myths have survived to this day in written sources. At the head of the pagan pantheon of the northern Germans was the god of war and wisdom - Odin. Secondary, but also very great importance There were also other gods, including: the goddess of fertility Freya, the embodiment of the sea element - Njord, the god of cunning Loki and the god of thunder Thor.

Other tribes, obviously, had a pantheon quite similar to the Scandinavian one. Initially, leaders and elders were engaged in cult practices, but as religious views became more complex and social structure The Germans developed a priestly class. According to Roman authors, the Germans performed all important ceremonies - prayers, sacrifices (including human ones), fortune telling - in their sacred groves. Long before the fall of Rome, the population of Europe began to rapidly become Christianized. However, Christian dogmas were mixed with pagan views, which caused the distortion of Christian teaching and the emergence of heresies.

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Etymology of the ethnonym Germans

“The word Germany is new and has recently come into use, for those who were the first to cross the Rhine and drive out the Gauls, now known as the Tungrians, were then called Germans. Thus, the name of the tribe gradually prevailed and spread to the entire people; At first everyone, out of fear, referred to him by the name of the victors, and then, after this name took root, he himself began to call himself Germans.”

In the late Iron Age, a tribe of Germans lived in the northeast of Iberia, but most historians consider them to be Celts. Linguist Yu. Kuzmenko believes that their name is associated with the region from which they migrated to Spain, and which later passed on to the Germans.

According to known data, the term “Germans” was first used by Posidonius in the 1st half of the 1st century. 

BC  e. for the name of a people who had the custom of washing down fried meat with a mixture of milk and undiluted wine. Modern historians suggest that the use of the word in earlier times was the result of later interpolations. Greek authors, who were little interested in the ethnic and linguistic differences of the “barbarians,” did not distinguish between the Germans and the Celts. Thus, Diodorus Siculus, who wrote his work in the middle of the 1st century. "came into circulation in the 2nd half of the 1st century. 

BC 

e. after the Gallic wars of Julius Caesar to designate the peoples living east of the Rhine and north of the upper and lower Danube, that is, for the Romans it was not only an ethnic, but also a geographical concept.

However, in the German language itself there is also a consonant name (not to be confused with Roman) (German Hermann - a modified Harimann / Herimann, a two-basic name of ancient Germanic origin, formed by adding the components heri / hari - “army” and mann - “man”).

Origin of the Germans Indo-Europeans. IV-II millennium BC  e. According to modern ideas

, 5-6 thousand years ago, in the zone from Central Europe and the Northern Balkans to the northern Black Sea region, there was a single ethnolinguistic formation - tribes of Indo-Europeans who spoke a single or at least close dialects of the language, called the Indo-European language - the basis, from which all then developed

modern languages

Indo-European family. According to another hypothesis, which today has a limited number of supporters, the Indo-European proto-language originated in the Middle East and was carried throughout Europe by migrations of related tribes.

Archaeologists identify several early cultures at the turn of the Stone and Bronze Ages associated with the spread of Indo-Europeans and with which different anthropological types of Caucasians are associated:

By the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. From the ethnolinguistic community of Indo-Europeans, tribes of Anatolians (peoples of Asia Minor), Aryans of India, Iranians, Armenians, Greeks, Thracians and the most eastern branch - the Tocharians, emerged and developed independently. North of the Alps in central Europe, the ethnolinguistic community of ancient Europeans continued to exist, which corresponds to the archaeological culture of burial mounds (XV-XIII centuries BC), which passed into the culture of the fields of burial urns (XIII-VII centuries BC) . The south of Scandinavia represents a region where, unlike other parts of Europe, there is a unity of place names belonging only to the Germanic language. However, it is here that a gap is revealed in archaeological development between the relatively prosperous culture of the Bronze Age and the more primitive culture of the Iron Age that replaced it, which does not allow us to draw an unambiguous conclusion about the origin of the Germanic ethnos in this region. between the mouths of the Rhine and Elbe, and especially in Friesland and Lower Saxony (traditionally belonging to the original Germanic lands), a single culture was widespread, which differed from both the contemporaneous La Tène (Celts) and Jastorf (Germans). The ethnicity of its Indo-European population, which became Germanic in our era, cannot be classified:

“The language of the local population, judging by toponymy, was neither Celtic nor German. Archaeological finds and toponymy indicate that the Rhine was not a tribal border before the arrival of the Romans, and related tribes lived on both sides.”

Linguists made the assumption that the Proto-Germanic language was separated from the Proto-Indo-European language at the very beginning of the Iron Age, that is, at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e., versions also appear about its formation much later, until the beginning of our era:

“It was in recent decades, in the light of the understanding of new data coming to the disposal of the researcher - material from ancient Germanic toponymy and onomastics, as well as runology, ancient Germanic dialectology, ethnology and history - in a number of works it was clearly emphasized that the isolation of the Germanic linguistic community from the Western the area of ​​the Indo-European languages ​​took place at a relatively late time and that the formation of separate areas of the Germanic linguistic community dates back only to the last centuries before and the first centuries after our era.”

Thus, according to linguists and archaeologists, the formation of the Germanic ethnic group on the basis of Indo-European tribes dates back approximately to the period of the 6th-1st centuries. BC e. and occurred in areas adjacent to the lower Elbe, Jutland and southern Scandinavia. The formation of a specifically Germanic anthropological type began much earlier, in the early Bronze Age, and continued in the first centuries of our era as a result of the migrations of the Great Migration of Peoples and the assimilation of non-Germanic tribes related to the Germans within the framework of the ancient European community of the Bronze Age.

Well-preserved mummies of people are found in the peat bogs of Denmark, appearance which does not always coincide with the classical description by ancient authors of the tall race of Germans. See articles about a man from Tollund and a woman from Elling, who lived on Jutland in the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e.

Genotype of the Germans

Although in the Germanic lands it is possible to classify weapons, brooches and other things by style as Germanic, according to archaeologists they go back to Celtic examples of the La Tène period.

Nevertheless, the differences between the settlement areas of the Germanic and Celtic tribes can be traced archaeologically, primarily in more high level material culture of the Celts, the spread of oppidum (fortified Celtic settlements), burial methods. The fact that the Celts and Germans were similar, but not related, peoples is confirmed by their different anthropological structure and genotype. In terms of anthropology, the Celts were characterized by a diverse build, from which it is difficult to choose a typically Celtic one, while the ancient Germans were predominantly dolichocephalic in their skull structure. The genotype of the population in the area of ​​origin of the Germanic ethnic group (Jutland and southern Scandinavia) is represented mainly by haplogroups R1b-U106, I1a and R1a-Z284.

Classification of Germanic tribes

Separately, Pliny also mentions the Gillevions living in Scandinavia and other Germanic tribes (Batavians, Canninephates, Frisians, Frisiavones, Ubii, Sturii, Marsacians), without classifying them.

According to Tacitus the names " ingevons, hermions, istevons"Derived from the names of the sons of the god Mann, the progenitor of the Germanic tribes. Later than the 1st century, these names are not used, many names of Germanic tribes disappear, but new ones appear.

History of the Germans

Ancient Germans until the 4th century.

The ancient world for a long time knew nothing about the Germans, separated from them by the Celtic and Scythian-Sarmatian tribes. The Germanic tribes were first mentioned by the Greek navigator Pytheas from Massalia (modern Marseille), who during the time of Alexander the Great (2nd half of the 4th century BC) traveled to the shores of the North Sea, and even presumably the Baltic.

The Romans encountered the Germans during the formidable invasion of the Cimbri and Teutons (113-101 BC), who, during the resettlement from Jutland, devastated Alpine Italy and Gaul. Contemporaries perceived these Germanic tribes as hordes of northern barbarians from unknown distant lands. In the descriptions of their morals made by later authors, it is difficult to separate fiction from reality.

The earliest ethnographic information about the Germans was reported by Julius Caesar, who conquered by the middle of the 1st century. 

The wars of the Roman Empire with the Germanic tribes began from their earliest contact and continued with varying intensity throughout the first centuries AD. e. The most famous battle was the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9, when rebel tribes destroyed 3 Roman legions in central Germany. Rome managed to subjugate only most territories inhabited by the Germans beyond the Rhine, in the 2nd half of the 1st century the empire went on the defensive along the lines of the Rhine and Danube rivers and the Upper German-Rhaetian Limes, repelling the raids of the Germans and making punitive campaigns into their lands. Raids were carried out along the entire border, but the most threatening direction was the Danube, where the Germans settled on its left bank during their expansion to the south and east.

In the 250-270s, the Roman-German wars called into question the very existence of the empire. In 251, Emperor Decius died in a battle with the Goths, who settled in the northern Black Sea region, followed by their devastating land and sea raids into Greece, Thrace, Asia Minor. In the 270s, the empire was forced to abandon Dacia (the only Roman province on the left bank of the Danube) due to the increased pressure of Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. Due to pressure from the Alemanni, the Upper German-Rhaetian Limes was abandoned, and the Danube-Iller-Rhenish Limes, more convenient for defense, became the new border of the empire between the Rhine and the Danube. The empire survived, consistently repelling the attacks of the barbarians, but in the 370s the Great Migration of Peoples began, during which Germanic tribes penetrated and gained a foothold in the lands of the Roman Empire.

The Great Migration of Peoples. IV-VI centuries

The Germanic kingdoms in Gaul demonstrated their strength in the war against the Huns. Thanks to them, Attila was stopped in the Catalaunian fields in Gaul, and soon the Hunnic empire, which included a number of East German tribes, collapsed. Emperors in Rome itself in 460-470. the commanders were appointed from the Germans, first the Suevian Ricimer, then the Burgundian Gundobad. In fact, they ruled on behalf of their proteges, overthrowing those if the emperors tried to act independently. In 476, German mercenaries, who made up the army of the Western Empire led by Odoacer, deposed the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus. This event is formally considered the end of the Roman Empire.

Social structure of the ancient Germans

Social system

According to ancient historians, ancient Germanic society consisted of the following social groups: military leaders, elders, priests, warriors, free members of the tribe, freedmen, slaves. The highest power belonged to the people's assembly, to which all the men of the tribe appeared in military weapons. In the first centuries A.D. e. The Germans had a tribal system at its late stage of development.

“When a tribe wages an offensive or defensive war, they are elected officials, bearing the duties of military leaders and having the right to dispose of life and death [members of the tribe] ... When one of the leading persons in the tribe declares in the people's assembly his intention to lead [in a military enterprise] and calls on those who want to follow him to express their readiness for this - then those who approve of both the enterprise and the leader rise up, and, welcomed by those gathered, promise him their help.”

The leaders were supported by voluntary donations from tribe members. In the 1st century, the Germans began to have kings who differed from leaders only in the possibility of inheriting power, which was very limited in times of peace. As Tacitus noted: " They choose kings from the most noble, leaders from the most valiant. But even their kings do not have unlimited and undivided power.»

Economic relations

Language and writing

It is believed that these magic signs became the letters of runic writing. The name of the rune signs is derived from the word secret(Gothic runa: secret), and English verb read(read) comes from the word guess. The Futhark alphabet, the so-called “senior runes,” consisted of 24 characters, which were a combination of vertical and inclined lines, convenient for cutting. Each rune not only conveyed a separate sound, but was also a symbolic sign carrying semantic meaning.

There is no single point of view on the origin of Germanic runes. The most popular version is that of the runologist Marstrander (1928), who suggested that the runes developed on the basis of an unidentified Northern Italic alphabet, which became known to the Germans through the Celts.

In total, about 150 items are known (weapon parts, amulets, tombstones) with early runic inscriptions of the 3rd-8th centuries. One of the earliest inscriptions ( raunijaz: "tester") on a spearhead from Norway dates back to ca. 200 year. , an even earlier runic inscription is considered to be an inscription on a bone comb preserved in a swamp on the Danish island of Funen. The inscription translates as harja(name or epithet) and dates back to the 2nd half of the 2nd century.

Most inscriptions consist of a single word, usually a name, which, in addition to the magical use of runes, results in the inability to decipher about a third of the inscriptions. The language of the oldest runic inscriptions is closest to the Proto-Germanic language and more archaic than Gothic, the earliest Germanic language recorded in written monuments.

Due to its predominantly cultic purpose, runic writing in continental Europe fell out of use by the 9th century, supplanted first by Latin, and then by writing based on the Latin alphabet. However, in Denmark and Scandinavia, runes were used until the 16th century.

Religion and Beliefs

Tacitus, writing approximately 150 years after Caesar at the end of the 1st century, records a marked progress in Germanic paganism. He reports about the great power of priests within Germanic communities, as well as about the gods to whom the Germans make sacrifices, including human ones. In their view, the earth gave birth to the god Tuiston, and his son, the god Mann, gave birth to the Germans. They also honor the gods, whom Tacitus called by the Roman names of Mercury

In ancient times, the Germans lived on the coast of the Baltic Sea. Scandinavian and Jutland peninsulas. But then, due to the deterioration of the climate, they began to move south. In the first centuries AD, the Germans occupied the lands between the Rhine, Oder and Danube rivers. From the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus we learn about how they lived.
The Germans settled at the edges of forests and along river banks. Over time, they began to surround their villages with a rampart and a ditch. The Germans raised livestock, and later mastered agriculture. They also hunted, fished and gathered. The Germans knew how to smelt iron and forge tools and weapons from it. Craftsmen made carts, boats and ships. Potters made dishes. The Germans have long traded with the Romans.

The Germans lived in families. Families formed a clan. Several clans united into a tribe, and tribes into tribal unions. All members of the tribe were free people, equal to each other. During the war, all the men of the tribe capable of fighting formed the people's militia.

The tribe was initially governed by a popular assembly, which included all adult men of the tribe. At the call of the elders, they gathered to decide whether to declare war, whether to make peace, who to choose as a military leader, how to resolve a dispute between relatives. But then the Germans developed nobility - dukes: elders of clans and military leaders, who began to play the main role at public meetings. They lived in fortified estates, had more livestock and arable land, and took most of the military booty for themselves.

Noble people recruited permanent military detachments - squads. The warriors swore an oath of allegiance to the leader and were obliged to fight for him without sparing their lives. Experienced and skilled warriors, the Germans often raided the Roman Empire. War booty increased the wealth of the nobility, who used the labor of captive slaves. The slave had his own plot of land, from which he gave part of the harvest to his master.

From the end of the 4th century. The Great Migration began. Entire Germanic tribes were removed from their homes and set off to conquer new lands. The impetus for the resettlement was the invasion of the nomadic Huns from the depths of Asia. Under the leadership of the leader Attila, the Huns in the middle of the 5th century. devastated Europe and moved towards Gaul.
In 378, near the city of Adrianople, the Roman army, led by Emperor Valens himself, was completely destroyed by the Visigoths, one of the Germanic tribes. The Empire was never able to recover from this defeat.

It became increasingly difficult for a weakened Rome to restrain the onslaught of the barbarians: the population of the empire was depleted by the exactions of officials and state taxes. Crafts, trade, and the entire economy of the Roman Empire gradually fell into decline. To protect their borders, the Romans began to resort
at the service of mercenaries - the same Germans. But there was little hope for them. In 410, Rome was taken by the Visigoth leader Alaric. True, in 451, in the battle on the Catalaunian fields, the Romans and their allies managed to defeat the army of the Hunnic leader Attila. However, this could no longer save the empire. In 476, as a result of a rebellion raised by the Roman barbarian commander Odoacer, the Western Roman Empire fell.

By the beginning of the 6th century. The Germans settled throughout the Western Roman Empire: in North Africa - the Vandals, in Spain - the Visigoths, in Italy - the Ostrogoths, in Gaul - the Franks, in Britain - the Angles and Saxons and founded their states on these lands.

THE WORLD OF THE ANCIENT GERMANS

Settlement scheme of Germanic tribes

The Germans, a motley mixture of different tribes, received their name, the meaning of which remains unclear, from the Romans, who in turn probably took it from the language of the Celts. The Germans came to Europe from Central Asia and in the second millennium BC. e. settled between the Vistula and Elbe, in Scandinavia, Jutland and Lower Saxony. They almost did not engage in agriculture, but mainly carried out military campaigns and predatory raids, during which they gradually settled over increasingly vast territories. At the end of the 2nd century. BC e. The Cimbri and Teutones appeared on the borders of the Roman Empire. The Romans at first mistook them for Gauls, that is, Celts, but quickly noticed that they were dealing with a new and hitherto unknown people. Already half a century later, Caesar in his Notes definitely distinguished between the Celts and the Germans.

But while most Celts were largely assimilated into the Greco-Roman civilization, the situation was different with the Germans. When the ancient Roman historian Tacitus, after many unsuccessful campaigns of the Roman legions across the Rhine, wrote his famous book about the Germans, he depicted an alien barbarian world, from which, however, emanated the charm of simplicity of morals and high morality, in contrast to the licentiousness of the Romans. However, Tacitus, who condemned the vices of the Romans, most likely exaggerated the virtues of the Germans, arguing that they were “a special people who retained their original purity and were only similar to themselves.”

According to Tacitus, the Germans lived in small settlements scattered among dense forests, swamps and sandy wastelands overgrown with heather. Their society was built on a hierarchical principle and consisted of nobility, free commoners, semi-free litas and unfree shawls. Only the last two groups, which included previously captured captives and their offspring, were engaged in agriculture. Some of the larger tribes began to have elected kings who claimed that their ancestors were descended from the gods. Other tribes were led by military leaders or dukes, whose power did not claim divine origin.

The Germans revered gods, ideas about which underwent changes. Often, as a result of inter-tribal clashes, the victors appropriated the gods of the defeated tribe, as if capturing them. The Germanic gods surprisingly resembled mere mortals. They were not alien to such feelings as anger and rage; they were distinguished by a warlike spirit, experienced passions and even died. The main one is the warrior god Wotan, who reigns in the afterlife Valhalla, where warriors killed in battle end up. Among other gods, the lord of thunder and lightning Thor (Donar) with his terrible hammer, the cunning and insidious god of fire Loki, the beautiful god of spring and fertility Balder, stood out. They all live in a world of blood and fire, rage and revenge, fury and horror, in a world where everyone is controlled by an inevitable fate. The gods of the Germans plotted and committed crimes, suffered defeats and won victories. The gloomy poetry of the first song of the ancient German epic “Edda” depicts the invasion of dark forces, in the fight against which gods and people die. Everything disappears in an all-consuming great fire. But then the renewed world will be reborn, the bright Balder will return from the kingdom of the dead, and a time of peace and abundance will come.

The picture, created by the Germans themselves, reflects the difficulties they encountered on the path of their Christianization. It took a powerful external and internal revolution before the idea of ​​a loving and compassionate God, the idea of ​​mercy and forgiveness, replaced the old world of cruel struggle, in which only honor or shame were known.

German mythology tells us about a people who lived in conditions of harsh and poor nature. It was a world ruled by spirits and hidden forces, where evil and good dwarfs and giants lived, but there were no muses and sylphs. However, the role of women both in society and in religion among the Germans was much more significant than in the ancient world. For the Germans, there was something prophetic and sacred hidden in a woman. It is impossible to imagine the warlike and powerful German Brünnhilde locked in the gyneceum. Only supernatural forces and Siegfried's magic belt were able to pacify her.

The Germans entered the scene of history when they left their northern settlements and began to move south. They not only displaced or assimilated the local Celtic-Illyrian population, but also adopted their higher culture. By the time of Caesar's reign, the Germans in the west reached the banks of the Rhine, in the south they broke through the Thuringian mountains and descended into Bohemia, in the east they stopped before the impassable swamps between the Vistula and Pripyat.

What reasons prompted the Germans to migrate? This question can only be answered tentatively. First of all, we must take into account climate changes associated with a sharp cooling in southern Scandinavia. A decrease in temperature by an average of one or two degrees over the course of one century leads to such a change in flora and fauna that people’s life, already difficult, becomes unbearable. Subjective motives also played a role - the thirst for conquest, the extraction of wealth and warlike inclinations, which were also mixed with religious ideas.

The advance of the Germans to the south was not straightforward and steady. Between the time when the Cimbri and Teutones appeared on the Roman border, and the era during which the ancestors of the German people - the tribes of the Franks, Saxons, Thuringians, Swabians, Bavarians - settled their territories, seven centuries of wars and conflicts lay. Most of the tribes disappeared into the darkness of the past. Usually these were temporary associations for military campaigns, which arose as quickly as they disintegrated. Since there was not enough food, nomadic tribes and groups remained small. The largest ethnic groups of the era of resettlement usually numbered several tens of thousands of warriors, and together with women, children, old people and slaves, their number fluctuated between 100–120 thousand people.

The Cherusci tribe, which settled Westphalia, was widely known. One of their leaders was the famous Herman (the Latinized form of the name is Arminius), who led the fight against Rome. In his youth, he was brought up in this city, participated in the campaigns of the Roman legions and even received Roman citizenship under the name Gaius Julius Arminius. In 9 AD e. he completely defeated three legions of the proconsul Publius Varus in the Teutoburg Forest. This is generally believed to have put an end to Emperor Augustus' plans to push the Roman frontier to the Elbe. Strictly speaking, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was just one of countless border clashes. And subsequently, the Romans repeatedly tried to reach the banks of the Elbe, but all their campaigns were unsuccessful. Rome eventually ended the unsuccessful and costly war and began to fortify the border along the Danube and Rhine. The southwestern part of Germany from Koblenz to Regensburg, still inhabited by wild Celts, and mainly by bears, wild boars and deer, remained in his power. Along the entire border, the Romans built a limes - a fortified rampart with ditches and watchtowers, which took more than a hundred years to build.

It was not the Romans who succeeded in conquering the Germanic tribes, but the creator of the new empire, stretching from Spanish Barcelona to Magdeburg, from the mouth of the Rhine to Central Italy, the Frankish king, and then Emperor Charlemagne (747–814). In Carolingian Germany, a class-status system gradually developed, in which a person’s position was determined by his origin and occupation. The majority of peasants slowly but steadily turned into semi-dependent, and then personally unfree people. In those troubled times, the institution of “guardianship” became widespread, when peasants voluntarily came under the authority of a master who promised them protection and patronage.

Division of Charlemagne's empire by the Treaty of Verdun in 843

Charlemagne's empire collapsed after the death of his successor Louis the Pious in 840. Charles's grandchildren, according to the Treaty of Verdun in 843, divided the empire into three parts.

For a long time, in historical literature there was no clear distinction between the concepts of “Germanic”, “Frankish” and “German”. Even today in popular works there is a statement that the “first German emperor” was Charlemagne. However, the Carolingian Empire was, as it were, a common ancestor modern France and Germany. But even today it has not been possible to determine a generally accepted date from which one can trace the beginning “ German history" Some scientists, as before, take the Treaty of Verdun as a starting point; in the latest works, the formation of the German state dates back to the 11th and even 12th centuries. It is probably impossible to determine the exact date at all, since the transition from the Carolingian East Frankish state to the medieval German empire was not a one-time event, but a long process.