Goths

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Goths

The Goths (Gothic: , Gutans) were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe. Originating in semi-legendary Scandza, believed to be somewhere in modern Götaland, Sweden, 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.

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The archaeological Wielbark (Willenberg) culture is associated with the arrival of the Goths and their subsequent agglomeration with the indigenous population. From the mid-second century onward, groups of these Goths started migrating to the southeast along the River Vistula, reaching Scythia at the coast of the Black Sea in modern Ukraine where they left their archaeological traces in the Chernyakhov culture.

Throughout the third and fourth 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 Arian Christianity. In the late 4th century, the Huns invaded the Gothic reign from the east. While many Goths were subdued and integrated into the Hunnic Empire, others were pushed toward the Roman one.

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In the fifth and sixth centuries, they became divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, they established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in the Iberian peninsula and Italy.

The Goths were converted to Christianity by the Arian (half-)Gothic missionary, Wulfila, who then found it necessary to leave Gothic country for Moesia, (later the vicinity of Bulgaria) with his congregation, where he translated the Bible into Gothic, devising a script for this purpose. Although for a time masters of Italy and Iberia, the Goths were defeated by the forces of Justinian I in a final effort to restore the Roman Empire. Subsequently they were struck by the Vandals and the Lombards. Prolonged contact with the Roman population of the former Empire ultimately led to conversion to Catholicism; Reccared, late sixth-century king of Gothic Iberia, became Catholic with the remainder of the yet unconverted Goths. Assimilation of the Goths accelerated when the last of them were defeated by the Moors in the early eighth century. The language and culture disappeared except for fragments in other cultures. In the sixteenth century a small remnant of Ostrogoths may have turned up in the Crimea,[1] but this identification is not certain.

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The Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna.

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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,[2] 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.

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Etymologically the oldest (300 BC) ethnonym for the Goths, "Guton-",[3] derives from the same root as that of the Gotlanders ("Gutar"): the Proto-Germanic *Gutaniz. 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".[4] 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.[5]

Thus, the Gothic tribes may be designated as "pourers of semen", i.e. "men, people".[6] Another theory connects the people with the name of a river flowing through Västergötland in Sweden, the Göta älv, which drains Lake Vänern into the Kattegat.[7]

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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.

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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 AD), 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.

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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.[3]. 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.

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Götaland, south Sweden, a possible original homeland of the Goths.

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Gothiscandza

According to a tale related by Jordanes, Gothiscandza was the first settlement of the Goths after their migration from Scandinavia (Scandza) around 1490 B.C.

Jordanes relates that the East Germanic tribe of the Goths were led from Scandza by their king Berig. As soon as they had set foot in the land, they named the area Gothiscandza. They soon moved to the settlements of the Rugians (Ulmerugi, a Germanic tribe which had arrived in the area already before the Goths), who lived on the coast, and they chased them away. Then they defeated their new neighbours, the Vandals.

After some time, when at least four generations of kings had passed after Berig, and Filimer was the king of the Goths, their numbers had multiplied. Filimer decided that everyone was to leave Gothiscandza and move to a new region named Oium (Scythia). Several archeologians and historians have proposed the theory that the name Gothiscandza was evolved linguistically into Kashubian and other West Slavic languages' rendition of the various historical names of Gdańsk (German: Danzig, English: Dantzig).[1]

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History and linguistics

In the 1st century AD, the mouth of the Vistula was indicated as the land of the Gutones (Pliny the Elder) or Gothones (Tacitus):

Beyond the Lygians dwell the Gothones, under the rule of a king; and thence held in subjection somewhat stricter than the other German[ic] nations, yet not so strict as to extinguish all their liberty. Immediately adjoining are the Rugians and Lemovians upon the coast of the ocean, and of these several nations the characteristics are a round shield, a short sword and kingly government.

The names given by Pliny and Tacitus appear to be identical to *Gutaniz, the reconstructed Proto-Germanic form of Gutans, the Goths' and the Gotlanders' name for themselves.

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Etymology
One interpretation of Gothiscandza is that is a Latinised form of the Gothic gutisk-an[d]ja, "Gothic end (or frontier)", since the Goths' territory extended to here.[2] Another interpretation is that an[d]ja means "cape" so that the whole word means "gothic peninsula". It is also possible that the word is a product of conflation of the words gothic and Scandinavia.[3] Herwig Wolfram mentions "Gothic coast" and "Gothic Scandia" but prefers the latter, thinking that the former is "linguistically questionable".[4]

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In the 1st century a new culture appeared at the mouth of the Vistula, called the Wielbark Culture replacing the local Oksywie culture. The most salient component of Scandinavian influence in the 1st century AD is the introduction of Scandinavian burial traditions such as stone circles and the stelae, showing that those who buried their dead preferred to do so according to Scandinavian traditions.

However, there is also archaeological evidence of previous Scandinavian influence in the area during the Nordic Bronze Age and the Pre-Roman Iron Age[2], perhaps corresponding to the arrival of Rugians and Vandals.

In the 3rd century AD, the Wielbark culture spread into Scythia, where it formed the Gothic Chernyakhov culture.

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Norse mythology presents at least two traditions that may be connected to Gothiscandza. The first one, the Gutasaga, may refer to the migration of the Goths and the second one, the legend of Dag the Wise, of raids from Scandza.