Talk:Germanic peoples

What is 'Northern Europe'?

Hi, pro-Scandinavian lurker here :) Sometimes it seems as if Europe = the Continent between the Baltic and the Mediterranean, divided by Pyrenees, Alps and Balkans into North and South, leaving Scandinavia as, one might suspect, a nearly non-European afterthought up there. Being from up here, we do consider ourselves European and also as constituting "Northern Europe", where Belgium, Germany, Poland etc. are "Middle Europe'. That, at least according to the maps, which barely extend to all of Jutland, also makes us non-Germanic. If the 'Germanic' in "Germanic peoples' is based on Roman history, or even later German history, ok; but if it is based on e.g. language, and possibly on archaeology, shoudn't Scandiavia be included a bit more? Or, as a minimum, if editors feel such a subject is best presented in separate articles, perhaps include links to these articles? T 2A02:FE1:E16B:CC00:DA63:B162:420A:CA58 (talk) 03:05, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Which maps or wordings are you talking about?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 04:18, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, all maps but one in this article, for instance. The article is focused on the 'Roman' perspective, though, making the choice of maps adequate for the purpose; bit of an air punch for me there. But my criticism is tied to other ways of being Germanic, see above. I am assuming that there are articles covering this, it's just not apparent from this article. T 2A02:FE1:E16B:CC00:DA63:B162:420A:CA58 (talk) 21:40, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

It's difficult to discuss Scandinavia during this time because we have almost no contemporary sources (outside archaeology) that discuss it, and hence scholars don't discuss it in much detail when discussing the Germani. That being the case, I don't think there's much that can be added about it - but it finds continual mention in other sections of the article if you just look at those covering culture etc.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

In fact, we obviously have too few sources to clarify this problem. I remember a lecture by Reinhard Wenskus at Göttingen University, who was asked about a northern border of the ‘Germani’. He just replied that this border would not have run north of the Jutlandic Thy as Old Norse þjóð or ‘thioth’ for ‘people’. So, most tentatively, he apparently associated ‘thioth - deutsch - German’. However, apart from missing reliable sources and research, this oral opinion is not suitable for improving the article. Tympanus (talk) 14:22, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this discussion won't go very far unless there is a more concrete proposal because I don't think anyone has consciously been avoiding Scandinavia. I know from maps I have made that I've felt the sourcing justifications are very weak for going beyond the southern parts of Scandinavia which Tacitus and others clearly something about. So I typically try to include something of Scandinavia but find myself asking if we really have any justification for pushing maps up into Norway or northern Sweden. If challenged, no I don't. There is also a second problem which is practical. While making a map about historical events mainly in mainland Europe, you realize that Scandinavia is large, and so including it all leads to a map of "Scandinavia and friends" which I once again don't think fits the bill very well.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:23, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I am also a lurker to this page and I would like to add my two cents.

I have not seen any anti-Scandinavian posting on this page, as in nobody denies that the people in Scandinavia spoke a Germanic language in antiquity. For this reason I find it odd that there seems to be a faction that would like to ignore evidence supporting a Jastorf/German origin in favor of a Nordic origin who call themselves pro-Scandinavian. This seems largely to be due to a confirmation bias rather than any basis in factual evidence.

However, the main point of contention is when newer evidence, along with ancient sources seem to show that Germanic people probably originated in Germany rather than in Scandinavia. This idea of an origin in Germany was out of vogue after WW2 due to obvious political reasons, but I feel that enough time has passed where archeology has progressed to the point that this type of archeology is no longer taboo.

As such, this seems to bother people, presumably from Scandinavia, who were largely told that Germanic peoples, language, and culture originated there.

My own general thought is this: if evidence shows that Germanic peoples/culture originated in the Jastorf culture of central or northern Germany(rather than the Nordic bronze age culture of Scandinavia), then this is what should be reflected on the page. The fact that this also corroborates what ancient Roman sources seem to state should not be a negative(as is often implied from "pro-Scandinavian" accounts), but rather just another tool in understanding the Germanic peoples, using both ancient sources as well as linguistics and archeological evidence. One should not be "pro-Scandinavian" or "pro-German", but rather follow the evidence where it leads to avoid a confirmation bias. 98.165.59.45 (talk) 22:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Doubtful category

According to Emmanuel Todd, this is not a valid cultural category, meely a hodgepodge. Sarcelles (talk) 12:27, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd rather stick to Malcolm Todd; and Liebeschütz, Wolfram, Heather, Halsall, Pohl, Goffart... for all their disputes, they are the subject-matter experts. –Austronesier (talk) 12:44, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

worth noting that discussion of disputes about the existence of “Germanic peoples” are already in the article and lead as well.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:56, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I do not think a member of the communist youth(according to this wiki page) is typically going to be unbiased on such topics as this, due to the political biases that formed against this after the second world war. 98.165.59.45 (talk) 14:41, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Academic bias is not necessarily a problem, because no source is completely unbiased, but a lack of expertise or notability looks like a problem. As mentioned above, part of the issue is that the point is not even especially novel. We are already citing experts in this topic who more or less argue the same point. At first sight this sounds like an interdisciplinary side remark. Our article is citing notable experts from the directly relevant fields.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

What are his arguements? Gelbom (talk) 01:44, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

We should only discuss his arguments here if they are notable, expert, and ideally different from opinions the article already represents. Remember this is not a discussion forum. So the question is whether anyone has a concrete edit proposal, or is likely to be able to develop one from such a source.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Germani are Germans in English???

A cn tag has been added to our opening sentences, on these words Another term, ancient Germans, is considered problematic by many scholars since it suggests identity with present-day Germans. Many sources have been discussed for such statements on this talk page in past versions of the article, but when I went to confirm that this is covered in the body I notice that we now have this surprising statement: The direct equivalents in English are, however, Germans for Germani and Germany for Germania. This is being sourced from the last paragraph of a preface to a work that is only being used to back this one sentence up: Winkler, Martin M. (2016). Arminius the Liberator : myth and ideology. Oxford University Press. It is on Google books [1]. He does not use the term "direct equivalents" but he does say that Germanen and Germania are called Germans and Germany in English, noting that this usage breaks down a distinction which is clear in German. He says he will use "ancient Germans", and explains, the blurring is not such a bad thing for his book, which is about 20th-century mythmaking, because such blurring is part of the story he is telling about ideologies and nationalism. I think that although the sentence we have is not literally wrong it distorts what both this work and more specialist works emphasize, which is that academics are uncomfortable with the lack of common distinct terms in everyday English, and tend to use other terms. I will try to tweak the wording, but I am a little uncomfortable that we are using sources about other topics like this, when we have so many possibilities to use sources that are about the exact topic of our article. It looks like cherry picking? Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:25, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I’m not sure that I understand the problem with Winkler? Also, we have Green and Kulikowski in the next sentence discussing something similar.—-Ermenrich (talk) 13:43, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I also removed the cn tag. I’m not sure why even veteran editors feel this need to go around adding tags to the leads of articles when they clearly haven’t bothered looking at the body.—-Ermenrich (talk) 13:46, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Having fixed the text my only concern about Winkler is just that we don't seem to need that specific source, for that specific information. Like you say, we also have Green and Kulikowski. We also have an extra footnote in the lead, because Steinacher 2022 also notes this issue. In the following I will use the Latin term Germani to avoid ambiguity. In English “German” refers to modern Germans, “Germanic” to the ancient Germani / Germanic peoples. Anyway, it is not an big issue unless it gets used in the wrong way. (The article body wording was apparently trying to give the impression that Winkler was saying something different to Green and Kulikowski?) However, I think this is an article where we sometimes risk having too many sources for every point. In situations like that it can sometimes ironically become more difficult for readers and drive-by editors to verify what is sourced and how. BTW, to be fair to Zacwill our body text was not saying things as clearly as it could. I've tweaked that now, and I hope this resolves it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I guess the next question is whether we feel that we need to add a citation to the lead to prevent future tagging? I think this particular sentence has been targeted before. For a source, I think Green, p. 8 would work fine.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:42, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I think so. His text focuses on the point nicely, and he is a philologist after all.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:45, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Green is the right choice to substantiate and clarify this point of contention in my estimation as well. --Obenritter (talk) 20:00, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Were they "new peoples" or "new names" in the third century?

• In our lead: After this major disruption, new Germanic peoples appear for the first time in the historical record, such as the Franks, Goths, Saxons, and Alemanni.
  • Suggestion => In the third century, Roman authors began referring to regional groupings with new names such as Franks, Goths, Saxons, and Alemanni.
• In the body: The period after the Marcomannic Wars saw the emergence of peoples with new names along the Roman frontiers, which were probably formed by the merger of smaller groups.[157 is Todd p.55] These new confederacies or peoples tended to border the Roman imperial frontier.[159 is Halsall p.120] Many ethnic names from earlier periods disappear.[160 is Pohl Die Germanen pp.26-27]
  • Suggestion => In the third century Roman authors began to use new names for large regional groupings of previously known Germanic peoples, sometimes working in coordination near different parts of the Roman imperial frontier.

Reasoning:

• 1. We should not imply that these new names suddenly appeared immediately after the Marcomanni wars in the second century. They pop up here and there over the following century, and clearly weren't all seen as the names of "peoples" at first, let alone political units. (Or at least there is no simple consensus on this.) Nor did each of the new names follow the same pattern.
• 2. We should not imply that that these were all "new peoples", at least at first. The Rhine groups were essentially just the same old people as before. As I think our own text says elsewhere, the term Saxon, which first appears in the 4th century, was probably not "ethnic" at that time.
• 3. The names of older tribes within the groups did not at all suddenly disappear in the third century. Pohl does say that 1st century tribal names disappear (from the Roman record) in the third century, but the previous sentence implies that this might be because the Romans, going through their own problems, lost their ability to keep track of the region's ethnic complexities. Offenbar geriet im 3. Jarhhundert nicht nur die politische Kontrolle der Römer über die Germania, sondern auch ihr ethnisches Orientierungsvermögen ins Schwanken (I would add that many of the old tribal names came back when Roman's were more in control of their own northern regions for a while in the fourth century, under leaders like Constantine and Julian.)

One thing I also note being mentioned by some sources is that official Roman use of Germani soldiers increased in this period and became an important factor in Roman affairs. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:28, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

While the "new names" are solely known through the works of Roman authors, we should avoid a wording ("Roman authors began to use") that solely attributes the terminological shifts to a question of Roman subjective perception, without any mention that these may well have been the result of objective realignments among the groups that were previously referred to collectively as Germani (reflected in "which were probably formed by the merger of smaller groups"). I don't how to phrase the middle ground between the exisiting versions and your proposed texts, but anything that doesn't entirely portray the people behind the limes as deprived from agency will do, because our sources do not necessarily put it that way either. –Austronesier (talk) 11:35, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes we don't know how the Franks (for example) saw it, or indeed precisely what was going on with the Romans' minds. In fact we know very little at all. Some of the first occasions when Franks seem to have worked in a coordinated way involved Roman civil wars. And of course the stories for Saxons and Goths are probably completely different to those of the Franks and Allemani, who were apparently ruling buffer states under Roman control sometimes. Maybe we could use a passive voice construction "new names appear" or something like that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:50, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Did the first Franks live near the Weser?

Another small point. Our text: The Franks are first mentioned occupying territory between the Rhine and Weser.[163] The citation is to Malcolm Todd. I don't have his book and the page is not currently visible via Google Books. Having recently worked on the Franks article I have seen the original position of the Franks defined over and over in terms of the lower section of the Rhine around Roman Germania Inferior. The listing of tribes who were definitely Frankish is not easy, but the most certain ones do not stretch as far as the Weser. I can imagine some authors think they stretched as far as the Weser, because the area between Rhine and Weser is seen as a region with an archaeological culture. However, we don't really have clear definitions of the names of tribes living there in the third century, and there are indications that parts of the Weser might already have become "Saxon" (and perhaps Frisian?), whatever that meant at the time. Perhaps someone should look at Todd first, but other sources can be brought in to this discussion if necessary. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:43, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Todd writes: A confederacy under the name ‘Franks’ formed itself out of the many small groups settled between the Rhine and the Weser and soon began to threaten the lower Rhine frontier and later the Channel coast. His own sources are: "P. Périn and L.-C. Feffer, Les Francs I (Paris 1987); E. James, The Franks (Oxford 1988), 34–51." So he actually does not directly talk about the territory they inhabited when first appearing in the Roman record, but about the area where they presumedly have formed. (Please email me if you need a copy of Todd's book). –Austronesier (talk) 13:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

We can rephrase slightly to better reflect Todd? Or do you have a better source, Andrew?--Ermenrich (talk) 14:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for looking that up. It might be better to use another source. The idea that the new name involved people making new settlements is also not typical.

• I have James, and on p.35 he actually writes that Franci ... was used to refer to various Germanic peoples living just north and east of the lower Rhine in what are now the Netherlands and the north-western part of West Germany. That seems much more typical to me.
• Looking at the Reallexikon of course there are several articles for this topic and many are a bit waffly, but for example the opening of the archaeological article is this: Als Ursprungsgebiet der Frk. hat den Schrift-Qu. zufolge das rechtsrhein. Vorfeld der röm. Prov. Germania Inferior, später Germania II genannt, zu gelten. The quote is from page 388, and I think this is correct: Ament, Hermann (1995), "Franken §6. Ursprungsgebiet", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 9 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, pp. 388–390, ISBN 978-3-11-014642-4
• The main history article in the Reallexikon starts like this Die Frk. sind in den größeren Zusammenhang der Germ. einzufügen, die im Gebiet des niedergerm. Limes ihre polit. Unabhängigkeit von Rom bewahren konnten. The reference: Anton, Hans H. (1995), "Franken § 17. Erstes Auftauchen im Blickfeld des röm. Reiches und erste Ansiedlung frk. Gruppen", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 9 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, pp. 414–419, ISBN 978-3-11-014642-4
• Nico Roymans gives this, Te Late Roman frontier dynamics in the Lower Rhine region are closely linked to the appearance of the Franks. ‘Franks’ is a Roman collective label for a series of smaller tribes in the areas east and north of the Lower Rhine who had long maintained relations with the Roman Empire. However, it wasn’t until the early 3rd century that they were given this name by the Roman authorities.. From: Roymans, Nico; Heeren, Stijn (2021), "Romano-Frankish interaction in the Lower Rhine frontier zone from the late 3rd to the 5th century – Some key archaeological trends explored", Germania, 99: 133–156, doi:10.11588/ger.2021.92212

I could go on but the main pattern I keep seeing is that they live on the non-Roman side of the lower parts of the Rhine including the delta, and approximately as far south as Germania Inferior went. (Somewhere north of Koblenz I believe.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:10, 19 January 2025 (UTC)