Goths

This article is about the Germanic tribes. For the late 20th century youth subculture see Goth.

The Goths were a Germanic tribe which according to their own traditions originated in southern Sweden (cf. Götaland and Gotland). They migrated southwards and conquered parts of the Roman empire.

Our only source for early Gothic history is Jordanes' Getica, (published 551), a condensation of the lost twelve-volume history of the Goths written in Italy by Cassiodorus. Jordanes may not even have had the work at hand to consult from, and this early information should be treated with the highest degree of caution. Cassiodorus was well placed to write of Goths, for he was an essential minister of Theodoric the Great, who apparently had heard some of the Gothic songs that told of their traditional origins, related in turn by Jordanes with the remark "for so the story is generally told in their early songs, in almost historic fashion." The Gothic bards accompanied themselves on a stringed instrument that Latin writers associated with the cithara, which was more familiar to them.

They were settled for some time in the Vistula Basin, from where they migrated towards the south-east. They battled with, and temporarily subjugated, the ancestors of the Slavs (there were many Gothic loanwords in proto-Slavic), who lived between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea and ultimately settled in 'Scythia' a vast undefined region that includes modern Ukraine and Belarus. A united tribe until the third century, it was during that period that they split into the eastern Goths or Ostrogoths and the western Goths or Visigoths.

Though many of the fighting nomads who followed them were to prove more bloody, the Goths were feared because the captives they took in battle were sacrificed to their god of war, Tyz [1] (http://www.northvegr.org/lore/grimmst/009_03.php)(the one-armed Tyr), and the captured arms hung in trees as a token-offering. Their kings and priests came from a separate aristocracy, according to Cassiodorus/Jordanes, and their mythic kings of ancient times were honored as gods. Their mythic lawgiver, named Dicineus, traditionally dated about the 1st century BC, ordered their laws, which they possessed by the 6th century in written form and called belagines.

A force of Goths launched one of the first major "barbarian" invasions of the Roman Empire in 267. A year later, they suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Naissus and were driven back across the Danube River by 271. This group then settled on the other side of the Danube from Roman territory and established an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia, as the Visigoths. In the meantime, the Goths still in Ukraine established a vast and powerful kingdom along the Black Sea. This group became known as the Ostrogoths.

The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early sixth century under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom for nearly two decades.

For the later history of the Goths, see Visigoths and Ostrogoths.

Origins

The question of the origin of the Goths has been discussed for a long time. Although no alternative theory has been proposed for the appearance of Germanic tribes in northern Poland, some historians, such as Heather, reject the idea that the Goths originated in Scandinavia. This is due to the fact that, disregarding Jordanes, the earliest literary evidence for the Goths (Tacitus and Ptolemy) puts them at the Vistula in 1st century AD.

The material culture associated with these Goths (or better Gotones) is typically identified with the Wielbark/Willenberg culture[2] (http://www.muzarp.poznan.pl/archweb/gazociag/title5.htm), in Northern Poland. During the late Nordic Bronze Age and early Pre-Roman Iron Age, this area had had strong influences from southern Scandinavia, which made the Wielbark culture closely related to that of southern Sweden[3] (http://www.arkeologi.uu.se/publications/opia/gothicabstract.htm). Moreover, in the traditional province of Ostrogothia, in Sweden, there was a depopulation prior to the appearance of Goths in Poland. Modern archaeological research consequently supports the Scandinavian origin of the Goths and the authenticity of their tradition. However, the Gothic culture also had continuity from earlier cultures in the area, indicating that the culture was not "pure" Scandinavian, but that the immigrants mixed with earlier populations, perhaps providing their separate aristocracy. This culture shifted south-eastwards towards the Black Sea area from the mid-2nd century.

They maintained close connections with the Scandinavians during their migrations, and there are close linguistic connections between Gothic and Old Norse (see East Germanic languages). It is a matter of dispute whether the Geats, a people living in the Geatish lands in Sweden were the original Goths. The word "Geats" (Anglo-Saxon Geatas) and the Swedish word "Götar" (East Norse Gøtar) both represent the expected outcome of proto-Germanic *Gauta-. This form is related to the reconstructed root *Gut- which seems to be the origin of "Goth," which appears earliest in forms such as "Gutthones" in Greek ethnography. Philologists have reconstructed *Gut-þiuda, the "Gothic people," as a likely original form of the name. The reconstructed root *Gut- is identical to that of Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea, and in older scholarship the dialect of Gotland was regarded as a form of Gothic. The most famous example is that both Gutnish and Gothic used the word lamb for both young and adult sheep. Still, some claim that Gutnish is not closer to Gothic than any other Germanic dialect.

See also: Gothic language, Gothic alphabet, Getae and Gepidae

Compare Gothic architecture, which has no historical connection with the Goths

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