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The Rugii, Rogi or Rugians (), were one of the smaller Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity who are best known for their short-lived 5th-century kingdom upon the Roman frontier, near present-day Krems an der Donau in Austria. (2025). 9780191744457, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191744457 This kingdom, like those of the neighbouring Heruli and Sciri, first appears in records after the death of Attila in 453. The Rugii, Heruli, Sciri and others are believed to have moved into this region from distant homelands under pressure from the Huns, and become part of Attila's Hunnic empire which also moved and came to be based in this region. The Rugii were subsequently part of the alliance which defeated Attila's sons and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454, giving their kingdom independence. In 469 they were part of a similar alliance who lost to the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia, weakening their kingdom significantly.
Many Rugii, once again along with Sciri, Heruli and other Danubians, joined Odoacer in Italy and became part of his kingdom there. Fearing new plots against him, he nevertheless invaded the Rugian kingdom in 487, and the Rugian lands were then settled by the Lombards from the north. Most Rugii still in the Danubian region eventually joined the Ostrogoth Theoderic the Great who killed Odoacer and replaced him with a Gothic-led regime in Italy. The Rugii were based in Pavia and played an important role in the Italian kingdom until it was destroyed by Justinian. The third last king was the Rugian Eraric who died in 541. After him the Rugians disappear from history.
It is generally accepted that the Rugii were first clearly recorded by Tacitus in the first century, in his Germania. He mentioned a people called the Rugii living near the south shore of the Baltic Sea, near the Lemovii and east of the Gutones who apparently lived near the mouth of the Vistula. The 6th century writer Procopius included them among the "Gothic peoples", grouping them with Goths, Gepids, Vandals, Sciri, and the non-Germanic Alans, who were mainly associated with Eastern Europe.See for example and .
Various other records mentioning places or peoples with similar names have been associated with the Danubian Rugii as possible relatives, mainly on the basis of similar names which all appear to be related to the grain rye. In the 2nd century, Ptolemy mentioned the Rutikleioi, and the place known as Rougion, on the southern Baltic coast. In the 6th century Jordanes listed "Rugi" among the tribes supposedly living in Scandinavia in his own time, near the Dani (Danes) and Suetidi (Swedes). He also listed the "Rogas" as an Eastern European people of the 4th century. Much later, the medieval Rygir were a tribe residing in Rogaland of southwestern Norway, around the Boknafjord. The coastal island known today as Rügen is also sometimes associated with the Rugii. The Rugii are also associated with the Ulmerugi mentioned by Jordanes. Their name probably means "island Rugii", and he described them as a people who had many centuries before him lived on the Baltic coast near the Vistula, at the time when he believed the Goths arrived by boat from Scandinavia. A similar island name, Holmrygir, is known from much later medieval Norway, in the area near Rogaland.
The name of the Rugii continued to be used after the sixth century to refer to Slavic-speaking peoples near the Danube, and Rügen, and even as a Latin name for the Rus in Ukraine. pp.43-44.
Other historical terms associated with the Rugii:
According to an old proposal, the Rugii possibly migrated from southwest Norway to Pomerania in the 1st century AD. Rogaland or Rygjafylke is a region (fylke) in south west Norway. Rogaland translates "Land of the Rygir" (Rugii), the transition of rygir to roga being sufficiently explained with the general linguistic transitions of the Norse language.
Scholars suggest a migration either of Rogaland Rugii to the southern Baltic coast, a migration the other way around, or an original homeland on the islands of Denmark in between these two regions. None of those theories is so far backed by archaeological evidence. Another theory suggests that the name of one of the two groups was adapted by the other one later without any significant migration taking place.
Scholars such as Andersson regard it as very unlikely that the name meaning "rye-eaters" or "rye-farmers" was invented twice. In favour of a Scandinavian origin, despite doubts about the early cultivation of Rye, he cites the sixth century claim of Jordanes that Scandinavia was the "womb of nations". Others such as Pohl have argued that the similarity of names has been uncritically interpreted to indicate tribal kinship or identity, feeding a debate about the location of an "original homeland" without any reference to historical sources. Pohl also suggests that one possibility suggested by the work of Reinhard Wenskus and the Vienna School of History is that the name of the Rugii could have been spread by small elite groups who moved around, rather than mass migration.
In 150 AD, the geographer Ptolemy did not mention the Rugii in this region, but he did mention a place named Rhougion (also transliterated from Greek as Rougion, Rugion, Latinized Rugium or Rugia) and a tribe named the Routikleioi in roughly the same area, between the rivers Vidua and Vistula.Ptolemaeus II,11,12 Both these names have been associated with the Rugii.
In the 6th century, Jordanes wrote an origin story ( Origo gentis) about the Goths, the Getica, which claims that the Goths and many other peoples came from Scandinavia, the "womb of nations", many centuries before his time. Upon the arrival by boat of the Goths from Scandinavia, in the coastal area of "Gothiscandza", the Goths expelled a people called the Ulmerugi.Jordanes, Getica, IV,26
The Oxhöft culture is associated with parts of the Rugii and Lemovii. The archaeological Gustow group of Western Pomerania is also associated with the Rugii.Magdalena Ma̜czyńska, Tadeusz Grabarczyk, Die spätrömische Kaiserzeit und die frühe Völkerwanderungszeit in Mittel- und Osteuropa, Wydawn. Uniwersytetu Łódź, 2000, p.127, Horst Keiling, Archäologische Funde von der frührömischen Kaiserzeit bis zum Mittelalter aus den mecklenburgischen Bezirken, Museum für Ur- und Frühgeschichte Schwerin, 1984, pp.8:12 The remains of the Rugii west of the Vidivarii, together with other Gothic, Vistula Veneti, and Gepids groups, are believed to be identical with the archaeological Dębczyn culture.
According to an old proposal, in the 2nd century AD, eastern Germanic peoples then mainly in the area of modern Poland, began to expand their influence, pressing peoples to their south and eventually causing the Marcomannic Wars on the Roman Danubian frontier. Given the coincidence of the same name on the Baltic and Danube, the Rugii are one of the peoples thought to have been involved. While modern authors are sceptical of some elements of the old narrative, the archaeology of the Wielbark culture has given new evidence to support this idea., pp.96-107
In his Getica Jordanes claimed that the 4th-century Gothic king Ermanaric, who was one of the first rulers west of the Don river to confront the Huns as they entered Europe, ruled an empire stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. In a list of the peoples conquered by him the name "Rogas" appears.
The Rugii are listed as one of the northern peoples who were led by Attila over the Rhine, to invade Gaul, and eventually fight the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451. After Attila's death in 453, the Rugii were among the Hunnic confederates who successfully rebelled against his sons, defeating them and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454. Whether or not the Rugian kingdom existed before then, and in what form, is unknown.
A group of Rugii were settled near Constantinople after Nadao, in Bizye and Arcadiopolis where they provided troops to the empire.
With Roman power now also weakened along the Danube, the majority of the Rugii became part of the independent Rugian kingdom, ruled by Flaccitheus in Rugiland, a region presently part of lower Austria (ancient Noricum), north of the Danube.William Dudley Foulke, Edward Peters, History of the Lombards, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974, pp.31ff, After Flaccitheus's death, the Rugii of Rugiland were led by king Feletheus, also called Feva, and his wife Gisa. Yet other Rugii had already become foederati of Odoacer, who was to become the first king of Italy in 476.
By 482 the Rugii had converted to Arianism.
Feletheus' Rugii were utterly defeated by Odoacer in 487; many came into captivity and were carried to Italy; and Rugiland was settled by the Lombards. Records of this era are made by Procopius,Procopius, Bellum Gothicum VI,14,24; VII,2,1.4 Jordanes and others.
Two years later, Rugii joined the Ostrogoths king Theodoric the Great when he invaded Italy in 489. Within the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy, they kept their own administrators and avoided intermarriage with the Goths."At the behest of Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno, Theodoric of the Ostrogoths invades Italy and founds a kingdom based in Rome. Many of the remaining Rugii join Theodoric in his invasion and settle in self-contained communities, refusing intermarriage with the Ostrogoths and other Germanic peoples there. They retain their identity until the fall of the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy. The Langobards migrate into the former Rugii territory to fill this vacuum." Germanic Tribes: Rugii They disappeared after Totila's defeat in the Gothic War (535–554).
The ninth-century Old English Widsith, a compilation of earlier oral traditions, mentions the tribe of the Holmrycum without localizing it. Holmrygir are mentioned in an Old Norse skaldic poem, Hákonarmál and probably also in the Haraldskvæði.Skj, B I,57
James Campbell has argued that, regarding Bede's "Rugini", "the sense of the Latin is that these are the peoples from whom the Anglo-Saxons living in Britain were derived".
Danubian and Italian Rugii
One of the first clear records of the Rugii interacting with the Roman empire is in the Laterculus Veronensis of about 314. In a list of barbarians under the emperors it lists them together with their future neighbours the Heruli, but in a part of the list between the Scottish barbarians and the tribes north of the lower Rhine. Unlike the Heruli, they do not appear in other such 4th-century lists.
Legacy
Possible continuations in the north
It is assumed that Burgundians, Goths and Gepids with parts of the Rugians left Pomerania during the late Roman Age and that during the Migration Period, remnants of Rugians, Vistula Veneti, Vidivarii and other Germanic peoples remained and formed units that were later Slavs. The Vidivarii themselves are described by Jordanes in his Getica as a melting pot of tribes that in the mid-6th century lived at the lower Vistula.Andrew H. Merrills, History and Geography in Late Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p.325, Mayke de Jong, Frans Theuws, Carine van Rhijn, Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, Brill, 2001, p.524, Though differing from the earlier Wielbark culture, some traditions were continued. One hypothesis, based on the sudden appearance of large amounts of Roman solidi and migrations of other groups after the breakdown of the Hun empire in 453, suggest a partial re-migration of earlier emigrants to their former northern homelands.
James Campbell (1986). 090762832X, Hambledon Press. 090762832X The Rugini would thus be among the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons. Whether the Rugini were remnants of the Rugii is speculative. Despite the identification by Bede as Germanic, some scholars have attempted to link the Rugini with the Rani.David Fraesdorff, Der barbarische Norden: Vorstellungen und Fremdheitskategorien bei Rimbert, Thietmar von Merseburg, Adam von Bremen und Helmold von Bosau, Akademie Verlag, 2005, p.55, Joachim Herrmann, Welt der Slawen: Geschichte, Gesellschaft, Kultur, C.H. Beck, 1986, p.265,
The continuation of the name
According to Pohl, the name was taken up in a historicising manner from the 10th century onwards to refer to Slavic peoples on the lower Austrian Danube (Pohl refers to Raffelstettener customs ordinance shortly after 900), on the Baltic Sea (citing Otto of Freising, Chronica 7, 9) or also the Rus (citing the Continuatio Reginonis a. 959-60).
See also
Biography
Further reading
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