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The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of the Roman Empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths. Another term, ancient Germans, is considered problematic by many scholars since it suggests identity with present-day Germans. Although the first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine, to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine. The term Germani is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from the 1st to 4th centuries CE.
Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for the term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity. Scholars generally agree that it is possible to refer to Germanic languages from about 500 BCE. Archaeologists usually associate the earliest clearly identifiable Germanic speaking peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age in central and northern Germany and southern Denmark from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE. This existed around the same time that the First Germanic Consonant Shift is theorized to have occurred, leading to recognizably Germanic languages. Germanic languages expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with Celts, Iranian peoples, Balts, and Early Slavs peoples before they were noted by the Romans.
Roman authors first described the Germani near the Rhine in the 1st century BCE, while the Roman Empire was establishing its dominance in that region. Under Emperor Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE), the Romans attempted to conquer a large part of Germania between the Rhine and Elbe, but withdrew after their shocking defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE. The Romans continued to manage the Germanic frontier carefully, meddling in cross-border politics, and constructing a long fortified border, the Limes Germanicus. From 166 to 180 CE, Rome was embroiled in a conflict against the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi with their allies, which was known as the Marcomannic Wars. After this major disruption, new groupings of Germanic peoples appear for the first time in the historical record, such as the Franks, Goths, Saxons, and Alemanni. During the Migration Period (375–568), such Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and eventually established their own "barbarian kingdoms" within the territory of the Western Roman empire itself. Over time, the Franks became the most powerful of them, conquering many of the others. Eventually, the Frankish king Charlemagne claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor for himself in 800.
Archaeological finds suggest that Roman-era sources portrayed the Germanic way of life as more primitive than it actually was. Instead, archaeologists have unveiled evidence of a complex society and economy throughout Germania. Germanic-speaking peoples originally shared similar religious practices. Denoted by the term Germanic paganism, they varied throughout the territory occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples. Over the course of Late Antiquity, most continental Germanic peoples and the Anglo-Saxons of Britain converted to Christianity, but the Saxons and Scandinavians converted only much later. The Germanic peoples shared a native script—known as runes—from around the first century or before, which was gradually replaced with the Latin script, although runes continued to be used for specialized purposes thereafter.
Traditionally, the Germanic peoples have been seen as possessing a law dominated by the concepts of and wergild. The precise details, nature and origin of what is still normally called "Germanic law" are now controversial. Roman sources state that the Germanic peoples made decisions in a popular assembly (the thing) but that they also had kings and war leaders. The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples probably shared a common poetic tradition, alliterative verse, and later Germanic peoples also shared legends originating in the Migration Period.
The publishing of Tacitus's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced the emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the Romantic period, such as Brothers Grimm, developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by romantic nationalism. For those scholars, the "Germanic" and modern "German" were identical. Ideas about the early Germans were also highly influential among members of the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later co-opted by the Nazi Party. During the second half of the 20th century, the controversial misuse of ancient Germanic history and archaeology was discredited and has since resulted in a backlash against many aspects of earlier scholarship.
It is unclear that any people group ever referred to themselves as Germani. By late antiquity, only peoples near the Rhine, especially the Franks and sometimes the Alemanni, were called Germani or Germanoi by Latin and Ancient Greek writers respectively. Germani subsequently ceased to be used as a name for any group of people and was revived as such only by the humanists in the 16th century. Previously, scholars during the Carolingian period (8th–11th centuries) had already begun using Germania and Germanicus in a territorial sense to refer to East Francia.
In modern English, the adjective Germanic is distinct from German, which is generally used when referring to modern Germans only. Germanic relates to the ancient Germani or the broader Germanic group. In modern German, the ancient Germani are called Germanen and their country Germania is Germanien, and there are clearly distinct terms for modern Germans (Deutsche) and modern Germany (Deutschland). In English however there are no common terms which distinguish Germans from Germani, or Germany from Germania, blurring the distinctions. To avoid ambiguity the Latin terms are often used, or the Germani are sometimes called "ancient Germans".
Apart from the designation of a language family (i.e., "Germanic languages"), the application of the term "Germanic" has become controversial in scholarship since 1990, especially among archaeologists and historians. Scholars have increasingly questioned the notion of ethnically defined people groups (Völker) as stable basic actors of history. The connection of archaeological assemblages to ethnicity has also been increasingly questioned. This has resulted in different disciplines developing different definitions of "Germanic". Beginning with the work of the "Toronto School" around Walter Goffart, various scholars have denied that anything such as a common Germanic ethnic identity ever existed. Such scholars argue that most ideas about Germanic culture are taken from far later epochs and projected backwards to antiquity. Historians of the Vienna School, such as Walter Pohl, have also called for the term to be avoided or used with careful explanation, and argued that there is little evidence for a common Germanic identity. The Anglo-Saxonist Leonard Neidorf writes that historians of the continental-European Germanic peoples of the 5th and 6th centuries are "in agreement" that there was no pan-Germanic identity or solidarity. Whether a scholar favors the existence of a common Germanic identity or not is often related to their position on the nature of the end of the Roman Empire.
Defenders of continued use of the term Germanic argue that the speakers of Germanic languages can be identified as Germanic people by language regardless of how they saw themselves. Linguists and philologists have generally reacted skeptically to claims that there was no Germanic identity or cultural unity, and they may view Germanic simply as a long-established and convenient term. Some archaeologists have also argued in favor of retaining the term Germanic due to its broad recognizability. Archaeologist Heiko Steuer defines his own work on the Germani in geographical terms (covering Germania), rather than in ethnic terms. He nevertheless argues for some sense of shared identity between the Germani, noting the use of a common language, a common runic script, various common objects of material culture such as bracteates and gullgubber (small gold objects) and the confrontation with Rome as things that could cause a sense of shared "Germanic" culture. Despite being cautious of the use of Germanic to refer to peoples, Sebastian Brather, Wilhelm Heizmann and Steffen Patzold nevertheless refer to further commonalities such as the widely attested worship of deities such as Odin, Thor and Frigg, and a shared legendary tradition.
Caesar and authors following him regarded Germania as stretching east of the Rhine for an indeterminate distance, bounded by the Baltic Sea and the Hercynian Forest. Pliny the Elder and Tacitus placed the eastern border at the Vistula. The Upper Danube served as a southern border. Between there and the Vistula Tacitus sketched an unclear boundary, describing Germania as separated in the south and east from the Dacians and the Sarmatians by mutual fear or mountains. This undefined eastern border is related to a lack of stable frontiers in this area such as were maintained by Roman armies along the Rhine and Danube. The geographer Ptolemy (2nd century CE) applied the name Germania magna ("Greater Germania", ) to this area, contrasting it with the Roman provinces of Germania Prima and Germania Secunda (on the west bank of the Rhine). In modern scholarship, Germania magna is sometimes also called Germania libera ("free Germania"), a name coined by Jacob Grimm around 1835.
Caesar and, following him, Tacitus, depicted the Germani as sharing elements of a common culture. A small number of passages by Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention Germanic tribes or individuals speaking a language distinct from Gaulish. For Tacitus ( Germania 43, 45, 46), language was a characteristic, but not defining feature of the Germanic peoples. Many of the ascribed ethnic characteristics of the Germani represented them as typically "barbarian", including the possession of stereotypical vices such as "wildness" and of virtues such as chastity. Tacitus was at times unsure whether a people were Germanic or not. He expressed uncertainty about the Bastarnae, who he says spoke and lived like the Germani, though they did not live in Germania, and they were beginning to look like Sarmatians through intermarriage. The Osi and Cotini lived in Germania, but were not Germani, because they had other languages and customs. The Aesti lived on the eastern shore of the Baltic and were like Suebi in their appearance and customs, although they spoke a different language. Ancient authors did not differentiate consistently between a territorial definition ("those living in Germania") and an ethnic definition ("having Germanic ethnic characteristics"), and the two definitions did not always align.
In the 3rd century, when Romans encountered Germanic-speaking peoples living north of the Lower Danube who fought on horseback, such as Goths and Gepids, they did not call them Germani. Instead, they connected them with non-Germanic-speaking peoples such as the Huns, Sarmatians, and Alans, who shared a similar culture. Romans also called them "Gothic peoples", (gentes Gothicae) even if they did not speak a Germanic language, and they often referred to the Goths as "Getae", equating them to a non-Germanic people residing in the same region. The writer Procopius described these new "Getic" peoples as sharing similar appearance, laws, Arian religion, and a common language.
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Several ancient sources list subdivisions of the Germanic tribes. Writing in the first century CE, Pliny the Elder lists five Germanic subgroups: the Vandili, the Inguaeones, the Istuaeones (living near the Rhine), the Herminones (in the Germanic interior), and the Peucini Basternae (living on the lower Danube near the Dacians). In chapter 2 of the Germania, written about a half-century later, Tacitus lists only three subgroups: the Ingvaeones (near the sea), the Herminones (in the interior of Germania), and the Istvaeones (the remainder of the tribes); Tacitus says these groups each claimed descent from the god Mannus, son of Tuisto. Tacitus also mentions a second tradition that there were four sons of either Mannus or Tuisto from whom the groups of the Marsi, Gambrivi, Suebi, and Vandili claim descent. The Herminones are also mentioned by Pomponius Mela, but otherwise, these divisions do not appear in other ancient works on the Germani.
There are a number of inconsistencies in the listing of Germanic subgroups by Tacitus and Pliny. While both Tacitus and Pliny mention some Scandinavian tribes, they are not integrated into the subdivisions. While Pliny lists the Suebi as part of the Herminones, Tacitus treats them as a separate group. Additionally, Tacitus's description of a group of tribes as united by the cult of Nerthus ( Germania 40) as well as the cult of the Alcis controlled by the Nahanarvali ( Germania 43) and Tacitus's account of the origin myth of the Semnones ( Germania 39) all suggest different subdivisions than the three mentioned in Germania chapter 2.
The subdivisions found in Pliny and Tacitus have been very influential for scholarship on Germanic history and language up until recent times. However, outside of Tacitus and Pliny there are no other textual indications that these groups were important. The subgroups mentioned by Tacitus are not used by him elsewhere in his work, contradict other parts of his work, and cannot be reconciled with Pliny, who is equally inconsistent. Additionally, there is no linguistic or archaeological evidence for these subgroups. New archaeological finds have tended to show that the boundaries between Germanic peoples were very permeable, and scholars now assume that migration and the collapse and formation of cultural units were constant occurrences within Germania. Nevertheless, various aspects such as the alliteration of many of the tribal names in Tacitus's account and the name of Mannus himself suggest that the descent from Mannus was an authentic Germanic tradition.
Although Proto-Germanic is reconstructed without dialects via the comparative method, it is almost certain that it never was a uniform proto-language.; ; ; The late Jastorf culture occupied so much territory that it is unlikely that Germanic populations spoke a single dialect, and traces of early linguistic varieties have been highlighted by scholars.; Sister dialects of Proto-Germanic itself certainly existed, as evidenced by the absence of the First Germanic Sound Shift (Grimm's law) in some "Para-Germanic" recorded proper names, and the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language was only one among several dialects spoken at that time by peoples identified as "Germanic" by Roman sources or archeological data. Although Roman sources name various Germanic tribes such as Suevi, Alemanni, Baiuvarii, etc., it is unlikely that the members of these tribes all spoke the same dialect.
In the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, migrations of East Germanic gentes from the Baltic Sea coast southeastwards into the hinterland led to their separation from the dialect continuum.; ; ; . By the late 3rd century CE, linguistic divergences like the West Germanic loss of the final consonant -z had already occurred within the "residual" Northwest dialect continuum. The latter definitely ended after the 5th- and 6th-century migrations of Angles, Jutes and part of the Saxons tribes towards modern-day England.
Further internal classifications are still debated among scholars, as it is unclear whether the internal features shared by several branches are due to early common innovations or to the later diffusion of local dialectal innovations.
Generally, scholars agree that it is possible to speak of Germanic-speaking peoples after 500 BCE, although the first attestation of the name Germani is not until much later. Between around 500 BCE and the beginning of the common era, archeological and linguistic evidence suggest that the Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language, the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, existed in or near the archaeological culture known as the late Jastorf culture, of the central Elbe in present day Germany, stretching north into Jutland and east into present day Poland.; ; If the Jastorf Culture is the origin of the Germanic peoples, then the Scandinavian peninsula would have become Germanic either via migration or assimilation over the course of the same period. Alternatively, has stressed that two other archaeological groups must have belonged to the Germani, one on either side of the Lower Rhine and reaching to the Weser, and another in Jutland and southern Scandinavia. These groups would thus show a "polycentric origin" for the Germanic peoples. The neighboring Przeworsk culture in modern Poland is thought to possibly reflect a Germanic and early Slavs component. The identification of the Jastorf culture with the Germani has been criticized by Sebastian Brather, who notes that it seems to be missing areas such as southern Scandinavia and the Rhine-Weser area, which linguists argue to have been Germanic, while also not according with the Roman era definition of Germani, which included Celtic-speaking peoples further south and west.
A category of evidence used to locate the Proto-Germanic homeland is founded on traces of early linguistic contacts with neighbouring languages. Germanic loanwords in the Finnic languages and Sámi languages have preserved archaic forms (e.g. Finnic kuningas, from Proto-Germanic kuningaz 'king'; rengas, from hringaz 'ring'; etc.),; ; with the older loan layers possibly dating back to an earlier period of intense contacts between pre-Germanic and Finno-Permic (i.e. Finno-Samic) speakers.; Shared lexical innovations between Celtic languages and Germanic languages, concentrated in certain semantic domains such as religion and warfare, indicate intensive contacts between the Germani and Celtic peoples, usually identified with the archaeological La Tène culture, found in southern Germany and the modern Czech Republic.; ; ; . Early contacts probably occurred during the Pre-Germanic and Pre-Celtic periods, dated to the 2nd millennium BCE, and the Celts appear to have had a large amount of influence on Germanic culture from up until the first century CE, which led to a high degree of Celtic-Germanic shared material culture and social organization. Some evidence of linguistic convergence between Germanic and Italic languages, whose Urheimat is supposed to have been situated north of the Alps before the 1st millennium BCE, have also been highlighted by scholars. Shared changes in their grammars also suggest early contacts between Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages; however, some of these innovations are shared with Baltic only, which may point to linguistic contacts during a relatively late period, at any rate after the initial breakup of Balto-Slavic into Baltic languages and Slavic languages, with the similarities to Slavic being seen as remnants of Indo-European archaisms or the result of secondary contacts.
The first century BCE was a time of the expansion of Germanic-speaking peoples at the expense of Celtic-speaking polities in modern southern Germany and the Czech Republic. Before 60 BCE, Ariovistus, described by Caesar as king of the Germani, led a force including Suevi across the Rhine into Gaul near Besançon, successfully aiding the Sequani against their enemies the Aedui at the Battle of Magetobriga. Ariovistus was initially considered an ally of Rome. In 58 BCE, with increasing numbers of settlers crossing the Rhine to join Ariovistus, Julius Caesar went to war with them, defeating them at the Battle of Vosges. In the following years Caesar pursued a controversial campaign to conquer all of Gaul on behalf of Rome, establishing the Rhine as a border. In 55 BCE he crossed the Rhine into Germania near Cologne. Near modern Nijmegen he also massacred a large migrating group of Tencteri and Usipetes who had crossed the Rhine from the east.
However, within this period two Germanic kings formed larger alliances. Both of them had spent some of their youth in Rome; the first of them was Maroboduus of the Marcomanni, who had led his people away from the Roman activities into Bohemia, which was defended by forests and mountains, and had formed alliances with other peoples. In 6 CE, Rome planned an attack against him but the campaign was cut short when forces were needed for the Illyrian revolt in the Balkans. Just three years later (9 CE), the second of these Germanic figures, Arminius of the Cherusci—initially an ally of Rome—drew a large Roman force into an ambush in northern Germany, and destroyed the three legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Marboduus and Arminius went to war with each other in 17 CE; Arminius was victorious and Marboduus was forced to flee to the Romans.
Following the Roman defeat at the Teutoburg Forest, Rome gave up on the possibility of fully integrating this region into the empire. Rome launched successful campaigns across the Rhine between 14 and 16 CE under Tiberius and Germanicus, but the effort of integrating Germania now seemed to outweigh its benefits. In the reign of Augustus's successor, Tiberius, it became state policy to expand the empire no further than the frontier based roughly upon the Rhine and Danube, recommendations that were specified in the will of Augustus and read aloud by Tiberius himself. Roman intervention in Germania led to a shifting and unstable political situation, in which pro- and anti-Roman parties vied for power. Arminius was murdered in 21 CE by his fellow Germanic tribesmen, due in part to these tensions and for his attempt to claim supreme kingly power for himself.
In the wake of Arminius's death, Roman diplomats sought to keep the Germanic peoples divided and fractious. Rome established relationships with individual Germanic kings that are often discussed as being similar to ; however, the situation on the border was always unstable, with rebellions by the Frisians in 28 CE, and attacks by the Chauci and Chatti in the 60s CE. The most serious threat to the Roman order was the Revolt of the Batavi in 69 CE, during the civil wars following the death of Nero known as the Year of the Four Emperors. The Batavi had long served as auxiliary troops in the Roman army as well as in the imperial bodyguard as the so-called Numerus Batavorum, often called the Germanic bodyguard. The uprising was led by Gaius Julius Civilis, a member of the Batavian royal family and Roman military officer, and attracted a large coalition of people both inside and outside of the Roman territory. The revolt ended following several defeats, with Civilis claiming to have only supported the imperial claims of Vespasian, who was victorious in the civil war.
The century after the Batavian Revolt saw mostly peace between the Germanic peoples and Rome. In 83 CE, Emperor Domitian of the Flavian dynasty attacked the Chatti north of Mogontiacum (now Mainz). This war would last until 85 CE. Following the end of the war with the Chatti, Domitian reduced the number of Roman soldiers on the upper Rhine and shifted the Roman military to guarding the Danube frontier, beginning the construction of the limes, the longest fortified border in the empire. The period afterwards was peaceful enough that the emperor Trajan reduced the number of soldiers on the frontier. According to Edward James, the Romans appear to have reserved the right to choose rulers among the barbarians on the frontier.
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. These new confederacies or peoples tended to border the Roman imperial frontier. Many ethnic names from earlier periods disappear. The Alamanni emerged along the upper Rhine and are mentioned in Roman sources from the third century onward. The Goths begin to be mentioned along the lower Danube, where they attacked the city of Histria in 238. The Franks are first mentioned occupying territory between the Rhine and Weser. The Lombards seem to have moved their center of power to the central Elbe. Groups such as the Alamanni, Goths, and Franks were not unified polities; they formed multiple, loosely associated groups, who often fought each other and some of whom sought Roman friendship. The Romans also begin to mention seaborne attacks by the Saxons, a term used generically in Latin for Germanic-speaking pirates. A system of defenses on both sides of the English Channel, the Saxon Shore, was established to deal with their raids.
From 250 onward, the Gothic peoples formed the "single most potent threat to the northern frontier of Rome". In 250 CE a Gothic king Cniva led Goths with Bastarnae, Carpi, Vandals, and Taifali into the empire, laying siege to Philippopolis. He followed his victory there with another on the marshy terrain at Abrittus, a battle which cost the life of Roman emperor Decius. In 253/254, further attacks occurred reaching Thessalonica and possibly Thrace. In 267/268 there were large raids led by the Herules in 267/268, and a mixed group of Goths and Herules in 269/270. Gothic attacks were abruptly ended in the years after 270, after a Roman victory in which the Gothic king Cannabaudes was killed.
The Roman limes largely collapsed in 259/260, during the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284), and Germanic raids penetrated as far as northern Italy. The limes on the Rhine and upper Danube was brought under control again in 270s, and by 300 the Romans had reestablished control over areas they had abandoned during the crisis. From the later third century onward, the Roman army relied increasingly on troops of Barbarian origin, often recruited from Germanic peoples, with some functioning as senior commanders in the Roman army. In the 4th century, warfare along the Rhine frontier between the Romans and Franks and Alemanni seems to have mostly consisted of campaigns of plunder, during which major battles were avoided. The Romans generally followed a policy of trying to prevent strong leaders from emerging among the barbarians, using treachery, kidnapping, and assassination, paying off rival tribes to attack them, or by supporting internal rivals.
Due to mistreatment by the Romans, the Tervingi revolted in 377, starting the Gothic War, joined by the Greuthungi. The Goths and their allies defeated the Romans first at Marcianople, then defeated and killed emperor Valens in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, destroying two-thirds of Valens' army. Following further fighting, peace was negotiated in 382, granting the Goths considerable autonomy within the Roman Empire. However, these Goths—who would be known as the Visigoths—revolted several more times, finally coming to be ruled by Alaric I. In 397, the disunited eastern Empire submitted to some of his demands, possibly giving him control over Epirus. In the aftermath of the large-scale Gothic entries into the empire, the Franks and Alemanni became more secure in their positions in 395, when Stilicho, the barbarian generalissimo who held power in the western Empire, made agreements with them.
In 401, Alaric invaded Italy, coming to an understanding with Stilicho in 404/5. This agreement allowed Stilicho to fight against the force of Radagaisus, who had crossed the Middle Danube in 405/6 and invaded Italy, only to be defeated outside Florence. That same year, a large force of Vandals, Suevi, Alans, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine, fighting the Franks but facing no Roman resistance. In 409, the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans crossing the Pyrenees into Spain, where they took possession of the northern part of the peninsula. The Burgundians seized the land around modern Speyer, Worms, and Strasbourg, territory that was recognized by the Roman Emperor Honorius. When Stilicho fell from power in 408, Alaric invaded Italy again and eventually sacked Rome in 410; Alaric died shortly thereafter. The Visigoths withdrew into Gaul where they faced a power struggle until the succession of Wallia in 415 and his son Theodoric I in 417/18. Following successful campaigns against them by the Roman emperor Constantius III, the Visigoths were settled as Roman allies in Gaul between modern Toulouse and Bourdeaux.
Other Goths, including those of Athanaric, continued to live outside the empire, with three groups crossing into the Roman territory after the Tervingi. The Huns gradually conquered Gothic groups north of the Danube, of which at least six are known, from 376 to 400. Crimean Goths may never have been conquered. The Gepids also formed an important Germanic people under Hunnic rule; the Huns had largely conquered them by 406. One Gothic group under Hunnic domination was ruled by the Amal dynasty, who would form the core of the Ostrogoths. The situation outside the Roman empire in 410s and 420s is poorly attested, but it is clear that the Huns continued to spread their influence onto the middle Danube.
By 440, Attila and the Huns had come to rule a multi-ethnic empire north of the Danube; two of the most important peoples within this empire were the Gepids and the Goths. The Gepid king Ardaric came to power around 440 and participated in various Hunnic campaigns. In 450, the Huns interfered in a Frankish succession dispute, leading in 451 to an invasion of Gaul. Aetius, by uniting a coalition of Visigoths, part of the Franks, and others, was able to defeat the Hunnic army at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. In 453, Attila died unexpectedly, and an alliance led by Ardaric's Gepids rebelled against the rule of his sons, defeating them in the Battle of Nedao. Either before or after Attila's death, Valamer, a Gothic ruler of the Amal dynasty, seems to have consolidated power over a large part of the Goths in the Hunnic domain. For the next 20 years, the former subject peoples of the Huns would fight among each other for preeminence.
The arrival of the Saxons in Britain is traditionally dated to 449, however, archaeology indicates they had begun arriving in Britain earlier. Latin sources used Saxon generically for seaborne raiders, meaning that not all of the invaders belonged to the continental Saxons. According to the British monk Gildas (c. 500 – c. 570), this group had been recruited to protect the Romano-British from the Picts, but had revolted. They quickly established themselves as rulers on the eastern part of the island.
The Ostrogoths, led by Valamer's brother Thiudimer, invaded the Balkans in 473. Thiudimer's son Theodoric succeeded him in 476. In that same year, a barbarian commander in the Roman Italian army, Odoacer, mutinied and removed the final western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus. Odoacer ruled Italy for himself, largely continuing the policies of Roman imperial rule. He destroyed the Kingdom of the Rugians, in modern Austria, in 487/488. Theodoric, meanwhile, successfully extorted the Eastern Empire through a series of campaigns in the Balkans. The eastern emperor Zeno agreed to send Theodoric to Italy in 487/8. After a successful invasion, Theodoric killed and replaced Odoacer in 493, founding a new Ostrogothic kingdom. Theodoric died in 526, amid increasing tensions with the eastern empire.
Toward the end of the migration period, in the early 500s, Roman sources portray a completely changed ethnic landscape outside of the empire: the Marcomanni and Quadi disappeared, as had the Vandals. Instead, the Thuringians, Rugians, Sciri, Herules, Goths, and Gepids are mentioned as occupying the Danube frontier. From the mid-5th century onward, the Alamanni had greatly expanded their territory in all directions and launched numerous raids into Gaul. The territory under the Frankish influence had grown to encompass northern Gaul and Germania to the Elbe. The Frankish king Clovis I united the various Frankish groups in 490s, and conquered the Alamanni by 506. From the 490s onward, Clovis waged wars against the Visigoths, defeating them in 507 and taking control of most of Gaul. Clovis's heirs conquered the Thuringians by 530 and the Burgundians by 532. The continental Saxons, composed of many subgroups, were made tributary to the Franks, as were the Frisians, who faced an attack by the Danes under Hygelac in 533.
The Vandal and Ostrogothic kingdoms were destroyed in 534 and 555 respectively by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire under Justinian. Around 500, a new ethnic identity appears in modern southern Germany, the Baiuvarii (Bavarians), under the patronage of Theodoric's Ostrogothic kingdom and then of the Franks. The Lombards, moving out of Bohemia, destroyed the kingdom of the Heruli in Pannonia in 510. In 568, after destroying the Gepid kingdom, the last Germanic kingdom in the Carpathian basin, the Lombards under Alboin invaded northern Italy, eventually conquering most of it. This invasion has traditionally been regarded as the end of the migration period. The eastern part of Germania, formerly inhabited by the Goths, Gepids, Vandals, and Rugians, was gradually Slavicized, a process enabled by the invasion of the nomadic Pannonian Avars.
Following their invasion in 568, the Lombards quickly conquered larger parts of the Italian peninsula. From 574 to 584, a period without a single Lombard ruler, the Lombards nearly collapsed, until a more centralized Lombard polity emerged under King Agilulf in 590. The invading Lombards only ever made up a very small percentage of the Italian population, however Lombard ethnic identity expanded to include people of both Roman and barbarian descent. Lombard power reached its peak during the reign of King Liutprand (712–744). After Liutprand's death, the Frankish King Pippin the Short invaded in 755, greatly weakening the kingdom. The Lombard kingdom was finally annexed by Charlemagne in 773.
After a period of weak central authority, the Visigothic kingdom came under the rule of Liuvigild, who conquered the Kingdom of the Suebi in 585. A Visigothic identity that was distinct from the Romance-speaking population they ruled had disappeared by 700, with the removal of all legal differences between the two groups. In 711, a Muslim army landed at Grenada; the entire Visigothic kingdom would be conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate by 725.
In what would become England, the Anglo-Saxons were divided into several competing kingdoms, the most important of which were Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. In the 7th century, Northumbria established overlordship over the other Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, until Mercia revolted under Wulfhere in 658. Subsequently, Mercia would establish dominance until 825 with the death of King Cenwulf. Few written sources report on Vendel period Scandinavia from 400 to 700, however this period saw profound societal changes and the formation of early states with connections to the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish kingdoms. In 793, the first recorded Vikings raid occurred at Lindisfarne, ushering in the Viking Age.
Like their neighbors and other historically related peoples, the ancient Germanic peoples venerated numerous indigenous deities. These deities are attested throughout literature authored by or written about Germanic-speaking peoples, including runic inscriptions, contemporary written accounts, and in folklore after Christianization. As an example, the second of the two Merseburg charms (two Old High German examples of alliterative verse from a manuscript dated to the ninth century) mentions six deities: Odin, Baldr, Sinthgunt, Sunna, Frigg, and Fulla.For general discussion regarding the Merseburg Charms, see for example and .
With the exception of Sinthgunt, proposed to these deities occur in other Germanic languages, such as Old English and Old Norse. By way of the comparative method, philology are then able to reconstruct and propose early Germanic forms of these names from early Germanic mythology. Compare the following table:
| Wuotan | Óðinn | Wōden | * Wōđanaz | A deity similarly associated with healing magic in the Old English Nine Herbs Charm and particular forms of magic throughout the Old Norse record. This deity is strongly associated with extensions of * Frijjō (see below). |
| Balder | Baldr | Bældæg | * Balđraz | In Old Norse texts, where the only description of the deity occurs, Baldr is a son of the god Odin and is associated with beauty and light. |
| Sunne | Sól | Sigel | * Sowelō ~ * Sōel | A theonym identical to the proper noun 'Sun'. A goddess and the personified Sun. |
| Volla | Fulla | Unattested | * Fullōn | A goddess associated with extensions of the goddess * Frijjō (see below). The Old Norse record refers to Fulla as a servant of the goddess Frigg, while the second Merseburg Charm refers to Volla as Friia's sister. |
| Friia | Frigg | Frīg | * Frijjō | Associated with the goddess Volla/Fulla in both the Old High German and Old Norse records, this goddess is also strongly associated with the god Odin (see above) in both the Old Norse and Langobardic records. |
The structure of the magic formula in this charm has a long history prior to this attestation: it is first known to have occurred in Vedic India, where it occurs in the Atharvaveda, dated to around 500 BCE.The Atharveda charm is specifically charm 12 of book four of the Atharveda. See discussion in for example . Numerous other beings common to various groups of ancient Germanic peoples receive mention throughout the ancient Germanic record. One such type of entity, a variety of supernatural women, is also mentioned in the first of the two Merseburg Charms:
| itis | dís | ides | * đīsō | A type of goddess-like supernatural entity. The West Germanic forms present some linguistic difficulties but the North Germanic and West Germanic forms are used explicitly as cognates (compare Old English ides Scildinga and Old Norse dís Skjǫldunga). |
Other widely attested entities from the North and West Germanic folklore include elf, dwarfs, and the mare. (For more discussion on these entities, see Proto-Germanic folklore.)
The great majority of material describing Germanic mythology stems from the North Germanic record. The body of myths among the North Germanic-speaking peoples is known today as Norse mythology and is attested in numerous works, the most expansive of which are the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. While these texts were composed in the 13th century, they frequently quote genres of traditional alliterative verse known today as Poetic Edda and skaldic poetry dating to the pre-Christian period.For a concise overview of sources on Germanic mythology, see .
West Germanic mythology (that of speakers of, e.g., Old English and Old High German) is comparatively poorly attested. Notable texts include the Old Saxon Baptismal Vow and the Old English Nine Herbs Charm. While most extant references are simply to deity names, some narratives do survive into the present, such as the Lombard origin myth, which details a tradition among the Lombards that features the deities Frea (cognate with Old Norse Frigg) and Godan (cognate with Old Norse Óðinn). Attested in the 7th-century Origo Gentis Langobardorum and the 8th-century Historia Langobardorum from the Italian Peninsula, the narrative strongly corresponds in numerous ways with the prose introduction to the eddic poem Grímnismál, recorded in 13th-century Iceland.On the correspondences between the prose introduction to Grímnismál and the Langobardic origin myth, see for example .
Very few texts make up the corpus of Gothic and other East Germanic languages, and East Germanic paganism and its associated mythic body is especially poorly attested. Notable topics that provide insight into the matter of East Germanic paganism include the Ring of Pietroassa, which appears to be a cult object (see also Gothic runic inscriptions), and the mention of the Gothic Anses (cognate with Old Norse Æsir '(pagan) gods') by Jordanes.Regarding the Ring of Pietroassa, see for example discussion in . On Gothic Anses, see for example .
Practices associated with the religion of the ancient Germanic peoples see fewer attestations. However, elements of religious practices are discernable throughout the textual record associated with the ancient Germanic peoples, including a focus on sacred groves and trees, the presence of seeresses, and numerous vocabulary items. The archaeological record has yielded a variety of depictions of deities, a number of them associated with depictions of the ancient Germanic peoples (see Anthropomorphic wooden cult figurines of Central and Northern Europe). Notable from the Roman period are the Matres and Matronae, some having Germanic names, to whom devotional altars were set up in regions of Germania, Eastern Gaul, and Northern Italy (with a small distribution elsewhere) that were occupied by the Roman army from the first to the fifth century.
Germanic mythology and religious practice is of particular interest to Indo-Europeanists, scholars who seek to identify aspects of ancient Germanic culture—both in terms of linguistic correspondence and by way of motifs—stemming from Proto-Indo-European culture, including Proto-Indo-European mythology. The primordial being Ymir, attested solely in Old Norse sources, makes for a commonly cited example. In Old Norse texts, the death of this entity results in creation of the cosmos, a complex of motifs that finds strong correspondence elsewhere in the Indo-European sphere, notably in Vedic mythology.See discussion in for example and .
The areas of the Roman Empire conquered by the Franks, Alemanni, and Baiuvarii were mostly Christian already, but it appears that Christianity declined there. In 496, the Frankish king Clovis I converted to Nicene Christianity. This began a period of missionizing within Frankish territory. The Anglo-Saxons gradually converted following a mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 595. In the 7th century, Frankish-supported missionary activity spread out of Gaul, led by figures of the Anglo-Saxon mission such as Saint Boniface. The Saxons initially rejected Christianization, but were eventually forcibly converted by Charlemagne as a result of their conquest in the Saxon Wars in 776/777.
While attempts to convert the Scandinavian peoples began in 831, they were mostly unsuccessful until the 10th and 11th centuries. The last Germanic people to convert were the Swedes, although the Geats had converted earlier. The pagan Temple at Uppsala seems to have continued to exist into the early 1100s.
Like other indigenous scripts of Europe, the runes ultimately developed from the Phoenician alphabet, but unlike similar scripts, the runes were not replaced by the Latin alphabet by the first century BCE. Runes remained in use among the Germanic peoples throughout their history despite the significant influence of Rome.
The precise date that Germanic speakers developed the runic alphabet is unknown, with estimates varying from 100 BCE to 100 CE. Generally accepted inscriptions in the oldest attested form of the script, called the Elder Futhark, date from 200 to 700 CE. The word rune is widely attested among Germanic languages, where it developed from Proto-Germanic rūna and held a primary meaning of 'secret', but also other meanings such as 'whisper', 'mystery', 'closed deliberation', and 'council'. In most cases, runes appear not to have been used for everyday communication and knowledge of them may have generally been limited to a small group, for whom the term erilaR is attested from the sixth century onward.
The letters of the Elder Futhark are arranged in an order called the futhark, named after its first six characters. The alphabet is supposed to have been extremely phonetic, and each letter could also represent a word or concept, so that, for instance, the f-rune also stood for fehu]] ('livestock, personal property'). Such examples are known as ideographic runes. Runic inscriptions are found on organic materials such as wood, bone, horn, ivory, and animal hides, as well as on stone and metal. Inscriptions tend to be short, and are difficult to interpret as profane or magical. They include names, inscriptions by the maker of an object, memorials to the dead, as well as inscriptions that are religious or magical in nature.
One point of debate surrounding Germanic name-giving practice is whether name elements were considered semantically meaningful when combined. Whatever the case, an element of a name could be inherited by a male or female's offspring, leading to an alliterative lineage (related, see alliterative verse). The Istaby Runestone provides one such example, where three generations of men are connected by way of the element wulfaz, meaning 'wolf' (the alliterative Haþuwulfaz, * Heruwulfaz, and Hariwulfaz). Sacral components to Germanic personal names are also attested, including elements such as * hailaga- and * wīha- (both usually translated as 'holy, sacred', see for example Vé), and deity names (). Deity names as first components of personal names are attested primarily in Old Norse names, where they commonly reference in particular the god Thor (Old Norse Þórr).
Some stylistic aspects of later Germanic poetry appear to have origins in the Indo-European period, as shown by comparison with ancient Greek and Sanskrit poetry. Originally, the Germanic-speaking peoples shared a metrical and poetic form, alliterative verse, which is attested in very similar forms in Old Saxon, Old High German and Old English, and in a modified form in Old Norse. Alliterative verse is not attested in the small extant Gothic language corpus. The poetic forms diverge among the different languages from the 9th century onward.
Later Germanic peoples shared a common legendary tradition. These heroic legends mostly involve historical personages who lived during the migration period (4th–6th centuries CE), placing them in highly ahistorical and mythologized settings; they originate and develop as part of an oral tradition. Some early Gothic heroic legends are already found in Jordanes' Getica (). The close link between Germanic heroic legend and Germanic language and possibly poetic devices is shown by the fact that the Germanic speakers in Francia who adopted a Romance language, do not preserve Germanic legends but rather developed their own heroic folklore—excepting the figure of Walter of Aquitaine.
As of 2023, scholarly consensus is that Germanic law is best understood in contrast with Roman law, in that whereas Roman law was "learned" and the same across regions, Germanic law was not learned and incorporated regional peculiarities. Common elements include an emphasis on orality, gesture, formulaic language, legal symbolism, and ritual. Some items in the "Leges", such as the use of vernacular words, may reveal aspects of originally Germanic, or at least non-Roman, law. Legal historian Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand writes that this vernacular, often in the form of Latinized words, belongs to "the oldest layers of a Germanic legal language" and shows some similarities to Gothic.
Roman sources stress, perhaps partially as a literary topos, that the Germanic peoples fought without discipline. Germanic warriors fought mostly on foot, in tight formations in close combat. Tacitus mentions a single formation as used by the Germani, the wedge (). Cavalry was rare: in the Roman period, it mostly consisted of chiefs and their immediate retinues, who may have dismounted to fight. However, East Germanic peoples such as the Goths developed cavalry forces armed with lances due to contact with various nomadic peoples. Archaeological finds, mostly in the form of grave goods, indicate that most warriors were armed with spear, shield, and often with swords. Higher status individuals were often buried with spurs for riding. The only archaeological evidence for helmets and chain mail shows them to be of Roman manufacture.
Based on pollen samples and the finds of seeds and plant remains, the chief grains cultivated in Germania were barley, oats, and wheat (both Einkorn and emmer), while the most common vegetables were beans and peas. Flax was also grown. Agriculture in Germania relied heavily on animal husbandry, primarily the raising of cattle, which were smaller than their Roman counterparts Both cultivation and animal husbandry methods improved with time, with examples being the introduction of rye, which grew better in Germania, and the introduction of the three-field system.
Lead was needed in order to make molds and for the production of jewelry, however it is unclear if the Germani were able to produce lead. While lead mining is known from within the Siegerland across the Rhine from the Roman Empire, it is sometimes theorized that this was the work of Roman miners. Another mine within Germania was near modern Soest, where again it is theorized that lead was exported to Rome. The neighboring Roman provinces of Germania superior and Germania inferior produced a great deal of lead, which has been found stamped as plumbum Germanicum ("Germanic lead") in Roman shipwrecks.
Deposits of gold are not found naturally within Germania and had to either be imported or could be found having naturally washed down rivers. The earliest known gold objects made by Germanic craftsmen are mostly small ornaments dating from the later 1st century CE. Silver working likewise dates from the first century CE, and silver often served as a decorative element with other metals. From the 2nd century onward, increasingly complex gold jewelry was made, often inlaid with precious stones and in a polychrome style. Inspired by Roman metalwork, Germanic craftsmen also began working with gold and silver-gilt foils on belt buckles, jewelry, and weapons. Pure gold objects produced in the late Roman period included with snakeheads, often displaying filigree and cloisonné work, techniques that dominated throughout Germanic Europe.
Surviving examples indicate that Germanic textiles were of high quality and mostly made of flax and wool. Roman depictions show the Germani wearing materials that were only lightly worked. Surviving examples indicate that a variety of weaving techniques were used. Leather was used for shoes, belts, and other gear. Spindles, sometimes made of glass or amber, and the weights from and are frequently found in Germanic settlements.
Roman trade with Germania is poorly documented. Roman merchants crossing the Alps for Germania are recorded already by Caesar in the 1st century BCE. During the imperial period, most trade probably took place in trading posts in Germania or at major Roman bases. The most well-known Germanic export to the Roman Empire was amber, with a trade centered on the Baltic coast. Economically, however, amber is likely to have been fairly unimportant. The use of Germanic loanwords in surviving Latin texts suggests that besides amber (glaesum), the Romans also imported the feathers of Germanic geese (ganta) and hair dye (sapo). Germanic slaves were also a major commodity. Archaeological discoveries indicate that lead was exported from Germania as well, perhaps mined in Roman-Germanic "joint ventures".
Products imported from Rome are found archaeologically throughout the Germanic sphere and include vessels of bronze and silver, glassware, pottery, brooches; other products such as textiles and foodstuffs may have been just as important. Rather than mine and smelt non-ferrous metals themselves, Germanic smiths seem to have often preferred to melt down finished metal objects from Rome, which were imported in large numbers, including coins, metal vessels, and metal statues. Tacitus mentions in Germania chapter 23 that the Germani living along the Rhine bought wine, and Roman wine has been found in Denmark and northern Poland. Finds of Roman silver coinage and weapons might have been war booty or the result of trade, while high quality silver items may have been diplomatic gifts. Roman coinage may have acted as a form of currency as well.
The beginning of Germanic philology proper starts around the turn of the 19th century, with Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm being the two most significant founding figures. Their oeuvre included various monumental works on linguistics, culture, and literature. Jacob Grimm offered many arguments identifying the Germans as the "most Germanic" of the Germanic-speaking peoples, many of which were taken up later by others who sought to equate "Germanicness" () with "Germanness" (). Grimm also argued that the Scandinavian sources were, while much later, more "pure" attestations of "Germanness" than those from the south, an opinion that remains common today. German nationalism thinkers of the völkisch movement placed a great emphasis on the connection of modern Germans to the Germania using Tacitus to prove the purity and virtue of the German people, which had allowed them to conquer the decadent Romans. German historians used the Germanic past to argue for a liberalism, democratic form of government and a unified German state. Contemporary Romantic nationalism in Scandinavia placed more weight on the Viking Age, resulting in the movement known as Scandinavism.
In the late 19th century, Gustaf Kossinna developed several widely accepted theories tying archaeological finds of specific assemblages of objects. Kossina used his theories to extend Germanic identity back to the Neolithic period and to state with confidence when and where various Germanic and other peoples had migrated within Europe. In the 1930s and 40s, the Nazi Party made use of notions of Germanic "purity" reaching back into the earliest prehistoric times. Nazi ideologues also used the "Germanic" nature of peoples such as the Franks and Goths to justify territorial annexations in northern France, Ukraine, and the Crimea. Scholars reinterpreted Germanic culture to justify the Nazis' rule as anchored in the Germanic past, emphasizing noble leaders and warlike retinues who dominated surrounding peoples. After 1945, these associations led to a scholarly backlash and re-examining of Germanic origins. Many medieval specialists have even argued that scholars should avoid the term Germanic altogether since it is too emotionally charged, adding that it has been politically abused and creates more confusion than clarity.
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