Goths

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

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The Goths were a Germanic tribe originating in northern Europe, who later migrated southwards and conquered parts of the Roman empire.

Our only source for early Gothic history is Jordanes' Getica, (published 551 CE), 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.

The Goths' own tradition was they had originated in Scandza which was separated by the Baltic sea from the mainland of Europe. 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 (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 BCE, 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 CE. 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 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 puts them at the Vistula from around 0 CE. The material culture associated with these Goths (or better Gotones) is typically identified with the Wielbark/Willenberg culture, which has strong influences from the closely related culture of southern Scandinavia. Modern archaeological research consequently supports the Scandinavian origin of the Goths and the authenticity of their tradition. Moreover, in Västergötland, in Sweden, there is a sudden disappearance of villages prior to the appearance of Goths in Poland. This culture shifted south-eastwards towards the Black Sea area from the mid-2nd century.

It is a matter of dispute whether the Geats, a people living in the Geatish lands in Sweden, satisfies this connection. The word "Geats" (Anglo-Saxon Geatas) and the Swedish word "Götar" (East Norse Gøtar) both represent the expected outcome of proto-Germanic *Gauta-. This is different from 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, however, identical to that of Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea. Some argue for linguistic connections between Gothic and Old Norse, 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 maintain 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