I was joking . They gave their name to the country but the country gave their names to them.
What are the biggest mysteries of the Dark Ages?
- Thread starter Mr_Fanboy
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Intimately related to the discussion that has been taking place about the exact nature of the decline of Romano-British culture (and whether it was a situation that could have easily yielded someone resembling the legendary King Arthur) is the exact nature of the Anglo-Saxon migrations. After all, it is a little weird that Celtic language and culture largely disappeared in most of what is today England in a relatively short timespan, to the point that few words of Celtic origin can even be found in the English language today. This was an almost total transformation... so how was the process facilitated? For the longest time, many simply assumed that the Anglo-Saxons must have simply killed or driven away all of the natives in their wake, but modern genetic research seems to have rendered this explanation untenable: there is actually a strong degree of genetic continuity between British people who lived centuries before the Anglo-Saxon migrations and today. Compare this to, say, the earlier Indo-European invaders, who much more thoroughly wiped out the preexisting inhabitants of places like Britain. So... what gives?
(Tangentially related, but I do find it amusing that Arthur is still a folk hero in much of the English-speaking world today, despite the fact that he was a Romano-Celt who fought the Anglo-Saxons if he existed at all, whereas Hengist and Horsa, the legendary founders of the English nation, have largely been forgotten outside of academic and literary circles.)
(Tangentially related, but I do find it amusing that Arthur is still a folk hero in much of the English-speaking world today, despite the fact that he was a Romano-Celt who fought the Anglo-Saxons if he existed at all, whereas Hengist and Horsa, the legendary founders of the English nation, have largely been forgotten outside of academic and literary circles.)
I wish I was more well-versed in the subject of early Hungarian history, as my understanding many of the specifics of their migrations across the steppe and eventual conquest of their modern homeland are still rather controversial.
If only the Magyars, pagan Anglo-Saxons, and all of these other folks had simply kept better records...
If only the Magyars, pagan Anglo-Saxons, and all of these other folks had simply kept better records...
Speaking of Hungary's early history, we're not really sure whether the common people of pre-Magyar Hungary were Slavs or Pannonian Romans.
Ironically , the most common celtic words in English are of Gaulish (car) and Irish Origin ( Bother).
He misunderstood the data, perhaps even cherry-picking them. I have no reason to believe deliberate falsification. There is King's work on this, but from phone I can't recover the actual references.
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Genetically speaking it's clearly mostly Slavs, or at the very least it's not different from Slovaks or Croats.
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Isn’t this something to do with the somewhat controversial writings of Immanuel Velikovsky that were fashionable in the 70s?
He was big on Egyptian chronology but also other things, such as Venus having several close encounters with Earth. He’s brilliantly mad, but mad nonetheless.
This is why I hate the "aliens built the Pyramids/Machu Picchu/whatever" crap. It vastly underestimates how smart and resourceful early humans were.
Velikovsky was not the only one to put in doubt the official chronology and whatever you think about his theories about planets , the ones about chronology had surely some points…
I was talking mostly of David Rohl, Peter James and the movement in general than Velikovsky who is only one of the many who had found inconsistencies in the ancient chronology
There is no such a thing as an 'official' chronology. There is, at best, a painstakingly reached consensus about when things happened, based of what a series of sources and other data allow to say.
Hence why if I had the money I would have a bunch of statues and plaques made from very long lasting materials buried in various locations across the world. They would feature me and wildly innacurate information. Something like "Father Maryland First Emperor of Mankind, protector of Mars, Guardian of Venus, etc.". Basically it would all be to fuck with future historians and archaeologists.
Gonna be so cool when, thousands of years from now, archaeologists of the post-apocalyptic civilization are scratching their heads trying to figure out how pyramids popped up in the disparate lands of Egypt, Central America... and Memphis, Tennessee.
Five bucks say Archaeologists end up digging up Nic Cage's pyramid tomb and end up thinking he was some sort of King.
Millenia from now historians will be writing about "Nicholas Cage Great King of the Lost City Of New Orleans" (where his tomb is.).
You are using an incredibly blatant double standard, just compare the way you use the word "romanization" to "germanization":
Apparently romanization merely requires some cultural influence or even just technological infusion but germanization requires annihilation. Why?
The point is that the Franks weren't particularly Romanized in the 5th century CE let alone the 4th one compared to Goths, which adopted Christianity 2-3 generations prior.
No, I've seen suggested that the nobility remained bilingual up to the 9th century in Neustria.
Which indicates that they consciously kept a separate identity despite being a minority surrouded by Roman provincials.
Romans don't have a copyright on writing laws.
This is non-sense, the border regions were the places that show an incredible presence of soldiers from the rest of the empire, which would have made them target of actual linguistic and cultural romanization.
Why does this matter? We weren't talking about the Goths or Italy and Southern France.
Using your own logic the Romans didn't actually romanize anything because they didn't "annihilate" the locals.
There is no reason to believe they did so in any significant capacity before their conquest of Neustria, that's the point.
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In all fairness the Romans Romanized the Gauls and Franks more than the Franks Francized Roman Gaul.
Poorly worded myself. I'll aim to correct that.
One of the factors that I feel should be considered to be at play would simply be numbers. The germans who invaded and settled (or were settled) in the Roman Empire originally formed a minority of the local population in those areas. Most of the population of the areas they went into were roman or at least heavily romanized. So to me it feels more likely that being around a more numerous romanized folk led to a movement of romanization rather than one of germanization. That's the main reason I insisted on cultural influence and technological infusion: because it feels more like the colonizers became more like the people they colonized than the other way around.
Doesn't mean of course that there aren't aspects of the original germanic culture that subsisted nor were also adopted by the non-germanic part of the population. But comparatively, I feel you're more encountering a case of romanized barbarians settling in and dominating than of a germanized local population.
We'll have to disagree on that. The Franks, particularly the Salians, had started being settled on the Roman borders by the Romans themselves since the late Third Century, and served as Roman auxiliaries for roughly as much time. This is bound to have had an influence and as far as I'm aware archeology corrolates that.
And again, Christiannity was a relatively new religion that originally didn't correlate to Romanization. In fact, while Christiannity was indeed on the ascent following its legalization and adoption by roman emperors, Paganism wasn't wiped out immediately: it persisted in a lot of areas of the Empire sometimes even after the fall of Rome.
I don't see how that contradicts the idea that they didn't romanize.
Being bilingual does mean they kept using their germanic language, but it also means they started to adopt the Romance language that was developping... Furthermore, the romance language became the only one being used past the IXth century... Meaning that it was flourishing while the original germanic tongue of the Franks was in decline.
For me it's also a proof of a certain romanization, given they literraly started using their oginal tongue less and less in favor of one heavily influenced by Latin.
Yes but keeping a separate identity doesn't mean you didn't romanize.
In fact, before Caracalla's edict in 212, the Romans themselves used to distinct between proper Roman citizens and non-Romans subjects of the Empire like the Gauls, Britons, Illyrians, Greek, etc... And all the historians I've read on the subject will tell you all these people had romanized to an extent long before Caracalla's edict made everyone a Roman citizen.
So to me the Franks (and other Germanic tribes) making a distinction between themselves and the Romans doesn't really prove much.
No... But most of the germanic customs were originally oral traditions and they tended to be given written form only after they settled in former Roman lands.
And even then I don't see how that is contradictory to the idea that adopting Roman law isn't a proof of Romanization. They were after all adopting a whole corpus of laws that weren't their own in the first place. Why bother with that and not stick to only customary laws if you don't think it's relevant and convenient?
The Roman legion didn't number that much men. In fact, that ended up being one of the downfall of the Roman Empire: the troops were stretched too thin to defend the borders. And while the presence of troops could also have an influence, you could also argue that these are the fringes of the Empire, the more distant parts of it: it would take far more time for them to be properly romanized.
Furthermore, following the Third Century crisis and the troubles of the IVth in the West, Romans were relying more and more on Barbarian Feodorati to defend themselves. And as a result a lot of those Feodorati were settled in these border regions. That's actually the main reason you had the Franks settled around the area of modern-day Belgium, because that actually was one of the Northern borders of the Empire.
I'm pretty sure that if you study the border regions of the Western Empire, you'll find that a lot of them had been settled by barbarian tribes tasked with defensive work. Which in turn would mean an inlfux of german settlers in these regions... Regions that were themselves already in contact with germanic tribes for the simple reasons that's what you found on the other side of the border. If not on site should the are not have been properly romanized.
Why exclude Northern France from all of this? That's the former part of the Roman Empire that was originally occupied by the Franks... and it definitely spoke a Romance language too.
More importantly it matters because all the germanic tribes, the Franks included, all spoke Germanic language. An argument that about how they would have germanized the land would be the switch in language use to germanic tongues in the areas they occupied: that's one of the points made about the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain for example. But in the case of most germanic tribes living in the former western empire, Franks included, the languages that ended up dominating are Romance language all descended from Latin. At best the germanic languages had an influence on how the romance language evolved, but it still remained romance, not a germanic tongue.
Most of Neustria is part of what was known as the domain of Soisson that Clovis conquered after he defeated Syagrius.
Childeric I died before that happened and his tomb is in Tournai, a town that is part of Austrasia. And while I don't know much about archelogical finds, I'm pretty sure Childeric's tomb isn't the only one we have in the area that indicates a certain form of romanization.