Geats

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(Redirected from
Götar
)
This article is about the North Germanic tribe. For the Thracian tribe, see Getae.

Geatish settlements during the 6th century, within the red lines. The green areas show the main areas of North Germanic settlement in Scandinavia.

The Geats (

toponyms
.

The Swedish dialects spoken in the areas that used to be inhabited by Geats form a distinct group,

Götamål
.

Etymology

Further information: Gaut and Name of the Goths

The etymology of the name Geat (Old English Geatas, from a

Proto-Germanic *Gautaz, plural *Gautōz) is similar[4] to that of Goths and Gutes (*Gutô, plural *Gutaniz). The names derive from ablaut grades of the Proto-Germanic word *geutaną, meaning "to pour".[5] They have the literal meaning "they who pour their seed".[6] (For more information see Goths § Etymology.) The names could also allude to watercourses in the land where they were living,[7] but this is not generally accepted to be the case, partly because that would mean that the names' similarity would be coincidental.[4]

A more specific theory about the word Gautigoths is that it means the Goths who live near the river Gaut,

Old Norse: Gautelfr).[8] It might also have been a conflation of the word Gauti with a gloss of Goths.[9] In the 17th century the name Göta älv, 'River of the Geats', replaced the earlier names Götälven and Gautelfr.[5] The etymology of the word Gaut (as mentioned above) derives from the Proto-Germanic word *geutan, and the extended meaning of "to pour" is "flow, stream, waterfall", which could refer to Trollhättan Falls or to the river itself.[5]

The short form of Gautigoths was the Old Norse Gautar, which originally referred to just the inhabitants of Västergötland, or the western parts of today's Götaland, a meaning which is retained in some Icelandic sagas.[5]

History

Geata Sae Geata Wedera
Mentions of Geats, Sea-Geats and Wederas in the manuscript of Beowulf.

Early history

The earliest known surviving mention of the Geats appears in

Geatish kings, but only Hygelac finds confirmation in Liber Monstrorum where he is referred to as "Rex Getarum" and in a copy of Historiae Francorum where he is called "Rege Gotorum". These sources concern a raid into Frisia, ca 516, which is also described in Beowulf. C. 551, some decades after Hygelac's raid, Jordanes described the Geats as a nation which was "bold, and quick to engage in war".[11]

The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain included many North Germanic people who were losers in the brutal tribal warfare of Scandinavia. The place-name -gate marks the site of Geatish settlement, often alongside strategically important Roman roads and nearby Visigothic and/or Jutish settlements.[12] Defeated Jutes like Hengest and his brother Horsa fled to Kent, while Geats defeated by encroaching Swedes moved to Yorkshire where they founded Gillingshire by the Tees, originally the settlement of the Geatlings.[13] It has also been suggested that East Anglia was settled by Geats at this time,[14] or by Wulfings who also came from Götaland, bringing the traditions of Beowulf with them.[15]

Any peace that eventually settled in southern Scandinavia was most likely due to exhaustion, and a Danish archaeologist has summarized that in the mid-6th century, and after, Scandinavia "went down to hell".[13] Scandinavian wares appear to have stopped arriving in England, c. 550, suggesting that contact was broken.[14]

Political centralization in Scandinavia

According to Procopius there were 13 "very numerous nations" on the Scandinavian peninsula in the 6th century, which is supported by recent archaeological analyses. Several scholars consider this to be a reasonable number of independent kingdoms at the time, with each consisting of one or more tribes, as reported by Jordanes.[16] However, by 1350, these 13 kingdoms had been reduced in number to only two, Norway and Sweden.[17] The Geats were one of the largest tribes.[18]

Procopius and Jordanes both mention the Geats, but after them, foreign sources about Scandinavia are scarce until the 9th century, when Anglo-Saxon and Frankish sources do shed some light on the area. In these, the Geats are absent, which has led some scholars to conclude that they were no longer an independent nation and had been subsumed by the Swedes.[19] Norwegian and Icelandic scaldic sources from the 10th century however indicate that they were still politically independent, sometimes opposing Norwegian kings. It has been suggested that their absence from older sources is instead due to their being an inland people.[20]

The nature and the processes of how Geats and Swedes came to form one kingdom have been much debated among Swedish scholars. The scarcity and sometimes debated veracity of sources has left much room open for interpretation. The oldest medieval Swedish sources present the Swedish kingdom as retaining differences between provinces, in laws as well as in weights and measures.[19] Some scholars have argued that the Geats were subjugated by the Swedes, and have suggested various dates for such an event, from the 6th to the 9th centuries.[19] Others have wanted to see a more gradual merging, and that the Geats were slowly subsumed into the more powerful kingdom of Sweden, and in many respects they maintained their own cultural identity during the Middle Ages.[21] Still others have put emphasis on how it was individual rulers, not ethnic groups, who were driving the process towards a unified kingdom, and that the process was very complicated.[22]

Papal letters from the 1080s style the recipients as "king of the Swedes" or "king of the West Geats". In another papal letter from the 1160s, the title rex Sweorum et Gothorum is first attested.[23] The Swedish kings began the custom of styling themselves as also the kings of the Geats in the 1270s.[24][25][26]


Dynastic struggles

In the 11th century, the Swedish

Norse paganism
, in the 1080s. Inge would retake the throne and rule until his death c. 1100.

Westrogothic law

In his

Westrogothic law, he decided not to demand hostages as he despised the Geats, and was slain near Falköping
.

In a

Stone of Mora
when a new king was elected.

The distinction between Swedes and Geats lasted during the Middle Ages, but the Geats became increasingly important for Swedish national claims of greatness due to the Geats' old connection with the Goths. They argued that since the Goths and the Geats were the same nation, and the Geats were part of the kingdom of Sweden, this meant that the Swedes had defeated the Roman empire. The earliest attestation of this claim comes from the

Gothicismus
 or in Swedish Göticism, i.e. Geaticism.

After the 15th century and the Kalmar Union, the Swedes and the Geats appear to have begun to perceive themselves as one nation, which is reflected in the evolution of svensk into a common ethnonym.[27][28] It was originally an adjective referring to those belonging to the Swedish tribe, who are called svear in Swedish. As early as the 9th century, svear had been vague, both referring to the Swedish tribe and being a collective term including the Geats,[27] and this is the case in Adam of Bremen's work where the Geats (Goths) appear both as a proper nation and as part of the Sueones.[27] The merging/assimilation of the two nations took a long time, however. In the early-20th century, Nordisk familjebok noted that svensk had almost replaced svear as a name for the Swedish people.[29]

At the same time, the Swedish ancestors were often referred to as Geats, especially when their heroism or connection to the Goths was to be stressed. This practice disappeared during the 19th century, when the

vikings
gradually took over the role as the heroic ancestors.

Society

The Geats were traditionally divided into several petty kingdoms, or districts, which had their own things (popular assemblies) and laws. The largest one of these districts was Västergötland (West Geatland), and it was in Västergötland that the Thing of all Geats was held every year, in the vicinity of Skara. Despite the name, the thing was only for the inhabitants of Västergötland and Dalsland. The equivalent in Östergötland was Lionga thing.

Unlike the Swedes, who used the division

härad), like the Norwegians and the Danes. Surprisingly, it would be the Geatish name that became the common term in the Swedish kingdom. This is possibly related to the fact that several of the medieval Swedish kings were of Geatish extraction and often resided primarily in Götaland. In Västergötland and Dalsland, there were also a higher-level division where one or more hærrad made up a bo linked to a kongsgård
.

Modern legacy

Today, the merger of the two nations is complete, as there is no longer any tangible identification in Götaland with a Geatish identity, apart from the common tendency of residents of the

götamål. Although the city Göteborg (Gothenburg) has formerly been considered to have been named after the river Göta älv, it may instead have been named after the Geats ('fortress of the Geats') when it was founded in 1621.[30]

Until 1973 the official title of the Swedish king was "King of Sweden" (earlier: of the Swedes), the Geats/Goths and the Wends (with the formula Sveriges, Götes och Vendes konung, in Latin N.N. Dei Gratia, Suecorum, Gothorum et Vandalorum Rex). The title "King of the Wends" was copied from the Danish title, while the Danish kings called themselves "Kings of the Gotlanders" (which, like "Geats", was translated into "Goths" in Latin). "Wends" is a term normally used to describe the Slavic peoples who inhabited large areas of modern east Germany and Pomerania. See further in the Wikipedia articles King of the Goths and King of the Wends.

The titles, however, changed in 1973 when the new king Carl XVI Gustaf decided that his royal title should simply be "King of Sweden". The disappearance of the old title was his decision alone.

Goths

Main article: Goths
  Traditional Götaland
  The island of Gotland
  Wielbark culture, in the early 3rd century
  Chernyakhov culture, in the early 4th century
  Roman Empire at its greatest extent, 117 AD

Geatas was originally

Gutar (Gotlanders) were *Gutaniz. *Gautoz and *Gutaniz are two ablaut grades of a Proto-Germanic word *geutan with the meaning "to pour" (modern Swedish gjuta, modern German giessen). The word comes from an Indo-European root meaning to pour, offer sacrifice.[31] There were consequently two derivations from the same Proto-Germanic ethnonym.[32]

It is a long-standing controversy whether the Goths were Geats. Both Old Icelandic and Old English literary sources clearly separate the Geats (Isl. Gautar, OEng Geatas) from the Goths/

Greuthungs
, so it may be correct to label Geats as Goths.

Scandinavian burial customs, such as the

stelae (bautastenar) appeared in what is now northern Poland in the 1st century AD, suggesting an influx of Scandinavians during the formation of the Gothic Wielbark culture.[33][34] Moreover, in Östergötland, in Sweden, there is a sudden disappearance of villages during this period.[35] Contemporary accounts beginning in the fourth century further associated these groups with the earlier Getae
of Dacia, but this is now disputed.

Fringe theories

Götaland theory

The Götaland theory (Swedish "Västgötaskolan") is a disparate group of theories, which have attempted to prove that some events and even places that are traditionally placed around Mälaren, especially ones that are associated with the formation of medieval Sweden, instead should be located to Västergötland. The methods ranged from relatively scholarly efforts to dowsing.[36] This "school" was brought to prominence in the 1980s following a TV series by Dag Stålsjö. While some serious scholars have attempted to place more emphasis on the Geats in the early history of Sweden than was traditional, Västgötaskolan has never reached any acceptance.

Identity of the Gēatas

The generally accepted identification of Old English Gēatas as the same ethnonym as Swedish götar and Old Norse gautar is based on the observation that the ö monophthong of modern Swedish and the au diphthong of

Old English
.

Correspondences
Old Norse Swedish
Old English
 Modern English
brauð bröd brēad bread
laukr lök lēac onion, cf. leek
lauf löv lēaf leaf
austr öst ēast east
draumr dröm drēam dream
dauðr död dēað death
rauðr röd rēad red

Thus, Gēatas is the

Origins for Beowulf and Hrólf Kraki
).

Jutish hypothesis

There is a hypothesis that the Jutes also were Geats, and which was proposed by Pontus Fahlbeck in 1884. According to this hypothesis the Geats would have not only resided in southern Sweden but also in Jutland, where Beowulf would have lived.

The Geats and the Jutes are mentioned in Beowulf as different tribes, and whereas the Geats are called gēatas, the Jutes are called ēotena (genitive) or ēotenum (dative).

Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People attributed to Alfred the Great where the Jutes (iutarum, iutis) once are rendered as gēata (genitive) and twice as gēatum (dative)[37]: 108–109  (see e.g. the OED which identifies the Geats through Eotas, Iótas, Iútan and Geátas). Fahlbeck did not, however, propose an etymology for how the two ethnonyms could be related.[37]
: 109 

Fahlbeck's theory was refuted by Schück who in 1907 noted that another Old English source, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, called the Jutes īutna, īotum or īutum.[37]: 109  Moreover, Schück pointed out that when Alfred the Great's translation mentions the Jutes for the second time (book IV, ch. 14(16)) it calls them ēota and in one manuscript ȳtena.[37]: 110  Björkman proposed in 1908 that Alfred the Great's translation of Jutes as Geats was based on a confusion between the West Saxon form Geotas ("Jutes") and Gēatas ("Geats").[37]: 110 

As for the origins of the ethnonym Jute, it may be a secondary formation of the toponym Jutland, where jut is derived from a Proto-Indo-European root *eud meaning "water".[38]

Gutnish hypothesis

Since the 19th century, there has also been a suggestion that Beowulf's people were

Gutar, is an ablaut-grade of the same name as that of the Geats in Beowulf. These facts made the archaeologist Gad Rausing come to the conclusion that the weather-Geats may have been Gutes. This was supported by another Swedish archaeologist Bo Gräslund
. According to Rausing, Beowulf may be buried in a place called Rone on Gotland, a name corresponding to the Hrones in Hrones-naesse. Not far from there lies a place called Arnkull corresponding to the Earnar-naesse in Beowulf, which according to the poem was situated closely to Hrones-naesse.

This theory does not exclude the ancient population of Västergötland and Östergötland from being Geats, but rather holds that the Anglo-Saxon name Geat could refer to West-geats (Västergötland), East-geats (Östergötland) as well as weather-geats (Gotland), in accordance with Jordanes account of the Scandinanian tribes Gautigoth, Ostrogoth and Vagoth.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Geat". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary.
  2. ^ "Geat". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins.
  3. ^ E.g. Microsoft Encarta (on Swedish history), translations from Old Norse Archived 11 December 2005 at the Wayback Machine, Anglo-Saxon Archived 4 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine or Latin Archived 8 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine and the Primary Chronicle and some modern scholarly works on Germanic tribes.
  4. ^ a b Hellquist, Elof. "göt". Svensk etymologisk ordbok (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 4 March 2014. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  5. ^ a b c d e "887–888 (Nordisk familjebok / Uggleupplagan. 10. Gossler – Harris)". runeberg.org. 22 September 1909. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2011.
  6. ^ Svenskt ortnamnslexikon, Språk- och folkminnesinstitutet, Uppsala 2003, pages 103 och 92 (articles "Götaland" and "Gotland").
  7. ^ An interpretation of both names of Götaland and Gotland according to the etymology sentences in their respective articles in Nationalencyklopedin.
  8. ^ Nationalencyklopedin, the article (in Swedish) Archived 2 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine about Klarälven, which says that Klarälven was called Gautelfr in records from the 13th century. See also Nationalencyklopedin, the article "Göta älv" (in Swedish). Archived 7 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Svenska Akademiens Ordbok
    .
  10. ^ Michael Alexander's 1995 (Penguin Classics) edition of Beowulf mentions a variant: Gēotas
  11. ^ Larsson, Mats G. (2004). Götarnas riken. Stockholm: Atlantis. p. 43.
  12. ^ Margary, Ivan D. (1973). Roman Roads in Britain, 3rd ed. London: Baker.
  13. ^
    ISBN 978-1-78023-909-5
    .
  14. ^ a b Farrel, R.T. (1972). Beowulf, Swedes and Geats (PDF). Viking Society for Northern Research, University College, London. p. 269. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
  15. ^ Newton, Sam (1993). The Origins of Beowulf, and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia. D. S. Brewer, Cambridge.
  16. S2CID 213596339
    .
  17. S2CID 213596339
    .
  18. S2CID 213596339
    .
  19. ^ a b c Ståhl, Harry (1976). Ortnamn och ortnamnsforskning. Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell. p. 131.
  20. ^ Sawyer, Peter (1991). När Sverige blev Sverige. Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås. p. 12.
  21. ^ Farrel, R.T. (1972). Beowulf, Swedes and Geats (PDF). Viking Society for Northern Research, University College, London. p. 270. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
  22. ^ Sawyer, Peter (1991). När Sverige blev Sverige. Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås. pp. 9–10.
  23. ^ Sawyer, Peter (1991). När Sverige blev Sverige. Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås. pp. 58–59.
  24. ^ Harrison, Dick (2002). Sveriges historia: Medeltiden. Liber, Stockholm. pp. 58, 70–74.
  25. ^ Henriksson, Alf (1963). Svensk historia I. Bonniers, Stockholm. pp. 86–88.
  26. ^ Weibull, Jörgen (1993). Swedish History in Outline. The Swedish Institute, Stockholm. p. 18.
  27. ^ a b c The article Svear in Nationalencyklopedin.
  28. ^ The earliest attestation of this meaning is from the mid-15th century Swedish Chronicle.
  29. ^ "1129–1130 (Nordisk familjebok / Uggleupplagan. 27. Stockholm-Nynäs järnväg – Syrsor)". runeberg.org. 22 September 1918. Archived from the original on 3 January 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2006.
  30. ^ Wahlberg, Mats (2003). Svenskt ortnamndslexikon. Språk och folkminnesinstitutet. p. 103.
  31. ^ "god" in The Oxford English Dictionary Online. (2006).
  32. Slavic languages
    .
  33. ^ "The Goths in Greater Poland" (in Polish). Muzarp.poznan.pl. Archived from the original on 30 June 2001. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  34. ^ "Gothic Connections | Abstract". Archived from the original on 21 August 2004. Retrieved 21 August 2004.
  35. ^ Oxenstierna, Graf E.C. : Die Urheimat der Goten. Leipzig, Mannus-Buecherei 73, 1945 (later printed in 1948).
  36. ^ Larsson, Mats G. (2004). Götarnas riken. Stockholm: Atlantis. pp. 33–34, 90.
  37. ^ a b c d e f g h Nerman, Birger (1925). Det Svenska Rikets Uppkomst. Stockholm: Ivar Haeggström. Archived from the original on 20 April 2023. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  38. ^ Hellquist, Elof (1922). "Jut-, Jute". Svensk etymologisk ordbok (in Swedish). Project Runeberg. Archived from the original on 24 November 2007. Retrieved 21 November 2007.
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