Germanic Peoples

Germanic tribes (750BC-1AD)

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Key Terms

• Germania-Roman term for the geographical area in north-central Europe inhabited mainly by Germanic peoples.

Key Facts

• Proto-Germanic Peoples are believed to have emerged during the Nordic Bronze Age, which developed out of the Battle Axe culture in south Scandinavia.
• By 750 BC, Germanic peoples had spread from the Netherlands to what is now Poland.

• Five Distinct groups of peoples:
  • North Germanic: Southern Scandinavia.
  • North Sea Germanic: Regions along North Sea and what is now the Jutland Penninsula.
  • Rhine-Wesser Germanic: Along the middle of the Rhine and Wesser rivers.
  • Elbe Germanic: Along the Elbe River.
  • Eastern Germanic: Near the middle of the Oder and Vistula Rivers.
• A group of these Germanic people called the Basternae were the first to come into contact with the Romans. They lived east of the Carpathian mountains by the Black Sea.
• Germanic Peoples eventually made their way into the Crumbling Western Roman Empire during the 5th Century.
  • Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Lombards made it into Italy.
  • Vandals, Burgundians, Franks, and Visigoths made into Gaul(modern day France and Benelux)
  • Vandals and Visigoths also pushed into modern-day Spain(then called Hispania).
  • The Alamanni establish some presence in the Alps and Middle Rhine.
  • In Denmark, the Jutes merged with the Danes.
  • The Geats and Gutes merged with the Swedes in what is now Sweden.
  • The Angles merged with the Saxons to create the Anglo-Saxons(now called the English) in modern-day England.
• Odoacer was the commander of the Germanic Mercenaries in Italy, deposed of the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 AD.

Europe after Odoacer

Quiz on Germanic Peoples