Lower Rhine Troy myth

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The Niederrhein spread Troy myth is to Virgil's Aeneid subsequent founding myth of the Frankish Empire . In addition, the origin of the city of Xanten  - due to folk etymological speculation - was traced back to ancient Troy . In medieval traditions, Xanten is also referred to as Troy on the Rhine , Troia nova (New Troy) or Troia minor (Little Troy).

myth

Page from a copy of the Fredegar Chronicle , Paris National Library

The Troy myth of the Lower Rhine follows Homer's description of the end of the Trojan War , which states that the Trojans defeated by the Greeks flee and are dispersed in several groups over Asia and Europe. Here they found new cities and became the founding fathers of new, glorious peoples. The Lower Rhine variant of the Troy myth , which still exists today, reflects the founding myth of the Franconian Empire , the Origo francorum . The Roman myth of Troy served as a model, as it is handed down in Virgil's Aeneid and, like his literary imitators, forms a legend of origin .

The Gallic Haeduer were repeatedly referred to by the Roman Senate as brothers and relatives, as fratres consanguineosque , as Caesar narrated. In 48 Emperor Claudius was the first to give the Haeduers the ius honorum award, above all the Gauls . From everything it can be seen that no other Gaul tribe could claim the right to call themselves fratres consanguineique populi Romani . Later the Arverni tried to assume this name. At the end of the 1st century Tacitus affirmed the individual position of the Haeduer in this regard. The Haedu soon had to deduce their common descent from the Trojans from the honorary title they received. That conclusion was not prevented by the fact that the appointment was purely fictitious. It corresponds to the Roman conception of the nature of such acts, comparable to an adoption in which the adopted father becomes the son of the adoptive father and thus also takes over his entire ancestry and traditions down to the biological level. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus then describes the mythical origin of the Gallic people in connection with the Homeric Troy legend in his chronicle Res gestae, which was written around 380 AD . In the attempt to establish as heroic ancestry as possible in the sense of an Origo gentis for the Franks who emerged after the fall of the Roman Empire , Franconian historians in the course of the 3rd century, but at the latest in the 4th century, probably resorted to the Gallo-Trojan tales.

The Frankish Troy myth is first mentioned in a copy of the Fredegar Chronicle from the first half of the 7th century. Fredegars Weltchronik deals with the Franconian founding myth at the end of the second and the beginning of the third book. In these passages, the chronicler refers to older sources. Book II is based on the chronicle of the church father Jerome , while book III refers to the Decem libri historiarum of Gregory of Tours , which is no longer preserved in the original . The beginning of the Liber Historiae Francorum (LHF) of 726/727 also deals with this topic, with the LHF also largely referring to the work of Gregory. All later adaptations are essentially based on these two sources, the Fredegar Chronicle and the LHF. Fredegar reports on a group of Trojans who, after the Trojan War, escaped from the city destroyed by the Greeks to Macedonia and thus became the forefathers of Alexander the Great . Later, through an alliance with the Saxons , they are said to have escaped submission to Pompey and moved to the Rhine via Pannonia . It was here that the mythical King Francio founded the Franconian family named after him. Fredegar creates a connection to Virgil's Aeneid by allowing King Francio to emerge from the line of Frigas , the son of Priam in the legend. For his part, Frigas is declared the brother of Aeneas , who after Virgil was the progenitor of the Roman people. Thus the Frankish Troy myth declares the Franks to be the brother people of the Romans. In this epoch, Xanten is known as Troja francorum , Troy of the Franks.

Xanten as Troy on the Lower Rhine

The name Troy for today's Xanten has its roots in the Roman era. When the Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Traianus raised today's Xanten to Colonia in the Roman legal sense, he named the place, as is customary in the Roman Empire , Colonia Ulpia Traiana (CUT) after himself . After the place was completely destroyed by the Franks in 275 AD , this toponym was lost in official usage at the end of the 3rd century. However, it can still be found in modifications in later mentions. In the early Middle Ages , Traiana became the name Troian of the citizens of Xanten.

Medieval Xanten was founded just a few hundred meters south of the ruins of the former Roman Colonia Ulpia Traiana. According to general doctrine, the name Xanten developed from the Latin name “ad sanctos” (“with the saints”) as a reference to the martyrs' graves where the St. Viktor monastery was built in the 9th century . Medieval legends, however, attribute the name Xanten to the river Xanthos ( Skamandros ) in Asia Minor, on the banks of which ancient Troy is said to have been. This reference becomes tangible in stanza XXIII of the early Middle High German Annolied from the second half of the 11th century. As early as the 10th century, both names were shown to be mentioned twice, with Troy usually preceding the name Xanten. For example, the Passio of St. Gereon in Cologne names Xanten as the city of the Franks, which was founded by the descendants of the Trojans and is therefore called Troy or Xanten ( Troia sive Xantum ).

Reception in the Middle Ages

In later centuries the Franconian founding myth and the story of the Trojan origins of the city of Xanten were thematized and politically instrumentalized, especially on the Lower Rhine. Denarii , which the Archbishop of Cologne Hermann II had minted in Xanten between 1036 and 1056, bear the embossing SCA TROIA (for SANCTA TROIA, “Holy Troy”) as a designation for the mint on the reverse. In the 15th century the House of Kleve used the Lower Rhine Troy myth to enhance their genealogical ancestry compared to the Habsburg imperial family. During the Soest feud from 1444 to 1449, for example, the Duke of Cleves John I referred to himself as King of Troy.

Even the humanist Hermann von Neuenahr , in his 1521 publication Brevis narratio de origine et sedibus priscorum Francorum (“A Brief Outline of the Origin and Residences of the Old Franks”), in which he also refers to antiquities found near Asciburgium , rejected a critical discussion with Johannes Trithemius and his alleged informant "Hunibald" the theory of the Trojan descent of the Lower Rhine Franks .

Scholars argued about the historical truth of the story until the 19th century. Even Richard Wagner's signature The Wibelungen of 1848 used the myth. Many saw a Trojan origin of the Franks as a historical fact. This myth is still alive today on the Lower Rhine.

Reception in the Nibelungenlied

Memorial plaque to the Nibelungenlied on the north wall of Xanten

Subliminally the Lower Rhine Troy myth also had influence on the High Middle Ages, resulting Nibelungenlied . The protagonist Hagen comes from Tronje, a name that probably goes back to Drongen , which is now in Belgium . In several versions of the legend, however, the Middle High German Tronje became Troy by blurring . In the song Hagen von Tronje is described as a relative of the Burgundians that rose in the Franconian Empire . When Siegfried von Xanten comes to the Burgundian court in Worms for the second Aventure , Hagen is the only one who recognizes the hero immediately. Regardless of the historical truth, the poet of the Nibelungenlied was still familiar with the mythical connection between Troy and Xanten. He also established a connection to the Franks via the Burgundy.

Asciburgium

The myth of the founding of the place Asciburgium ( Moers - Asberg ) by Odysseus mentioned in Tacitus , who is said to have ended up on his wanderings on the Rhine, is parallel to the Gallotrojan legends on the Lower Rhine .

“Ceterum et Ulixen quidam opinantur longo illo et fabuloso errore in hunc Oceanum delatum adisse Germaniae terras, Asciburgiumque , quod in ripa Rheni situm hodieque incolitur, ab illo constitutum nominatumque; aram quin etiam Ulixi consecratam, adiecto Laertae patris nomine, eodem loco olim repertam, monumentaque et tumulos quosdam Graecis litteris inscriptos in confinio Germaniae Raetiaeque adhuc extare. "

“By the way, some believe that Ulixes too , on his long and legendary wandering into that ocean, stepped onto the coast of Germania and that the Asciburgium on the banks of the Rhine, which is still inhabited today, was founded and named by him; yes, there was even an altar that was found by Ulixes with the addition of his paternal name Laertes at that very place. "

literature

  • Hans Hubert Anton : Origin of Troy, origio gentis and early constitution of the Franks in the Gallic-Franconian tradition of the 5th to 8th centuries . In: Communications from the Institute for Austrian Historical Research MIÖG . tape 108 , issue 1-2. Oldenbourg, 2000, ISSN  0073-8484 , pp. 1-30 .
  • Johnathan Barlow: Gregory of Tours and the Myth of the Trojan Origins of the Franks . In: Early Medieval Studies . tape 29 . de Gruyter, Berlin 1995, p. 86–95 (English, uni-muenster.de ).
  • Eugen Ewig : Troy myth and early Franconian history . In: Dieter Geuenich (Hrsg.): The Franks and the Alemanni up to the "Battle of Zülpich" (496/97). (=  Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , supplementary volumes . Volume 19 ). de Gruyter, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-11-015826-4 , p. 1-30 .
  • Eugen Ewig: Troy and the Franks . In: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter . tape 62 . Röhrscheid, Bonn 1998, p. 1–16 ( mgh-bibliothek.de [PDF]).
  • Eugen Gerritz : Troia sive Xantum. Contributions to the history of a city on the Lower Rhine . Gesthuysen, Xanten 1964.
  • Eugen Gerritz: The Trojan Xanten . In: District administration Moers (Ed.): Local calendar 1966 for the district of Moers. 23rd year. Schiffer, Rheinberg 1965, p. 145-149 .
  • Heike Hawicks: Sanctos - Xantum - Troy. On the influence of Ottonian-Byzantine relationships on toponymy in the Xanten area . In: Uwe Ludwig, Thomas Schilp (ed.): Middle Ages on the Rhine and Maas. Contributions to the history of the Lower Rhine . Waxmann, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8309-1380-X , p. 27-41 .
  • Georg Heeger: About the Trojan legends of the Franks and Normans . Waxmann, Landau in der Pfalz 1890, p. 3-27 .
  • Otto Höfler: Siegfried, Arminius and the symbolism. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1961.
  • Hildebrecht Hommel : The Trojan origin of the Franks . In: Bernd Manuwald (ed.): Rheinisches Museum für Philologie . tape 99 . JD Sauerländer's Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1956, p. 323–341 (19 pages, rhm.uni-koeln.de [PDF; 3.8 MB ]).
  • Ingo Runde: Troia sive Xantum. About the origin of an (East) Franconian Troia saga and its significance for the continuity problem in the Xanten area . In: Uwe Ludwig, Thomas Schilp (ed.): Middle Ages on the Rhine and Maas. Contributions to the history of the Lower Rhine (=  studies on the history and culture of Northwest Europe . Volume 8 ). Waxmann, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8309-1380-X , p. 7-25 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gaius Iulius Caesar: De bello Gallico. I, 33, 2.
  2. ^ Publius Cornelius Tacitus: Annales. XI, 25, 1.
  3. ↑ Hildebrecht Hommel: The Trojan origin of the Franks. Pp. 333-337.
  4. ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus: Res gestae . XV, 9,5: Aiunt quidam paucos post excidium Troiae fugitantes Graecos ubique dispersos loca haec occupasse tunc vacua.
  5. ↑ Ewig 1998, p. 1; Barlow 1995, pp. 89 f.
  6. ^ Fredegar Chronicle II, 4: Postea pariti sunt in duabus partibus. Una pars perrexit in Macedoniam, vocati sunt Macedonis secundum populum, a quem recepti sunt et regionem Macedoniae, qui oppremebatur a gentes vicinas; invitati ab ipsis fuerunt, ut eis praeberent auxilium. Per quos postea subiuncti in plurima procreatione crevissent… fortissimi pugnatores effecti sunt; quod in postremum in diebus Phylyphi regis et Alexandri filii sui fama confirmat.
  7. ↑ Gerritz 1966, p. 146.
  8. ↑ Annolied, XXIII. Stanza (excerpt): "Franko gesaz with the sînin / vili verre nidir bî Rîni. / Dâ worhtin si duo with vroudin / eini luzzele Troii./ den bach hîzin si Sante / nâ demi wazzere in iri lante; / the Rîn havitin si vure diz meri. "
  9. ^ Passio Gereonis 15. In: JP Migne: Patrologia Latina 212. Paris 1855, col. 766.
  10. ↑ Hawicks 2004 S38f .; Coin marked JOANNES. TROIANORVM. REX. | MONETA.TROIAE.MINORIS.
  11. ↑ Johannes Soter: Hermanni Comitis Nvenarii brevis narratio. De origine et sedibvs Francorum. Emphasis. In: Willibald Pirkheimer: Descriptio Germaniae Vtriusqve Tam superioris quàm inferioris. Christoffel Plantijn, Antwerpen 1585, pp. 63-68 ( online resource , accessed April 5, 2011).
  12. ↑ Heeger 1890, p. 4 f.
  13. ↑ In the manuscripts B and C of the Nibelungenlied , Hagen uses the nickname of Tronege . In the Thidrek saga it becomes Högni of Troy . In the older Waltharius song , from the 9th century, it is said that Hagen is veniens de germine Troia , from the Troy family.
  14. ^ Otfrid-Reinald Ehrismann : The Nibelungenlied. Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-50872-3 , p. 25.
  15. ^ Tacitus, Germania, 3.2