Cugerner

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The Cugerner or Cuberner were a Germanic tribe , they formed with other tribes the group of the smaller Germanic peoples of the Rhine-Weser Teutons . The tribal name is a new formation after the resettlement of groups of Germanic tribes on the right bank of the Rhine by the Romans under Tiberius in 8 BC. In the area of ​​the Lower Rhine on the left bank of the Rhine in today's Kleve district .

history

The Cugernians inhabited areas to the left of the Rhine and seem to have largely emerged from the Sugambrer tribe . As a result of the Drusus campaigns (12 to 8 BC), Tiberius forcibly resettled 40,000 Germanic tribes in the year 8 BC (Suetonius, Tib. 9.2) in the formerly Celtic-Germanic areas north of the Eifel . This area lay between the Batavern resident in the northwest and the Romanized Ubiern settling in the south . The core area was in and around today's Kleve district and the city of Xanten south of Krefeld. Probably also the smallest parts of the Suebi and the Brukterer belonged to the settled Teutons and through the merging with the lower Rhine pre-population settling there ( Menapier , Sunuker ) the new tribal association was formed. According to the inscriptions and ancient reports, the male members of the Cugernians performed military service for Rome (" cohors I Cugernorum ") and to a much greater extent than the Ubians. The Roman legion camp Vetera was located on their territory near Xanten . A predecessor of Colonia Ulpia Traiana is assumed to be the main town of the tribe .

The southern border of the Cugerner area was marked by the Gelfbach ( called Mühlenbach from the Middle Ages ) which flows into the Rhine at the former Gelduba Roman fort in Krefeld-Gellep . The Ubier tribe settled south of this stream .

In the Germanic uprising of the civilis , the Cugernians stood on his side, in contrast to the Ubiers, who joined the uprising only hesitantly. In the period that followed, the Cugernians adopted a more inclined attitude towards Rome, and after the 2nd century their name is no longer mentioned. Their descendants - like those of the Ubier - were absorbed in the Franconia, which expanded south and west across the Lower Rhine from the 3rd century onwards .

Surname

The name "Cugerner" is first mentioned in Tacitus (Hist. 5,16,18) as Cugerni , in Pliny (Hist. Nat. 4,106) the variant Cuberner appears as Cuberni . Inscriptions such as "M (arcus) Elvadius Mac <er = RF> (?) / Eq (ues) alae Claudiae Novae / dom (o) Cugernus ann (orum) XXX stip (endiorum) XII / t (itulum) f ( ieri) i (ussit) / Ti (berius) Claudius Aurelius / her (es) pos (uit) ” , as well as in other documents show that the Cugerner form is the more common. The time of the appearance of the new tribal name coincides with the assimilation of the remaining Sugambrian populations on the right bank of the Rhine in the larger neighboring tribes.

Rudolf Much etymologized the ethnonyms on the basis of the reconstructed Germanic * ku-gernaz as cow-desiring in the sense of "cow thief (e)", or as "sodomy with cows", and * ku-bernaz as "cow servant" or "cow's son" . Much's solutions were initially recognized in research, and with him, referred to as a mockery or external name by Germanic neighbors on the right bank of the Rhine ( Tenkerer ). Günter Neumann considers these interpretations to be semantically less plausible and refers to Hermann Hirt's criticism of Much. Neumann only sees more likely phonetic variants in the name, and refers, among other things, to interpretations by Karl Müllenhoff and Leo Weisgerber . Müllenhoff indicates on the basis of comparison with Gothic qiwa for "alive" on a common phonetic form * Cuverni . Weisgerber adopts an old Celtic and Germanic Labiovelar , which shows that Cugerni is the Germanic and Cuberni is the Celtic variant. For individual elements of the names, further interpretations for the prefix Cu (g) ​​are the comparison to the Germanic strong masculine * hugi, * huguz for "sense, spirit, understanding", the -rn with other Germanic tribal names such as the Batave-rn .

Culture and religion

The cult of the Germanic goddess Vagdavercustis is associated with the Cugernians . Three votive stones consecrated to her were found in the settlement area of ​​the Cugernians. Presumably the Cugernians worshiped the Hercules Magusanus with other Lower Rhine tribes , since, analogous to the Vagdavercustis, dedicatory inscriptions of the god were found in the Cugern settlement area.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bruno Krüger: The Germanic peoples. History and culture of the Germanic tribes in Central Europe. A manual in 2 volumes , vol. 1, p. 408.
  2. ↑ Bruno Krüger: The Germanic peoples. History and culture of the Germanic tribes in Central Europe. A manual in 2 volumes , Vol. 1, Berlin 1983, p. 279.
  3. ↑ Johannes Heinrichs: Roman perfidy and Germanic nobility? For the resettlement of Protocugern groups in the Xanten area 8 BC Chr. In: Germania inferior , de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001, p. 71; Bruno Krüger: The Teutons. History and culture of the Germanic tribes in Central Europe. A manual in 2 volumes , Vol. 1, Berlin 1983.
  4. ↑ CIL 7,1193
  5. ^ Siegfried Gutenbrunner : The Germanic god names of the ancient inscriptions. Max Niemeyer, Halle / S. 1936. pp. 11f., 152 .; Johannes Heinrichs: Roman perfidy and Germanic nobility? For the resettlement of Protocugern groups in the Xanten area 8 BC Chr. In: Germania inferior , de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001, p. 79.
  6. ↑ Feinendegen / Vogt (ed.): Krefeld - the history of the city, volume 1. Christoph Reichmann - Romans and Franks on the Lower Rhine / Chapter The border on Mühlenbach p. 104f, Verlag van Ackeren, Krefeld 1998, ISBN 3-9804181-6 -2
  7. ↑ Johannes Heinrichs: Roman perfidy and Germanic nobility? For the resettlement of Protocugern groups in the Xanten area 8 BC Chr. In: Germania inferior, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001 p. 78f.
  8. ↑ Renate Pirling: The Roman-Franconian grave fields of Krefeld-Gellep / Museum accompanying document - from page 10 - Verlag Freunde der Museen Burg Linn eV Krefeld 2011
  9. ↑ CIL 3, 2712
  10. ^ Hermann Reichert: Lexicon of Old Germanic Names , Böhlau, Vienna 1987, p. 432f .; CIL 7, 1085 , CIL 7, 1193 , CIL 7, 1195
  11. ^ Rudolf Much: Die Germanen am Niederrhein , In: Contributions to the history of German language and literature , 17, 1893, p. 156f .; Ernst Schwarz: Germanic Tribal Studies , Winter, Heidelberg 1956, p. 139.
  12. ↑ Hermes: Journal for Classical Philology , 12 (1877), p. 273
  13. ↑ Vladimir Orel: A Handbook of Germanic Etymology . Brill, Leiden - Boston 2003. ISBN 90-04-12875-1 . P. 190
  14. ↑ Günter Neumann: Cuberni - Cugerni . In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , Vol. 5, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1984, p. 104.
  15. ^ Siegfried Gutenbrunner: The Germanic god names of the ancient inscriptions . Max Niemeyer, Halle / S. 1936. pp. 102f.

See also