Hermundures

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Map of the Germanic tribes around 50 AD with details of the settlement area of ​​the Hermunduren

The Hermunduren were a Germanic tribe belonging to the Elbe Germans ( Herminones ) group and settled on the upper reaches of the Elbe . The Romans included them in the great tribal group of the Suebi and called them loyal friends of the Romans . In proximity to the Hermunduri moved to Tacitus the Narister , Marcomani and Quades .

Roman Imperial Era

Probably in the year 3 BC. BC parts of the Hermunduren were resettled by the Roman commander-in-chief Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in the area on the Main that had been abandoned by the Marcomanni . They came under the sovereignty of the Marcomannic King Marbod . In the year 5 AD they faced a Roman army under Tiberius on the Elbe in the course of the immensum war , but without any fighting. After the war with Arminius (17 AD), Marbod is overthrown by the Goth Katualda and goes into Roman exile.

Fights on the Danube are documented for 51 AD , in which the Hermunduren under their prince Vibilius overthrew the usurper Katualda. In the year 58 AD there is a report of a Hermundurian victory over the Chatti in the legendary salt battle, in which it was probably about the salt springs on the Werra or the Saale. Finally, between AD 166 and AD 180, knowledge of the participation of the Hermundures in the Marcomann Wars on the part of the rebellious Marcomanni and Quadi against Marcus Aurelius is obtained .

archeology

Hermundur fibulae (1st century AD) from Fichtenberg / Elbe

In Thuringia , archaeological finds from Elbe Germanic origin, such as fibulae , iron weapons, terrines, bowl urns and ceramic parts decorated with wheels, have so far mostly been interpreted as Hermundurian. It was assumed that these gradually migrated south and southwest from the Elbe and pushed the Celts who settled there over the Thuringian Forest , provided they did not mix with them.

In Großromstedt in Thuringia a great Germanic was cremation cemetery of the late pre-Roman Iron Age (the second half of the 1st century BC. Chr.) And the early Roman Empire discovered and excavated in the years 1907-1913. It gave its name to the Großromstedt culture , which was linked to the Hermunduren in older research.

Hermunduren and Thuringians

For about 300 years there has been no news about the area, so that it must be strongly assumed that Hermundurs migrated. In the 4th / 5th In the century AD, fishing and warning migrated from the north into the former settlement area of ​​the Hermunduren. New tribes also came to this area from other areas, which later formed the Thuringian tribal association . Around 800, the Thuringian legislation recorded by the Franconian occupiers is still called Lex Angliorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum .

The continuity between the Hermunduren and the later Thuringians, which was assumed for a long time, is questioned in recent research. In the sources, the Hermundures can only be found to the right of the Elbe and in the Danube region, but not in the area of ​​today's Free State of Thuringia and not in the core areas of the kingdom of the Migration Period. According to this, the trunk of the Hermunduren would be at most on the outermost periphery of the rooms, which will later be called "Thuringian". Tribal affiliations or dependencies of the carriers of Elbe Germanic material in central Germany on the left of the Elbe, especially in the Thuringian area before the establishment of the Thuringian Empire, should therefore not be regarded as having survived.

Remarks

  1. ^ Tacitus, Germania 42.
  2. ↑ Gustav Eichhorn : The urn cemetery on the Schanze near Großromstedt (= Mannus Library. No. 41, ISSN  0720-7158 ). C. Kabitzsch, Leipzig 1927.
  3. ↑ Helmut Castritius, Dieter Geuenich, Matthias Werner, Thorsten Fischer: The early days of the Thuringians: archeology, language, history . Walter de Gruyter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-021454-3 ( google.de [accessed on February 11, 2019]).

literature

Web links