Origo Gentis Langobardorum

Origo gentis Langobardorum , here a 10th century manuscript from Reims

Origo gentis Langobardorum , here an illustrated manuscript from the 11th century

Origo Gentis Langobardorum ( Latin for the origin of the Lombards dynasty ) is a Germanic legend that was written down in the 7th century according to oral tradition. It can be found in the preface to the Edictum Rothari , deals with the origin of the Germanic Langobard tribe and served as a source for the Historia gentis Langobardorum by the Lombard historian and Benedictine monk Paulus Diaconus (see Origo gentis ).

Speculations in older research that the Origo Gentis Langobardorum was only a part of the lost history of the Secundus of Trento are now considered to be refuted.

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According to the Origo , the Lombards originally lived in Scandinavia and would have called themselves Winnilers at that time . According to legend, the Lombards, led by Ibor and Agio, moved to the Lower Elbe , where they came into conflict with the Vandals . At that time - so the legend goes - the god Wodan, worshiped by the vandals, is said to have awarded victory to those who first appeared before him on the morning of the fight: Frea gave the instruction that the women of the Winnilers line up early in the morning in the east and like their long hair Must tie beards in front of the face. Early in the morning Frea got up early and turned Wodan's bed to the east and when he woke up he saw the Winnilerinnen and asked astonished: Who are these long beards? Then Frea replied: You gave them their name, now give them the victory! So the Winnil triumphed over the Vandals and called themselves Lombards ever since.

expenditure

Georg Waitz: Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum (SS rer. Lang.) . Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, Hanover 1878. Origo gentis Langobardorum in MGH SS rer. Long 1 online .

Annalisa Bracciotti: Origo gentis Langobardorum. Introduzione, Testo critico, Commento. (Biblioteca di cultura romanobarbarica, Volume 2). Rome 1998, ISBN 88-85876-32-3 .

literature

Karl Helm: Wodan - spread and migration of his cult. Schmitz, Giessen 1946.
Rudolf Simek : Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X , pp. 367-369.

Web links

Wikisource: Origo Gentis Langobardorum - Sources and full texts (Latin)

Commons : Origo Gentis Langobardorum - collection of images, videos and audio files

Origo Gentis Langobardorum at the Institute for Medieval Research Vienna

Remarks

↑ See Abel's translation: Otto Abel (ed.): Paulus Diakonus and the other historians of the Lombards . Berlin 1849, p. 3 (digitized from Google Books) (series Die Geschichtschreiber der Deutschen Vorzeit in German adaptation , edited by GH Pertz, J. Grimm, K. Lachmann, L. Ranke, K. Ritter).

[1] See Abel's translation: Otto Abel (ed.): Paulus Diakonus and the other historians of the Lombards . Berlin 1849, p. 3 (digitized from Google Books) (series Die Geschichtschreiber der Deutschen Vorzeit in German adaptation , edited by GH Pertz, J. Grimm, K. Lachmann, L. Ranke, K. Ritter).