Origo gentis

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Origo gentis called in medieval studies the origin story of an ancient or medieval gens ( clan or tribe ).

Content and historical function of the origines

The Origo gentis is not a separate literary genre, but is part of quite extensive works that describe, for example, the history of the respective gens . They can also be part of heroic epics or biographies. In the Origines numerous mostly fictional, often generally valid ( topoi ) elements were mixed up. The focus of the narrative is the myth of origin of the respective gentile association (e.g. the Goths , Lombards , Anglo-Saxons or Franks ), which was mostly passed down orally at the beginning and only later put down in writing and enriched with elements of ancient education. In addition to a mythical legend of origin , special moral and character traits that are “typical” for the gens were also cited. Scandinavia was often given topically as the origin , as this offered the possibility of constructing genealogies that were in fact not verifiable . An ancient family tree (like the fictitious one of the Amaler ) could thus provide additional legitimacy for rule .

“Wandering legends” often played an important role in an Origo : A gens emigrates and finally reaches another country, which is taken (mostly by force). Although there is sometimes a historical core (as in the case of the immigration of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain), others appear to contain mostly purely fictional narratives. This applies, for example, to an alleged “ Trojan descent” or (as the majority of research now assumes) to the Goths for their origin from Scandinavia, for which archaeological evidence is lacking. The description of the origins of the Goths in the Getica des Jordanes (which was based on the lost Goth story of Cassiodorus ) is today mostly understood as a topical-ethnographic story, in which numerous fictional elements flowed. A very common motif of an Origo was the so-called " primordial act". It was a central event of a gens , such as a major victory, the crossing of a body of water, a supposedly ancient kingship of divine origin and others. The core idea was an act of identity and the establishment of a “new order”, which from then on applied to the gens .

The Origo could serve as an important connecting element within a gens , which could hold the otherwise ethnically inhomogeneous associations together or first had an identity-creating effect (see also Migration ). In this way, these poly- ethnic associations were linked to form an ideal unit through the history of their origin. This played an important role in the difficult process of late ancient and early medieval ethnogenesis , with the writers of the written representations generally being well educated and often with knowledge of ancient ethnography . Examples of well-known histories of origin are the aforementioned Getica des Jordanes (who thus gave the Goths a history comparable to many other ancient peoples) or the Origo Gentis Langobardorum of the Longobards in the 7th century. The Franks adopted the Troy myth, popularized with the Romans by Virgil's Aeneid . According to the church historian Beda Venerabilis , the Saxons were called to Britain by the British King Vortigern and are said to have landed there in three ships under the brothers Hengest and Horsa .

Most important works on this topic come from Herwig Wolfram and his student Walter Pohl . Both emphasize that modern notions of “ ethnicity ” are by no means transferable to ancient and medieval gentes . However, the conclusions based on it are controversial, see for example the work of Walter Goffart . Goffart is very critical of the approach that there are similarities in works that deal with the stories of origin. Rather, each author had his own purpose with his presentation.

Urheimat research as a modern form of the origo gentis question

In many cases, modern comparative linguistics has shown similarities between languages that are geographically far apart, such as Latin and Sanskrit. This linguistic finding was explained in the 19th century with the model of a family tree, according to which languages ​​can derive from one another and similarities in existing languages ​​are to be assessed as evidence of common ancestors. This raised the question of the original distribution area of ​​the corresponding forerunners, so-called proto-languages , and their speakers, which in several cases seemed to be approximately answerable with linguistic and archaeological methods (see Urheimat ). In terms of their question, these researches largely correspond to the ancient and medieval Origo Gentis considerations. On the part of linguistics today, however, it is almost unanimously accepted that language communities are seldom homogeneous and often did not have a common ethnic or national identity.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ The term gens has the advantage of coming directly from the sources, which according to modern understanding can mean both “tribe” and “people”.
  2. ↑ Herwig Wolfram and others: Origo Gentis. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 22 (2003), here p. 174f.
  3. ^ Cf. for example Alheydis Plassmann: Origo gentis. Establishing identity and legitimacy in early and high medieval narratives of origin. Berlin 2006, pp. 207f.
  4. ^ Alheydis Plassmann: Origo gentis. Establishing identity and legitimacy in early and high medieval narratives of origin. Berlin 2006, p. 360f.
  5. ↑ Cf. in summary Arne Sǿby Christensen: Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths. Studies in a Migration Myth . Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen 2002, especially p. 250ff.
  6. ↑ See Walter Goffart: The Narrators of Barbarian History . Princeton 1988.
  7. ↑ For a summary of the discussion, see Alheydis Plassmann: Origo gentis. Establishing identity and legitimacy in early and high medieval narratives of origin. Berlin 2006, p. 16ff.
  8. ↑ Wolfram Euler , Konrad Badenheuer: Language and origin of the Germanic peoples. Demolition of Proto-Germanic before the first sound shift. London / Hamburg 2009, pp. 43–50.