To warn

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Map of the Germanic tribes around 50 AD with details of the settlement area of ​​the Warnen

The Warnen (also Wariner , Varinner , Varinne , Variner , Latin Varini , Varni , Greek  Ουαρνοι Warnoi or Ουαρίνοι Warinoi ) were a Germanic tribe . The Old High German form of her name is Varyan .

Ancient sources

In his Naturalis historia, Pliny the Elder mentions the Varinnae together with the Burgundians , Gutons and Charinians , whom he included in the group of the Vandili ( Vandals ).

In his Germania die Varini, Tacitus counts among the seven small and non-warlike tribes that he contrasts with the large Suebian tribes of the Semnones and Longobards , who are protected from fighting and challenges by forests and rivers. The German archaeologist Johanna Mestorf identified the warnings with the between 50 BC. BC and AD 200 between the Angles and Jutian tribes , the Over-Jerstal district in what is now southern Jutland ; a thesis supported in 2013 by Per Ethelberg from Museum Sønderjylland.

Around 150 AD, Claudius Ptolemy mentions the Οὐίρουνοι (Wirounoi) in his Geographike Hyphegesis as a small tribe between the Saxons , who live on the neck of the Cimbrian Peninsula , and the Suebi.

Warn in Mecklenburg

Historians disagree on whether the three ancient authors meant the same tribe. The settlement area seems to have been in western Mecklenburg. During the migration period , in the 2nd or 3rd century, most of the Warnings and parts of the neighboring Angles probably left their homeland and immigrated to the former settlement areas of the Hermunduren . Some of them may have stayed behind and mixed up with the Slavs who advanced in the 6th to 8th centuries . Some, but not many, water and other geographical names between the Elbe and Oder refer to pre-Slavic Germanic origins. To what extent the ancient settlement area of ​​the Warnen can be read from today's names is doubtful. The toponyms Warnow and Warin can be traced back to the Warnen or Slavic words : Warnow from wran ( warna , wron ) for crow or raven , Warin from a personal name from wariti (to cook). The name of the city of Waren is often associated with Ptolemy ' Οὐιρουνον (Latin: Virunum ) and could thus go back to the tribal name of the Warnen. However, this does not match the coordinates according to which Virunum is east of Suevus. If one takes Ptolemy's coordinates seriously, he noted the name Chalusus for the Warnow.

According to a report by the historian Prokop , a daughter of Theuderich I († 534) entered into a relationship with the warning king Hermegisclus and, after his death, with his son Radigis. Since, according to Prokop according to this story, the opposing parties have naval fleets at their disposal, the empire of these warning kings may have had access to the sea or the Baltic Sea. Raymond Wilson Chambers and Kemp Malone locate the area of ​​the Warnen or part of their kingdom, valued north of Thuringia, in the 6th century between the Elbe and Saale .

This geographically cohesive peoples union is also concluded from a letter from the Ostrogoth king Theodoric , which describes a threatening expansion of power by Clovis I and therefore wants to win the Thuringian, Herulian and Warnen kings for an alliance against the Franconian ruler. This is also suggested by the Lex Angliorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum , the "right of fishing and warning, that is, the Thuringians" recorded under Charlemagne . Accordingly, the Warne Empire near would Engilin ( "Fishing") to locate in the Thuringian basin information, see also Warning in Thuringia . However, Prokop also refers to an Anglic migration ("return migration") from the British Isles to the Warnen for the 6th century, which means that their continental seat only in the area of ​​the Thuringian basin cannot be secured.

Warning in Thuringia

Together with parts of the population of the Angles , Hermundurs and other tribes, including the Turons , Quads , Marcomanni , Longobards and Semnones , the Warnen probably formed the later major tribe of Thuringians , whose tribal area was incorporated into the Franconian Empire during the 6th century. The warnings were presumably eponymous for the Werenofeld landscape between Saale and Elster . Thuringian tribal law handed down later as Lex Angliorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum reminded of the warnings settling in Thuringia .

With their neighbors, the Frisians , Saxons , Franks and Wends , the Warnen were evidently famous for their excellent armouring.

The popular right of the warning has been written down in separate East Franconian capitularies, together with that of the Angles, as Lex Thuringorum .

Warning at the mouth of the Rhine

There are also indications of a warning kingdom around the year 500 in the area of ​​the Rhine estuary. According to Prokop , warnings lived back then ... across the Danube and extended to the northern ocean and the Rhine. Whether this point indicates a realm of the western warning in the Rhine estuary is disputed. However, it is also doubtful that Thuringians were understood here by the name warning.

swell

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Pliny: Naturalis historia. 4.99 .
  2. ^ Tacitus: Germania. 40.2 .
  3. ↑ Julia K. Koch, Eva-Maria Mertens: Johanna Mestorf - work and effect . Waxmann, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8309-1066-5 , pp. 190 .
  4. ↑ Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag: When the anglers conquered Sønderjylland.
  5. ↑ Ptolemy, Geography 2,11,9 : Σαξόνων δὲ καὶ τῶν Συήβων Τευτόόαροι καὶ Οὐίρουνοι.
  6. ↑ Peter Donat , Heike Reimann, Cornelia Willich (eds.): Slavic settlement and regional development in northwestern Mecklenburg. Etymology of place names. In: Research on the history and culture of eastern Central Europe. Volume 8, 1999, ISBN 978-3-515-07620-3 , pp. 91-92. ( online )
  7. ^ A b Prokop, Historien VIII, 20, 21–25, 34–41.
  8. ↑ RW Chambers: Widsith (1912) pp. 244f.
  9. ↑ Kemp Malone: Widsith (1962) pp. 208f.
  10. ↑ Cassiodorus: Variae III, 3
  11. ↑ Cf. Heike Grahn-Hoek: The right of the Thuringians and the question of their ethnic identity (...) in: Die Frühzeit der Thüringer , RGA supplementary volume 63 (2009), p. 415f.
  12. ^ Matthias Springer :  Warning. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 33, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 3-11-018388-9 , pp. 274-281.