Gepids

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Gepids or Gepidas[1] were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the Goths and Vandals.

Variants

History

They are first mentioned by Roman sources in the third century. In the fourth century, they were among the peoples incorporated into the Hunnic Empire, within which they formed an important part. After the death of Attila, the Gepids under their leader Ardaric, led an alliance of other peoples who had been in the empire, and defeated the sons of Attila and their remaining allies at the Battle of Nedao in 454. The Gepids and their allies subsequently founded kingdoms on the Middle Danube, bordering on the Roman Empire. The Gepid Kingdom was one of the most important and long-lasting of these, centered on Sirmium, and sometimes referred to as Gepidia.[3] It covered a large part of the former Roman province of Dacia, north of the Danube, and compared to other Middle Danubian kingdoms it remained relatively un-involved with Rome.

The Gepids were defeated by the Lombards and Avars a century later in 567, Constantinople giving no support to the Gepids. Some Gepids joined the Lombards in their subsequent conquest of Italy, some moved into Roman territory, and other Gepids still lived in the area of the old kingdom after it was conquered by the Avars.

The Gepids were medium height, and likely originated from Scandinavia. Few archaeological sites remained that can be attributed to them for sure. After their settlement of the Carpathian Basin, their population was mostly centered around the Szamos and Körös rivers, but didn't intermingle with other nations.[4]

Name

The most common Latin spellings of the Gepid name in plural used a "p", but varied concerning the vowels: Gepidae, Gipidae, Gipedae, Gipides. Similarly, Procopius writing in Greek uses a stem γηπαιδ- which should be transliterated as Giped-. Despite this, the Gepids have been equated to the people mentioned in the Old English Widsith and Beowulf, as Gifðas or Gefþas. These names are considered etymologically equivalent Old English forms of Gepidae that could not have arisen through borrowing from attested Latin forms.[5]

Although Walter Goffart has objected that "no serious arguments substantiating the identification seem to me to have been set out", linguists interpret the "p" in Latin and Greek as an insulting Gothic nickname for the Gepids.[6] In addition to the Old English words, placename evidence in Italy, and a single medieval Latin genitive plural form "Gebodorum"[7] are taken to indicate that the "p" was really a fricative sound similar to a "b". Many linguists therefore reconstruct the original Germanic form as *Gíbidoz, based on the Germanic verb "to give", as still found in English (German geben, Dutch geven), apparently indicating that they named themselves gifted or rewarded or generous. [8]

The modern idea that the recorded name of the Gepids was an insult comes from Jordanes in the sixth century, who reported in his Gothic origins story the Getica, that the name of the Gepids came from gepanta, an insult in Gothic meaning "sluggish, stolid" (pigra), because the Gepids had lagged behind their Gothic kin when they migrated more than a thousand years earlier.[9]

In contrast, Isidore of Seville in his etymologies, interpreted the second part of the Gepid name as "feet" (Latin pedes) and explained that the Gepids were known for going into battle on foot (pedestri), rather than mounted. The much later (12th century) Byzantine Etymologicum Magnum interprets the name using the Greek word for children, making the Gepids Gētípaides (Γητίπαιδες) meaning "children of the Goths (equated to Getae)". All three of these texts follow a tradition of seeing the Gepids as "offshoots or close relatives of the Goths".[10]

Tabula Peutingeriana, a 4th century map shows the "Piti" people living next of Porolissum. Whether is this the distortion of Gepid or not is disputed by historians.[11]

Language

There is little direct evidence for the original language of the Gepids, but they were clearly Gothic in culture during the period when the Romans reported upon them. The sixth-century Byzantine writer, Procopius, listed the Gepids among the "Gothic nations" along with the Vandals, Visigoths, and Goths proper, in his Wars of Justinian, "sharing the same language, white bodies, blond hair, and Arian form of Christianity". [12]


External links

See also

References

  1. ↑ Vékony, Gábor (2000). Dacians, Romans, Romanians. Internet Archive. [Hamilton, Ont. ; Buffalo, N.Y.] : Matthias Corvinus. ISBN 978-1-882785-13-1.
  2. ↑ See Pohl (1998, p. 131) (in German) and Goffart (2006, pp. 199–200) (in English).
  3. ↑ Jordanes, Getica, XII.74: Haec Gotia, quam Daciam appellavere maiores, quae nunc ut diximus Gepidia dicitur. Rough translation: "This Gothia, which our ancestors called Dacia, we now call Gepidia."
  4. ↑ "A gepidák rövid története" - 'Short history of the Gepids'. Gepida (in Hungarian). 2022.
  5. ↑ Neidorf, Leonard (2019). "The Gepids in Beowulf". ANQ. 34: 1–4. doi:10.1080/0895769X.2019.1584028. S2CID 166373368.
  6. ↑ Goffart 2006, p. 333
  7. ↑ Continuatio Prosperi Havniensis/Auctarium Prosperi Havniense p.337, in: Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH), Auctores antiquissimi vol. 9., Chronicorum Minorum saec. IV, V, VI, VII vol. 1. p.337
  8. ↑ Neumann, Günter (1998), "Gepiden §1. Namenkundliches", Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 11 (2 ed.), ISBN 3-11-015832-9,
  9. ↑ Jordanes. "Goths" (in Latin and English). Yeat, Theedrich tr. Harbour net. Retrieved 2008-03-03. "For undoubtedly they too trace their origin from the stock of the Goths, but because, as I have said, gepanta means something slow and stolid, the name Giped arose as a spontaneous taunt. I do not believe the name itself is very far from wrong, for they are slow of thought and too sluggish for quick movement of their bodies."
  10. ↑ See Pohl (1998, p. 131) (in German) and Goffart (2006, pp. 199–200) (in English).
  11. ↑ Sevin, Heinrich (1955). Die Gebiden (in German). Sevin. p. 29-30.
  12. ↑ Goffart, Walter (2009). Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-3939-3. pp. 199–200.
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