Valagoths

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Valagoths or The Frankish Table of Nations (German: fränkische Völkertafel) is a brief early medieval genealogical text in Latin giving the supposed relationship between thirteen nations descended from three brothers Erminus, Inguo and Istio. The nations are the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Gepids, Saxons, Burgundians, Thuringians, Lombards, Bavarians, Romans, Bretons, Franks and Alamanni.

Variants

History

The Table is called "Frankish" after the origin of the surviving manuscript tradition, not the origin of the work itself. In structure it is similar to the "Table of Nations" in the Bible. Although it survives in over ten manuscripts, the only medieval work to make use of it was the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, which nonetheless assured it a wide diffusion. The Table itself is the oldest extant work to make use of the Germania, a 1st-century work of Tacitus. It is also the oldest work to mention the Bavarians.

The Table was probably composed in the Byzantine Empire, or possibly in the Ostrogothic Kingdom, around 520. It may have originally been written in Greek. Its author fit contemporary peoples, mostly Germanic, into a framework supplied by Tacitus. Later copyists frequently combined the text with lists of Roman and Frankish kings, which some modern editors have treated as integral parts of the text.

Origins

Date: Müllenhoff dated the Table to around 520, while Krusch favoured the late 7th or early 8th century, since he believed that the list of Roman kings that accompanies the text in some manuscripts was an integral part of it and could not be earlier than the late Merovingian period.[2] Modern scholarship accepts Müllenhoff's dating based on internal evidence. The Vandals and Gepids effectively ceased to exist after the conquest of their kingdoms in 534 and 567, respectively. The Thuringians and Burgundians were conquered by the Franks in 531 and 534, but are listed alongside the independent Lombards. The Lombards are an obscure people before their defeat of the Heruli in 510. The Bavarians likewise are not otherwise mentioned in any text before Jordanes' Getica in or shortly after 551. This suggests that the text was composed between 510 and 531.[3] Krusch was correct, however, regarding the date of the Roman king list, which is a later addition.[4]

Authorship

The author of the Table is unknown. Although there have been many past attempts to determine his ethnicity or nationality from internal evidence, the Table does not obviously glorify or denigrate any people in particular. Müllenhoff argued for the Frankish identity of the author and gave the Table its conventional name. Many arguments for a Frankish author would apply equally well to a Gothic one. Ferdinand Lot suggested that he was an Alan cleric.[5]

Goffart argues that if the author was writing in Ostrogothic Italy he was probably a Roman and not a Goth (despite the fact that he does place the Goths first among the nations).[6] Evans suggests he was an Ostrogoth.[7] If writing in the Byzantine Empire, he was most likely a resident of Constantinople, the seat of power.[8]In favour of the Byzantine hypothesis, Goffart argues that the Table represents "the ethnic panorama of the current West as seen from a metropolitan angle of vision".[9]

Location

The Frankish Table of Nations was composed either in Ostrogothic Italy or the Byzantine Empire.[10] Goffart, its most recent editor, favours a Byzantine origin,[11] as does Helmut Reimitz.[11] Nicholas Evans favours an Italian origin.[12]

The main argument in favour of an Italian origin is the use of Tacitus.[13] No more ancient author made use of the Germania than the author of the Table and the only other author to make use of it before the 9th century was Cassiodorus in Ostrogothic Italy. This is proof for the circulation of the Germania in Italy in the early 6th century.[14] It is not known with certainty to have ever been available in the Byzantine Empire, although it may be quoted in the 7th-century Strategikon of Maurice.[15]

The content of the text provides evidence of a Byzantine origin, and its purpose is readily related to the interest of the emperors Justin I and Justinian I in a restoration of Roman rule in the West in the 520s.[16] It may even have been directly linked to the accession of either Justin in 518 or Justinian 527.[17]For the time, a Byzantine origin is consistent with an original composition in either Latin or Greek.[18]

Earliest attainable version

The Table circulated as what Léopold Genicot called a "living text" (texte vivant), a text in which every copy becomes a new edition and not merely a witness to the original.[19]It is thus impossible to produce an Urtext (original version) from surviving witnesses.[20] Goffart provides what he calls the "earliest attainable version", essentially a composite of what is common to all witnesses.[21]

There were three brothers, first Erminus, second Inguo, third Istio. From them derive thirteen peoples. First Erminus brought forth the Goths, Foreign Goths, Vandals, Gepides and Saxons. Inguo brought forth the Burgundians, Thuringians, Lombards, Bavarians. Istio brought forth the Romans, British (or Bretons[22]), Franks, Alamans.[23]

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ Wolfram, Herwig (1988). History of the Goths. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52005-259-8.p 26.
  2. ↑ Goffart, Walter (1983). "The Supposedly 'Frankish' Table of Nations: An Edition and Study". Frühmittelalterliche Studien. 17 (1): 98–130. doi:10.1515/9783110242164.98. [Reprinted in Rome's Fall and After (Hambledon, 1989), pp. 113–114.]
  3. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 117.
  4. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 114.
  5. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 116.
  6. ↑ Goffart 1983, pp. 122–123.
  7. ↑ Evans, Nicholas J. (2015). "Cultural Contacts and Ethnic Origins in Viking Age Wales and Northern Britain: The Case of Albanus, Britain's First Inhabitant and Scottish Ancestor" (PDF). Journal of Medieval History. 41 (2): p. 142 n43. doi:10.1080/03044181.2015.1030438.
  8. ↑ Goffart 1983, pp. 122–123.
  9. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 125.
  10. ↑ Goffart, Walter (1983). "The Supposedly 'Frankish' Table of Nations: An Edition and Study". Frühmittelalterliche Studien. 17 (1): 98–130. doi:10.1515/9783110242164.98. [Reprinted in Rome's Fall and After (Hambledon, 1989), pp. 122–123.]
  11. ↑ Reimitz, Helmut (2015). History, Frankish Identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity, 550–850. Cambridge University Press. pp. 82–83.
  12. ↑ Evans, Nicholas J. (2015). "Cultural Contacts and Ethnic Origins in Viking Age Wales and Northern Britain: The Case of Albanus, Britain's First Inhabitant and Scottish Ancestor" (PDF). Journal of Medieval History. 41 (2): p. 142 n43. doi:10.1080/03044181.2015.1030438.
  13. ↑ Goffart 1983, pp. 122–123.
  14. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 118.
  15. ↑ Goffart 1983, pp. 122–123.
  16. ↑ Goffart 1983, pp. 122–123.
  17. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 125.
  18. ↑ Goffart 1983, pp. 122–123.
  19. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 100.
  20. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 115.
  21. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 114.
  22. ↑ Goffart 1983, p. 98.
  23. ↑ Wadden, Patrick (2016). "The Frankish Table of Nations in Insular Historiography". Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies. 72: p.27
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