The Germanic Tribes: Better Than Their Reputation

The many different Germanic tribes which spread across Europe 2,000 years ago had their own distinct but related languages and cultures. By around 400 A.D., the Goths were among the first to become a fully literate society. The Goths later split into two tribes, the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths.

But many histories do not emphasize the scholarship and education of the Goths, leaving students with the impression that they were instead primitive and rough raiders who marauded through Europe.

There are two obstacles to understanding the Germanic tribes: first, there is, in some cases, a lack of data about some aspects of daily life in these tribes; second, historical judgments are sometimes biased by negative stereotypes. To the latter point, historian Jan von Flocken alludes to the pejorative use of the names of two of the tribes - the Goths and the Vandals:

Von den Germanen haben sich bis heute nur einige charakteristische Bezeichnungen im kollektiven Gedächtnis gehalten. So blieb vom Treiben der Ost- und Westgoten immerhin ein Kunststil namens «Gotik» erhalten, ein Terminus, der Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts geprägt wurde. Und von dem germanischen Volk der Vandalen stammen Begriffe wie «Vandalismus» oder «Vandalentum» als Synonym für rohe, sinnlose Zerstörungen. Nun haben zwar die Vandalen im Jahre 455 n. Chr. Rom geplündert, benahmen sich dabei aber weder grausamer noch gewalttätiger als vor ihnen die Gallier und nach ihnen die Byzantiner oder Spanier. Den Begriff prägte übrigens 1794 ein französischer Bischof, um das Wüten des Pariser Revolutionspöbels zu kennzeichnen.

The Vandals did indeed attack and plunder the city of Rome, but they were no more and no less vicious than the Gauls, the Byzantines, the Muslims, and the Spaniards who also attacked and plundered the city over the centuries.

The Goths developed an advanced literary society, producing in their own language textual commentaries which were the result of close reading. The Gothic language is still the object of serious academic research. The Goths had, however, nothing to do with architectural and literary styles which bear the name ‘Gothic.’

A more accurate assessment of the Germanic tribes reveals not only a literate culture, but one which laid the foundations for Europe’s medieval feudalism, a structure which arguably represented an advance over the Roman absolutism which it replaced.