NumberOneSon: Finally Part Three and no More
Franks the earliest Frankish history remains relatively unclear. 250 CE a group of Franks, taking advantage of a weakened Roman Empire, penetrated as far as Tarragona in Spain. In 355 - 358 the later Emperor Julian once again found the shipping lanes on the Rhine under control of the Franks and again pacified them. From their heartland they gradually conquered most of Roman Gaul north of the Loire valley and east of Visigothic Aquitaine.
Frisians conquered by the Roman general Drusus in 12 BCE. In the 5th century, during this period of historical silence, many of them no doubt joined the migration of the Anglo-Saxons who went through Frisian territory to invade Britain.
Geats or Götar in Swedish, is the Old English spelling of the name of a Scandinavian people living in Götaland, land of the Geats, currently within the borders of modern Sweden. Starting in the 500s, the Geats slowly lost their independence and became tributaries of the Swedish kings.
Gepidae a Germanic tribe first mentioned around A.D. 260, when they participated in an invasion in Dacia together with the Goths. In the 4th century they were conquered by the Ostrogoths. In 375 they had to submit to the Huns along with their Ostrogoth overlords.
Goths own tradition says that they originated in Scandza which was separated by the Baltic Sea from the mainland of Europe. First major barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire in 267 CE.This group then settled on the other side of the Danube from Roman territory and established an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia, as the Visigoths. In the meantime, the Goths still in the Ukraine established a vast and powerful kingdom along the Black Sea. This group became known as the Ostrogoths.
The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early sixth century under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom for nearly two decades. For the later history of the Goths, see Visigoths and Ostrogoth.
Harii Helisii Helvetii Heruli Hermunduri
Jutes were people originally from what is now Jutland in modern Denmark. Some Jutes, the Angles, Saxons and other Germanic peoples who went to England, although they are less well known than the Angles and Saxons.
Langobards/Lombards (Latin Langobardi, from which the alternative name Longobards found in older English texts), are a Germanic tribe that originated in southern Sweden. They were known to the Romans from as early as AD 98, however, when the historian Tacitus mentioned them in his Germania.
Lemovii Lugii Manimi
Marcomanni were a Germanic people, probably related to the Suebi tribe. Their name derives from the Old German words for March (frontier) and Men. Drusus attacked them in 9 BCE, forcing them into present-day Bohemia. In the 2nd century AD, they entered into a confederation with other peoples which included the Quadi, Vandals, and Sarmatians against Rome. This was driven probably by greater tribal movements like the Goths to their north and east.
Marobudui Mattiaci
Merovingians The reigns of earlier Frankish chieftains -- Pharamond (about 419 until about 427) and Chlodio (about 427 until about 447) -- are thought to owe more to myth than fact, and their relationship to the Merovingian line is somewhat uncertain.
Naharvali Nemetes
Nervii were one of the most powerful Belgic Confederacy tribes living east of the Scheldt in central Belgea during the time of the Romans. The exact date of their inception and destruction has not been confirmed. They were considered the most warlike of the Belgic tribes. Belgea was located in what is now Belgium. Aided by the Atrebates and Viromandui and numerous other German tribes, they came very close to defeating Caesar in 57 BCE.
Njars a subgroup of the Svear tribe, ancient name for the inhabitants of Nericia region of Sweden.
Quadi originating north of the River Main, the Quadi and Marcomanni migrated into what is now Bohemia and Moravia, and western Slovakia, where they displaced Celtic cultures and were first noticed by Romans in 8 - 6 BCE, briefly documented by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus in his book Germania. A further Marcomannic confederation that included the Quadi fought the future emperor Tiberius in 6 CE.
Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes on the North German plain, who during the Middle Ages migrated to the British Isles
Semoni or Sicambri were a west Germanic tribe which existed during the time of the Roman Empire. Their original homeland was located in what is now the region of Gelderland in the Netherlands, on the lower Rhine river.
Sitones
Suebi or Suevi were a Germanic people who in great antiquity lived by the Baltic Sea and south thereof.
Suiones or Svear were an ancient Germanic people in Scandinavia. The Suebi eventually migrated south and west to reside in the area of modern Germany, where their name still survives in the historic region known as Swabia.
Sugambri
Tencteri
Teutons(Teutones) were a Germanic people mentioned in early historical writings by Greek and Roman authors. Their homeland was given as Jutland, the western peninsula of modern Denmark.
During the late 2nd century B.C., along with their neighbors the Cimbri, the Teutons are recorded as marching south through Gaul and attacking Roman Italy. After a series of defeats by the tribes, Roman armies came to grips with the Cimbri and Teutones and routed them.
The terms "Teuton" and "Teutonic" have sometimes been used in reference to all of the Germanic peoples. "Teut" is an Indo-European word for God, and is also found in the German words for German - "Deutsch", Germany - "Deutschland" (Gods' Land), and in the English word "Teusday" literally translated as "Day of Tue" (Tyr).
Trevi Triboci Tudri
Ubii They were transported in 39 BCE by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa to the left bank. They seem to have been so thoroughly Romanised that they adopted the name Agrippenses in honour of their founder, and their later history is submerged in that of eastern Gaul as a whole.
Usipetes
Vandals originated in Sweden and are assumed to have crossed the Baltic into what is today Poland somewhere in the 2nd century BCE, and have settled in Silesia from around 120 BCE. Their presence was recorded between the Oder and Vistula rivers in Germania in AD 98 by Tacitus and by later historians.
Vangiones
The Vikings were merchants and traders (and of course, pirates) from Scandinavia and Northern Europe. The Vikings were Germanic people, like the Goths, Vandals, and the Saxon. Norsemen is the name of the people of the areas which today are Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland and northern Germany. Other names include Danes, Northmen, Norsemen, Germanians and Normans. In Russia and the Byzantine Empire, the Vikings were known as Varangians (Væringjar, meaning "sworn men"), and the Scandinavian bodyguards of the Byzantine emperors were known as the Varangian Guard. Odin's Volk
The key factor was the organizational strength given to the Church by Constantine who provided the Church with the legal privileges that allowed it to accumulate the power and wealth to dominate Europe a few centuries later.
But conversion was a very slow and uneven process with many local variations. Emperors varied in how they handled Christian and Pagan practices after Constantine, with Julian the Apostate breaking with the Christianity. Could he have reversed the tide? Perhaps so, if hed reigned for twenty years rather than less than two.
Still, Paganism was not officially proscribed until 392 AD, when the Spanish emperor Theodosius (379-395 AD) again forbade the offering of sacrifices, and also the Pagan religious rites of the lar, the genius, and the penates. A person guilty of sacrificing was to be put to death, while anyone who practiced other Pagan rites had their property confiscated, a common way that Christians robbed Pagans. The laws against all forms of Paganism were continued by the successors of Theodosius. In the last quarter of the fourth century, non-Christians, who had until then been called gentiles, began to be more commonly called by the word used ever since, pagani. Plainly, Paganism was being recognized as confined to the people of the countryside so the urban centres were solidly Christian. Christianity Constantine and the Conversion of Europe
I will continue to say that Orthodox Christianity was already present in Europe and through the slow process of conversion during Constantine until the Franks fully conversion it was kept by some of the German tribes until the Frank fully established the Holy Roman Empire.
Happy Sabbath,
stinsonmarri