Germanic Sources
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Abbo, Wars of Count Odo with the Northmen in the Reign of Charles the Fat
[Text in Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de las France, Vol. VIII, pp. 4-26].
885. The Northmen came to Paris with 700 sailing ships, not counting those of smaller size which are commonly called barques. At one stretch the Seine was lined with the vessels for more than two leagues, so that one might ask in astonishment in what cavern the river had been swallowed up, since it was not to be seen. The second day after the fleet of the Northmen arrived under the walls of the city, Siegfried, who was then king only in name but who was in command of the expedition, came to the dwelling of the illustrious bishop. He bowed his head and said: "Gauzelin, have compassion on yourself and on your flock. We beseech you to listen to us, in order that you may escape death. Allow us only the freedom of the city. We will do no harm and we will see to it that whatever belongs either to you or to Odo shall be strictly respected." Count Odo, who later became king, was then the defender of the city. The bishop replied to Siegfried, "Paris has been entrusted to us by the Emperor Charles, who, after God, king and lord of the powerful, rules over almost all the world. He has put it in our care, not at all that the kingdom may be ruined by our misconduct, but that he may keep it and be assured of its peace. If, like us, you had been given the duty of defending these walls, and if you should have done that which you ask us to do, what treatment do you think you would deserve?" Siegfried replied. "I should deserve that my head be cut off and thrown to the dogs. Nevertheless, if you do not listen to my demand, on the morrow our war machines will destroy you with poisoned arrows. You will be the prey of famine and of pestilence and these evils will renew themselves perpetually every year." So saying, he departed and gathered together his comrades.
In the morning the Northmen, boarding their ships, approached the tower and attacked it [the tower blocked access to the city by the so-called "Great Bridge," which connected the right bank of the Seine with the island on which the city was built. The tower stood on the present site of the Châtelet]. They shook it with their engines and stormed it with arrows. The city resounded with clamor, the people were aroused, the bridges trembled. All came together to defend the tower. There Odo, his brother Robert, and the Count Ragenar distinguished themselves for bravery; likewise the courageous Abbot Ebolus, the nephew of the bishop. A keen arrow wounded the prelate, while at his side the young warrior Frederick was struck by a sword. Frederick died, but the old man, thanks to God, survived. There perished many Franks; after receiving wounds they were lavish of life. At last the enemy withdrew, carrying off their dead. The evening came. The tower had been sorely tried, but its foundations were still solid, as were also the narrow bays which surmounted them. The people spent the night repairing it with boards. By the next day, on the old citadel had been erected a new tower of wood, a half higher than the former one. At sunrise the Danes caught their first glimpse of it. Once more the latter engaged with the Christians in violent combat. On every side arrows sped and blood flowed. With the arrows mingled the stones hurled by slings and war-machines; the air was filled with them. The tower which had been built during the night groaned under the strokes of the darts, the city shook with the struggle, the people ran hither and thither, the bells jangled. The warriors rushed together to defend the tottering tower and to repel the fierce assault. Among these warriors two, a count and an abbot [Ebolus], surpassed all the rest in courage. The former was the redoubtable Odo who never experienced defeat and who continually revived the spirits of the worn-out defenders. He ran along the ramparts and hurled back the enemy. On those who were secreting themselves so as to undermine the tower he poured oil, wax, and pitch, which, being mixed and heated, burned the Danes and tore off their scalps. Some of them died; others threw themselves into the river to escape the awful substance. . . .
Meanwhile Paris was suffering not only from the sword outside but also from a pestilence within which brought death to many noble men. Within the walls there was not ground in which to bury the dead. . . . Odo, the future king, was sent to Charles, emperor of the Franks, to implore help for the stricken city. One day Odo suddenly appeared in splendor in the midst of three bands of warriors. The sun made his armor glisten and greeted him before it illuminated the country around. The Parisians saw their beloved chief at a distance, but the enemy, hoping to prevent his gaining entrance to the tower, crossed the Seine and took up their position on the bank. Nevertheless Odo, his horse at a gallop, got past the Northmen and reached the tower, whose gates Ebolus opened to him. The enemy pursued fiercely the comrades of the count who were trying to keep up with him and get refuge in the tower. [The Danes were defeated in the attack.]
Now came the Emperor Charles, surrounded by soldiers of all nations, even as the sky is adorned with resplendent stars. A great throng, speaking many languages, accompanied him. He established his camp at the foot of the heights of Montmartre, near the tower. He allowed the Northmen to have the country of Sens to plunder; and in the spring he gave them 700 pounds of silver on condition that by the month of March they leave France for their own kingdom. Then Charles returned, destined to an early death.
Source: From: Frederic Austin Ogg, ed., A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the German Invasions to the Renaissance, (New York, 1907, reprinted by Cooper Square Publishers (New York), 1972), pp. 165-173. Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg.
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Abercedarium Nordmanicum (St. Gallen Rune Poem)
Version One: From the monastery of St. Gallen, near Bodensee,
Switzerland, a mnemonic rune manuscript from the
country near Fulda, Hessen; written down 800-900 C.E.
| Feu froma Ur anmot Thurs thri staba Os obana |
Rat rinnit Can cliuvit Hagal hardo Naut nagal |
Is Ar Sol skinit Tir |
Birka bivit Lagu liohto Manna middi Yr al |
Translation:
| Feu first Ur (?) Thurs three staves Os upmost |
Rat runs Can cleaves Hagal hard Naut nail |
Is Ar Sol shines Tir |
Birka trembles Lagu light Manna middle Yr all |
From Helrunar, A manual of Rune Magick by Jan Fries
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Ablabius, c. ? CE
Jordanes may have been using a now lost history of the Visigoths written by Ablabius as suggested by the author Peter Heather who has written much on the Goths. But in writing that history Cassiodorus was himself indebted to the work of a certain Ablabius. It was Ablabius, apparently, who had first used the Gothic sagas (prisca carmina); it was he who had constructed the stem of the Amals. Whether he was a Greek, a Roman or a Goth we do not know; nor can we say when he wrote, though his work may be dated conjecturaily in the early part of the reign of Theodoric the Great. We can only say that he wrote on the origin and history of the Goths, using both Gothic saga and Greek sources; and that if Jordanes used Cassiodorus, Cassiodorus used, if to a less extent, the work of Ablabius. There is much doubt as to the identity of Ablabius and what position he held in the Roman government.
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Adam of Bremen ca 1040-1081; bishop, Germany. (+)
Historia Hammaburggensis ecclesiae / The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen (3 vols.);ca 1075. This contains the first mention of Vinland known. It is independent of the sagas and only ca 60 years after the discovery.
also see:
History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen
Adam of Bremen with an introduction by Timothy Reuter, Translated by Francis J. Tschan; ISBN: 0231125755; pp. 10-11
"For they worshiped those who, by nature, were not gods. Among them especially venerated Mercury [Woden?], whom they were wont on certain days to propriate, even with human sacrifices. They deemed it incompatible with the greatness and dignity of heavenly beings either to confine their gods in temples or to mold them in any likeness of human form. They consecrated groves and coppices and called by the names of the gods that mysterious something which alone they contemplated with reverence. they even regarded with reverence leafy trees and springs. They worshiped, too, a stock of wood, of no small size, set up in the open. In native language, it was called Irminsul, which in Latin means 'universal column,' as it sustained evrything. These excerpts about the advent, the customs, and the superstitions of the Saxons (which superstitions the Slavs and Swedes still appear to observe in their pagan rites) we have taken from the writings of Einhard."
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Aelfric: (!) an English monk, author of a homily written in Anglo-Saxon about the year 1000, is borrowed in part from Martin. Both Martin and Aelfric follow the same general plan in regard to the origin of idolatry. There is also a remarkable agreement between the two writers in their descriptions of the shameful lives led by Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn, whom the people later worshiped as gods. Both writers may have been following a common patristic tradition.
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Aelius Spartianus: The Life of Hadrian: 10, 12
see: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/aelius-hadrian.html
10. After this he travelled to the provinces of Gaul, and came to the relief of all the communities with various acts of generosity; and from there he went over into Germany. Though more desirous of peace than of war, he kept the soldiers in training just as if war were imminent, inspired them by proofs of his own powers of endurance, actually led a soldier's life among the maniples, and, after the example of Scipio Aemilianus, Metellus, and his own adoptive father Trajan, cheerfully ate out of doors such camp-fare as bacon, cheese and vinegar. And that the troops might submit more willingly to the increased harshness of his orders, he bestowed gifts on many and honours on a few. For he re-established the discipline of the camp, which since the time of Octavian had been growing slack through the laxity of his predecessors.
12. During this period and on many other occasions also, in many regions where the barbarians are held back not by rivers but by artificial barriers, Hadrian shut them off by means of high stakes planted deep in the ground and fastened together in the manner of a palisade. He appointed a king for the Germans, suppressed revolts among the Moors, and won from the senate the usual ceremonies of thanksgiving.
The Life of Antoninus Caracalla, (c. 200E);
Translated by David Magie, Ph. D., for the Loeb Classical Library (1924)
I. The two sons left by Septimius Severus, Geta and Bassianus [He was originally named Julius Bassianus after his maternal grandfather. In 196 Severus gave him the name M. Aurelius Antoninus and by this he was officially known for the rest of his life. The nickname Caracalla (more correctly Caracallus) by which he is usually known was the name of the Gallic cloak which he made fashionable in Rome; see ix. 7-8. -- DM],
[The biography omits the account of Caracalla's campaign of 213 in northern Raetia (Bavaria) against the Alamanni, his invasion of German territory, and his victory on the river Main, as a result of which he assumed the cognomen Germanicus Maximus and issued coins with the legend Victoria Germanica. -- DM]
Then he made ready for a journey to the Orient [in the spring of 214 -- DM], but interrupted his march and stopped in Dacia. In the region of Raetia [the incidents narrated here in this and the following sentences are out of place and should be connected with his campaign of 213. -- DM] he put a number of the natives to death and then harangued his soldiers and made them presents quite as though they were the troops of Sulla. He did not, however, as Commodus had done, permit his men to call him by the names of the gods, for many of them had begun to address him as Hercules because he had killed a lion and some other wild beasts. Yet he did call himself Germanus [the surname that he actually assumed was Germanicus Maximus; apparently the biographer here puns on the meaning of germanus as "brother," like Cicero's pun Germanum Cimber occidit, cited by Quintilian, vii. 3, 29. -- DM] after defeating the Germans, either in jest or in earnest, for he was foolish and witless and asserted that had he conquered the Lucanians he should have been given the name Lucanicus. [The point of the joke is not evident; possibly some pun on the meaning of Lucanicus as a variety of sausage is intended. -- DM] the name Germanicus he had assumed during his father's lifetime.
It is not out of place to include a certain gibe that was uttered at his expense. For when he assumed the surnames Germanicus, Parthicus, Arabicus, and Alamannicus (for he conquered the Alamanni too), Helvius Pertinax, the son of Pertinax, said to him in jest, so it is related, "Add to the others, please, that of Geticus Maximus also"; for he had slain his brother Geta, and Getae is a name for the Goths, whom he conquered, while on his way to the East, in a series of skirmishes.
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Aemilian the Confessor (Life of St.): see Braulio of Saragossa
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Aethelweard: (d. c.998) The Chroncile of Aethelweard (ed. A. Campbell, 1962); also spelled ETHELWERD: ealdorman in SW England, history from a layman: a Latin version of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. (!)
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Agathius: (6th century); wrote about the angon:
'The angons are spears which are neither very short nor very long; they can be used, if necessary, for throwing like a javelin, and also in hand to hand combat. The greater part of the angon is covered with iron and very little wood is exposed. In battle the Frank throws the angon, and if it hits an enemy, the spear is caught in the man and neither the wounded man nor anyone else can draw it out. The barbs hold inside the flesh, causing great pain, and in this way a man whose wound may not be in a vital spot dies. If the angon strikes a shield, it is fixed there, hanging down with the butt on the ground. The angon cannot be pulled out because the barbs have penetrated the shield, nor can it be cut off with a sword because the wood of the shaft is covered with iron. When the Frank sees the situation, he quickly puts his foot on the butt of the spear, pulling down, and the man holding it falls leaving his head and chest unprotected. The unprotected warrior is then killed either by a stroke of the axe or a thrust with another spear.'
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Alfred the Great: (870s CE)
King Alfred, Life of; c. 888 CE (+, see Files: King Alfred);
Originally composed in Latin, prossibly sometime around 888 CE. by the Monk and Bishop Asser, although some scholars contend that the work was actually composed much later by an unknown hand.
also:
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is one of the few literary sources we have for England during the time period following the Roman presence and preceding the Norman invasion. Written by different monastic houses, the various versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle offer us a unique picture of the Anglo-Saxons and their world. Although written by monks, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is relatively unbiased in its portrayal of events. This particular variant chronicles the events Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, experienced during the Viking invasions of the ninth century.
878. In this year, at Midwinter, after Twelfthnight, the army stole itself away to Chippenham, and harried the West Saxons' land, and settled there, and drove many of the people over sea, and of the remainder the greater portion they harried, and the people submitted to them, save the king, Alfred, and he,with a little band, withdrew to the woods and moor-fastnesses. And in the same winter the brother of Inwar and Halfdene was in Wessex, in Devonshire, with twenty-three ships, and he was there slain, and with him eight hundred and forty men of his force. And there was the standard taken which they call the Raven. And the Easter after, Alfred, with a little band, wrought a fortress at Athelney, and from that work warred on the army, with that portion of the men of Somerset that was nearest. Then in the seventh week after Easter he rode to Egbert's stone, on the east of Selwood, and there came to meet him all the Somersetshire men, and the Wiltshire men, and that part of Hampshire which remained of it on this side of the sea; after, he went from the camp to Aeglea, and one night after that to Edington, and there fought against all the army, and put it to flight, and rode after it, as far as the works, and there sat fourteen nights. And then the army gave him hostages with great oaths that they would depart from his kingdom; and also promised him that their king would receive baptism; and that they so fulfilled; and three weeks after, King Guthrum came to him, with thirty of the men who were most honorable in the army, at Aller, which is opposite to Athelney; and the king received him there at baptism; and his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore; and he was twelve nights with the king; and he largely gifted him and his companions with money.
879. In this year the army went to Cirencester from Chippenham, and sat there one year. And in that year a body of vikings assembled, and sat down at Fulhamon the Thames. And that same year the sun was eclipsed one hour of the day.
880. In this year the army went from Cirencester to East Anglia, and occupied and divided the land. And in the same year the army, which had sat down at Fulham, went over sea to Ghent in France, and sat there one year.
881. In this year the army went up into France, and the French fought against them; and there was the army horsed after the fight.
882. In this year the army went up along the Meuse far into France, and there sat one year. And that same year King Alfred went out to sea with ships, and fought against four ship-crews of Danish men, and took two of the ships, and the men were slain that were therein; and the two ship-crews surrendered to him; and they were sorely fatigued and wounded before they surrendered.
883. In this year the army went up the Scheldt to Conde, and there sat one year. And Marinus the pope then sent lignum domini [of Christ's cross] to King Alfred. And in the same year Sighelm and Athelstan conveyed to Rome the alms which the king had vowed [to send] thither, and also to India, to St. Thomas, and to St. Bartholomew, when they sat down against the army at London; and there, God be thanked, their prayer was very successful after that vow.
884. In this year the army went up the Somme to Amiens, and there sat one year. In this year died the benvolent Bishop Aethelwold. [Evidently a copyist's error; Aethelwold died in 984.]
885. In this year the fore-mentioned army separated into two; one part [went] east, the other part to Rochester, and besieged the city, and wrought another fastness about themselves; but they, nevertheless, defended the city until KingAlfred came without with his force. Then the army went to their ships, and abandoned the fastness; and they were there deprived of their horses, and forthwith, in the same summer, withdrew over sea. And the same year King Alfred sent a naval force from Kent to East Anglia. As soon as they came to the mouth of the Stour, then met them sixteen ships of vikings, and they fought against them, and captured all the ships, and slew the men. When they were
returning homeward with the booty, a great naval force of vikings met them, and then fought against them on the same day, and the Danish gained the victory. In the same year, before midwinter, Carloman, king of the Franks, died, and a wild boar killed him; and one year before his brother died; he also had the western kingdom;and they were both sons of Lewis, who also had the western kingdom, and died in the year when the sun was eclipsed, who was the son of Charles, whose daughter Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons, had for his queen. And in the same year a larger naval force assembled among the Old Saxons; and there was a great fight twice in that year, and the Saxons had the victory; and there were Frisians with them. In that same year Charles succeeded to the western kingdom, and to all the kingdom on this side of the Mediterranean Sea,and beyond this sea, as his great-grandfather had it, excepting the Lidwiccas [Brittany]. Charles was the son of Lewis, Lewis was brother of Charles, who was father of Judith, whom King Ethelwulf had; and they were sons of Lewis; Lewis was son of the old Charles; Charles was the son of Pepin. And in the same year the good Pope Marinus died, who freed the Angle race's school, at the prayer of Alfred, king of the West Saxons; and he sent him great gifts, and part of the rood on which Christ suffered. And in the same year the army in East Anglia brake peace with King Alfred.
886. In this year the army again went west, which had before landed in the east, and then up the Seine, and there took winter quarters at the city of Paris. In the same year King Alfred restored London; and all the Angle race turned to him that were not in the bondage of the Danish men; and he then committed the burgh to the keeping of the ealdorman Ethered.
This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.
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Ammianus Marcellinus: (390) Res Gestae Divi Augustae (The Later Roman Empire)(+); Loeb Classical Library: ISBN:0674993659
From Roman To Merovingian Gaul, p. 10: Ammianus is the author of one of the major works of Roman historiography. Written around 390, his history was conceived as a continuation of Tacitus and ends with the famous battle of Adrianople in 378. Only books 14-31, covering the final twenty-five year period from 354, survive. Ammianus was of Greek origin, though he wrote his work in Latin, and served for a period as an army officer under Constantius and Julian. His history was shaped by his antipathy to Christianity and Christian emperors. He hated the court surrounding the emperor Constantius II, whom he compared unfavorably to his pagan hero Julian, called the Apostate by Christians.
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Aneurin: c.600; The Book of Aneirin. (+) A Welsh bard whose reputed writings are contained in a 13th-century manuscript, The Book of Aneirin. Included in this manuscript is Y Gododdin, an elegiac poem of about 1000 lines recording the defeat of an army of northern Britons by the Saxons. The poem is one of the oldest extant works of Welsh literature and contains probably the earliest explicit allusion to King Arthur.
see: http://www.missgien.net/celtic/gododdin/index.html
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Anglo-Saxon Charms: Field Remedy, Miscellaneous Lacnunga Charms, Lay of the Nine Herbs and Lay of the Nine Twigs of Woden, 3 Lacnunga Elf Charms, Leechbook Elf Charms; The following Anglo-Saxon charms were translated by Karen Louise Jolly in her book, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (1996). Copyright is held by the University of North Carolina Press.
/media/mmc1/world_faiths/www.northvegr.org-relative-n/lore/anglosaxon_met/index.html
Anglo-Saxon Metrical Charms include: For Unfruitful Land, The Nine Herbs Charm, Against a Dwarf, For a Sudden Stitch, For Loss of Cattle, For Delayed Birth, For the Water-Elf Disease, For a Swarm of Bees, For Loss of Cattle, For Loss of Cattle, Journey Charm and Against a Wen.
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Anglo-Saxon Chronicles- various authors (+)
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/angsax/angsax.htm
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Anglo/
also: A fragmentary collection in British Library Additional Manuscript 23211, written in the reign of Ælfræd the Great. It is clearly related to the so-called Genealogical Preface attached to manuscripts A and B of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. However, it is unique in preserving three East Saxon genealogies (Seaxnote):
http://www.kmatthews.org.uk/history/sweet_saxon_genealogies.html
[Đa feng ecgberht to đam] rice 7 heold xxxvii wint, 7 vii monađ;
ond đa feng æ[đelwulf] his sunu to, 7 heold xviiii healf gear;
ond se æđe[lwulf] wæs ecgberhting, ecgberht ealhmunding, ealh[mund] eabing, eaba eopping, eoppa ingilding, ingild co[enred]ing, coenred ceolwalding, ceaolwald cuđuulfing, cuđ[uulf] cuđwining, cuđwine ceaulniing, ceaul[i]n cynnr[icing], cynnric crioding, criodo ceardicing;
ond đa feng æđelbald his sunu to, 7 heold v gear;
đa feng æđelbe[rht his] brođur to rice, 7 heold v gear;
đa feng æđered his [brođor] to rice, 7 heold v gear,
đa feng ælfred hira brođar [to rice], ond đa wæs agan his eldo xxiii wintra, ond ccc o[nd xcvi] wintra đæs đe his cynn ærest westseaxna bond o[n] walum gecodon.
de regibus orientalium seaxonum
offa sighering
sighere sigberhting,
sigberht s[aweard]ing,
saweard saberhting,
saberht sledding.
sle[dd] æscwining,
æscwine offing,
offa bedcing,
bedca [sigefugling],
sigefugl swæpping,
swæppa antsecging,
ants[ecg] gesecging,
gesecg seaxneating.
item de regibus orientalium seaxonum
swiđred sigemunding,
sigemund sigeharding,
si[gehard] sebbing,
sebbe seaxreding,
seaxred sab[erhti]ng,
saberht sledding.
item de regibus orientalium seoxo[num]
sigered sigericing,
sigeric selereding,
selered sigeberhting,
sigeberht sigeb[aldi]ng,
sigebald seleferđing,
seleferđ sigeferđing,
sigeferđ seaxing,
seaxa sledding;
đonan forđ ...
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Anglo-Saxon Dooms: (+) lists of kings' laws from the 6th through the 11th century England; Available online at The Medieval Sourcebook.
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Annals of Angers (!)
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Annales Regium Francorum / Annals of the Frankish kingdom
From: Annales Regium Francorum / Annals of the Frankish kingdom
770's: The Franks come into contact with the Danish 'near abroad' when the Saxon leader Widukind seeks refuge in Denmark.
782: The Saxons are in rebellion again but are beaten and Widukind flees to Denmark.
798: A Frankish messenger to the Danes is killed by the Saxons.
804: Karl led an army into Saxony and moved the inhabitants who lived close to Denmark into Francia. The Danish king Godfred moves his army and navy to the border at Sliesthorp (by Slesvig and Hedeby). The situation is settled by negotiation.
808: King Godfred attacked the Abodrites (a Slavish people allied with the Franks against the Saxons). Karl responds by sending an army lead by his son to help the allies and to defend the occupied territory in Saxony. He doesn't make contact with Godfred but does attack Danish allies. It is in this campaign that Godfred "kidnaps" the city of Reric and moves it to Hedeby on the Danish side of the border.
According to the Frankish annals it was this year that the building of Dannevirke started.(Dannevirke is a wall defending the south of Jutland) but dating has showed that the oldest part of the wall was built in 737.
809: Danish and Frankish magnates meet to negotiate at a site north of the Elbe, but the negotiations end without result. The Franks start to build a fortified city north of the Elbe at Itzehoe.
810: The Franks contemplate an attack on Denmark, but are surprised by a Danish naval attack on Friesland which was, at the time, a Frankish dependency. The Franks mobilize
and wait for an expected land attack by the Danes but they then learn that Godfred has been killed in Denmark. The Franks make peace with the new Danish king Hemming.
811: Danes and Franks confirm the peace
812: Hemming dies. The new Danish king and the Franks make peace.
813: Civil war in Denmark
814: Civil war in Denmark
815: The Franks help the Danish pretender Harald and a Frankish army raids in
Southern Jutland.
817: The Abodrites seek Danish help against the Franks and a Danish army
raids in Saxony
825: The Emperor (Karl, aka Charlemagne) receives Danish messengers in Aachen and agrees to peace talks in their bordermark
828: Peace talks are held in the border area. The pretender Harald spoils the talks
by raiding Danish villages. The Danes attack the bordermark.. This marks the beginning of a long period of Danish 'viking' raids against the Franks.
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Anskar (Life of), by Rimbert; c. 900 CE (+); an early Christian missionary to Scandinavia and northern Germany
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Aristotle: http://www.knuten.liu.se/~bjoch509/philosophers/ari.html (!)
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Artemidorus: From the Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
(fl. 100 BCE, Ephesus, Lydia [now in Turkey]), Greek geographer whose systematic geography in 11 books was much used by the famed Greek geographer-historian Strabo (b. 64/63 BCE). Artemidorus' work is based on his itineraries in the Mediterranean and on the records of others. The work is known only from Strabo's references to it and from fragments preserved by later authors and from the surviving part of an abridgment, dating possibly from the early 5th century AD, of his coastal guide to the Mediterranean and Euxine (Black) seas.
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Aufidius Bassus (!)
There were historians of imperial Rome before Tacitus, notably Aufidius Bassus, who recorded events from the rise of Augustus to the reign of Claudius.
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Augustine: 354-430 CE; City of God; (+), bishop of Hippo from 395.
Theologian and apologist, wrote many books, treatises and letters. He includes much detail of contemporarary life and history.
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/npnf102/htm/iv.htm#iv.i
'All the devastation, murder, spoilation, arson, cruelty that were inflicted during the recent disaster in Rome followed the usual custom of war. On the other hand there was much that followed a new fashion. The ferocity of the barbarians was so chastened that they even chose out and set aside basilicas filled to overflowing with people whose lives they spared. There no blow was struck, no person was snatched into slavery. This was due to the name of Christ and to the change-over to Christianity. Whoever cannot see that is blind.'
'The triumph of Christianity and the greatness of the Papacy were both direct and immediate consequences of the fall of Rome.'
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Augustus: 14 CE; The Deeds of the Divine Augustus 26; From LCL;
see also: Suetonius: Life of Augustus
26. I extended the boundaries of all the provinces which were bordered by races not yet subject to our empire. The provinces of the Gauls, the Spains, and Germany, bounded by the ocean from Gades to the mouth of the Elbe, I reduced to a state of peace. The Alps, from the region which lies nearest to the Adriatic as far as the Tuscan Sea, I brought to a state of peace without waging on any tribe an unjust war. My fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea, and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans of that same region through their envoys sought my friendship and that of the Roman people.
31. The Bastarnae, the Scythians, and the Sarmatians, who are on this side of the river Don sought our friendship through emissaries.
32. To me were sent supplications by kings: of the Britons, Dumnobellaunus and Tincommius, of the Sugambri, Maelo, of the Marcomanian Suebi (...) (-)rus.
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Aurelius Victor: 361 CE; De Caesaribus (The Emperors) 33: first reference to Franks;
From: Roman to Merovingian Gaul
The earliest reference to the Franks is commonly said to appear in Aurelius Victor's De Caesaribus, describing barbarian invasions during the dark days of the mid-third century in the reign of Gallienus (Caesar, a.253; Augustus, a.260-267). The reference is unlikely to be contemporary, however. The De Caesaribus, written about 361, dates from a century after the events it recounts. Its author, Aurelius Victor, was born in Africa ca. 320 and at an early age began a very successful career in imperial service at Rome, holding positions under Constantius, Julian, and Theodosius the Great; his last post was that of urban prefect of Rome in 388/89. His history, which is not immune from anachronism, made extensive use of a now lost contemporary work, known to scholars as KG (Kaisergeschichte).
References in the text:
At the same time (ca 260), Licinius Gallienus, though vigorously attempting to keep the Germans out of Gaul, lost no time in descending on Illyricum. There at Mursa he defeated first the governor of Pannonia Ingebus, who had been seized by a passion to rule the empire and then Regalianus
Their demise being lucky and beyond what Gallienus prayed for, he became quite unhinged by favorable circumstances, as humans tend to do. He and his son Salonius, on whom he had conferred the rank of Caesar, virtually wrecked the Roman state, to the point that the Goths readily penetrated Thrace and seized Macedonia, Achaea, and regions bordering on Asia; At that time, the violence of the Alamanni also afflicted Italy. Frankish peoples (gentes Francorum) despoiled Gaul and occupied Spain, where they laid waste and almost plundered the town of Tarragona. Some of them, after conveniently obtaining ships, got as far as Africa. Even the territories across the Danube, which Trajan secured, were lost.
Source: F.R. Pichlmayr and R. Gruendel, Sexti Aurelii Victoris Liber de Caesaribus
(Leipzig 1966), 33, pp. 108-09. Translation by A.C. Murray
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Ausonius wrote a good deal about the relations between the Gallo-Romans and the Germanic intruders.
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