Germanic Sources
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Saba(Passion of St): a valuable source for fourth century Visigothic society.
E.A. Thompson, Historia 4 (1955), 331. Text in Analecta Bollandiana 31 (1912), 161-300
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Salic Law, (Pactus Legis Salicae), c. 505-511 CE: (see files); Written in Latin; possibly the earliest Frankish source originated by them. Drawn up between 507 and 511 by (possibly) Clovis, there are 87 manuscripts, only one of which is as early as the eighth century. All copies differ from one another. Successive manuscripts included clauses added by successors and excluded clauses that were out-of-date. The modern printed text corresponds exactly to none of the manuscripts; it is merely a modern editor's idea of how the text might originally have read in its various promulations from the time of Clovis onwards.
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Salvian: De gubernatione dei (Of God's Government); 440 CE:
(c. 400-c. 470) Priest and writer, born in Trier, who became a monk at Lérins in 425 and presbyter in Marseilles about 439. He saw the barbarians, who by then had made his native province a German kingdom, as instruments of divine wrath and in his De gubernatione dei presented this theological viewpoint, revealing incidentally much of 5th-century life in the provinces.
[Adapted from Robinson]
Salvian, a Christian priest, writing about 440, undertook in his book Of God's Government to show that the misfortunes of the time were only the divinely inflicted punishments which the people of the Empire had brought upon themselves by their wickedness and corruption. He contends that the Romans, who had once been virtuous and heroic, had lapsed into a degradation which rendered them, in spite of their civilization and advantages, far inferior to the untutored but sturdy barbarian.
Excerpts from: James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History: Vol. I: (Boston:: Ginn and co., 1904), 28-30 Internet Medieval Source Book
"In what respects can our customs be preferred to those of the Goths and Vandals, or even compared with them? And first, to speak of affection and mutual charity (which, our Lord teaches, is the chief virtue, saying, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another "), almost all barbarians, at least those who are of one race and kin, love each other, while the Romans persecute each other."
"All the barbarians, as we have already said, are pagans or heretics. The Saxon race is cruel, the Franks are faithless, the Gepidae are inhuman, the Huns are unchaste, in short, there is vice in the life of all the barbarian peoples. But are their offenses as serious as ours? Is the unchastity of the Hun so criminal as ours? Is the faithlessness of the Frank so blameworthy as ours? Is the intemperance of the Alemanni so base as the intemperance of the Christians? Does the greed of the Alani so merit condemnation as the greed of the Christians? If Hun or the Gepid cheat, what is there to wonder at, since he does not know that cheating is a crime? If a Frank perjures himself, does he do anything strange, he who regards perjury as a way of speaking, not as a crime?"
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Salzburg Annals: the Bavarians were defeated and expelled from their homeland 'at the time of the Goths' and also providing the dates 508 CE and 512 CE for the defeat of the Bavarians
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Saxo Grammaticus: History of the Danes: books 1 - 9, are available online at:
http://www.authorslibrary.com/b/dnhst10.htm
and
/media/mmc1/world_faiths/www.northvegr.org-relative-n/lore/saxo/index.html
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Saxon Capitularies: see Capitularies for the Saxons
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Secundus of Trent wrote a now lost history of the Lombards which was likely a source used by Paul the Deacon.
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Seneca, Lucius Annaeus- 'Ira' 3.26.3
3. Deinde ad condicionem rerum humanarum respiciendum est, ut omnium accidentium aequi iudices simus; iniquus autem est qui commune uitium singulis obiecit. Non est Aethiopis inter suos insignitus color, nec rufus crinis et coactus in nodum apud Germanos uirum dedecet: nihil in uno iudicabis notabile aut foedum quod genti suae publicum est. Et ista quae rettuli unius regionis atque anguli consuetudo defendit: uide nunc quanto in iis iustior uenia sit quae per totum genus humanum uulgata sunt.
'The color of the Ethiopian is not exceptional among his own [people], nor is hair, red and gathered into a knot, unfitting for a man among the Germans.'
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Severinus, The Life of St; c. 480 CE, written by Eugippius
From The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians by J.B. Bury; ISBN 0393003884 - p.171 (c.475 CE):
The task before Odovacar's government was to meet a danger on the northern frontier of Italy. This danger sprang from the kingdoms of the Rugians on the Danube, to the north of Noricum. The Danubian provinces were completely disorganized; government had practically ceased; and the provincials were exposed not only to the oppression of the Rugians but to the incursions of the other Germans- Alamanni, Thuringians, and Heruls. There is a famous work which gives a very vivid picture of the condition of Noricum and the adjacent lands at this period. It is the life of St Severinus, written a few years later by Eugippius. Severinus was the only protection the provincials had, except the walls of their towns; he was a powerful protector, for he exercised immense influence upon the barbarians. This influence, due to his strong personality and his devoted life, were increased by a belief in his miraculous powers and prophetic faculty. But though the self-sacrificing efforts of this monk did something to alleviate the condition of those lands and to restrain the cruelties of the barbarians, the miseries of the time in that quarter of Europe can hardly be exaggerated.
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Sidonius Apollinaris, (Caius) Sollius Apollinaris (Modestus) SIDONIUS, c.431-c.489, was a Roman Aristocrat living in Gaul at the time of its transformation from a province of the Roman Empire to the property of Frankish Kings. His letters are among the prime documents of the period.
c. 470 CE: Letter to Riothamus, 469 CE; Letter to Vincentius, 470 CE; Letter to Ecdicius, 474 CE; Letter to Namatius, 480 CE
Loeb: Volume II. LETTERS, BOOKS III-IX; ISBN: 0674994620
"Moreover when the Saxons are setting sail from the continent and are about to drag their firm-holding anchors from an enemy shore, it is their usage thus homeward bound to abandon every tenth captive to the slow agony of a watery end, casting lots with perfect equity among the doomed crowd in execution of this iniquitous sentence of death. This custom is all the more deplorable in that it is prompted by honest superstition. These men are bound by vows which have to be paid in victims, they conceive it as a religious act to perpetuate their horrible slaughter. This polluting sacrilege is in their eyes an absolving sacrifice.
'Here in Bordeaux we see the blue-eyed Saxon afraid of the land, accustomed as he is to the sea; along the extreme edges of his pate the razor, refusing to restrain its bite, pushes back the frontier of his hair and, with the growth thus clipped to the skin, his head is reduced and his face enlarged.'
Sidonius also describes Frankish warriors:
'... on the crown of whose red pates lies the hair that has been drawn towards the front, whilst the neck, exposed by the loss of its covering, shows bright. Their eyes are faint and pale, with a glimmer of greyish blue. Their faces are shaven all round, and instead of beards they have thin moustaches which they run through with a comb. Close fitting garments confine the tall limbs of the men, they are drawn up high so as to expose the knees, and a broad belt supports their narrow middle. '
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Sisebut, (King Sisbut): (!) Life and Martyrdom of Saint Desiderius (written in the early 7th century) included in: Lives of the Visigothic Fathers; A.T. Fear, trans. ISBN: 0853235821
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Solinus, Caius Julius - (+) Collectanea rerum memorabilia; (Gallery of Wonderful Things) 25,29,32,34; Adapted from Arthur Golding (1955)- online: http://eric.anctil.org/history/src/
CAP. 25
Of the people called Hyperboreans.
Sundry things that have been reported of the Hyperboreans had been but a fable and a flying tale if things that have come from thence on to us had been believed rashly. But seeing the best authors and such as are of sufficient credit do agree in one constant report, no man needs to fear any falsehood. Of the Hyperboreans, they speak in this way. They inhabit almost the Pteropheron which we hear say lies beyond the North Pole, a most blessed nation. They ascribe it rather on to Asia than on to Europe, and some do place it midway between the sun rising and the sunset, that is to say, between the West of the Antipodes, and our East, which thing reason reproves, considering what a vast Sea runs between the two worlds. They are therefore in Europe, and among them are thought to be the poles of the world and the uttermost circuit of the Stars, and half year light, lacking the Sun but one day. Now be it, there are that think Sun rises not day by day to them as it does to us, but it rises in the spring time, going not down again before the fall of the leaf, so that they have continual day by the space of five months together, and by the space of the other five months continual night. The air is very mild, the blasts wholesome, and no hurtful wind. Their houses are the wide geldes or the woods, and the trees yield them shade from day to day. They know no debate, they are not troubled with ordeals, all men have one desire, which is to live innocently. They halt death, and by willful foredoing themselves, prevent the long tarryance of their decease. For when they have lived as long as they would desire, then feasting and anointing themselves, they throw themselves headlong from some unknown rock into the deep sea, and they believe this to be the best kind of burial. The report also goes that they were accustomably wont to send the first fruits of their increase to Apollo of Delos by the hands of their most chaste maidens. But because those maids through treachery of them in whose houses they lodged, returned not undefiled: they erected a Bishopric within their own country for that devotion's sake, for the performance whereof they were faine before to send abroad.
CAP. 29
Of the North Ocean, of the Caspian Sea, and of the Island Baltia. The North Ocean on that part where Paropamisus, a river of Scythia washes into it named Amalchium by Hecataeus which in the language of that nation signifies the Frozen Sea. Phylaemon said that from the Cimbrians to the Promontory Rubeas, it is called Morimarusa which is as much to say as the dead sea. Whatsoever is beyond Rubeas is called Cronium. That the Caspian Sea on the other side of Pontus beyond the Massagets and the Scythians called Appelaeans in the coast of Asia is sweet of taste. It was tried by Alexander the Great and afterward by Pompey the Great, who in his wars against Mithridates (as Varro, one of his fellow soldiers, reported) would need know whether it were true or not by drinking of it himself. It is reported that it comes so to pass by reason of the number of rivers, whereof there falls such a sort into it that they alter the nature of the sea. I must not let pass that at the same time the said Alexander was able to come in eight days out of India from Bactria on to the River Icarus which runs into the River Oxus and from thence to the Caspian Sea and so by the Caspian to pass into the stream of the River Cyrus which runs between the marches of Iberia and Armenia. From Cyrus also conveying his ships after him from land. He came in five days at the most to the Channel of Phasis: at whole issue it is manifestly proven that those which come out of India may be brought into Pontus. Xenophon of Lampsacum affirms that we may sail from the sea coast of Scythia to the Island Baltia in three days, the greatness whereof is unmeasurable, and almost like a main land, from whence it is not far to the islands called Oones, the inhabitants whereof live by eggs of Sea-fouls and the seed of wild dates: and that the other isles adjoining them do live after the same sort of which the people that are called Hippopodes being shaped in all points like men down to the instep have feet like horses. They said also how there are other islands and a nation called Phanesians whose ears are of such an unmeasurable size that they cover the rest of their bodies with them and need no other apparel to clothe their limbs with than their own flaps.
CAP. 32
Of the island Scandinavia, of Amber, of the stone Callais, and of the precious stone called Ceraunius.
Over against Germania is the island Scandinavia, which breeds a beast much resembling an Alce, much like the Elephant doesn't bow the nether joints of his legs and therefore lies not down when he sleeps, but rests himself when he is drowsy, against a tree, the which is sawed almost asunder, ready to fall, that when the beast leans to his accustomed style, he may fall down: and so is he caught, for otherwise it is a hard matter to catch him by hand. For although his joints be so stiff, yet is he of incomparable swiftness.
Of the German Isles, the greatest is Scandinavia, but there is nothing in it great saving itself. The island Glessaria yields crystal, and also amber, which the Germans in their country speech call Glesse. The quality of this kind of stuff is touched briefly before.
But at such time as Germanicus Caesar searched all the corners of Germany, there was found a tree of the kind of Pines, out of whole pyth every harvest issued a Gumme. We may understand by the name of it, that it is the juice of a tree: and if you burn it, the smell will betray that it comes of a Pine tree. It is worth the labour to proceed somewhat further, lest men might surmise that the woods about Po, did weep stones. The barbarous nation brought Amber into Illyria, which through intercourse of merchandise with the Pannonians, came into the hands of the Italians beyond the Po, now because our men saw it there first, they believed it had also grown there. Through the bounteousness of the Emperor Nero, no attire was gorgeous without Amber, which was no hard matter for him to do. Since then, at the same time, the King of Germany sent him three and three and thirty thousand pounds thereof for a present. At first, it grows rugged and with a bark and afterward, it is boiled in the grease of a sucking pig and so is polished to that brightness that we see. According to its color, it has diverse names. It is called Mellum and Phaleruum, both of which names it had given on to it for the likeness it had to that kind of wine or to bunny. It is manifest that it gathers by leaves and draws chaffe on to it. The art of physics has taught that it remedies many inconveniences of men. India also has amber, but Germany has the best and best store. Because we came to the Isle of Glessaria, we began with amber for in the inner parts of Germany is found a stone called Callais, which men prefer before the precious stones of Arabia for it pales them in beauty. The Arabians say it is not found anywhere but in the nests of the birds which they call Melancoryphes, which no man believes for as much as they are to be found in the regions of Germany among stones, although very rarely. In respect of the estimation and value of the Emerald, it is of faint green color. Nothing does better beseem gold. Furthermore, of the Ceraunies are diverse sorts. That of Germany is white with a bright blue and if you have it abroad, it draws the brightness of the stars to it.
CAP. 34
Of Britain and the Isles about it, of the stone called Geate.
The sea coast of Gallia had been the end of the world, but that the isle of Britain for the largeness thereof every way deserves the name almost of another world for it is in length eight hundred miles and more so we measure it to the angle of Calydon, in which nook an altar engraved with Greek letters for a vow bears witness that Ulysses arrived at Calydon. It is environed with many isles and those not renowned: whereof Ireland draws nearest to it in bigness, uncivil for the savage manners of the inhabitants, but otherwise so full of fat pasture that if their cattle in summer season be not now and then kept from feeding, they should run in danger of bursting. There are no snakes and few birds. The people are barbarous and warlike. When they have overcome their enemies, they first smear their faces the blood of them that be slain and then drink of it. Be it right or be it wrong, it is one to them. If a woman be delivered of a man-child, she lays his meat upon her husband's sword and putting it softly to his pretty mouth, gives him the first handful of his food upon the very point of the weapon, praying (according to the manner of their country) that he may not otherwise come to his death than in battle and among weapons. They that love to be fine do trim the hilts of their swords with the teeth of monsters that swim in the sea for they be as white and as clear as ivory. For the men do chiefly glory in the beauty of their armor. There are not any bees among them and if a man bring of the dust or the stones from thence and throw them among beehives, the swarms forsake the honeycombs. The sea that is between Ireland and Britain, being full of shallows and rough all the year long, cannot be sailed but a few days in the summertime. They sail in keels of wicker done over with peats leather. How long so ever their passage continues, the passengers abstain from meat. Such as have discussed the certainty of the matter according to reason have esteemed the breadth of that narrow Sea to be a hundred and twenty miles. The troublesome Sea also divides the Island of the Silures from the coast of Britain: the men of which isle keep their old customs even to this day. They utterly refuse buying and selling for money and give one thing for another, providing things necessary, rather by exchanging them for ready money. They worship the gods very devoutly. As well the women as the men boast of the knowledge of prophesying.
The Isle Thanatos is beaten upon with the French Sea and is divided from Britain with a very narrow cut, lucky for corn fields and fat soil and not only healthy to itself but also to other places. For inasmuch as there is no snake creeping there, the earth thereof to what place so ever it be carried from thence, kills snakes. There are many other isles about Britain of which Thule is the furthest of, wherein at such time as the Sea is at the highest in summer and passes through the sign of cancer, there is almost no night at all. Again in the dead of winter, when the sun is at the lowest, the day is so short that the rising and going down of the sun is both together. Beyond Thule, we learn is the dead and frozen sea. From the promontory of Calydon, to the island Thule is two days sailing. Next come the isles called Hebudes five in number, the inhabitants whereof know not what corn means but live only by [...] and milk. They are all under the government of one king. For as many of them as be, they are severed but with a narrow group one from another. The king has nothing of his own but takes of every man. He is bound to equity by certain laws: and least he may start from right through covetousness, he learns justice by poverty as who may have nothing proper or peculiar to himself, but is found in the charges of the realm. He is not suffered to have any woman to himself, but whomsoever he has mind unto, he borrows her for a time and so others by turns. Whereby it comes to pass that he has neither desire nor hope of issue. The second harbor between the mainland and Hebudes is the Orcades which are from the Hebudes seven days and as many nights sailing. There be but three of them: no man dwells in them, they have no woods, only they are overgrown with weeds and the rest of them is nothing but sand and bare rocks. From the Orcades unto Thule is five days and five nights sailing. But Thule is plentiful in store of fruits that will last. Those that dwell there do in the beginning of the spring time live on herbs among cattle and afterwards by milk and against winter they lay up the fruits of their trees. They use their women in common and no man has any wife. The whole circuit of Britain is four thousand eight hundred, threescore and fifteen miles. In which space are great and many rivers and hot baths finely kept to the use of men, the sovereign of which baths is the goddess Minerva, in whose chapel the fire burns continually and the coals do never turn into ashes, but as soon as the embers were dead, it is turned into balls of stone. Moreover, to the intent to pass the large abundance of sundry metals, (whereof Britain has many rich veins on all sides). Here is stored the stone called Geate and is the best kind of it. If you demand the beauty of it, it is a black jewel: if the quality, it is of no weight. If the nature, it burns in water and goes out in [...]: if the power, rub it until it be warm and it holds such things as are laid to it as amber does. The realm is partly inhabited of barbarous people who even from their childhood have shapes of diverse beasts cunningly impressed and incorporated in their bodies so that being engraved as it were in their bowels as the man grows so the marks painted upon him neither do those nations count any thing almost to be a greater token of patience tan their bodies should be manifest scarce drink in the deepest color.
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Sozemen, Historia Ecclesiastica (Ecclesiastical History); c. 440; (!) Constanipolitan lawyer and church historian, author of an Ecclesiastical History continuing Eusebius.
see: http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/sozom.htm
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Statutes of William the Conqueror, c. 1070 CE
Here is shown what William the king of the English, together With his princes, has established since the Conquest of England.
1. Firstly that, above all things, he wishes one God to lie venerated throughout his whole kingdom, one faith of Christ always to be kept inviolate, peace and security to be observed between the English and the Normans.
2. We decree also that every free man shall affirm by compact and an oath that, within and without England, he desires to be faithful to king William, to preserve with him his lands and his honour with all fidelity, and first to defend him against his enemies.
3. I will, moreover, that all the men whom I have brought with me, or who have come after me, shall be in my peace and quiet. And if one of them shall be slain, the lord of his murderer shall seize him within five days, if he can; but if not, he shall begin to pay to me forty six marks of silver as long as his possessions shall hold out. But when the possessions of the lord of that man are at an end the whole hundred in which the slaying took place shall pay in common what remains.
4. And every Frenchman who, in the time of my relative king Edward, was a sharer in England of the customs of the English, shall pay according to the law of the English what they themselves call "onhlote" and "anscote." This decree has been confirmed in the city of Gloucester.
5. We forbid also that any live cattle be sold or bought for money except within the cities, and this before three faithful witnesses; nor even anything old without a surety and warrant. But if he do otherwise he shall pay, and shall afterwards pay a fine.
6. It was also decreed there that if a Frenchman summon an Englishman for perjury or murder, theft, homicide, or " ran"-as the English call evident rape which can not be denied-the Englishman shall defend himself as he prefers, either through the ordeal of iron, or through wager of battle. But if the Englishman be infirm he shall find another who will do it for him. If one of them shall be vanquished he shall pay a fine of forty shillings to the king. If an Englishman summon a Frenchman, and be unwilling to prove his charge by judgment or by wager of battle, I will, nevertheless, that the Frenchman purge himself by an informal oath.
7. This also I command and will, that all shall hold and keep the law of Edward the king with regard to their lands, and with regard to all their possessions, those provisions being added which I have made for the utility of the English people.
8. Every man who wishes to be considered a freeman shall have a surety, that his surety may hold him and hand him over to justice if he offend in any way. And if any such one escape, his sureties shall see to it that, without making difficulties, they pay what is charged against him, and that they clear themselves of having known of any fraud in the matter of his escape. The hundred and county shall be made to answer as our predecessors decreed. And those that ought of right to come, and are unwilling to appear, shall be summoned once; and if a second time they are unwilling to appear, one ox shall be taken from them and they shall be summoned a third time. And if they do not come the third time, another ox shall be taken: but if they do not come the fourth time there shall be forfeited from the goods of that man who was unwilling to come, the extent of the charge against him,-" ceapgeld" as it is called,-and besides this a fine to the king.
9. I forbid any one to sell a man beyond the limits of the country, under penalty of a fine in full to me.
10. I forbid that any one be killed or hung for any fault but his eyes shall be torn out or his testicles cut off. And this command shall not be violated under penalty of a fine in full to me.
Henderson's Note
The laws of William the Conqueror, is probably the sum and substance of all the enactments made by that sovereign. Especially interesting are the reference in § 6 to the wager of battle-the first mention of that institution in English law-and the law against capital punishment in § 10.
Source:
Henderson, Ernest F.
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages
London : George Bell and Sons, 1896.
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Stephanus: see Caesarius
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Stitch Charm, Old English Charm
From: Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, HRE Davidson, p. 63
Loud were they, lo loud, riding over the hill.
They were of one mind, riding over the land;
Shield thyself now, to escape from this ill.
Out, little spear, if herein though be.
Under shield of light linden I took up my stand,
When the mighty women made ready their power
And sent out their screaming spears…
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Strabo, 63 BCE- 21 CE: see Files
Online: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Strab.+7.1.1
VOLUME III. BOOKS 6-7, ISBN: 0 674 99201 6
He wrote during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius and saw the Suebi as the strongest and most dangerous Germanic power. He records that several groups of the Suebi had driven into Gaul. The Cimbri interested him because of their raid a century earlier and because of their gift of a revered cauldron to Augustus, presumably reciprocated by a Roman offering. He claims a fair knowledge of people up to the Elbe but specifically says that areas beyond the Elbe and north to the ocean were unknown to the Romans. He is vague about the central regions of the upper Elbe basin. At the time of writing, Roman armies were advancing and so therefore were contacts with the Germans.
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Strategikon see: Mauricius
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Suetonius (Gauis Suetonius Tranquillus), c.69-after 122 CE; all written c. 110 CE:
The Lives of the Caesars: Augustus; Caius Caligula; Claudius; Julius; Titus; Tiberius;
See Files
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Sulpicius Severus: (!)
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Symmachus, Epistolae (83,88) Twenty-nine Saxon prisoners were sent to Rome to be gladiators, but they killed themselves before the games
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