The so-called migration of peoples is a phase in the history of Europe about which we are still not 100% clear. Why this migration of peoples came about in the first place, how exactly it happened... one can often only speculate about all of this. There is even disagreement about the naming of the events! In other languages, this period of migration is not necessarily referred to as the migration of the peoples, as in German, but enjoys bureaucratic designations such as "Migration Period" in English, or even lurid titles such as "Barbaric Invasions" in the past. Whatever you call it, one thing is certain about this period of time at the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages:tribes (or parts of tribes) suddenly set out on a large scale from the Germanic tribes and migrated into the territory of the Roman Empire. But within this big story there are numerous small stories that stand out in their effect. Highlights of the Migration Period, so to speak.
The Migration Period and Rome
Now, of course, one has to realize that larger migration movements in Europe were common in earlier times. For most of human history, migratory groups were the norm, and it was more sedentary societies like the later Roman Empire that were the exception. In this respect, the migration of peoples is a question of perspective. It was the Roman citizens who perhaps saw it that way, not the wanderers themselves. Because the Roman Empire was desperately trying to keep the "barbarians" outside its imperial borders with the help of border fortifications such as the Limes. Of course, the few had understanding for these hikers! For a certain time, this worked quite well with the border fortifications, but this system began to crumble in late antiquity. By the 4th century at the latest, Rome began hiring Germanic tribes as “foederats” who, among other things, were supposed to secure the borders for the empire, but also made a career in the military. In this way, the Roman military received cheap warriors, but thousands upon thousands of "barbarians" also came into contact with Rome and yes:immigrated to its territory.
Classically, however, the beginning of the migration of peoples is not dated until the advent of the Huns. As is well known, they were a people on horseback, originally from the steppes of Central Asia, probably the area of today's Mongolia (which certainly set a precedent - later the Avars, Hungarians and Mongolians followed them on a very similar path). The sudden appearance of these Huns in central Europe in the late 4th century seems to have been the last straw for many Germanic tribes and they now made their way towards Roman territory. Sometimes in a warlike way, sometimes as very simple economic refugees, as one would say today. Incidentally, it can be completely ruled out that entire peoples would have set out on the migration (whatever that means). It was mostly about groups of warriors and a entourage traveling with them, which in certain cases could include up to 30,000 people, but not more.
The first groups Rome came into contact with along this route were the Goths, who were fleeing the Huns from central Europe and surprisingly defeated the Roman Empire at the Battle of Adrianople (modern-day Edirne in European Turkey). That was in the year 378. They were then allowed to settle in the empire, but thirty years later obviously dissatisfied Gothic warriors stormed Rome, which was the first peak of the decline of the (western) empire. At this time the dam finally seemed to have broken. In 406, the Limes also collapsed on the Rhine and Germanic tribes invaded Gaul from there. From then on, Germanic tribal societies in the (now former) territory of the Roman Empire were the new normal. Even if Western Rome continued to exist as a state for a few more decades, it was increasingly limited to Italy and parts of the Alpine region. The rest of the former empire was increasingly in the hands of the newcomers. Some of the participants in this "migration of peoples" were able to go down in history with their first deeds of glory...
The special case of the vandals
Among the tribes and groups that set out for the imperial territory in the 5th century and made themselves comfortable there, the Vandals are the first to stand out as a special case. They were one of the Germanic groups that crossed the Rhine near Mainz in 406 and thus invaded Roman Gaul. Before that, they were probably based in what is now the Czech Republic and Poland. It is not entirely clear why the flight to the Roman Empire took place. It is speculated that the Huns pushed further west and triggered the migration, but we do not know for sure. But it doesn't matter either. The groups of vandals did not stay in Gaul for too long anyway, and just a few years later they moved across the Pyrenees to the Iberian Peninsula. A few years later they continued to North Africa, where the Romans threw them out of Carthage to make matters worse. Incidentally, the reason for the renewed flight from Spain was that Rome had asked the Visigoths for help and they were now taking action against the Vandals and other groups there in the name of Rome. After the fall of Carthage and the entire North African province - after all, the granary of the Western Roman Empire - one could say that this idea was rather a failure.
This was the beginning of the vandals' special path. On the one hand, the sheer distances of their journey are remarkable. Within just 25 years, the Vandal groups had traveled from north-central Europe via France and Spain to the gates of Carthage in present-day Tunisia! The fact that they were able to defeat the Roman troops there and drive them out of the city led to an even more fundamental curiosity:in contrast to almost all other Germanic tribes, the Vandals now distinguished themselves as seafarers! After all, they had taken over an intact fleet in Carthage and also used it. The empire of the Vandals in North Africa was thus able to survive well beyond the fall of the Roman Empire in the west. They even took Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica from his bankruptcy estate and only a large-scale attack by East Roman troops was able to smash the Vandal kingdom in the 6th century. By then, Rome had been history in the West for almost 60 years. And the vandals played their part in that, too. After all, they plundered the city of Rome themselves in 455, a somewhat obscure incident that I also talk about on the podcast this week.
The Suevi. Swabia in Portugal?!
The Suevi are another group that left their mark on the so-called migration of peoples in the 5th century. They were involved with the Vandals in crossing the Rhine in 406, and Suebian groups probably even provided the majority of the Germanic tribes who invaded the Roman Empire there. In contrast to many other tribes of the time, the Suevi had been known to the Romans for a long time. They were already known at the time of Julius Caesar and Tacitus also wrote about this people in the 1st century AD. Originally, the Suebi lived in today's north-eastern Germany along the Oder, which the Romans also called the "River of the Suebi". The Baltic Sea was also given the name "Suebian Sea" at the time. These Suevi also included numerous sub-groups (as was usual with all Germanic tribes of the time). The best known of these were probably the Lombards, who would spread across Italy in the 6th century. According to some Roman sources, even the Angles - who later became famous as England's namesake - were part of the Suevi. As always with such Roman depictions, however, there was a lot of guesswork involved, so care should be taken.
Like the Vandals, the Suevi then moved from Gaul across the Pyrenees around the year 409. In contrast to their companions, however, they were able to come to terms with the later invading Visigoths and also with the Romans, who were still present for a short time, and set up their own empire in the area of today's Portugal and the Spanish province of Galicia. Although this empire was never as powerful and influential as that of the Vandals in North Africa, it was able to last much longer than this. First in the interplay between Rome and the Visigoths, then in an agreement with the latter, the Suevi were able to stay in the region until the late 6th century. In the meantime, their territory even extended far beyond today's Portugal and included large parts of southern Spain. However, the Suevi share one thing with almost all other migration groups:they left few tangible traces, let alone written documents. In the national narrative of Portugal, however, they are considered to be the forerunners of the modern state. Some even say that the language of the subs has survived to a certain extent. After all, the Portuguese mumble a lot these days and have trouble pronouncing an S properly without turning it into a Sch. They share this with other descendants of the Suevi in Germany, the Swabians. But hey... That's probably more of a coincidence then.
Was the migration of peoples unique?
The Vandals and Suebi are of course only two examples of many. Because regardless of whether you want to call this period of European history “Migration of Nations” or not:it fundamentally changed the continent in one way or another. After the final fall of Rome, the Germanic settlement areas slowly took shape there, often leading us straight into the world of the European Middle Ages. Over time, the Visigoths established themselves in what would later become Spain. In the meantime, the kingdom of the Franks arose in northern France, which is regarded as a historical precursor in both France and Germany. Groups of Angles and Saxons took control of Britain as early as the 5th century, and a little later the Slavs also suddenly appeared in the east of the continent, although for some reason this is no longer referred to as the "Migration of Nations"... Nationalists in Since the 19th century at the latest, the whole of Europe has enjoyed creating fictitious connections between the modern nation states and these groups from the earliest Middle Ages. Although this modern appropriation is pure national wishful thinking, the influence of these migrations on today's Europe should not be underestimated.
Nevertheless, this migration of peoples was not a one-off event in world history. With the Slavs I have already mentioned an example in which very similar migration movements still took place after the classic migration period. The Visigoths in Spain were also soon introduced to a completely different group of migrants who razed their young empire to the ground:the Muslim Arabs and Moors. And there have been very similar migration movements on our continent in the past. The Celts were still spreading across Europe in the 1st millennium BC, and the many groups that distributed the various variants of the Indo-European language in Europe must have come from somewhere. The great importance that is still attributed to the "Migration of Nations" of late antiquity probably has more to do with the dramatic end of the Roman Empire in the West than with the migrations themselves. But that too is a bias that we still see today know.
I briefly touched on this week's podcast above. There I am speaking about the same period, but from the vantage point of the dying Western Roman Empire. Specifically, I'm talking about how this sinking can be explained, how it actually happened and what all this has to do with today's climate change. Yes, you heard me right. If you're wondering how this fits together, listen right in!