[gothic-l] Re: Ostrogoths in Italy, Britain or China (or on the moon?)

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm at s...> wrote:
> The common opinion is that the Heruls probably lived somewhere in 
southern
> Denmark - Northern Germany 





Hello Tore,

do you know what the source for this claim is that the Heruls came 
from modern Southern Denmark/North Germany? I know, older books like 
Felix Dahn 'Die Goten' make this claim, but I would like to know what 
the basis of it is. There was a discussion about a certain west 
Germanic influence in Gothic or something like this on this list or on 
the Germanic list. Maybe the Heruls are the explanation for this?





(I can't find that Procopius claims that 
they
> originated from Thule) and when the Goths moved from the Vistula 
area to
> the Black Sea area the Heruls followed in their steps. After that 
various
> Roman sources tell about the Heruls together with or dominated by 
the Goths.
> The Heruls as well as part of the Goths (Ostrogoths) were subdued by 
the
> Huns. When Attila died on his wedding night and the Hun empire 
dissolved
> the Heruls formed their own kingdom in present day Hungary. When 
they we
> beaten by the Lombards about 505 Prokopius says that part of the 
tribe
> moved to where they had heard there were good lands, Ultima Thule, 
the
> farthest away lands known from the Roman Empire. (Iceland and 
Greenland
> were not inhabited at that time.)
> 
> Origin of Svear:
> "The Heruls (jarlarna) 



Is 'jarlarna' supposed to be another name of the Heruls?





was a Scandinavian people that together with 
Gutans
> or the Goths, as the Romans called them, ravaged the Black Sea, Asia 
Minor
> and the Mediterranean from the 4th century. After having been 
subdued first
> by the Goths and later by the Huns, those emigrated Heruls, middle 
of the
> 5th, century founded a state in upper Hungary. There are several 
stories
> how the Heruls ravaged the coasts of the Black Sea and the 
Mediterranean,
> alone and together with the Goths, why they must be considered as 
good
> seamen. 



I am not convinced of their seamanship. Hervig Wolfram (and 
Geroge Vernadsky) describes these sea attacks as a complete shambles, 
in which the Goths and Heruls relied on Borani and other local people 
to take them were they wanted to go. 



Also, I maybe wrong here, but if I remember correctly those Heruls at 
the sea of Azov are actually called Heluri (Greek for swamp-dweller). 
Are there other sources that confirm the identification of these 
Heluri with the Heruli?




>They were sought after soldiers in the Roman Imperial 
Guards.
> According to Roman sources they were a more primitive people than 
other
> Germanic peoples. The troops of Odovakar that assumed power in the 
Western
> Empire in 476 contained, according to sources, to a large extent 
Heruls.
> That state was, however, soon overrun by the Ostrogoths.
> Prokopios says (See note 2) that some years later the Herul state in 
upper
> Hungary was smashed. He thinks of the Heruls, that had emigrated to 
the
> south of Russia and to start with had been under the Ostrogoths and 
the
> Huns but after the fall of the Hun Empire had erected an independent 
state
> on the north side of the Danube on the border of present time Mähren 
and
> Hungary. About the year 505, after quarrelling with the Lombards, 
they were
> forced to leave this area. Some of the Heruls settled in Illyria 
under the
> protection of the Eastroman Emperor, but others could not, says 
Prokopios,
> decide to cross the Danube but settled in the furthest parts of the
> inhabited world. They returned to Thule (the Scandinavian 
penin-sula) and
> settled next to the Gauts at the same time as a powerful Svea state 
with
> strong kings emerged in the Lake Mälar Area.
> Guided by numerous members of its royalty they passed all the native 
lands
> of the Slavic peoples (probably from lower Danube to upper Vistula 
and
> further west), marched from here through a large part of vacant land 
and
> came to a people called the Varner. From there they came to the sea,
> crossed the sea and went to the island Thule where they settled.
> Thule is a very large island, Prokopios continues, over ten times as 
large
> as Britannia. The largest part is desolate, but in the inhabited 
parts
> there are thirteen populous tribes, who each has a king. One 
populous tribe
> was the Gauts and it was next to them that the Herulic newcomers 
settled.
> Much later - guesses are both at the end of the 520s and the middle 
of the
> 540s - it happened that the king of those Heruls remaining in the 
south was
> killed and that these Heruls in order to get a new king of the old 
line
> sent messengers to the part of the tribe that lived in Thule. 




Is that really plausible? They run out of kings and nobody of the 
elite is keen to take on the job? Instead they travel all over Europe 
to get a 'new' one to tell them what to do? History usually doesn't 
work like this, but who knows, maybe the Heruls were different.








>Here 
they
> found many of royal blood and chose the one they liked most. During 
the
> journey south, however, he fell ill and died in the lands of the 
Danes. In
> order not to return empty handed the messengers were forced once 
more to go
> to Thule. By this action they became so much delayed that their 
principals
> gave up hope and were persuaded by Emperor Justinianus to take as 
their
> king a young Herul educated in Constantinople. When finally the 
messengers
> from Thule returned with their proposed king, the imperial protégé 
was
> deserted in favour of the newcomer."
> 
> Note 2 (page 14)
> Prokopios, who was born at the end of the 5th century, was a lawyer 
in
> Constantinople and from the year 527 private secretary to the 
military
> commander Belisarius on his campaigns against inter alia the 
Ostrogoths in
> Italy. He says that there are 13 populous tribes in Thule (the 
Scandinavian
> peninsula), each with its own king. He says: "A populous tribe among 
them
> was the gautoi, next to where the arriving Heruls settled". 
Prokopios says
> that the Heruls who lived in northern Hungary under Cæsar 
Anastasius'
> (491-518) rule attacked the Lombards. However, they were beaten and 
their
> king was killed. The Heruls were therefore (about 505) forced to 
leave
> their homesteads. Some of them crossed the Danube into Roman 
territory,
> where Anastasius allowed them to settle. The remaining part of the 
Heruls
> moved northwards. Through the countries of the Varner 




Who are those Varner? possibly the Varnen in North-East Germany 
(modern Warne-muende?). But at the time of Procopius the Varnen had 
long vanished (absorbed into Saxons, Langobards and Thuringians) I 
thought.




>and Danes they
> reached the ocean, over which they sailed to Thule.
> In the same chapter, Prokopios  gives a short mention of the Heruls 
that
> had immigrated to the Scandinavian peninsula. This is, by the way,  
the
> last historical mentioning about Scandinavia by a Greek-Roman 
writer. "Thus
> the Heruls, that lived on Roman soil and had slained their king, 
sent some
> of their most distinguished men to the island Thule in order to find 
and if
> possible bring back a man of royal blood. When they came to the 
island they
> found many of royal blood." According to professor Wessén: "The 
flourishing
> and numerically strong royal family in Thule, that is mentioned 
above, is
> apparently the same under whose guidance part of the Eastherulian 
tribe,
> thirty years earlier, had undertaken its march to Scandinavia."



How do the western Heruls fit into this picture? Also, there is a 
Bavarian duke called Fara who is said to have been a Herul prince. 


In general, there are many different interpretations of the Heruls. 
One recent interpretation wants to explain the emergence of the so 
called 'Masurgermanische' culture in north Poland in the sixth century 
with the migration of the Heruls to that area. Also, another school of 
thought seems to think that the Heruls were not really a people at all 
but just Germanic mercenaries who banded together in the Danube area. 
Also, I heard another historian at the British Museum who used the 
haphazardous emergence of Heruls in different  areas as an example of 
tribal name displacement rather than  actual migrations. 

cheers
Dirk


 



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