[gothic-l] Migration theories

[Bertil Häggman]

Dirk,

An interesting theory concerning the Eruli,
but as long as she cannot provide any
acceptable evidence I think there is
no reason to abandon facts from
classical sources: that the Eruli migrated
from Denmark and that some of them, according
to Prokopios remigrated and settled close
to the Gauti in the 6th century..

Othe theories have been tried concerning
the Eruli. One by a Swedish Professor of English
with an amateur interest in ancient Germanic
peoples. He has put forward the theory that
the Eruli were something of modern soccer team,
roaming Europe as armed bands for hire. Thus
the Eruli was not a people.

Erulically

Bertil

> I attended an interesting lecture at the British Museum the other
> day.
>  The speaker presented material about migrations in history and
> illustrated most of her points with reference to Germanic migrations
> and especially the Goths. The speaker placed various types of
> migrations on a continuum with a full scale migration of an entire
> people on the one end and the migration of a small but powerful elite
> towards the other end. The speaker said that while the Gothic
> migration to the Black Sea was probably of the first type, the first
> migration of the Goths from Gotland and/or Southern Sweden was
> probably of the second type. Thus, she suggested that only a chieftan
> or royal family with their retainers migrated from somewhere 'north
> of
> the Baltic Sea' to establish their rule among the Germanic people
> living in the Vistula region of modern Poland. She even postulated
> that some migrations (she mentionen the Eruli as a possible
> candidate)
>  consisted of nothing more than the re-adoption of a 'famous and
> heroic
> name' by new people. In other words she explains the 'appearance' of
> Eruli in far affield places and in particular the re-migration to
> Denmark with the simple adoption of that name by a new tribe or at
> best the movement of a small group of people (a chieftan with
> retainers) instead of an entire people. I found these points quite
> interesting.



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