[gothic-l] The Gothic Name

[Bertil Haggman]

Of course I have not "acknowledged" Wolfram's authority
but I think he has some reasonable ideas in Chapter 1 and 2.
Of course the sentence on the agreement with Theoderic the
Great ends with a questionmark. It is after all a question. Wolfram
pleads for an end to the fruitless quarrel and a call for
acceptance of the claim of Theoderic the Great would seem
reasonable.

There are those who believe that historical truth has been found
in the 1990s. The fact that there are claims of no
archaeological evidence does not exclude a Scandinavian
origin.

Finally Wolfram holds no final authority or a complete truth.
Research and debate is continuing. Heathers book on the Goths
is a short one in a popular series on various peoples and
likewise is holding no authority.

So I must disappoint you. But I guess you somehow suspected
that.

Gothically

Bertil


Finally you acknowledge the authority of Wolfram! I would not have
thought this could ever happen. But you should really get your
citations right. Wolfram's sentence ends with a question mark after
Scandinavia (Wolfram, Goths, 1988, p.21). And Wolfram writes this
passage in a chapter about the names of peoples and geographical
regions connected in one way or other with the Goths in literature
and the written sources. And I fear I must disappoint you. He also
gives an answer to this question at the end of the chapter p.23:

"The special forms of the Gothic name mark periods in the history
of that people; they designate various Gothic ethnogeneses,
among which the Scandinavian Gautic one lacks almost all
evidence. It is therefore possible to attach a geographical and
chronological meaning to the ethnic terms. Hereafter, whenever the
Gutones and Guti are mentioned, these terms refer to the Goths on
the Continent before their migration to the Black Sea. The people of
the third century before the division will simply be called
Goths."...and on p.24: "The Gothic-Gautic peoples of the Baltic-
Scandinavian north will be mentioned for the sake of completeness,
but a historical discussion of these peoples can hardly go beyond
the listing of their names."

I would really advise you to read the whole book, not just give
citations out of connection. Wolfram does postulate a Scandinavian
connection for the Amals, a view not shared by Heather, but argued
by Wolfram on his analysis of the Amal genealogy. The stone
circles show connections in cult and maybe family connections of
ruling elites on both sides of the Baltic. Even one of the ruling
families of the Longobards was "genere Gausus". But that does not
mean that there were not different peoples on both sides of the
Baltic. Each ethnogenesis produced a people with a different
history and we cannot put these all into one bag and call them
Goths.


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