Toledo

[Ingemar Nordgren]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "faltin2001" <d.faltin at ...> wrote:
>

> Hi Ingemar,
> 
> I'm afraid the Goths that you tell about most of the time are indeed 
> fantasy.

I see. Thanks for telling me.

> Different social groups require different laws. The native
provincial Iberians largely submitted to the laws set by the secular
Roman > authorities. The Catholic clerics submitted to church law and
the  military was subject to the "lex Romana Visigothorum", i.e. the
Roman law for the visigothic realm.

And to whom submitted the Arian priests then? The Visigothic warriors
did not submit to a Roman law but a Gothic one. Note e.g. that
Reccared claimed the same divine legislation as the emperor.

Nor was the Gothic armies Roman armies even if the Romans had to grant
Alaric, and later Theoderic, the title of Magister Militum to prevent
them from  looting the Balkan area. They  sent them westward but did
not in fact control them. The Gothic kingdoms were just Gothic but
still they recognised the emperor, like kings do, which however
doesn't make them Roman. Funny indeed that the emperor sent a Roman
army to lay siege on Rome in 410. They respected the civil rights of
the former Roman citizens just through having different sets of law.
Teoderic, beside different administration, even forbade intermarriage
to isolate the Goths as an own unit to support the Gothic ethnicity.
Euric and Leovigild as another example both were very intent on having
a strongly king controlled Arian church even if this later was undone
by Reccared et consortes.

I can admit that Gothic gradually declined as used language and
specially so after Reccared but to say it totally disappeared is not
correct.Nor is it for Italy. You can't ,besides, not use preserved
documents as a proof since most documents are destroyed, often
overwritten with new texts, and most of the Gothic population- and I
assume many of the former Roman- were illiterate and analfabets. You
must go for place names et.c. to find out the remnants.


>Lets say you (and many others) believe in an old and antiquated image
>of the Visigoths, which simply is no longer acceptable in the light
>of the evidence. You should now that much of what we know is
>perception  and interpretion. Look, Oscar wasn't even aware that the
>Visigoths were  the Roman federate army and that they didn't drive
>out any Roman  legions from Spain. Your knowledge would be better
>used to inform and explain such things.

As I wrote they were not really the Roman federate army but rather an
allied army under formal command of a 'Magister Militum' who was a
real king/reiks and who didn't care a bit about the interpretation by
the emperor in that respect. They were since long used to help the
Romans as auxilliary forces before they crossed the limes and because
of hunger and maltreatment started raiding Eastroman territory. A
hundred years later the same problem occured with the Ostrogoths and
was solved in the same way.

The Vesi-Tervingi were renamed Visigoths in the time of Alaric - that
is correct, but if it was Jordanes or Cassiodorus which did that is
another question since  Alaric set out tovards Italy via Balkan
already in the early 400's. They,however, after were known under that
name and still are. In the same way Greutungi and the other tribes
became the Ostrogoths. I know you claim the Goths are not related to
Gudones and hence there are no Goths but just a mixture of Germanics,
Sarmatians et c. I agree there is hard to find bloodlines of a
homogenous Gothic people after different etnogenesi but this does not
mean you can rule out the Goths in the way you do.Archaeology is quite
clear in that respect. They were divided in tribes and people all the
way from the beginning and Gudones/Goths is just a collective name but
it is as well an important ethnic tradition. Into this tradition later
also new folks were incorporated and became accepted Goths. The Goths
were in time influenced by the Roman civilisation to a certain degree
but it is not until after the conversion to  Catholicism that they
start loosing their Gothic ethnicity and language as a united people.
This occured accordingly after 568 and gradually up to 711. I am
however fairly convinced that Gothic was spoken much later but not
used as a written official language. Crimea is not the only place
where Gothic speakers have been reported but it is the only documented
place.

 lost their Germanic language 
> during the 5th century, after having lived among Romans for some 5 or 
> more generations. The Ostrogoths may have stuck with Gothic a little 
> longer. Theoderic never referes to Gothic, but he uses the term "our 
> language". Yet, this "our language" had almost certainly very little in 
> common with the Gothic of the Wulfila bible. Instead, it was probably a 
> military pidgin with many Germanic, Latin and some Greek words.

Of course a language developes in time like our modern ones. There is
accordingly no sense in saying they didn't use Gothic.

Thank you for your enlightment!

Die besten Grüße!
Ingemar




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