This territory would include all of theAlemannic German area, but the modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the thirteenth century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography roughly coincides with theSwabian Circle of theHoly Roman Empire as it stood during theearly modern period, now divided between the states ofBavaria andBaden-Württemberg.
Swabians (Schwaben, singularSchwabe) are the natives of Swabia and speakers ofSwabian German. Their number was estimated at close to 0.8 million bySIL Ethnologue as of 2006, compared to a total population of 7.5 million in the regions ofTübingen,Stuttgart andBavarian Swabia.
Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined. However, today it is normally thought of as comprising the formerSwabian Circle, or equivalently the former state ofWürttemberg (with the PrussianHohenzollern Province), or the modern districts ofTübingen (excluding the former Baden regions of theBodenseekreis district),Stuttgart, and the administrative region ofBavarian Swabia.
In theMiddle Ages, the term Swabia indicated a larger area, covering all the lands associated with theFrankish stem duchy ofAlamannia stretching from theVosges Mountains in the west to the broadLech river in the east:
The nameSuebia is derived from that of theSuebi.It is used already byTacitus in the 1st century, albeit in a different geographical sense:He calls theBaltic Sea theMare Suevicum ("Suebian Sea") after theSuiones, and ends his description of the Suiones andSitones with "Here Suebia ends" (Hic Suebiae finis).[1]By the mid-3rd century, groups of the Suebi form the core element of the new tribal alliance known as theAlamanni, who expanded towards theRoman Limes east of the Rhine and south of the Main.The Alamanni were sometimes referred to as Suebi even at this time, and their new area of settlement came to be known as Suebia.In themigration period, the Suebi (Alamanni)crossed the Rhine in 406 and some of them established theKingdom of the Suebi in Galicia. Another group settled in parts ofPannonia, after theHuns were defeated in 454 in theBattle of Nedao.
The Alemanni were ruled by independent kings throughout the 4th to 5th centuries but fell underFrankish domination in the 6th (Battle of Tolbiac 496).[2]By the late 5th century, the area settled by the Alemanni extended toAlsace and theSwiss Plateau, bordering on theBavarii to the east, theFranks to the north, the remnants ofRoman Gaul to the west, and theLombards andGoths, united in theKingdom of Odoacer, to the south.
The nameAlamannia was used by the 8th century, and from the 9th century,Suebia was occasionally used forAlamannia, whileAlamannia was increasingly used to refer toAlsace specifically. By the 12th century,Suebia rather thanAlamannia was used consistently for the territory of theDuchy of Swabia.[3]
TheHohenstaufen dynasty, which ruled theHoly Roman Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries, arose out of Swabia, but following the execution ofConradin, the last Hohenstaufen, on 29 October 1268, the duchy was not reappointed during theGreat Interregnum. In the following years, the original duchy gradually broke up into many smaller units.
Rudolf I of Habsburg, elected in 1273 as emperor, tried to restore the duchy, but met the opposition of the higher nobility who aimed to limit the power of the emperor. Instead, he confiscated the former estates of the Hohenstaufen as imperial property of the Holy Roman Empire, and declared most of the cities formerly belonging to Hohenstaufen to beFree Imperial Cities, and the more powerful abbeys within the former duchy to be Imperial Abbeys.
The defeat of the city league by CountEberhard II of Württemberg in 1372led to the formation of a new league of fourteen Swabian cities on 4 July 1376.The emperor refused to recognise the newly revitalised Swabian League, seeing it as a rebellion, and this led to an "imperial war" against the league. The renewed league defeated an imperial army at the Battle ofReutlingen on 14 May 1377.BurgraveFrederick V of Hohenzollern finally defeated the league in 1388 atDöffingen. The next year the city league disbanded according to the resolutions of theReichstag atEger.
The major dynasties that arose out of medieval Swabia were theHabsburgs and theHohenzollerns, who rose to prominence in Northern Germany. Also stemming from Swabia are the local dynasties of the dukes ofWürttemberg and themargraves ofBaden. TheWelf family went on to rule inBavaria andHanover, and are ancestral to theBritish Royal Family that has ruled since 1714. Smaller feudal dynasties eventually disappeared, however; for example, branches of theMontforts andHohenems lived until modern times, and theFürstenberg survive still. The region proved to be one of the most divided in the empire, containing, in addition to these principalities, numerousfree cities, ecclesiastical territories, and fiefdoms of lessercounts andknights.
A newSwabian League (Schwäbischer Bund) was formed in 1488, opposing the expansionistBavarian dukes from theHouse of Wittelsbach and the revolutionary threat from the south in the form of theSwiss.[5]In 1519, the League conquered Württemberg and sold it toCharles V after its dukeUlrich seized the Free Imperial City of Reutlingen during the interregnum that followed the death of Maximilian I. It helped to suppress thePeasants' Revolt in 1524–26 and defeat an alliance ofrobber barons in theFranconian War. TheReformation caused the league to be disbanded in 1534.[5]
The territory of Swabia as understood today emerges in the early modern period. It corresponds to theSwabian Circle established in 1512.TheOld Swiss Confederacy wasde facto independent from Swabia from 1499 as a result of theSwabian War, while theMargraviate of Baden had been detached from Swabia since the twelfth century.
Fearing the power of the greater princes, the cities and smaller secular rulers of Swabia joined to form theSwabian League in the fifteenth century. The League was quite successful, notably expelling theDuke of Württemberg in 1519 and putting in his place a Habsburg governor, but the league broke up a few years later over religious differences inspired by theReformation, and the Duke of Württemberg was soon restored.
In the wake of the territorial reorganization of the empire of 1803 by theReichsdeputationshauptschluss, the shape of Swabia was entirely changed. All the ecclesiastical estates were secularized, and most of the smaller secular states, and almost all of the free cities, weremediatized, leaving only theKingdom of Württemberg, theGrand Duchy of Baden, and the Principality ofHohenzollern-Sigmaringen as sovereign states. Much of Eastern Swabia became part ofBavaria, forming what is now theSwabian administrative region of Bavaria. TheKings of Bavaria assumed the titleDuke in Swabia, with thein indicating that only parts of the Swabian territory was ruled by them, unlike their other titleDuke of Franconia which made clear that the whole of Franconia had become part of their kingdom.
In contemporary usage,Schwaben is sometimes taken to refer to Bavarian Swabia exclusively, correctly however it includes the larger Württemberg part of Swabia. Its inhabitants attach great importance to calling themselves Swabians. Baden, historically part of the duchy of Swabia and also of the Swabian Circle, is no longer commonly included in the term. Baden's residents mostly refer to themselves asAlemanni (versus theSwabians).
The traditional distribution area of Western Upper German ( = Alemannic) dialect features in the nineteenth and twentieth century
SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006. This corresponds to roughly 10% of the total population of the Swabian region, or roughly 1% of the total population of Germany.
Many Swabian surnames end with the suffixes-le,-(l)er,-el,-ehl, and-lin, typically from theMiddle High Germandiminutive suffix-elîn (Modern Standard German-lein). Examples would be:Schäuble,Egeler,Rommel, andGmelin. The popular German surnameSchwab as well asSvevo in Italy are derived from this area, both meaning literally "Swabian".
^in pago Almanniae 762,in pago Alemannorum 797,urbs Constantia in ducatu Alemanniae 797;in ducatu Alemannico, in pago Linzgowe 873. S. Hirzel,Forschungen zur Deutschen Landeskunde 6 (1888), p. 299.
^Bernd Schneidmüller,Die Welfen. Herrschaft und Erinnerung (819–1252).Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, 82–83.
Laffan, R. G. D. (1975). "The Empire under Maximilian I".The New Cambridge Modern History. Vol. I.
Minahan, James (2000).One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Greenwood Publishing Group, Ltd.ISBN978-0313309847.
