TheGeats (/ɡiːts,ˈɡeɪəts,jæts/GHEETS,GAY-əts,YATS;[1][2]Old English:gēatas[ˈjæɑtɑs];Old Norse:gautar[ˈɡɑu̯tɑr];Swedish:götar[ˈjø̂ːtar]), sometimes calledGoths,[3] were a largeNorth Germanic tribe who inhabitedGötaland ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until theLate Middle Ages. They are one of theprogenitor groups of modernSwedes, along with the tribes ofSwedes andGutes. The name of the Geats also lives on in theSwedish provinces ofVästergötland andÖstergötland, the western and eastern lands of the Geats, and in many othertoponyms.
The Swedish dialects spoken in the areas that used to be inhabited by Geats form a distinct group,Götamål.
The etymology of the nameGeat (Old EnglishGeatas, from aProto-Germanic *Gautaz, plural *Gautōz) is similar[4] to that ofGoths andGutes (*Gutô, plural *Gutaniz). The names derive fromablaut grades of the Proto-Germanic word *geutaną, meaning "to pour".[5] They have the literal meaning "they who pour their seed".[6] (For more information seeGoths § Etymology.) The names could also allude to watercourses in the land where they were living,[7] but this is not generally accepted to be the case, partly because that would mean that the names' similarity would be coincidental.[4]
A more specific theory about the wordGautigoths is that it means the Goths who live near the riverGaut,[5] today'sGöta älv (Old Norse:Gautelfr).[8] It might also have been a conflation of the wordGauti with agloss ofGoths.[9] In the 17th century the nameGöta älv, 'River of the Geats', replaced the earlier namesGötälven andGautelfr.[5] The etymology of the wordGaut (as mentioned above) derives from the Proto-Germanic word *geutan, and the extended meaning of "to pour" is "flow, stream, waterfall", which could refer toTrollhättan Falls or to the river itself.[5]
The short form ofGautigoths was the Old NorseGautar, which originally referred to just the inhabitants ofVästergötland, or the western parts of today'sGötaland, a meaning which is retained in some Icelandic sagas.[5]
The earliest known surviving mention of the Geats appears inPtolemy (2nd century AD), who refers to them asGoutai. In the 6th century,Jordanes writes of theGautigoths andOstrogoths (the Ostrogoths ofScandza); andProcopius refers toGautoi. The NorseSagas know them asGautar;Beowulf andWidsith asGēatas.[10]Beowulf and theNorse sagas name severalGeatish kings, but onlyHygelac finds confirmation inLiber Monstrorum where he is referred to as "Rex Getarum" and in a copy ofHistoriae Francorum where he is called "Rege Gotorum". These sources concern a raid intoFrisia, ca 516, which is also described inBeowulf. C. 551, some decades after Hygelac's raid, Jordanes described the Geats as a nation which was "bold, and quick to engage in war".[11]
TheAnglo-Saxon settlement of Britain included many North Germanic people who were losers in the brutal tribal warfare of Scandinavia. The place-name-gate marks the site of Geatish settlement, often alongside strategically importantRoman roads and nearbyVisigothic and/orJutish settlements.[12] Defeated Jutes like Hengest and his brother Horsa fled to Kent, while Geats defeated by encroachingSwedes moved toYorkshire where they foundedGillingshire by theTees, originally the settlement of theGeatlings.[13] It has also been suggested that East Anglia was settled by Geats at this time,[14] or byWulfings who also came from Götaland, bringing the traditions ofBeowulf with them.[15]
Any peace that eventually settled in southern Scandinavia was most likely due to exhaustion, and a Danish archaeologist has summarized that in the mid-6th century, and after, Scandinavia "went down to hell".[13] Scandinavian wares appear to have stopped arriving in England, c. 550, suggesting that contact was broken.[14]
According to Procopius there were 13 "very numerous nations" on the Scandinavian peninsula in the 6th century, which is supported by recent archaeological analyses. Several scholars consider this to be a reasonable number of independent kingdoms at the time, with each consisting of one or more tribes, as reported by Jordanes.[16] However, by 1350, these 13 kingdoms had been reduced in number to only two, Norway and Sweden.[17] The Geats were one of the largest tribes.[18]
Procopius and Jordanes both mention the Geats, but after them, foreign sources about Scandinavia are scarce until the 9th century, when Anglo-Saxon and Frankish sources do shed some light on the area. In these, the Geats are absent, which has led some scholars to conclude that they were no longer an independent nation and had been subsumed by the Swedes.[19] Norwegian and Icelandic scaldic sources from the 10th century however indicate that they were still politically independent, sometimes opposing Norwegian kings. It has been suggested that their absence from older sources is instead due to their being an inland people.[20]
The nature and the processes ofhow Geats and Swedes came to form one kingdom have been much debated among Swedish scholars. The scarcity and sometimes debated veracity of sources has left much room open for interpretation. The oldest medieval Swedish sources present the Swedish kingdom as retaining differences between provinces, in laws as well as in weights and measures.[19] Some scholars have argued that the Geats were subjugated by the Swedes, and have suggested various dates for such an event, from the 6th to the 9th centuries.[19] Others have wanted to see a more gradual merging, and that the Geats were slowly subsumed into the more powerful kingdom of Sweden, and in many respects they maintained their own cultural identity during the Middle Ages.[21] Still others have put emphasis on how it was individual rulers, not ethnic groups, who were driving the process towards a unified kingdom, and that the process was very complicated.[22]
Papal letters from the 1080s style the recipients as "king of the Swedes" or "king of the West Geats". In another papal letter from the 1160s, the titlerex Sweorum et Gothorum is first attested.[23] The Swedish kings began the custom of styling themselves as also the kings of the Geats in the 1270s.[24][25][26]
In the 11th century, the SwedishHouse of Munsö became extinct with the death ofEmund the Old.Stenkil, a Geat, was elected king of the Swedes, and the Geats would be influential in the shaping of Sweden as a Christian kingdom. However, this election also ushered in a long period of civil unrest between Christians and pagans and between Geats and Swedes. The Geats tended to be more Christian, and the Swedes more pagan, which was why the Christian Swedish kingInge the Elder fled to Västergötland when deposed in favour ofBlot-Sweyn, a king more favourable towardsNorse paganism, in the 1080s. Inge would retake the throne and rule until his death c. 1100.[citation needed]
In hisGesta Danorum (book 13), the Danish 12th-century chroniclerSaxo Grammaticus noted that the Geats had no say in the election of the king, only the Swedes. When the West Geatish law orWestrogothic law was put to paper, it reminded the Geats that they had to accept the election of the Swedes:Sveær egho konong at taka ok sva vrækæ meaning"It is the Swedes who have the right of choosing ["taking"] and also deposing the king" and then he rodeEriksgatan"mæþ gislum ofvan" –"with hostages from above [the realm]" throughSödermanland, the Geatish provinces and then throughNärke andVästmanland to be judged to be the lawful king by thelawspeakers of their respectivethings. One of these Swedish kings wasRagnvald Knaphövde, who in 1125 was riding with his retinue in order to be accepted as king by the different provinces. According to material appended to the oldest manuscript of theWestrogothic law, he decided not to demand hostages as he despised the Geats, and was slain nearFalköping.[citation needed]
In anew general law of Sweden that was issued byMagnus Eriksson in the 1350s, it was stated that twelve men from each province, chosen by their things, should be present at theStone of Mora when a new king was elected.[citation needed]
The distinction between Swedes and Geats lasted during the Middle Ages, but the Geats became increasingly important for Swedish national claims of greatness due to the Geats' old connection with the Goths. They argued that since the Goths and the Geats were the same nation, and the Geats were part of the kingdom of Sweden, this meant that the Swedes had defeated the Roman empire. The earliest attestation of this claim comes from theCouncil of Basel, 1434, during which the Swedish delegation argued with the Spanish about who among them were the true Goths. The Spaniards argued that it was better to be descended from the heroic Visigoths than from stay-at-homers. This cultural movement, which was not restricted to Sweden went by the nameGothicismus or in SwedishGöticism, i.e.Geaticism.
After the 15th century and theKalmar Union, the Swedes and the Geats appear to have begun to perceive themselves as one nation, which is reflected in the evolution ofsvensk into a common ethnonym.[27][28] It was originally an adjective referring to those belonging to the Swedish tribe, who are calledsvear in Swedish. As early as the 9th century,svear had been vague, both referring to the Swedish tribe and being a collective term including the Geats,[27] and this is the case inAdam of Bremen's work where the Geats (Goths) appear both as a proper nation and as part of theSueones.[27] The merging/assimilation of the two nations took a long time, however. In the early-20th century,Nordisk familjebok noted thatsvensk had almost replacedsvear as a name for the Swedish people.[29]
At the same time, the Swedish ancestors were often referred to as Geats, especially when their heroism or connection to the Goths was to be stressed. This practice disappeared during the 19th century, when thevikings gradually took over the role as the heroic ancestors.
The Geats were traditionally divided into severalpetty kingdoms, or districts, which had their own things (popular assemblies) and laws. The largest one of these districts was Västergötland (West Geatland), and it was in Västergötland that theThing of all Geats was held every year, in the vicinity ofSkara. Despite the name, the thing was only for the inhabitants of Västergötland andDalsland. The equivalent inÖstergötland wasLionga thing.
Unlike the Swedes, who used the divisionhundare, the Geats usedhærrad (modern Swedishhärad), like the Norwegians and the Danes. Surprisingly, it would be the Geatish name that became the common term in the Swedish kingdom. This is possibly related to the fact that several of the medieval Swedish kings were of Geatish extraction and often resided primarily in Götaland. In Västergötland and Dalsland, there were also a higher-level division where one or more hærrad made up abo linked to akongsgård.
Today, the merger of the two nations is complete, as there is no longer any tangible identification in Götaland with a Geatish identity, apart from the common tendency of residents of theprovinces of Västergötland andÖstergötland to refer to themselves asvästgötar (West Geats) andöstgötar (East Geats), similarly to how residents of other provinces refer to themselves. The dialects spoken in those provinces and some surrounding areas are also collectively calledgötamål. Although the cityGöteborg (Gothenburg) has formerly been considered to have been named after the riverGöta älv, it may instead have been named after the Geats ('fortress of the Geats') when it was founded in 1621.[30]
Until 1973 the official title of theSwedish king was "King of Sweden (earlier: of the Swedes), the Geats/Goths and theWends" (with the formulaSveriges, Götes och Vendes konung, in LatinN.N. Dei Gratia, Suecorum, Gothorum et Vandalorum Rex). The title "King of the Wends" was copied from the Danish title, whereWends referred to Slavic peoples who inhabited large areas of modern east Germany and Pomerania before theOstsiedlung, the eastern expansion of Germanic peoples. The Danish kings also called themselves "Kings of the Goths", but in their caseGoths referred toGotland instead of Götaland.
The titles, however, changed in 1973 when the new kingCarl XVI Gustaf decided that his royal title should simply be "King of Sweden". The disappearance of the old title was his decision alone.
Geatas was originallyProto-Germanic *Gautoz andGoths andGutar (Gotlanders) were *Gutaniz. *Gautoz and *Gutaniz are two ablaut grades of a Proto-Germanic word *geutan with the meaning "to pour" (modern Swedishgjuta, modern Germangießen). The word comes from an Indo-European root meaningto pour, offer sacrifice.[31] There were consequently two derivations from the same Proto-Germanic ethnonym.[32]
It is a long-standing controversy whether the Goths were Geats. Both Old Icelandic and Old English literary sources clearly separate the Geats (Isl.Gautar, OEngGeatas) from the Goths/Gutar (Isl.Gotar, OEng.Gotenas); but the Gothic historianJordanes wrote that the Goths came originally toDacia from the island ofScandza. Moreover, he described that on this island there were three tribes called theGautigoths (cf.Geat/Gaut), theOstrogoths (cf. the Swedish province ofÖstergötland) andVagoths (Gutar?) ‒ this implies that the Geats were Goths rather than vice versa. The wordGoth is also a term used by the Romans to describe related, culturally linked tribes like theTervingi and theGreuthungs, so it may be correct to label Geats as Goths.
Scandinavian burial customs, such as thestone circles (domarringar), which are most common in Götaland andGotland, andstelae (bautastenar) appeared in what is now northern Poland in the 1st century AD, suggesting an influx of Scandinavians during the formation of the GothicWielbark culture.[33][34] Moreover, inÖstergötland, in Sweden, there is a sudden disappearance of villages during this period.[35] Contemporary accounts beginning in the fourth century further associated these groups with the earlierGetae of Dacia, but this is now disputed.
The Götaland theory (Swedish "Västgötaskolan") is a disparate group of theories, which have attempted to prove that some events and even places that are traditionally placed aroundMälaren, especially ones that are associated with the formation of medieval Sweden, instead should be located to Västergötland. The methods ranged from relatively scholarly efforts todowsing.[36] This "school" was brought to prominence in the 1980s following a TV series byDag Stålsjö. While some serious scholars have attempted to place more emphasis on the Geats in the early history of Sweden than was traditional, Västgötaskolan has never reached any acceptance.
The generally accepted identification of Old EnglishGēatas as the same ethnonym as Swedishgötar and Old Norsegautar is based on the observation that theö monophthong of modern Swedish and theau diphthong ofOld Norse correspond to theēa diphthong ofOld English.
| Old Norse | Swedish | Old English | Modern English |
|---|---|---|---|
| brauð | bröd | brēad | bread |
| laukr | lök | lēac | onion, cf. leek |
| lauf | löv | lēaf | leaf |
| austr | öst | ēast | east |
| draumr | dröm | drēam | dream |
| dauðr | död | dēað | death |
| rauðr | röd | rēad | red |
Thus,Gēatas is theOld English form ofOld NorseGautar and modern SwedishGötar. This correspondence seems to tip the balance for most scholars. It is also based on the fact that inBeowulf, theGēatas live east of theDani (across the sea) and in close contact with theSweon, which fits the historical position of the Geats between the Danes and the Swedes. Moreover, the story of Beowulf, who leavesGeatland and arrives at theDanish court after a naval voyage, where he kills a beast, finds a parallel inHrólf Kraki's saga. In this saga,Bödvar Bjarki leavesGautland and arrives at theDanish court after a naval voyage and kills a beast that has been terrorizing the Danes for two years (see alsoOrigins for Beowulf and Hrólf Kraki).
There is a hypothesis that the Jutes also were Geats, and which was proposed by Pontus Fahlbeck in 1884. According to this hypothesis the Geats would have not only resided in southern Sweden but also inJutland, whereBeowulf would have lived.
The Geats and the Jutes are mentioned inBeowulf as different tribes, and whereas the Geats are calledgēatas, the Jutes are calledēotena (genitive) orēotenum (dative).[37]: 108 Moreover, the Old English poemWidsith also mentions both Geats and Jutes, and it calls the latterȳtum.[37]: 108 However, Fahlbeck proposed in 1884 that the Gēatas ofBeowulf referred to Jutes and he proposed that the Jutes originally also were Geats like those of southern Sweden.[37]: 109 This theory was based on an Old English translation ofVenerable Bede'sEcclesiastical History of the English People attributed toAlfred the Great where the Jutes (iutarum,iutis) once are rendered asgēata (genitive) and twice asgēatum (dative)[37]: 108–109 (see e.g. theOED which identifies the Geats throughEotas,Iótas,Iútan andGeátas). Fahlbeck did not, however, propose an etymology for how the two ethnonyms could be related.[37]: 109
Fahlbeck's theory was refuted by Schück who in 1907 noted that another Old English source, theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, called the Jutesīutna,īotum orīutum.[37]: 109 Moreover, Schück pointed out that when Alfred the Great's translation mentions the Jutes for the second time (book IV, ch. 14(16)) it calls themēota and in one manuscriptȳtena.[37]: 110 Björkman proposed in 1908 that Alfred the Great's translation of Jutes as Geats was based on a confusion between the West Saxon formGeotas ("Jutes") andGēatas ("Geats").[37]: 110
As for the origins of the ethnonymJute, it may be a secondary formation of the toponym Jutland, wherejut is derived from aProto-Indo-European root *eud meaning "water".[38]
Since the 19th century, there has also been a suggestion that Beowulf's people wereGutes (from the island ofGotland in Sweden). According to the poem, theweather-geats orsea-geats, as they are called are supposed to have lived east of the Danes/Dacians and be separated from the Swedes by wide waters. Some researchers have found it a little far-fetched thatwide waters relates toVänern in Västergötland or Mälaren. Theweather inweather-geats, andsea-geats marks a people living at a windy, stormy coast by the sea. The Geats of Västergötland were historically an inland people, making an epithet such asweather- orsea- a little strange. Moreover, when Beowulf dies he is buried in a mound at a place calledHrones-naesse, meaning "the cape of whales". Whales have for obvious reasons never lived in Vänern, where, according toBirger Nerman, Beowulf is buried. However, an expanse of water separates the island ofGotland from the Swedes. The island lies east of Denmark/Dacia and whales were once common in the Baltic Sea where Gotland is situated. The name of the Gutes in Swedish,Gutar, is an ablaut-grade of the same name as that of the Geats in Beowulf. These facts made the archaeologistGad Rausing come to the conclusion that theweather-Geats may have been Gutes. This was supported by another Swedish archaeologistBo Gräslund. According to Rausing, Beowulf may be buried in a place calledRone on Gotland, a name corresponding to theHrones inHrones-naesse. Not far from there lies a place calledArnkull corresponding to theEarnar-naesse in Beowulf, which according to the poem was situated closely to Hrones-naesse.
This theory does not exclude the ancient population of Västergötland and Östergötland from being Geats, but rather holds that the Anglo-Saxon nameGeat could refer to West-geats (Västergötland), East-geats (Östergötland) as well as weather-geats (Gotland), in accordance with Jordanes account of the Scandinanian tribes Gautigoth, Ostrogoth and Vagoth.
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