Alemanni – Wikipedia
| Alemanni | |
|---|---|
 Expansion of the Alemanni, with indicated the main battles fought against the Romans |
|
| Subgroups | alloyance of the object, for which kingumanti, and Iutrugangs, Ingigerangs, Retire parts of semony |
| Place of origin | Agri Decumates, that is to say from the upper course of the Fiume Meno, descending along the Reno river and then to the Danube, in the south-west of Germany Magna |
| Period | From the third century |
| Language | Germanic languages |
| Distribution | |
The Alemanni , also known as Allemanni O Alamanni , they were originally an alliance of Germanic tribes (including catti, narists, herrmeds, iutunes and part of the semnons) allocated around the upper part of the Fiume Meno, in a region that is now positioned in south-west of Germany.
One of the first testimonies of the existence of this set of peoples is the cognomen Alamannicus Hired by the emperor Caracalla (who reigned from 211 to 217), who celebrated their defeat through it through his hand.
The nature of the alliance and the previous tribal affiliations remain mysterious to historiographers. However, their alliance was of an aggressive type, having followed numerous attacks on the provinces of Superior Germany.
They are believed to have assumed their francs as a model of their acts, the first alliance of Germanic tribes, which had stopped the Roman penetration on the lower Reno before invading the province of lower Germany.
From the first century the Rhine had become the natural border that separated Roman Gaul from the Germanic regions: Germanic tribes, Celts and mixed tribes of these two ethnic components had settled in these areas. The Romans divided these territories into two districts: upper Germany and lower German, located respectively along the upper and lower Rhine: Superior Germany included the regions that were between the high course of the Rhine and the high course of the Danube, The Romans also called this Agri decumates region, an expression of uncertain origin translated by some historians such as the “ten cantons”: what he really wanted to mean is still dark.
The fortified border of superior Germany with the territories not controlled by the Empire was called Limes German .
The Alemanni gangs frequently exceeded this border, penetrating superior Germany and agri decumates and occupying alsace, northern Switzerland and parts of Bavaria and Austria, regions previously occupied by Celtic tribes that were subjected to Roman jurisdiction.
They were always difficult populations to imperial power, so much so that the fame of Proculo, the usurper of the imperial throne in 280, derived from his successes against these tribes.
The seed tribe, part of the Herminones , constituted the original nucleus of the Federation of tribes known as Alemanni (or Alamanni), appointed for the first time in 213. The Alemanni initially were enrolled in the Roman army as auxiliaries, obtaining the right to settle in some areas in the face of gradual depopulation of the Empire and thus becoming, from nomadic or seminomad shepherds and hunters, sedentary farmers. The people settled in the Neckar valley [first] . The Alemanni Federation came to conflict with the Romans for the first time along the Germanic -reds Limes, where he was defeated by Caracalla, in 213. The defeat followed a period of relative tranquility, but in 235-236 the conflict with Rome yes rekindled; This time to oppose the Alemanni was Massimino Trace, who not only rejected the raids, but also penetrated deeply within their territory, beyond the Limes. In 254 a new liga breakdown attempt was stemmed by Gallieno, but in 260 the Alemanni managed to penetrate, through the Brenner pass, in Italy, from where only with difficulty the emperor managed to get them back, in a battle fought at Milan . The Alemannic pressure, however, led Gallieno to rectify the northern border of the Empire, abandoning the Agri decumates, which thus could be occupied by the Alemanni themselves. In the following years, the Alemanni repeated the same scheme several times, penetrating in Italy through the Alpine steps (268, 270); Each time they were rejected, but only with difficulty and after the first goal of their incursions (the looting) had however been achieved. In 298 they returned to attack Limes Renano, committing Costanzo Chlorine.
The name [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]
As indicated by the third century Roman historian Asinio Square, their name means “all men” and indicates their heterogeneous tribal conglomerate: this was the name used to describe them by Edward Gibbon in his work ” Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” , chapter 10 and which has consolidated in historiography over the centuries. However, as we were handed down by the monk of the Abbey of St. Gallo Valafrido Strabone, who wrote in the ninth century, the populations of northern Switzerland and the neighboring regions, which foreigners called Alemanni, called themselves Suebi or Swabians themselves.
First mention [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]
The first document in which the Alemanni were mentioned was the description of the Caracalla campaign of 213, completed by the historic Cassio Dione Cocceiano: at the time the Alemanni occupied the minus south basin of the territory populated by the tribe of the Catti. Dione portrays the Alemanni as victims of his bloody emperor: according to the historian, Caracalla, called to help the Alemanni themselves, took advantage of their weakness to colonize their territory, change the name of their settlements and kill their most valiant warriors. When the emperor fell ill, the Alamanni claimed that they had launched a curse on him: Caracalla is said, he contrasted this evil influence by calling the spirits of his ancestors to aid. In response to their evil, the emperor sent them against Legio II Traiana Strong that he defeated them and that it was for this call Germanic . The Roman writers, such as Cassio Dione in the third century or Aurelio Vittore in the fourth century, did not however have a precise knowledge of the origins of the Alamanni, nothing appeared that would let it foresee that, at those peoples, there was the existence of particular legends or Ancient genealogies on their origins that make a common original identity deduce. [2]
In 354 a new Alemanna incursion against the Roman Empire, moved always starting from their territory of settlement in today’s southern Germany, resulted in a wide conflict against the emperor Costanzo II. Led by the brothers Gundomado and Vadomario, the Confederation penetrated Gaul through the Limes Renano, packed numerous cities and won in the battle of Reims (356) the Cesare of the West, Giuliano, who however had his revenge already the following year, in the battle of Strasbourg (357). A little later the Alemanni agreed with the same emperor to take the field against Giuliano (359), which however forced Vadomario to negotiate a peace (360). Rome, torn by the rivalry between the different Caesars and Augusti, tried to insert the Alemanni within their political games; Despite a treacherous attack against Giuliano in 361, Vadomario and his warriors were employed as mercenary troops in Asia (365-366) and in Armenia (371). Meanwhile, the nucleus of the Confederation continued in his raids: in 368 they overwhelmed Mainz and forced the Emperor Valentinian I to draw and to drive the Germans with the battle of Singicinium; In 378, Graziano was defeated them in the battle of Argentovaria.
In the third and fourth century there was still a distinction between the Alemanni and the Suebi, with the defeat of these peoples by Clodoveo I, a first time in 476/477, and a second time in 506 with the killing of the King Alamannorum . From this moment on, some territories lost with the relative populations that precisely form the nucleus of Swabia. While not constituting a political entity from this moment, their ethnographic importance within the policies of the francs and the Ostrogoths remained important.
After the killing of their king they attempted an alliance with the Ostrogoths. They settled under the protection of the Goths part in Northern Italy and part in the region between Lake Costanza and the Alpine section of the Rhine. In 537 the Rear Vigee sold to the Franks The Gothic Alemannia and from this moment they stood part of the kingdom of the Franks, later occupying a large part of the Swiss plateau and various regions of the Alpine arc.
The Germanic states formed by the Alemannic Confederation received during the slow process of disintegration of the Roman Empire the name of Alemannia. This region, after the fall of Rome, will be occupied by the Franks.
The Alemannia region included a number of different districts, which reflected their different ethnic composition: the diocese of Strasbourg, the territory of Augusta, the diocese of Mainz and Basel. Today the descendants of the Alemanni are divided into parts of four different nations: France (Alsace), Germany (Swabia and part of Bavaria), Switzerland and Austria, regions characterized by dialects, derived from the German Alemanno who are well distinguished from the German spoken elsewhere and Which still manages to indicate the area that this people managed to occupy over the centuries.
The German who was spoken in the territories where the Alemanni were allocated is called the German Alemanno and is considered a subgroup of the high German ancient German ( Althochdeutsch ), of which Alemanne runic inscriptions are considered the oldest testimonies.
In the area Alemanna began that linguistic change known as the second consonantic mutation (started in the 6th or seventh centuries) which has characterized continental Western dialects since the early Middle Ages in a more or less marked way, and the language of the Lombards: first From then the Alemanne tribes spoke a variety of western Germanic only slightly different from the dialects of the other Germanic tribes beyond the Roman borders.
- ^ Villar, cit. , p. 438.
- ^ “Barbarians and Ethnicity,” in Late Antiquity, ed. Peter Brown, Glen Bowersock, and Andre Grabar, Cambridge MA, 1999. 106-129.
- Alamanni . are TRECCANI.IT – encyclopedia online , Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia.
- Fedor Schneider, Alamanni , in Italian Encyclopedia , Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, 1929.
- alamanni , in History dictionary , Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, 2010.
- ( IT , OF , FR ) Alemanni . are HLS-DHS-DSS , Historical dictionary of Switzerland.
- ( IN ) Alemanni . are British encyclopedia Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
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