The Germans as a people were formed in the north of Europe from Indo-European tribes who settled in Jutland, the lower Elbe and southern Scandinavia in the 1st century BC. The ancestral home of the Germans was Northern Europe, from where they began to move south. At the same time, they came into contact with the indigenous inhabitants - the Celts, who were gradually forced out. From southern peoples The Germans were distinguished by their tall stature, blue eyes, reddish hair color, warlike and enterprising character.

The name "Germans" is of Celtic origin. Roman authors borrowed the term from the Celts. The Germans themselves did not have their own common name for all the tribes. A detailed description of their structure and way of life is given by the ancient Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus at the end of the 1st century AD.

Germanic tribes are usually divided into three groups: North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic. Part of the ancient Germanic tribes - the northern Germans moved along the ocean coast to the north of Scandinavia. These are the ancestors of modern Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and Icelanders.

The most significant group is the West Germans. They were divided into three branches. One of them is the tribes that lived in the regions of the Rhine and Weser. These included the Batavians, Mattiaks, Hattians, Cherusci, and other tribes.

The second branch of the Germans included the tribes of the North Sea coast. These are Cimbri, Teutons, Frisians, Saxons, Angles, etc. The third branch of the West Germanic tribes was the cult alliance of the Germinons, which included the Suebi, Lombards, Marcomanni, Quads, Semnons and Hermundurs.

These groups of ancient Germanic tribes were in conflict with each other and this led to frequent disintegrations and new formations of tribes and unions. In the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. e. numerous individual tribes united into large tribal unions of Alemanni, Franks, Saxons, Thuringians and Bavarians.

The main role in the economic life of the Germanic tribes of this period belonged to cattle breeding., which was especially developed in areas abounding in meadows - Northern Germany, Jutland, Scandinavia.

The Germans did not have continuous, closely built-up villages. Each family lived in a separate farm surrounded by meadows and groves. Related families constituted a separate community (mark) and jointly owned the land. Members of one or more communities came together and held public meetings. Immediately they made sacrifices to their gods, decided questions of war or peace with their neighbors, settled lawsuits, judged criminal offenses and elected leaders and judges. Young men who had reached the age of majority received weapons in the national assembly, which they then did not part with.

Like all uneducated peoples, the ancient Germans led a harsh lifestyle., dressed in animal skins, armed with wooden shields, axes, spears and clubs, loved war and hunting, and in peacetime indulged in idleness, dice games, feasts and drinking parties. Since ancient times, their favorite drink was beer, which they brewed from barley and wheat. They loved the game of dice so much that they often lost not only all their property, but also their own freedom.

The care of the household, the fields and herds remained with women, the elderly and slaves. Compared with other barbarian peoples, the position of women among the Germans was the best and polygamy was not very common among them.

During the battle, women were behind the troops, they looked after the wounded, brought food to the fighters and reinforced their courage with their praises. Often the Germans who were put to flight were stopped by the cries and reproaches of their women, then they entered the battle with even greater ferocity. Most of all, they were afraid that their wives would not be captured and become slaves of the enemies.

The ancient Germans already had a division into estates: noble (edschings), free (freelings) and semi-free (classes). Military leaders, judges, dukes, counts were chosen from the noble class. The leaders during the wars enriched themselves with booty, surrounded themselves with a retinue of the bravest people, and with the help of this retinue acquired supreme power in the fatherland or conquered foreign lands.

The ancient Germans developed a craft, mainly - weapons, tools, clothing, utensils. The Germans knew how to mine iron, gold, silver, copper, lead. Technology and art style handicrafts have undergone significant Celtic influence. Leather dressing and woodworking, ceramics and weaving were developed.

Trade with Ancient Rome played a significant role in the life of the ancient Germanic tribes.. Ancient Rome supplied the Germans with ceramics, glass, enamel, bronze vessels, gold and silver jewelry, weapons, tools, wine, expensive fabrics. Products were imported into the Roman state Agriculture and animal husbandry, livestock, hides and skins, furs, as well as amber in special demand. Many Germanic tribes had a special privilege of intermediary trade.

The basis of the political structure of the ancient Germans was the tribe. The popular assembly, in which all armed free members of the tribe participated, was the highest authority. It met from time to time and resolved the most significant issues: the election of the leader of the tribe, the analysis of complex intra-tribal conflicts, initiation into warriors, declaring war and making peace. The issue of resettlement of the tribe to new places was also decided at the meeting of the tribe.

At the head of the tribe was the leader, who was elected by the popular assembly. In ancient authors, he was designated by various terms: principes, dux, rex, which corresponds to the common German term könig - king.

A special place in the political structure of ancient German society was occupied by military squads, which were formed not by tribal affiliation, but on the basis of voluntary loyalty to the leader.

Squads were created for the purpose of robbery raids, robberies and military raids into neighboring lands. Any free German who had a penchant for risk and adventure or profit, with the abilities of a military leader, could create a squad. The law of life of the squad was unquestioning obedience and devotion to the leader. It was believed that getting out of the battle in which the leader fell alive was dishonor and shame for life.

The first major military clash between the Germanic tribes and Rome associated with the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutons, when in 113 BC. The Teutons defeated the Romans at Norea in Norica and, devastating everything in their path, invaded Gaul. In 102-101 years. BC. the troops of the Roman commander Gaius Marius defeated the Teutons at Aqua Sextiev, then the Cimbri at the battle of Vercelli.

In the middle of the 1st c. BC. several Germanic tribes united and joined together to conquer Gaul. Under the leadership of the king (tribal leader) Areovists, the Germanic Suebi tried to gain a foothold in Eastern Gaul, but in 58 BC. were defeated by Julius Caesar, who expelled Ariovista from Gaul, and the union of tribes broke up.

After the triumph of Caesar, the Romans repeatedly invade and wage war on German territory. All more Germanic tribes falls into the zone of military conflicts with Ancient Rome. These events are described by Gaius Julius Caesar in

Under Emperor Augustus, an attempt was made to expand the borders of the Roman Empire east of the Rhine. Drusus and Tiberius conquered the tribes in the north of modern Germany and built camps on the Elbe. In the 9th year A.D. Arminius - the leader of the Germanic tribe Cheruskov defeated the Roman legions in the Teutonic Forest and for some time restored the former border along the Rhine.

The Roman commander Germanicus avenged this defeat, but soon the Romans stopped further conquest of German territory and established border garrisons along the Cologne-Bonn-Augsburg line to Vienna (modern names).

At the end of the 1st century the border was defined - "Roman frontiers"(lat. Roman Lames) separating the population of the Roman Empire from the diverse "barbarian" Europe. The border ran along the Rhine, Danube and Limes, which connected these two rivers. It was a fortified strip with fortifications, along which troops were quartered.

Part of this line from the Rhine to the Danube, 550 km long, still exists and, as an outstanding monument of ancient fortifications, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987.

But let's go back to the distant past to the ancient Germanic tribes that united when they started wars with the Romans. Thus, several strong peoples gradually formed - the Franks on the lower reaches of the Rhine, the Alemanni south of the Franks, the Saxons in Northern Germany, then the Lombards, Vandals, Burgundians and others.

The easternmost Germanic people were the Goths, who were divided into Ostrogoths and Visigoths - eastern and western. They conquered the neighboring peoples of the Slavs and Finns, and during the reign of their king Germanaric they dominated from the Lower Danube to the very banks of the Don. But the Goths were forced out from there by the wild people who came from behind the Don and the Volga - the Huns. The invasion of the latter was the beginning Great Migration of Nations.

Thus, in the diversity and diversity of historical events and the apparent chaotic nature of intertribal unions and conflicts between them, treaties and clashes between the Germans and Rome, the historical foundation of those subsequent processes that formed the essence of the Great Migration →

Introduction

In this work, we will touch on a very interesting and at the same time not sufficiently studied topic, how the social system and economic development ancient Germans. This group of peoples is of interest to us for many reasons, the main of which will be cultural development and militancy; the first was of interest to ancient authors and still attracts both professional researchers and ordinary inhabitants interested in European civilization, while the second is interesting to us from the point of view of that spirit and desire for militancy and freedom that was inherent in the Germans then and lost until now.

In that distant time, the Germans kept the whole of Europe in fear, and therefore many researchers and travelers were interested in these tribes. Some were attracted by the culture, lifestyle, mythology and way of life of these ancient tribes. Others looked in their direction solely from a selfish point of view, either as enemies or as a means of profit. But still, as will be known later from this work, the latter attracted.

The interest of Roman society in the life of the peoples who inhabited the lands bordering the empire, in particular the Germans, was associated with constant wars waged by the emperor: in the 1st century BC. the Romans managed to put the Germans living east of the Rhine (up to the Weser) under their nominal dependence, but as a result of the uprising of the Cherusci and other Germanic tribes that destroyed three Roman legions in the battle in the Teutoburg Forest, the Rhine and Danube. The expansion of Roman possessions to the Rhine and Danube temporarily stopped the further spread of the Germans to the south and west. Under Domitian in 83 AD the left-bank regions of the Rhine, the Decumates fields were conquered.

Starting work, we should delve into the history of the very appearance of the Germanic tribes in this area. After all, other groups of peoples also lived on the territory that is considered to be originally German: they were Slavs, Finno-Ugric peoples, Balts, Laplanders, Turks; and even more people passed through this area.

The settlement of the north of Europe by Indo-European tribes took place approximately 3000-2500 BC, as evidenced by archeological data. Prior to this, the coasts of the North and Baltic Seas were inhabited by tribes, apparently of a different ethnic group. From the mixing of Indo-European aliens with them, the tribes that gave rise to the Germans originated. Their language, separated from other Indo-European languages, was the Germanic language - the basis from which, in the process of subsequent fragmentation, new tribal languages ​​of the Germans arose.

The prehistoric period of the existence of the Germanic tribes can only be judged from the data of archeology and ethnography, as well as from some borrowings in the languages ​​of those tribes that in ancient times roamed in their neighborhood - the Finns, the Laplanders.

The Germans lived in the north of central Europe between the Elbe and the Oder and in the south of Scandinavia, including the Jutland peninsula. Archaeological data suggest that these territories were inhabited by Germanic tribes from the beginning of the Neolithic, that is, from the third millennium BC.

The first information about the ancient Germans is found in the writings of Greek and Roman authors. The earliest mention of them was made by the merchant Pytheas from Massilia (Marseilles), who lived in the second half of the 4th century. BC. Pytheas traveled by sea along the western coast of Europe, then along the southern coast of the North Sea. He mentions the tribes of the Guttons and Teutons, with whom he had to meet during his voyage. The description of Pytheas' journey has not come down to us, but it was used by later historians and geographers, Greek authors Polybius, Posidonius (II century BC), Roman historian Titus Livius (I century BC - early I century AD). They cite extracts from the writings of Pytheas, and also mention the raids of the Germanic tribes on the Hellenistic states of southeastern Europe and on southern Gaul and northern Italy at the end of the 2nd century. BC.

From the first centuries of the new era, information about the Germans becomes somewhat more detailed. The Greek historian Strabo (died in 20 BC) writes that the Germans (Suebi) roam in the forests, build huts and are engaged in cattle breeding. The Greek writer Plutarch (46 - 127 AD) describes the Germans as wild nomads who are alien to all peaceful pursuits, such as agriculture and cattle breeding; their only occupation is war.

By the end of the II century. BC. Germanic tribes of Cimbri appear near the northeastern outskirts of the Apennine Peninsula. According to the descriptions of ancient authors, they were tall, fair-haired, strong people, often dressed in animal skins or skins, with wooden shields, armed with burnt stakes and stone-tipped arrows. They defeated the Roman troops and then moved west, linking up with the Teutons. For several years they won victories over the Roman armies until they were defeated by the Roman general Marius (102 - 101 BC).

In the future, the Germans do not stop raids on Rome and more and more threaten the Roman Empire.

At a later time, when in the middle of the 1st c. BC. Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC) encountered Germanic tribes in Gaul, they lived in a large area of ​​central Europe; in the west, the territory occupied by the Germanic tribes reached the Rhine, in the south - to the Danube, in the east - to the Vistula, and in the north - to the North and Baltic Seas, capturing the southern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula. In his Notes on the Gallic War, Caesar describes the Germans in more detail than his predecessors. He writes about the social system, economic structure and life of the ancient Germans, and also outlines the course of military events and clashes with individual Germanic tribes. He also mentions that the Germanic tribes are superior in courage to the Gauls. As governor of Gaul in 58 - 51, Caesar made two expeditions from there against the Germans, who tried to capture the area on the left bank of the Rhine. One expedition was organized by him against the Suebi, who had crossed to the left bank of the Rhine. In the battle with the Suebi, the Romans were victorious; Ariovistus, the leader of the Suebi, fled, crossing to the right bank of the Rhine. As a result of another expedition, Caesar expelled the Germanic tribes of the Usipetes and Tencters from the north of Gaul. Talking about clashes with German troops during these expeditions, Caesar describes in detail their military tactics, methods of attack and defense. The Germans were built for the offensive in phalanxes, by tribes. They used the cover of the forest to surprise the attack. The main way to protect against enemies was to fence off forests. This natural way knew not only the Germans, but also other tribes who lived in the wooded areas.

A reliable source of information about the ancient Germans are the writings of Pliny the Elder (23-79). Pliny spent many years in the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Upper Germania while in military service. In his Natural History and in other works that have come down to us far from completely, Pliny described not only military operations, but also the physical and geographical features of a large territory occupied by Germanic tribes, listed and was the first to give a classification of Germanic tribes, based mainly on , from my own experience.

The most complete information about the ancient Germans is given by Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55 - c. 120). In his work "Germany" he tells about the way of life, way of life, customs and beliefs of the Germans; in the "Histories" and "Annals" he sets out the details of the Roman-German military clashes. Tacitus was one of the greatest Roman historians. He himself had never been to Germany and used the information that he could receive as a Roman senator from generals, from secret and official reports, from travelers and participants in military campaigns; he also widely used information about the Germans in the writings of his predecessors and, first of all, in the writings of Pliny the Elder.

The era of Tacitus, as well as subsequent centuries, is filled with military clashes between the Romans and the Germans. Numerous attempts by the Roman generals to subdue the Germans failed. To prevent their advance into the territories conquered by the Romans from the Celts, Emperor Hadrian (who ruled in 117-138) erects powerful defensive structures along the Rhine and the upper reaches of the Danube, on the border between Roman and German possessions. Numerous military camps-settlements become strongholds of the Romans in this territory; subsequently, cities arose in their place, in modern titles which bear echoes of their former history.

In the second half of the 2nd century, after a short lull, the Germans again intensify offensive operations. In 167, the Marcomanni, in alliance with other Germanic tribes, break through the fortifications on the Danube and occupy Roman territory in northern Italy. Only in 180 did the Romans manage to push them back to the northern bank of the Danube. Until the beginning of the III century. relatively peaceful relations are established between the Germans and the Romans, which contributed to significant changes in the economic and social life of the Germans.

1. Social system and material culture of the ancient Germans

In this part of our study, we will deal with the social structure of the ancient Germans. This is perhaps the most difficult problem in our work, since, unlike, for example, military affairs, which can be judged “from the outside”, it is possible to understand the social system only by merging into this society, or being a part of it or having close contact with him. But to understand society, relationships in it is impossible without ideas about material culture.

The Germans, like the Gauls, did not know political unity. They broke up into tribes, each of which occupied on average an area with an area equal to approximately 100 square meters. miles. The border parts of the region were not inhabited for fear of an enemy invasion. Therefore, even from the most remote villages it was possible to reach the place of the people's assembly, located in the center of the region, within a one-day march.

Since a very large part of the country was covered with forests and swamps, and therefore its inhabitants were only to a very small extent engaged in agriculture, living mainly on milk, cheese and meat, the average population density could not exceed 250 people per 1 square meter. a mile Thus, the tribe numbered approximately 25,000 people, and larger tribes could reach 35,000 or even 40,000 people. This gives 6000-10000 men, i.e. as much as in the most extreme case, taking into account 1000-2000 absentees, a human voice can capture and as much as can form an integral and capable of discussing issues of the people's assembly. This general popular assembly possessed the highest sovereign power.

The tribes broke up into clans, or hundreds. These associations are called clans, since they were not formed arbitrarily, but united people on the basis of a natural blood connection and unity of origin. There were no cities to which part of the population growth could be transferred, forming new connections there. Each remained in the union within which he was born. Clans were also called hundreds, because each of them had about 100 families or warriors. However, in practice this figure was often more, since the Germans used the word "hundred, hundred" in the sense of a generally large rounded number. The digital, quantitative name was preserved along with the patriarchal one, since the actual relationship between members of the clan was very distant. The genera could not have arisen as a result of the fact that the families originally living in the neighborhood formed large genera over the centuries. Rather, it should be considered that the overgrown clans had to be divided into several parts in order to feed themselves in the place where they lived. Thus, a certain size, a certain value, a certain amount, equal to approximately 100, were the forming element of the association along with the origin. Both gave their name to this union. Genus and hundred are identical.

What can we say about such an important part of public life and material culture as the dwelling and life of the ancient Germans. In his essay on the Germans, Tacitus constantly compares their way of life and customs with those of the Romans. The description of the German settlements was no exception: “It is well known that the peoples of Germany do not live in cities and do not even tolerate their dwellings adjoining close to each other. The Germans settle, each separately and on their own, where someone likes a spring, a clearing or an oak forest. They do not arrange their villages in the same way as we do, and do not get crowded with buildings crowded and clinging to one another, but each leaves a vast area around his house, either to protect himself from fire if a neighbor catches fire, or because of the inability to build “It can be concluded that the Germans did not even create urban-type settlements, not to mention cities in the Roman or modern sense of the word. Apparently, the German settlements of that period were farm-type villages, which are characterized by a fairly large distance between buildings and a plot of land next to the house.

The members of the clan, who at the same time were neighbors in the village, formed during the war one common group, one horde. Therefore, even now in the north they call the military corps "thorp", and in Switzerland they say "village" - instead of "detachment", "dorfen" - instead of "convene a meeting", and the current German word "troop", "detachment" (Truppe) comes from the same root. Transferred by the Franks to the Romanesque peoples, and from them returned to Germany, it still retains the memory of the social system of our ancestors, dating back to such ancient times that no written source testifies. The horde that went to war together and that settled together was one and the same horde. Therefore, the names of the settlement, village and soldier, military unit were formed from the same word.

Thus, the ancient Germanic community is: a village - according to the type of settlement, a district - according to the place of settlement, a hundred - in terms of size and genus - in terms of its internal connections. Land and subsoil do not constitute private property, but belong to the totality of this strictly closed community. According to a later expression, it forms a regional partnership.

At the head of each community was an elected official, who was called "alderman" (elder), or "hunno", just as the community was called either "clan" or "hundred".

The Aldermans, or Hunnies, are the chiefs and leaders of the communities in times of peace, and the leaders of the men in times of war. But they live with the people and among the people. Socially, they are just as free members of the community as everyone else. Their authority is not so high as to keep the peace in case of major strife or serious crimes. Their position is not so high, and their horizons are not so broad as to guide politics. In each tribe there were one or more noble families, who stood high above the free members of the community, who, towering above the mass of the population, formed a special estate and traced their origin from the gods. From their midst, the general people's assembly elected several "princes", "first", "principes", who were supposed to travel around the districts ("through villages and villages") to hold court, negotiate with foreign states, jointly discuss public affairs, involving the Hunni in this discussion as well, in order to then make their proposals at public meetings. During the war, one of these princes, as a duke, was invested with the supreme command.

In princely families - thanks to their participation in military booty, tribute, gifts, prisoners of war who were serving their corvee, and profitable marriages with wealthy families - concentrated large, from the point of view of the Germans, wealth6. These riches made it possible for the princes to surround themselves with a retinue consisting of free people, the bravest warriors who swore allegiance to their master for life and death and who lived with him as his companions, providing him "in time of peace, splendor, and in time war defense." And where the prince spoke, his retinue strengthened the authority and significance of his words.

Of course, there was no law that categorically and positively demanded that only the offspring of one of the noble families be elected to the princes. But in fact, these families were so far removed from the mass of the population that it was not so easy for a person from the people to cross this line and enter the circle of noble families. And why on earth would the community choose a prince from the crowd who would not rise in any way above any other? Nevertheless, it often happened that those Huns in whose families this position was preserved for several generations and who, thanks to this, achieved special honor, as well as well-being, entered the circle of princes. This is how the process of formation of princely families went. And the natural advantage that the sons of distinguished fathers had in the election of officials gradually created the habit of choosing in the place of the deceased - subject to appropriate qualifications - his son. And the advantages associated with the position elevated such a family so much above the general level of the mass that it became more and more difficult for the rest of them to compete with it. If we now feel a weaker effect of this socio-psychological process in social life, this is due to the fact that other forces are exerting significant opposition to such a natural formation of estates. But there is no doubt that in ancient Germany a hereditary estate was gradually formed from the initially elected bureaucracy. In conquered Britain, kings appeared from the ancient princes, and erli (earls) from the eldermen. But in the era we are talking about now, this process has not yet ended. Although the princely estate has already separated from the mass of the population, having formed a class, the Hunni still belong to the mass of the population and in general have not yet separated themselves on the continent as a separate estate.

The assembly of the German princes and the Huns was called by the Romans the Senate of the Germanic Tribes. The sons of the most noble families were clothed already in their early youth with princely dignity and were involved in the meetings of the senate. In other cases, the retinue was a school for those young men who tried to escape from the circle of free members of the community, striving for a higher position.

The rule of princes passes into royal power when there is only one prince, or when one of them removes or subjugates the others. The basis and essence of the state system does not change from this, since the highest and decisive authority is still, as before, the general assembly of soldiers. Princely and royal power still fundamentally differ so little from each other that the Romans sometimes use the title of king even where there are not even one, but two princes. And royal power, as well as princely power, is not transferred by mere inheritance from one of its bearers to another, but the people endow this dignity with the one who has the greatest right to this through elections, or by calling his name screams. An heir who is physically or mentally incapable of doing this could and would have been bypassed. But although, therefore, royal and princely power primarily differed from each other only in quantitative terms, nevertheless, of course, the circumstance was of tremendous importance, whether the authorities and leadership were in the hands of one or several. And in this, of course, there was a very big difference. In the presence of royal power, the possibility of contradiction was completely eliminated, the possibility of presenting various plans to the people's assembly and making various proposals. The sovereign power of the popular assembly is more and more reduced to mere exclamations. But this exclamation of approval remains necessary for the king. The German retained even under the king the pride and spirit of independence of a free man. "They were kings," says Tacitus, "as far as the Germans allowed themselves to be ruled."

Communication between the district-community and the state was fairly loose. It could happen that the district, changing the place of its settlement and moving farther and farther, could gradually separate from the state to which it previously belonged. Attendance at general public meetings became more and more difficult and rare. Interests have changed. The district was only in a kind of allied relationship with the state and formed over time, when the clan increased quantitatively, its own separate state. The former Xiongnu family turned into a princely family. Or it happened that in the distribution of judicial districts among the various princes, the princes organized their districts as separate units, which they firmly held in their hands, gradually forming a kingdom, and then separated from the state. There are no direct indications of this in the sources, but this is reflected in the uncertainty of the terminology that has been preserved. The Cherusci and the Hutts, who are tribes in the sense of the state, own such wide territories that we should rather see them as a union of states. With regard to many tribal names, it may be doubted whether they are simple district names. And again, the word "district" (pagus) can often be applied not to a hundred, but to a princely district, which covered several hundred. We find the strongest internal ties in the hundred, in the genus, which led a semi-communist way of life within itself and which did not disintegrate so easily under the influence of internal or external causes.

We next turn to the question of German population density. This task is very difficult, since there were no specific studies, let alone statistical data on this. Nevertheless, let's try to understand this issue.

We must do justice to the excellent powers of observation of the famous writers of antiquity, while rejecting their conclusion about the considerable population density and the presence of large masses of the people, about which the Romans are so fond of talking.

We know the geography of ancient Germany well enough to establish quite accurately that in the area between the Rhine, the North Sea, the Elbe and the line drawn from the Main near Hanau to the confluence of the Saal with the Elbe, there lived approximately 23 tribes, namely: two tribes of Frisians , Caninefats, Batavs, Hamavs, Amsivars, Angrivars, Tubants, two tribes of Khavks, Usipets, Tenkhters, two tribes of Brukters, Marses, Khasuarii, Dulgibins, Lombards, Cherusci, Hatti, Hattuarii, Innerions, Intvergi, Calukons. This whole area covers about 2300 km 2, so that on average each tribe accounted for approximately 100 km 2. The supreme power of each of these tribes belonged to the general popular assembly or assembly of warriors. This was the case in Athens and Rome, however, the industrial population of these civilized states attended only a very small part of the people's meetings. As for the Germans, we can really admit that very often almost all the soldiers were at the meeting. That is why the states were comparatively small, since with the distance of more than a day from the most distant villages from the central point, genuine general meetings would no longer be possible. This requirement corresponds to an area equal to approximately 100 square meters. miles. Similarly, a meeting can be conducted more or less in order only with a maximum number of 6000-8000 people. If this figure was the maximum, then the average figure was a figure a little over 5000, which gives 25,000 people per tribe, or 250 per square meter. mile (4-5 per 1 km 2). It should be noted that this is primarily the maximum figure, the upper limit. But this figure cannot be greatly reduced for other reasons - for reasons of a military nature. military activity The battle of the ancient Germans against the Roman world power and its battle-tested legions was so significant that it suggests a certain amount of population. And the figure of 5,000 warriors for each tribe seems so insignificant in comparison with this activity that, perhaps, no one will be inclined to reduce this figure still.

Thus - in spite of the complete absence of positive data that we could use - we are still in a position to establish positive figures with reasonable certainty. The conditions are so simple, and economic, military, geographical and political factors are so closely intertwined with each other, that we now, using firmly established methods scientific research, we can fill in the gaps in the information that has come down to us and better determine the number of Germans than the Romans, who had them before their eyes and communicated with them daily.

Next, we turn to the question of supreme power among the Germans. The fact that the German officials fell into two different groups follows both from the nature of things, the political organization and the dismemberment of the tribe, and directly from the direct indications of the sources.

Caesar tells that "princes and elders" of the Usipets and Tenchters came to him. Speaking of the assassins, he mentions not only their princes, but also their senate, and tells that the senate of the Nervii, who, although they were not Germans, were very close to them in their social and state system, consisted of 600 members. Although we have a somewhat exaggerated figure here, it is nevertheless clear that the Romans could apply the name "senate" only to a fairly large deliberative assembly. It could not be a meeting of princes alone, it was a larger meeting. Consequently, the Germans had, in addition to the princes, another type of public authority.

Speaking about the land use of the Germans, Caesar not only mentions the princes, but also indicates that "officials and princes" distributed arable land. The addition of the "office of the person" cannot be considered a simple pleonasm: such an understanding would be contrary to the compressed style of Caesar. It would be very strange if Caesar, for the sake of verbosity alone, added additional words precisely to the very simple concept of “princes”.

These two categories of officials are not as clear in Tacitus as they are in Caesar. It was with regard to the concept of “hundreds” that Tacitus made a fatal mistake, which later caused scientists a lot of trouble. But even from Tacitus we can still deduce with certainty the same fact. If the Germans had only one category of officials, then this category would in any case have to be very numerous. But we constantly read that in every tribe the individual families were so superior to the mass of the population that others could not compare with them, and that these individual families are definitely called "royal line". Modern scholars have unanimously established that the ancient Germans did not have a petty nobility. The nobility (nobilitas), which is constantly referred to, was the princely nobility. These families elevated their clan to the gods, and "they took kings from the nobility." The Cherusci beg for their nephew Arminius from Emperor Claudius as the only survivor of the royal family. In the northern states there was no other nobility besides the royal families.

Such a sharp differentiation between noble families and the people would be impossible if there were a noble family for every hundred. To explain this fact, however, it is not enough to admit that among these numerous families of chiefs, some have achieved special honor. If the whole matter were reduced to only such a difference in rank, then other families would undoubtedly come forward to take the place of the extinct families. And then the name "royal family" would be assigned not only to a few genera, but, on the contrary, their number would no longer be so small. Of course, the difference was not absolute, and there was no impassable abyss. The old Xiongnu family could sometimes penetrate into the environment of the princes. But still, this difference was not only of rank, but also purely specific: the princely families formed the nobility, in which the significance of the position strongly receded into the background, and the Hunni belonged to the free members of the community, and their rank largely depended on the position, which all could also acquire a certain degree of hereditary character. So, what Tacitus tells about the German princely families indicates that their number was very limited, and the limited number of this number, in turn, indicates that below the princes there was another category of lower officials.

And from a military point of view, it was necessary that a large military unit break up into smaller units, with a number of people not more than 200-300 people, who were to be under the command of special commanders. The German contingent, which consisted of 5,000 soldiers, was supposed to have at least 20, and maybe even 50 lower commanders. It is absolutely impossible that the number of princes (principes) should be so great.

The study of economic life leads to the same conclusion. Each village had to have its own headman. This was due to the needs of agrarian communism and the diverse measures that were necessary for pasturing and protecting the herds. The social life of the village every moment required the presence of a manager and could not wait for the arrival and orders of the prince, who lived at a distance of several miles. Although we must admit that the villages were quite extensive, yet the village chiefs were very insignificant officials. Families whose origin was considered royal were to have more significant authority, and the number of these families is much smaller. Thus, princes and village chiefs are essentially different officials.

In continuation of our work, I would like to mention such a phenomenon in the life of Germany as the change of settlements and arable land. Caesar points out that the Germans annually changed both arable land and settlement sites. However, this fact, transmitted in such a general form, I consider disputable, since the annual change of the place of settlement does not find any grounds for itself. Even if it was possible to easily move the hut with household belongings, supplies and livestock, nevertheless, the restoration of the entire economy in a new place was associated with certain difficulties. And it was especially difficult to dig cellars with the help of those few and imperfect shovels that the Germans could have at that time. Therefore, I have no doubt that the "annual" change of settlement sites, which the Gauls and Germans told Caesar about, is either a strong exaggeration or a misunderstanding.

As for Tacitus, he nowhere directly speaks of a change in the places of settlement, but only points to a change in arable land. This difference was tried to be explained by a higher degree of economic development. But I fundamentally disagree with this. True, it is very possible and probable that already in the time of Tacitus and even Caesar, the Germans lived firmly and settled in many villages, namely where there were fertile and solid land. In such places, it was enough to change the arable land and fallow land around the village every year. But the inhabitants of those villages, which were located in areas covered for the most part by forests and swamps, where the soil was less fertile, could no longer be content with this. They were compelled to make full and consecutive use of all individual fields suitable for cultivation, all relevant parts of a vast territory, and therefore had to change the place of settlement from time to time for this purpose. As Thudichum has already correctly noted, Tacitus's words do not absolutely exclude the fact of such changes in the places of settlement, and if they do not directly indicate this, then nevertheless I am almost convinced that this is precisely what Tacitus thought in this case. His words read: “Whole villages alternately occupy such a number of fields as would correspond to the number of workers, and then these fields are distributed among the inhabitants depending on their social status and wealth. Extensive margin sizes make the section easier. Arable lands are changed every year, and there is a surplus of fields. Of particular interest in these words is an indication of a double shift. First, it is said that the fields (agri) are occupied or seized alternately, and then that the arable land (arvi) changes every year. If it were only that the village alternately assigned a more or less significant part of the territory to arable land, and that within this arable land again arable land and fallow changed annually, then this description would be too detailed and would not correspond to the usual brevity of Tacitus' style. This fact would be, so to speak, too meager for so many words. The situation would be quite different if the Roman writer put into these words at the same time the idea that the community, which alternately occupied entire territories and then divided these lands among its members, along with the change of fields, also changed the places of settlements. . Tacitus does not directly and precisely tell us about this. But just this circumstance is easily explained by the extreme conciseness of his style, and, of course, by no means can we assume that this phenomenon is observed in all villages. The inhabitants of the villages, which had small but fertile lands, did not need to change the places of their settlements.

Therefore, I have no doubt that Tacitus, making a certain distinction between the fact that “villages occupy fields” and that “arable land changes annually”, does not at all mean to depict a new stage in the development of German economic life, but rather does a tacit correction to Caesar's description. If we take into account that a German village with a population of 750 people had a territorial district equal to 3 sq. miles, then this indication of Tacitus immediately acquires a completely clear meaning for us. With the then existing primitive method of cultivating the land, it was absolutely necessary to annually work with a plow (or hoe) a new arable land. And if the supply of arable land in the vicinity of the village was exhausted, then it was easier to move the entire village to another part of the district than to cultivate and protect the fields that lie far from the old village. After a number of years, and perhaps even after numerous migrations, the inhabitants again returned to their old place and again had the opportunity to use their former cellars.

And what can be said about the size of the villages. Gregory of Tours, according to Sulpicius Alexander, tells in the 9th chapter of Book II that the Roman army in 388, during its campaign in the country of the Franks, discovered "huge villages" among them.

The identity of the village and the clan is not subject to any doubt, and it has been positively proved that the clans were quite large.

In accordance with this, Kikebusch, using prehistory data, established the population of the Germanic settlement in the first two centuries AD. at least 800 people. The Dartsau cemetery, containing about 4,000 burial urns, existed for 200 years. This gives an average of approximately 20 deaths per year and indicates a population of at least 800 people.

The stories about the change of arable land and places of settlements that have come down to us, perhaps with some exaggeration, still contain a grain of truth. This change of all arable land, and even the change of places of settlement, becomes meaningful only in large villages with a large territorial district. Small villages with little land have the opportunity to change only arable land for fallow. Large villages do not have enough arable land in their vicinity for this purpose and are therefore forced to look for land in remote parts of their district, and this in turn entails the transfer of the whole village to other places.

Each village was required to have a headman. Common ownership of arable land, common pasture and protection of herds, frequent threat of enemy invasions and danger from wild animals - all this certainly required the presence of a local authority. You can’t wait for the leader to arrive from another place when you need to immediately organize protection from a pack of wolves or hunt wolves, when you need to repel an enemy attack and hide families and livestock from the enemy, or to protect a spilled river with a dam, or put out a fire, sort out disputes and petty lawsuits. , to announce the beginning of plowing and reaping, which, under communal land tenure, took place simultaneously. If all this happens as it should, and if, therefore, the village had its headman, then this headman - since the village was at the same time a clan - was a clan master, an elder of the clan. And this one, in turn, as we have already seen above, coincided with the Xiongnu. Therefore, the village was a hundred, i.e. numbered 100 or more warriors, and therefore was not so small.

Smaller villages had the advantage of being easier to get food from. However, large villages, although they necessitated a more frequent change of place of settlement, were nevertheless most convenient for the Germans in the constant dangers in which they lived. They made it possible to counter the threat from wild animals or even wilder people with a strong body of warriors, always ready to meet danger face to face. If we find small villages among other barbarian peoples, for example, later among the Slavs, this circumstance cannot weaken the significance of the evidence and arguments we have cited above. The Slavs do not belong to the Germans, and some analogies do not yet indicate the complete identity of the remaining conditions; moreover, the evidence concerning the Slavs belongs to such a later time that they can already describe a different stage of development. However, the German large village later - in connection with the growth of the population and the greater intensity of tillage, when the Germans had already ceased to change the places of their settlements - broke up into groups of small villages.

In his narrative about the Germans, Cornelius Tacitus gave a short description of the German land and the climatic conditions of Germany: “Although the country differs in appearance in some places, nevertheless, on the whole, it terrifies and disgusts with its forests and swamps; it is wettest on the side where it faces Gaul, and most exposed to the winds where it faces Noricum and Pannonia; in general, quite fertile, it is unsuitable for fruit trees. ”From these words, we can conclude that most of the territory of Germany at the beginning of our era was covered with dense forests and abounded in swamps, however, at the same time, land was occupied by sufficient space for agriculture. The remark about the unsuitability of the land for fruit trees is also important. Further, Tacitus directly said that the Germans "do not plant fruit trees." This is reflected, for example, in the division of the year by the Germans into three parts, which is also highlighted in Tacitus's "Germany": "And for this reason they divide the year less fractionally than we do: they distinguish winter, and spring, and summer, and they have their own names, but the name of autumn and its fruits are unknown to them. The name of autumn among the Germans really appeared later, with the development of horticulture and viticulture, since under the autumn fruits Tacitus meant the fruits of fruit trees and grapes.

The saying of Tacitus about the Germans is well-known: "They annually change arable land, they always have a surplus of fields." Most scientists agree that this indicates the custom of redistribution of land within the community. However, in these words, some scientists saw evidence of the existence of a shifting system of land use among the Germans, in which arable land had to be systematically abandoned so that the soil, depleted by extensive cultivation, could restore its fertility. Perhaps the words "et superest ager" meant something else: the author had in mind the vastness of unoccupied settlement and uncultivated spaces in Germany. Evidence of this can be the easily noticeable attitude of Cornelius Tacitus to the Germans as to people who treated agriculture with a share of indifference: gardens." And sometimes Tacitus directly accused the Germans of contempt for work: “And it is much more difficult to convince them to plow the field and wait for a whole year of harvest than to persuade them to fight the enemy and suffer wounds; moreover, according to their ideas, then to get what can be acquired with blood is laziness and cowardice. In addition, apparently, adults and men capable of bearing arms did not work on the land at all: “the most brave and militant of them, without bearing any duties, entrust the care of housing, household and arable land to women, the elderly and the weakest of the household, while they themselves wallow in inactivity. However, speaking about the way of life of the Aestians, Tacitus noted that "They grow bread and other fruits of the earth more diligently than is customary among the Germans with their inherent negligence."

Slavery developed in the German society of that time, although it did not yet play a big role in the economy, and most of the work lay on the shoulders of the master's family members: “They use slaves, however, not in the same way as we do: they do not keep them with them and do not distribute duties between them: each of them independently manages on his site and in his family. The master taxes him as if he were a column, a fixed measure of grain, or sheep and pigs, or clothes, and only this consists of the duties sent by the slave. The rest of the work in the household of the master is carried out by his wife and children.

Regarding the crops grown by the Germans, Tacitus is unequivocal: "They expect only the harvest of bread from the earth." However, now there is evidence that in addition to barley, wheat, oats and rye, the Germans also sowed lentils, peas, beans, leeks, flax, hemp and dyeing woad, or blueberry.

Cattle breeding occupied a huge place in the German economy. According to Tacitus about Germany, “there are a great many small cattle” and “the Germans rejoice at the abundance of their herds, and they are their only and most beloved asset.” However, he noted that "for the most part, he is small, and the bulls are usually deprived of the proud decoration that usually crowns their heads."

Evidence that cattle really played an important role in the economy of the Germans of that time can be the fact that in case of a slight violation of any norms of customary law, the fine was paid precisely by cattle: “for lighter offenses, the punishment is commensurate with their importance: a certain number of horses are recovered from those convicted and sheep." Cattle also played an important role in the wedding ceremony: the groom had to present the bride with bulls and a horse as a gift.

The Germans used horses not only for household purposes, but also for military purposes - Tacitus spoke with admiration about the power of the tencters' cavalry: "Endowed with all the qualities appropriate for valiant warriors, the tencters are also skillful and dashing riders, and the tencters' cavalry is not inferior in glory to the infantry of the Hutts" . However, describing the fens, Tacitus with disgust notes the general low level of their development, in particular, pointing out the absence of horses in them.

As for the presence of appropriating branches of the economy among the Germans, Tacitus also mentioned in his work that "when they do not wage wars, they hunt a lot." However, no further details about this follow. Tacitus does not mention fishing at all, although he often focused on the fact that many Germans lived along the banks of rivers.

Tacitus singled out the Aestii tribe in particular, narrating that “they rummage both the sea and on the coast, and on the shallows they are the only ones of all who collect amber, which they themselves call eye. But the question of its nature and how it arises, they, being barbarians, did not ask and know nothing about it; for for a long time he lay with everything that the sea throws up, until the passion for luxury gave him a name. They themselves do not use it in any way; they collect it natural form, deliver to our merchants in the same raw and, to their amazement, receive a price for it. However, in this case, Tacitus was wrong: even in the Stone Age, long before establishing relations with the Romans, the Aestii collected amber and made all kinds of jewelry from it.

In this way, economic activity The Germans represented a combination of agriculture, possibly shifting, with settled cattle breeding. However, agricultural activity did not play such a big role and was not as prestigious as cattle breeding. Agriculture was mainly the lot of women, children and the elderly, while strong men were engaged in livestock, which played a significant role not only in the economic system, but also in the regulation interpersonal relationships in German society. I would especially like to note that the Germans widely used horses in their economy. A small role in economic activity was played by slaves, whose situation can hardly be described as difficult. Sometimes the economy was directly influenced by natural conditions, as, for example, among the Germanic tribe of the Aestii.

2. The economic structure of the ancient Germans

In this chapter, we will study the economic activities of the ancient Germanic tribes. The economy, and the economy in general, are closely related to social life tribes. As we know from the training course, the economy is the economic activity of society, as well as the totality of relations that develop in the system of production, distribution, exchange and consumption.

Characteristics of the economic system of the ancient Germans in the representation

historians of different schools and directions was extremely contradictory: from the primitive nomadic life to the developed arable farming. Caesar, having caught the Suebi during their migration, quite definitely says: the Suebi were attracted by the fertile arable lands of Gaul; the words of the leader of the Suebi, Ariovistus, which he cites that his people had not had a roof over their heads for fourteen years (De bell. Gall., I, 36), rather testifies to a violation of the habitual way of life of the Germans, which under normal conditions, apparently, was settled. Indeed, having settled in Gaul, the Suebi took away a third of the lands from its inhabitants, then claimed the second third. Caesar’s words that the Germans “are not zealous in cultivating the land” cannot be understood in such a way that agriculture is generally alien to them - simply the culture of agriculture in Germany was inferior to the culture of agriculture in Italy, Gaul and other parts of the Roman state.

Textbook famous saying Caesar about the Suebi: “Their land is not divided and is not privately owned, and they cannot stay more than a year

in the same place for cultivating the land, ”a number of researchers were inclined to interpret in such a way that the Roman commander encountered this tribe during the period of his conquest of foreign territory and that the military-migration movement of huge masses of the population created an exceptional situation, which necessarily led to a significant "distortion" of their traditional agricultural way of life. No less widely known are the words of Tacitus: "They change the arable land every year and there is still a field." These words are seen as evidence of the existence of a shifting system of land use among the Germans, in which arable land had to be systematically abandoned so that the soil, depleted by extensive cultivation, could restore its fertility. The descriptions of the nature of Germany by ancient authors also served as an argument against the theory of the nomadic life of the Germans. If the country was either an endless virgin forest, or was swampy (Germ., 5), then there was simply no room for nomadic pastoralism. True, a closer reading of Tacitus' narratives about the wars of the Roman generals in Germany shows that the forests were used by its inhabitants not for settlement, but as shelters, where they hid their belongings and their families when the enemy approached, as well as for ambushes, from where they suddenly attacked on the Roman legions, not accustomed to war in such conditions. The Germans settled in glades, on the edge of the forest, near streams and rivers (Germ., 16), and not in the forest thicket.

This deformation was expressed in the fact that the war gave rise to "state socialism" among the Suebi - their rejection of private ownership of land. Consequently, the territory of Germany at the beginning of our era was not completely covered with primeval forest, and Tacitus himself, drawing a very stylized picture of its nature, immediately admits that the country is "fertile for crops", although "it is not suitable for growing fruit trees" (Germ ., 5).

Archeology of settlements, inventory and cartography of finds of things and burials, paleobotanical data, soil studies showed that settlements on the territory of ancient Germany were distributed extremely unevenly, isolated enclaves separated by more or less extensive "voids". These uninhabited spaces in that era were entirely forested. Landscape Central Europe in the first centuries of our era was not forest-steppe, but

predominantly forest. The fields near the settlements separated from each other were small - human habitats were surrounded by forest, although it was already partly sparse or completely reduced by industrial activity. In general, it must be emphasized that the old idea of ​​the hostility of the ancient forest to man, whose economic life allegedly could unfold exclusively outside the forests, did not receive support in modern science. On the contrary, this economic life found its essential premises and conditions in the forests. The opinion about the negative role of the forest in the life of the Germans was dictated by the trust of historians in the statement of Tacitus that they supposedly had little iron. From this it followed that they were powerless before nature and could not exert an active influence either on the forests surrounding them or on the soil. However, Tacitus was mistaken in this case. Archaeological finds testify to the prevalence of iron mining among the Germans, which provided them with the tools necessary for clearing forests and plowing the soil, as well as weapons.

With the clearing of forests for arable land, old settlements were often abandoned for reasons that are difficult to ascertain. Perhaps the movement of the population to new places was caused by climatic changes (around the beginning of a new era in Central and Northern Europe there was some cooling), but another explanation is not ruled out: the search for better soils. At the same time, it is necessary not to lose sight of the social reasons for the inhabitants to leave their settlements - wars, invasions, internal troubles. So, the end of the settlement in the Hodde area (Western Jutland) was marked by a fire. Almost all the villages discovered by archaeologists on the islands of Öland and Gotland died from a fire during the era of the Great Migration. These fires are possibly the result of political events unknown to us. The study of traces of fields found in Jutland, which were cultivated in antiquity, showed that these fields were located mainly in places cleared from under the forest. In many areas of settlement of the Germanic peoples, a light plow or coxa was used - a tool that did not turn over a layer of soil (apparently, such an arable tool is also depicted on the rock carvings of Scandinavia of the Bronze Age: it is driven by a team of oxen. In the northern parts of the continent in the last centuries before the beginning of our era a heavy plow with a moldboard and a plowshare appears, such a plow was an essential condition for raising clay soils, and its introduction into agriculture is regarded as scientific literature as a revolutionary innovation, indicating an important step towards the intensification of arable farming. Climate change(a decrease in the average annual temperature) led to the need to build more permanent dwellings. In the houses of this period (they are better studied in the northern regions of the settlement of the Germanic peoples, in Friesland, Lower Germany, in Norway, on the island of Gotland and to a lesser extent in Central Europe, along with housing premises, there were stalls for keeping domestic animals in the winter. These so-called long houses (from 10 to 30 m long by 4-7 m wide) belonged to a firmly settled population.While in the pre-Roman Iron Age, the population occupied light soils for cultivation, starting from the last centuries BC, it began to move to heavier soils.This transition was made possible by the spread of iron tools and the associated progress in tillage, forest clearing, and construction.A typical "original" form of German settlements, according to the unanimous opinion of modern specialists, was farms, consisting of several houses , or individual estates. They were small "cores" that gradually grew. lok Esinge near Groningen. On the site of the original courtyard, a small village has grown here.

On the territory of Jutland, traces of fields were found, which date back to the period starting from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. and up to the 4th c. AD Such fields have been cultivated for several generations. These lands were eventually abandoned due to leaching of the soil, which led to

diseases and deaths of livestock.

The distribution of settlement finds on the territory occupied by the Germanic peoples is extremely uneven. As a rule, these finds were found in the northern part of the German range, which is explained by favorable conditions for the preservation of material remains in the coastal regions of Lower Germany and the Netherlands, as well as in Jutland and on the islands of the Baltic Sea - in the southern regions of Germany, such conditions were absent. It arose on a low artificial embankment erected by the inhabitants in order to avoid the threat of flooding - such "residential hills" were poured and restored from generation to generation in the coastal zone of Friesland and Lower Germany, which attracted the population with meadows that favored cattle breeding. Under the numerous layers of earth and manure, which were compressed over the centuries, the remains of wooden dwellings and various items. The "long houses" in Esing had both rooms with a hearth intended for housing and stalls for livestock. At the next stage, the settlement increased to about fourteen large courtyards, built radially around a free area. This settlement existed since the IV-III centuries. BC. until the end of the Empire. The layout of the settlement gives grounds to believe that its inhabitants formed a kind of community, whose tasks, apparently, included the construction and strengthening of the "residential hill". In many ways, a similar picture was given by the excavations of the village of Feddersen Virde, located on the territory between the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe, north of the present Bremerhaven (Lower Saxony). This settlement existed from the 1st century. BC. until the 5th century AD And here the same “long houses” are open, which are typical for the German settlements of the Iron Age. As in Oesing, in Feddersen Wierde the houses were arranged radially. The settlement grew from a small farm to approximately 25 estates of various sizes and, apparently, unequal material well-being. It is assumed that during the period of greatest expansion, the village was inhabited by 200 to 250 inhabitants. Along with agriculture and cattle breeding, handicrafts played a prominent role among the occupations of a part of the village population. Other settlements studied by archaeologists were not built according to any plan - cases of radial planning, like Esinge and Feddersen Wirde, are possibly due to specific natural conditions and were the so-called cumulus villages. However, few large villages have been found. Common forms of settlements were, as already mentioned, a small farm or a separate yard. Unlike villages, isolated farms had a different “life span” and continuity in time: one or two centuries after their foundation, such a single settlement could disappear, but some time later a new farm arose in the same place.

Noteworthy are the words of Tacitus that the Germans arrange villages “not in our way” (that is, not in the way that was customary among the Romans) and “cannot stand their dwellings touching each other; they settle at a distance from each other and randomly, where they liked a stream, or a clearing, or a forest. The Romans, who were accustomed to living in close quarters and saw it as a kind of norm, must have been struck by the tendency of the barbarians to live in individual, scattered homesteads, a trend confirmed by archaeological research. These data are consistent with the indications of historical linguistics. In Germanic dialects, the word "dorf" ("dorp, baurp, thorp") meant both a group settlement and a separate estate; what was essential was not this opposition, but the opposition "fenced" - "unfenced". Experts believe that the concept of "group settlement" developed from the concept of "estate". However, the radially built agrarian settlement of Eketorp on the island of Öland was apparently surrounded by a wall for defense reasons. The existence of "circular" settlements on the territory of Norway, some researchers explain the needs of the cult.

Archeology confirms the assumption that the characteristic direction of the development of settlements was the expansion of the original separate estate or farm into a village. Together with the settlements, they acquired constancy and economic forms. This is evidenced by the study of traces of early Iron Age fields found in Jutland, Holland, inner Germany, the British Isles, the islands of Gotland and Öland, Sweden and Norway. They are usually called "ancient fields" - oldtidsagre, fornakrar (or digevoldingsagre - "fields fenced with ramparts") or "fields of the Celtic type. They are associated with settlements whose inhabitants cultivated them from generation to generation. The remains of pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age fields on the territory of Jutland have been studied in particular detail. These fields were plots in the form of irregular rectangles. The margins were either wide and short or long and narrow; judging by the preserved traces of tillage, the former were plowed up and down, as it is supposed, with a primitive plow, which had not yet turned over the earth layer, but cut and crumbled it, while the latter were plowed in one direction, and here a plow with a mouldboard was used. It is possible that both varieties of the plow were used at the same time. Each section of the field was separated from the neighboring ones by an unplowed boundary - stones collected from the field were piled on these boundaries, and the natural movement of the soil along the slopes and the dust deposits that settled on the weeds at the boundaries from year to year created low, wide boundaries separating one plot. from another. The boundaries were large enough so that the farmer could drive along with a plow and a team of draft animals to his plot without damaging the neighboring allotments. There is no doubt that these allotments were in long-term use. The area of ​​the studied "ancient fields" varies from 2 to 100 hectares, but there are fields reaching an area of ​​up to 500 hectares; the area of ​​individual plots in the fields - from 200 to 7000 square meters. m. The inequality of their sizes and the lack of a single standard for the site indicate, according to the famous Danish archaeologist G. Hatt, who is the main merit in the study of "ancient fields", the absence of redistribution of land. In a number of cases, it can be established that new boundaries arose inside the enclosed space, so that the plot turned out to be divided into two or more (up to seven) more or less equal shares.

Individual fenced fields adjoined homesteads in the "cumulus village" on Gotland (excavations at Vallhagar); on the island of Öland (near the coast

Southern Sweden) fields belonging to individual farms were fenced off from the plots of neighboring estates with stone embankments and border paths. These settlements with fields date back to the era of the Great Migration. Similar fields have also been studied in mountainous Norway. The location of the plots and the isolated nature of their cultivation give researchers reason to believe that in the Iron Age agricultural settlements studied so far, there was no striping or any other communal routines that would find their expression in the system of fields. The discovery of traces of such "ancient fields" leaves no doubt that agriculture among the peoples of Central and Northern Europe dates back to the pre-Roman period.

However, in cases where there was a shortage of arable land (as on the North Frisian island of Sylt), small farms that separated from the "big families" had to reunite. Consequently, residence was sedentary and more intense than previously thought. It remained so in the first half of the 1st millennium AD.

From crops barley, oats, wheat, rye were bred. It was in the light of these discoveries, made possible as a result of the improvement of archaeological technology, that the groundlessness of the statements of ancient authors regarding the characteristics of agriculture of the northern barbarians became finally clear. From now on, the researcher of the agrarian system of the ancient Germans stands on the solid ground of established and repeatedly attested facts, and does not depend on the unclear and scattered statements of narrative monuments, the tendentiousness and bias of which cannot be eliminated. In addition, if the messages of Caesar and Tacitus in general could only concern the Rhine regions of Germany, where the Romans penetrated, then, as already mentioned, traces of the “ancient fields” were found throughout the territory of the settlement of Germanic tribes - from Scandinavia to continental Germany; their dating is pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age.

Similar fields were cultivated in Celtic Britain. Hutt draws other, more far-reaching conclusions from the data he has collected. He proceeds from the fact of long-term cultivation of the same land areas and the absence of indications of communal routines and redistribution of arable land in the settlements that he studied. Since land use clearly had individual character, and the new boundaries within the plots testify, in his opinion, to the division of ownership between the heirs, then there was private ownership of the land. Meanwhile, in the same territory in the following era - in medieval Danish rural communities - forced crop rotation was used, collective agricultural work was carried out and the inhabitants resorted to remeasurements and redistribution of plots. It is impossible, in the light of new discoveries, to regard these communal agrarian practices as "original" and to trace back to deep antiquity - they are the product of medieval development proper. We can agree with the last conclusion. In Denmark, development supposedly went from the individual to the collective, and not vice versa. The thesis about private ownership of land among the Germanic peoples at the turn of the BC. established itself in the latest Western historiography. Therefore, it is necessary to dwell on this issue. Historians who studied the problem of the agrarian system of the Germans in the period preceding these discoveries, even attaching great importance to arable farming, nevertheless tended to think about its extensive nature and assumed a shifting (or fallow) system associated with a frequent change of arable land. Back in 1931, at the initial stage of research, for Jutland alone, “ancient fields” were recorded. However, traces of the "ancient fields" have not been found anywhere for the time after the Great Migration of Peoples. The conclusions of other researchers regarding ancient agricultural settlements, field systems and farming methods are extremely important. However, the question of whether the duration of the cultivation of the land and the presence of boundaries between the plots testifies to the existence of individual ownership of the land is unlawful to decide with the help of only those means that the archaeologist has at his disposal. Social relations, especially property relations, are projected onto archaeological material in a very one-sided and incomplete way, and the plans of the ancient Germanic fields do not yet reveal the secrets. social order their owners. The absence of redistribution and a system of leveling plots in itself hardly gives us an answer to the question: what were the real rights to the fields of their farmers? After all, it is quite possible to admit - and a similar assumption was expressed. That such a system of land use, as is drawn in the study of the "ancient fields" of the Germans, was associated with the property of large families. The "long houses" of the early Iron Age are considered by a number of archaeologists precisely as the dwellings of large families, house communities. But the ownership of land by members of a large family is extremely far from individual in nature. The study of Scandinavian material relating to the early Middle Ages showed that even the division of the economy between small families united in a house community did not lead to the separation of plots into their private property. To resolve the issue of real rights to land from their farmers, it is necessary to involve completely different sources than archeological data. Unfortunately, for the early iron age there are no such sources, and retrospective inferences drawn from later legal records would be too risky. However, a more general question arises: what was the attitude of the man of the era we are studying to cultivated land? For there is no doubt that, in the final analysis, the right to property reflected both the practical attitude of the tiller of the land to the subject of the application of his labor, and certain comprehensive attitudes, the “model of the world” that existed in his mind. Archaeological material testifies that the inhabitants of Central and Northern Europe were by no means inclined to frequently change their places of residence and lands under cultivation (the impression of the ease with which they abandoned arable land is created only when reading Caesar and Tacitus), - for many generations they inhabited all the same farms and villages, cultivating their fields enclosed by ramparts. They had to leave their habitual places only due to natural or social disasters: due to the depletion of arable land or pastures, the inability to feed the increased population, or under the pressure of warlike neighbors. The norm was a close, strong connection with the land - a source of livelihood. The German, like any other person of archaic society, was directly included in natural rhythms, formed a single whole with nature and saw in the land on which he lived and worked his organic continuation, just as he was organically connected with his family. - tribal team. It must be assumed that the relation to reality of a member of barbarian society was comparatively weakly divided, and it would be premature to speak of the right to property here. Law was only one of the aspects of a single undifferentiated worldview and behavior - an aspect that highlights modern analytical thought, but which in the real life of ancient people was closely and directly related to their cosmology, beliefs, myth. That the inhabitants of an ancient settlement near Grantoft Fede (western Jutland) changed their location over time is the exception rather than the rule; in addition, the duration of habitation in the houses of this settlement is about a century. Linguistics is able to help us to some extent restore the idea of ​​the Germanic peoples about the world and about the place of man in it. In the Germanic languages, the world inhabited by people was designated as the "middle court": midjungar Is ( Gothic), middangeard (OE), mi ðgary r (Old Norse), mittingart, mittilgart (Other - Upper German). Gar ðr, gart, geard - "a place surrounded by a fence." The world of people was perceived as well-organized, i.e. a fenced, protected "place in the middle", and the fact that this term is found in all Germanic languages ​​\u200b\u200bis evidence of the antiquity of such a concept. Another component of the cosmology and mythology of the Germans associated with it was utgar ðr - "what is outside the fence", and this outer space was perceived as the seat of evil and hostile forces to people, as the realm of monsters and giants. Opposition mi ðgarðr -utg aryr gave the defining coordinates of the whole picture of the world, culture resisted chaos. The term heimr (Old Norse; cf.: Goth haims, OE ham, OE Frisian ham, hem, OE Saxon, hem, OE High German heim), occurring again However, mainly in a mythological context, it meant both “peace”, “homeland”, and “house”, “dwelling”, “fenced estate”. Thus, the world, cultivated and humanized, was modeled after the house and the estate.

Another term that cannot fail to attract the attention of a historian who analyzes the relationship of the Germans to the land is oð al. Again, there are correspondences to this Old Norse term in Gothic (haim - obli), Old English (about ð e;, ea ð ele), Old High German (uodal, uodil), Old Frisian (ethel), Old Saxon (o il). Odal, as it turns out from a study of medieval Norwegian and Icelandic monuments, is a hereditary family property, land, in fact, inalienable outside the collective of relatives. But "odal" was called not only arable land, which was in the permanent and stable possession of the family group - this was also the name of the "homeland". Odal is a “patrimony”, “fatherland” both in a narrow and in broad sense. A man saw his fatherland where his father and ancestors lived and where he himself lived and worked; patrimonium was perceived as patria, and the microcosm of his homestead was identified with the inhabited world as a whole. But then it turns out that the concept of “odal” was related not only to the land on which the family lives, but also to its owners themselves: the term “odal” was akin to a group of concepts that expressed innate qualities in the Germanic languages: nobility, generosity, nobility of the face (a ðal, aeðel, ethel, adal, eðel, adel, aeðelingr, oðlingr). Moreover, nobleness and nobility here should be understood not in the spirit of medieval aristocracy, inherent or attributed only to representatives of the social elite, but as descent from free ancestors, among whom there are no slaves or freedmen, therefore, as full rights, full freedom, personal independence. Referring to a long and glorious pedigree, the German proved at the same time both his nobility and his rights to the land, since in fact one was inextricably linked with the other. Odal was nothing more than the generosity of a person, transferred to land ownership and rooted in it. A Alborinn ("well-born", "noble") was a synonym for o Alborinn (“a person born with the right to inherit and own ancestral land”). Descent from free and noble ancestors "ennobled" the land owned by their descendant, and, conversely, the possession of such land could increase the social status of the owner. According to Scandinavian mythology, the world of gods-aces also represented a fenced estate - asgarar. Land for a German is not just an object of possession; he was connected with her by many close ties, including not least psychological, emotional. This is evidenced by the cult of fertility, to which the Germans attached great importance, and the worship of their "mother earth", and the magical rituals that they resorted to when occupying land spaces. The fact that we learn about many aspects of their relationship to the land from later sources can hardly cast doubt on the fact that this was also the case at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. and even earlier. The main thing, apparently, is that he who cultivated the land ancient man did not see and could not see in her a soulless object that can be manipulated instrumentally; between the human group and the piece of soil cultivated by it, there was no abstract relationship "subject - object". Man was included in nature and was in constant interaction with it; this was also the case in the Middle Ages, and this statement is all the more true in relation to ancient German times. But the connection of the farmer with his plot did not contradict the high mobility of the population of Central Europe throughout this era. In the end, the movements of human groups and entire tribes and tribal unions were dictated to a large extent by the need to take possession of arable land, i.e. the same relation of man to the earth, as to its natural continuation. Therefore, the recognition of the fact of the permanent possession of a plot of arable land, fenced with a boundary and a rampart and cultivated from generation to generation by members of the same family - a fact that emerges thanks to new archaeological discoveries - does not yet give any grounds for asserting that the Germans were at the turn of a new era were "private landowners". The use of the concept of “private property” in this case can only indicate a terminological confusion or an abuse of this concept. The man of the archaic era, regardless of whether he was a member of the community and obeyed its agrarian regulations or ran a household completely independently, was not a "private" owner. Between him and his land there was the closest organic bond: he owned the earth, but the earth "owned" him; the possession of an allotment must be understood here as the incomplete isolation of a person and his team from the “people - nature” system. When discussing the problem of the attitude of the ancient Germans to the land they inhabited and cultivated, it is apparently impossible to confine oneself to the traditional historiographical dilemma "private property - communal property". The Mark community among the Germanic barbarians was found by those scholars who relied on the words of Roman authors and considered it possible to trace back to hoary antiquity the communal routines discovered during the classical and late Middle Ages. In this regard, let us turn again to the all-German policy mentioned above.

The human sacrifices reported by Tacitus (Germ., 40) and which are attested by many archaeological finds are apparently also connected with the fertility cult. The goddess Nerthus, who, according to Tacitus, was worshiped by a number of tribes and which he interprets as Terra mater, apparently corresponded to Njord, the god of fertility, known from Scandinavian mythology.

When settling in Iceland, a person, occupying certain territory, had to go around it with a torch and light fires on its borders.

The inhabitants of the villages discovered by archaeologists, no doubt, carried out some kind of collective work: at least the construction and strengthening of "residential hills" in the flooded areas of the North Sea coast. On the possibility of community between individual farms in the Jutland village of Hodde. As we have seen, a dwelling surrounded by a fence forms, according to these ideas, mi ðgarðr, " middle courtyard”, a kind of center of the universe; around him stretches Utgard, the hostile world of chaos; it is simultaneously located somewhere far away, in uninhabited mountains and wastelands, and begins right there behind the fence of the estate. Opposition mi ðgarðr - utgarðr fully corresponds to the opposition of the concepts innan garðs - utangaris in medieval Scandinavian legal monuments; these are two types of possessions: “land located within the fence”, and “land outside the fence” - land allocated from

community fund. Thus, the cosmological model of the world was at the same time a real social model: the center of both was the household yard, house, estate - with the only essential difference that in the real life of the earth utangar Is, not being fenced, nevertheless they did not surrender to the forces of Chaos - they were used, they were essential for the peasant economy; however, the householder's rights to them are limited, and in case of violation of the latter, he received a lower compensation than for violation of his rights to lands located innangar Is. Meanwhile in the world-simulating consciousness of the earth utangar Is belong to Utgard. How to explain it? The picture of the world that emerges when studying the data of German linguistics and mythology, undoubtedly, developed in a very distant era, and the community was not reflected in it; "reference points" in the mythological picture of the world were a separate courtyard and house. This does not mean that the community was absent at that stage, but, apparently, the importance of the community among the Germanic peoples increased after their mythological consciousness developed a certain cosmological structure.

It is quite possible that the ancient Germans had large family groups, patronymics, close and branched relations of kinship and properties - integral structural units of the tribal system. At that stage of development, when the first news about the Germans appeared, it was natural for a person to seek help and support from his relatives, and he was hardly able to live outside such organically formed groups. However, the brand community is a formation of a different nature than the clan or extended family, and it is by no means necessarily associated with them. If there was some reality behind the gentes and cognationes of the Germans mentioned by Caesar, then most likely these are consanguineous associations. Any reading of the words of Tacitus: "agri pro numero cultorum ab universis vicinis (or: in vices, or: invices, invicem) occupantur, quos mox inter se secundum dignationem partiuntur" has always been and is doomed to continue to remain guesswork. To build on such a shaky foundation a picture of the ancient Germanic rural community is extremely risky.

Statements about the presence of a rural community among the Germans are based, in addition to the interpretation of the words of Caesar and Tacitus, on retrospective conclusions from material that belongs to the subsequent era. However, the transfer of medieval data on agriculture and settlements to antiquity is an operation hardly justified. First of all, one should not lose sight of the break in the history of German settlements noted above, associated with the movement of peoples in the 4th-6th centuries. After this era, there were both a change in the location of settlements and changes in the land use system. For the most part, the data on communal routines in the medieval mark go back to the period no earlier than the 12th-13th centuries; applied to initial period of the Middle Ages, such data are extremely scarce and controversial. It is impossible to put an equal sign between the Ancient community among the Germans and the medieval "classical" brand. This is clear from the few indications of communal ties between the inhabitants of the ancient German villages, which nevertheless exist. The radial structure of settlements such as Feddersen Virde is evidence that the population placed their houses and built roads based on a general plan. The struggle with the sea and the erection of "residential hills" on which villages were built also required the combined efforts of householders. It is likely that the grazing of cattle in the meadows was regulated by communal rules and that neighborhood relations led to some organization of the villagers. However, about the system of forced field orders (Flurzwang) in these settlements we have no information. The structure of the "ancient fields", the traces of which have been studied in the vast territory of the settlement of the ancient Germans, did not imply such a routine. There are no grounds for the hypothesis of the existence of "supreme ownership" of the community in arable land. When discussing the problem of the ancient Germanic community, one more circumstance must be taken into account. The question of the mutual rights of neighbors to land and the delimitation of these rights, their settlement arose when the population increased and the inhabitants of the village became crowded, and there were not enough new lands. Meanwhile, starting from the II-III centuries. AD and until the end of the Great Migration, there was a decline in the population of Europe, caused, in particular, by epidemics. Since a considerable part of the settlements in Germany were separate estates or farms, there was hardly any need for collective regulation of land use. The human unions in which members of the barbarian society united were, on the one hand, narrower than villages (large and small families, kindred groups), and on the other, wider (“hundreds”, “districts”, tribes, unions of tribes). Just as the German himself was far from becoming a peasant, the social groups in which he was located were not yet built on an agricultural, economic basis in general - they united relatives, family members, warriors, participants in gatherings, and not direct producers, while time as in medieval society peasants will be united precisely by rural communities that regulate the production agrarian order. On the whole, it must be admitted that the structure of the community among the ancient Germans is little known to us. Hence, those extremes that are often found in historiography: one, expressed in the complete denial of the community in the era under study (meanwhile, the inhabitants of the settlements studied by archaeologists, undoubtedly, were united by certain forms of community); the other extreme is the modeling of the ancient German community on the model of the medieval rural community-mark, generated by the conditions of later social and agrarian development. Perhaps a more correct approach to the problem of the German community would have been given the essential fact that in the economy of the inhabitants of non-Romanized Europe, with a strong sedentary population, cattle breeding still retained the leading role. Not the use of arable land, but the grazing of cattle in meadows, pastures and forests, apparently, should primarily affect the interests of neighbors and give rise to communal routines.

As Tacitus reports, Germany “cattle is plentiful, but for the most part small in stature; even working cattle are not imposing, nor can they boast of horns. The Germans like to have a lot of cattle: this is the only and most pleasant kind of wealth for them. This observation of the Romans who visited Germany is consistent with what is found in the remains of ancient settlements of the early Iron Age: an abundance of bones of domestic animals, indicating that the cattle were indeed undersized. As already noted, in the "long houses", in which the Germans mostly lived, along with the living quarters, there were stalls for livestock. Based on the size of these premises, it is believed that a large number of animals could be kept in the stalls, sometimes up to three or more dozen heads of cattle.

Cattle served the barbarians as a means of payment. Even in a later period, vira and other compensations could be paid by large and small livestock, and the very word fehu among the Germans meant not only “cattle”, but also “property”, “possession”, “money”. Hunting, judging by the archaeological finds, was not an essential occupation of the Germans, and the percentage of bones of wild animals is very insignificant in the total mass of remains of animal bones in the studied settlements. Obviously, the population satisfied their needs through agricultural activities. However, a study of the contents of the stomachs of corpses found in swamps (these people were apparently drowned as punishment for crimes or sacrificed) indicates that sometimes the population had to eat, in addition to cultivated plants, also weeds and wild plants. As already mentioned, the ancient authors, not sufficiently aware of the life of the population in Germania libera, argued that the country was poor in iron, which gave a character to the primitive picture of the economy of the Germans as a whole.Undoubtedly, the Germans lagged behind the Celts and Romans in the scale and technology of iron production.Nevertheless, archaeological studies have radically altered the picture drawn by Tacitus.Iron was mined everywhere in Central and Northern Europe in both the pre-Roman and Roman periods.

Iron ore was easily accessible due to its surface occurrence, in which it was quite possible to mine it in an open way. But underground iron mining already existed, and ancient adits and mines were found, as well as iron-smelting furnaces. German iron tools and other metal products, according to modern experts, were of good quality. Judging by the surviving "burials of blacksmiths", their social position in society was high.

If in the early Roman period the extraction and processing of iron remained, perhaps, still a rural occupation, then metallurgy is more and more clearly distinguished into an independent trade. Its centers are found in Schleswig-Holstein and Poland. Blacksmithing has become an important integral component of the German economy. Iron in the form of bars served as a trade item. But the processing of iron was also carried out in the villages. A study of the settlement of Fedderzen Virde showed that workshops were concentrated near the largest estate, where metal products were processed; it is possible that they were not only used to meet local needs, but were also sold to the outside. The words of Tacitus, that the Germans had few weapons made of iron and they rarely used swords and long spears, were also not confirmed in the light of archaeological finds. Swords were found in the rich burials of the nobility. Although spears and shields in the burials predominate over swords, still from 1/4 to 1/2 of all burials with weapons contain swords or their remains. In some areas up to

% of men were buried with iron weapons.

Also questioned is Tacitus' statement that armor and metal helmets are almost never found among the Germans. In addition to iron products necessary for the economy and war, German craftsmen were able to make jewelry from precious metals, vessels, household utensils, build boats and ships, wagons; textile industry took on various forms. The lively trade of Rome with the Germans served for the latter as a source of many products that they themselves did not possess: jewelry, vessels, jewelry, clothes, wine (they obtained Roman weapons in battle). Rome received from the Germans amber collected on the coast of the Baltic Sea, bull skins, cattle, mill wheels made of basalt, slaves (Tacitus and Ammianus Marcellinus mention the slave trade among the Germans). However, in addition to income from trade in Rome

German taxes and indemnities were received. The busiest exchange took place on the border between the empire and Germania libera, where Roman camps and urban settlements were located. However, Roman merchants also penetrated deep into Germany. Tacitus remarks that internal parts the country's food exchange flourished, while the money (Roman) was used by the Germans, who lived near the border with the empire (Germ., 5). This message is confirmed by archaeological finds: while Roman items have been found throughout the territory of the settlement of the Germanic tribes, right up to Scandinavia, Roman coins are found mainly in a relatively narrow strip along the border of the empire. In more remote areas (Scandinavia, Northern Germany), along with individual coins, there are pieces of silver items cut, possibly for use in exchange. The level of economic development was not uniform in different parts of Central and Northern Europe in the first centuries AD. Differences are especially noticeable between the interior regions of Germany and the areas adjacent to the "limes". Rhenish Germany, with its Roman cities and fortifications, paved roads and other elements of ancient civilization, had a significant impact on the tribes living nearby. In the settlements created by the Romans, the Germans also lived, adopting a new way of life for them. Here, their upper stratum learned Latin as the language of official use, and adopted new customs and religious cults. Here they got acquainted with viticulture and horticulture, with more perfect species crafts and money trade. Here they were included in social relations that had very little in common with the order within "free Germany".

Conclusion

culture tradition ancient german

Describing the culture of the ancient Germans, let us once again emphasize its historical value: it was on this “barbarian”, semi-primitive, archaic culture that many peoples of Western Europe grew up. The peoples of modern Germany, Great Britain, and Scandinavia owe their culture to the amazing fusion that the interaction of ancient Latin culture and ancient German culture brought.

Despite the fact that the ancient Germans were at a rather low level of development compared to their powerful neighbor, the Roman Empire (which, by the way, was defeated by these "barbarians"), and was just moving from a tribal system to a class system, the spiritual culture of the ancient Germanic tribes is of interest due to the richness of forms.

First of all, the religion of the ancient Germans, despite a number of archaic forms (primarily totemism, human sacrifice), provides rich material for studying the common Indo-Aryan roots in the religious beliefs of Europe and Asia, for drawing mythological parallels. Of course, in this field, future researchers will have hard work, since there are a lot of "blank spots" in this issue. In addition, there are many questions about the representativeness of sources. Therefore, this problem needs further development.

Much can also be emphasized from material culture and economics. Trade with the Germans gave their neighbors food, furs, weapons and, paradoxically, slaves. After all, since some of the Germans were valiant warriors, often making predatory raids, from which they brought with them both selected material values, and took a large number of people into slavery. This is what their neighbors did.

Finally, the artistic culture of the ancient Germans also awaits further research, primarily archaeological. Based on the data available to date, we can judge high level artistic craft, about how skillfully and originally the ancient Germans borrowed elements of the Roman and Black Sea style, etc. However, it is also undoubted that any question is fraught with limitless possibilities for its further study; that is why the author of this term paper considers this essay far from the last step in the study of the rich and ancient spiritual culture of the ancient Germans.

Bibliography

.Strabo. GEOGRAPHY in 17 books // M.: Ladomir, 1994. // Translation, article and comments by G.A. Stratanovsky under the general editorship of prof. S.L. Utchenko // Translation editor prof. O.O. Kruger./M.: "Ladomir", 1994.p. 772;

.Notes of Julius Caesar and his successors on the Gallic war, on civil war, about the Alexandrian war, about the African war // Translation and comments by acad. MM. Pokrovsky // Research Center "Ladomir" - "Science", M.1993.560 p.;

Cornelius Tacitus. Works in two volumes. Volume one. Annals. Small works // Iz-vo "Nauka", L.1970/634 p.;

G. Delbrück "History of military art within the framework of political history" vol. II "Science" "Juventa" St. Petersburg, 1994 Translated from German and notes by prof. IN AND. Avdieva. Published according to the publication: Delbrück G. "History of military art within the framework of political history." in 7 vols. M., Mrs. military Publishing house, 1936-1939, 564 pp.

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The territories of the settlement of the Germans and the territory of Germany itself changed, becoming either wider or narrower. Now it is one of the most compact territories after the 2nd World War.

From the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, iron products appeared. Plow, plow.

The main population of central and southern Germany is the Celts. Rivers: Rhine, Main, Weser - Celtic names. The Germanic ethnos originated to the north at the end of the Neolithic. 6th-1st centuries BC - The Germans evicted the Celts to the west and south. Ultimately, they inhabit the territories from the Rhine to the Vistula and from the Oder to the Danube, this is based only on the role of ancient monuments and archeology.

From 1500 - a conditional date - until 1900 - 400 years, you can use the same written sources. (It was meant that throughout this time the main sources were the same.) Strabo, Velleius Paterculus, Tacitus, Florus, etc.

Weapons of the ancient Germans. Photo: Arild Nybo

The very first mention of the tribes is clearly Germanic, but without a name - a certain Pytheus (Piteus) from Marseilles. Around 325 B.C. e. for merchant purposes to buy amber, he visited the coast of the North Sea. He has preserved information about the tribes that mine amber there. He writes that there are tribes, unfamiliar, unlike the Gauls.

Collisions with the Germans lead to the appearance detailed descriptions. The first two are Pliny the Elder. An essay about the soldiers of Germanicus that has not come down to us. It was 6 years after 9 years - a punitive campaign - to take revenge on the Germans for the defeat. The main work is the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. The fourth book on the geography of Europe. Detailed outline of Germany.

98 after Pliny - Tacitus. Wrote an ethnogeographical essay on the location and population of Germany.

Late 2nd century BC Numerous Germanic tribes from the territory of Jutland for the first time invaded the Roman Empire. They headed for the Danube, then turned towards Gaul, Spain, and only in 102-101 BC. e. under the leadership of Gaius Marius managed to defeat them. This fear has been documented in the sources. The name of the Teutonic tribe began to be transferred to all Germanic tribes. Tacitus gives different names for the tribes, but in everyday speech, all Germans were called Teutons. Even in Russia - " Warband". Tacitus Germany - a topos of description of the Germans. Features of the natural conditions of Germany. Impenetrable taiga. Huge primary forests. The very process of developing these forests was laborious. An intensified struggle for living space.

20th century. Problem: who are the Cimbri and who are the Teutons. Are the Cimbri Germans too? Perhaps this is the general stream of those who walked with the Germans - the Celtic tribes.

Caesar (another source) writes: "Suebi" - tribes who fought with the Gauls. Two digressions about who these Sueves are. There are a huge number of them. 100,000 people per year. They are replaced by 100,000 others. They don't fight like the Celts. They push the wagons forward, stand in front of the wagons and fight to the last. Behind the wagons are women and children, and the children are shown to the warriors if they retreat.

Knowledge about the Germans has changed since the end of the 19th century. Tacitus believed that there was not enough iron in Germany. However, over time, the remains of smelting furnaces were found. The ore is of poor quality, by today's standards. Obtained locally. Surveys of large areas of the territory confirmed that German settlements were often far apart. The name "Germany" is still not clear - either from the Celtic neighbors, or from the names of local tribes.

Economic system: already in the 1st century they led a sedentary lifestyle. Migration - due to foreign policy complications, as well as due to climate fluctuations and demographic growth. The most developed tribes lived on the borders of the empire, along the Rhine and Danube. As they moved away from the Roman borders, the level of civilization fell.

The main branch of the economy is cattle breeding. Cattle, sheep, pigs. Agriculture is in the background, but not much inferior to cattle breeding. The exploitation of cleared and permanently used sites prevailed. They used a plow or a plow (depending on whether the soil was stony or not). Gradually spreading double field with alternating spring and winter crops, less often - cereals with legumes or flax. Hunting was no longer of great importance (more fishing).

There was no lack of iron, contrary to Tacitus' report. Gold, silver, copper, and lead were mined. Weaving, woodworking, leather dressing, and jewelry are well developed. Trade with the Romans was important. Natural exchange prevailed. The Germans were supplied with slaves, cattle, leather, furs, amber, they themselves bought fabrics, ceramics, jewelry, wine.

"Handicraft production was relatively poorly developed: Tacitus noted that the armament of the majority consisted of a shield and a spear with a short tip (framei); swords, helmets and shells had a select few. The Germans, including women, wore a short linen cape, trousers could only the wealthiest could afford it, and clothing was also made from the skins of wild animals. sea ​​vessels but did not use the sail. This information about the Germans belongs to the 1st century.

Archaeological research complements the evidence of ancient historians. The Germans usually used a light plow to loosen the soil, but also by the beginning of AD. e. a heavy plow with a moldboard and a plowshare appears. German iron tools, according to modern experts, were of good quality. The dwellings were long houses 10–30 m long and 4–7 m wide, including a stall for keeping livestock in the winter. The walls are made of wattle plastered with clay, supported by pillars.

According to Tacitus, the Germans cannot stand that their dwellings touch. They live at a distance from each other. The population density is low. Dwellings - high elongated buildings up to 200 square meters in size. m, designed for 2-3 dozen people. In bad weather, they also kept livestock. Around were fields and pastures. When the houses were close, the fields or their plots were separated by stones, which were removed from the fields when plowed.

Continental Germans. A single people of common origin - but in reality there was no linguistic or political unity. tribal conglomerate. Suebi, Vandals, Gutons, Bavarians, Cherusci, etc.

The Germans of the time of Tacitus do not know the state and live in a tribal system. The genus is a structure-forming element. Germanic: 6-7 generations of relatives. 2 aspects: genus - a real social organism, 1-2-3 hundreds of people, but also a virtual concept - ancestors, descendants. Belonging to the family influenced the reputation. The property of archaic communities is the sum of local communities. Know - nobilis. The dignity of the leader is received either by an experienced warrior, or by a very young man from an outstanding noble family. The tribal origin was fueled by pagan religion. Traces of totemism are visible in proper names. Name - "code of fate". Very little is known about the religion of the continental Germans. Paganism is not a bookish religion, it is non-systematic, it is a set of separate practices. Genus is the basis of self-consciousness. Rod - acts as a military unit. as the basis of the militia. Genus - as the only guarantor of life, honor, property of a person in a society deprived of statehood.

With all the importance of the family, the institution of the family is no less important. The Germans of the era of Tacitus do not represent an indivisible primitive unity. Family - Sippe. Determined by belonging to a single household. At the heart of the principle of space development is a farm. The village is present very little. Wooden fortified settlement. In the first centuries A.D. The clan still played a big role in the life of the Germans. Its members settled, if not together, then compactly. But in everyday economic practice, the clan was no longer together, the large family was the main production unit of German society, so neighborly ties prevailed over blood ties, regardless of whether the inhabitants of the settlement came from a common ancestor or not. The functioning of the community depended little on the organization of agriculture, the reasons being the low population density, a lot of free land, the dominance of primitive farming systems. Collective work and actions were of great importance: protection from enemies, predatory animals, construction of fortifications, etc. But primary education is the work of a community member in his household. The ancient Germanic community is an association of independently leading households of large families. The head of the family had a decisive voice in all matters. The social status of a German was primarily determined by the status of his family, which depended not only on wealth, but on the number, pedigree and general reputation of the family and clan as a whole. The combination of these features determined the degree of nobility. Nobility gave many privileges, although it was not yet a special social status. The difference between the free and the unfree: with age, the free person acquires full rights, and the slave - like a child even in old age - in the sense of rights. Unlike the Romans, slaves receive a separate area for processing. The master is paid something like quitrent. A freedman and a slave are almost the same thing.

Women have many rights. Tacitus is surprised by certain customs. Women have the gift of divination. That is, a woman is higher than in Roman society. Because men are warriors, they spend all their time on campaigns - women have more functions and a higher status.

The absence of a state - every full member of the tribe is involved in governance. The highest authority is the assembly of the tribe (ting), to which all adult males had access. The meeting was convened at least once a year to address various issues (issues of war and peace, court, initiation into warriors, nomination of leaders) Tacitus calls the leaders principles. Caesar sees in this the semblance of a senate. It's like a council of elders, only made up of tribal nobility.

The two main military institutions are:

Tribal militias - units organized along kinship lines

Chief - described in detail by Tacitus - retinue

Together with the collective power, there was the individual power of the tribal leaders. Ancient authors call them differently: princeps, dux, archon, hegemon. Most often translated into Russian as "king". The most correct term is king. The king is a well-born, noble, noble and, because of this, a person worthy of respect and obedience, but by no means a ruler or master. The king persuaded by example rather than ordered. The king was the military leader of the tribe, his representative in international affairs, had the right to gifts, advantages in the division of military booty. But he was not a judge and had no administrative power. Performed sacred functions. He played an important role in the performance of divination and sacrifices. The king was chosen by lot or by the conscious choice of those present.

Team leaders. Druzhina are unrelated, random people who joined some lucky warrior in order to try their luck in military affairs. There was a hierarchy inside the squad, the position in it was determined not so much by nobility as by valor. All contradictions in the squad were obscured by devotion to the leader. To him belonged glory and prey.

All expensive items among the Germans are the results of predatory raids. Tacitus: The Germans go to the squad just to eat. The squad expects everything from the leader: what will arm, what will give war horses. Druzhina - a gang - a group created for predatory raids. The German elite, striving to maintain a high position, must increase its positive reputation, supporting it with successful military raids. Personal reputation plays a huge role here. the most important thing is good fame

Vigilantes are not soldiers. Their leaders are not officers. The warrior comes and goes when he wants, and only to the leader with sufficient reputation. The power of the leader is built on charismatic foundations. It is considered a disgrace to survive in a battle in which the leader fell. The leader can lead by example.

For the Germans, military meetings are important. The armed men are seated; the meeting is led by priests; the reaction is indicated by shouts and frames raised up. The most distinguished are the first to speak: priests, kings, elders. Judicial issues are being resolved. The system, however, does not involve voting - evidence of the weakness of government institutions

Direct contact with the empire will play a significant role in the evolution of the barbarians. Changes in climatic and other nature will cause a great migration of peoples.



The Germans are the ancient tribes of the Indo-European language group, who lived by the 1st century. BC e. between the North and Baltic Seas, the Rhine, Danube and Vistula and in Southern Scandinavia. In the 4th-6th centuries. the Germans played a major role in the great migration of peoples, captured most of the Western Roman Empire, forming a number of kingdoms - the Visigoths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Burgundians, Franks, Lombards.

Nature

The lands of the Germans were endless forests interspersed with rivers, lakes and swamps.

Lessons

The main occupations of the ancient Germans were agriculture and cattle breeding. They also engaged in hunting, fishing and gathering. Their occupation was both war and the booty associated with it.

Means of transport

The Germans had horses, but in small numbers and in their training, the Germans did not achieve noticeable success. They also had carts. Some Germanic tribes had a fleet - small ships.

Architecture

The ancient Germans, who had just switched to settled life, did not create significant architectural structures, they did not even have cities. The Germans did not even have temples - religious rites were carried out in sacred groves. The dwellings of the Germans were made of raw wood and covered with clay, underground storerooms were dug out for supplies.

Warfare

The Germans mostly fought in on foot. The cavalry was in small numbers. Their weapons were short spears (frames) and darts. Wooden shields were used for protection. Only the nobility had swords, armor and helmets.

Sport

The Germans played dice, considering it a serious occupation, and so enthusiastically that they often lost everything to their opponent, up to their own freedom at stake, in case of a loss, such a player became the slave of the winner. It is also known about one ritual - young men in front of the audience jumped among swords and spears dug into the ground, showing their own strength and dexterity. The Germans also had something like gladiator fights - a captured enemy fought one on one with a German. However, this spectacle was basically a fortune-telling - the victory of one or another opponent was seen as an omen of the outcome of the war.

Art and literature

Writing was unknown to the Germans. Therefore, literature existed with them in oral. Art was applied. The religion of the Germans forbade giving the gods a human appearance, so areas such as sculpture and painting were undeveloped among them.

The science

Science among the ancient Germans was not developed and was of an applied nature. The household calendar of the Germans divided the year into only two seasons - winter and summer. More accurate astronomical knowledge was possessed by the priests, who used it to calculate the time of the holidays. Because of the predilection for military affairs, the ancient Germans probably had quite developed medicine - however, not at the level of theory, but exclusively in terms of practice.

Religion

The religion of the ancient Germans was of a polytheistic nature, in addition, each Germanic tribe, apparently, had its own cults. Religious rites were performed by priests in sacred groves. Divination was widely used, especially rune divination. There were sacrifices, including human ones.