Editing Geats (section)

==History==
{| align="right"
|[[File:Beowulf - Geata.jpg|143px|Geata]] [[File:Beowulf - Sae Geata.jpg|165px|Sae Geata]] [[File:Beowulf - Wedera.jpg|132px|Wedera]]
|-
|Mentions of Geats, Sea-Geats and Wederas in the manuscript of ''Beowulf''.
|}

===Early history===
The earliest known surviving mention of the Geats appears in [[Ptolemy]] (2nd century AD), who refers to them as ''Goutai''. In the 6th century, [[Jordanes]] writes of the ''Gautigoths'' and ''Ostrogoths'' (the Ostrogoths of [[Scandza]]); and [[Procopius]] refers to ''Gautoi''. The Norse [[Sagas]] know them as ''Gautar''; ''[[Beowulf]]'' and ''[[Widsith]]'' as ''Gēatas''.<ref>
Michael Alexander's 1995 (Penguin Classics) edition of ''Beowulf'' mentions a variant: ''Gēotas''</ref> ''Beowulf'' and the [[Norse saga]]s name several [[Geatish kings]], but only [[Hygelac]] finds confirmation in ''Liber Monstrorum'' where he is referred to as "Rex Getarum" and in a copy of ''Historiae Francorum'' where he is called "Rege Gotorum". These sources concern a raid into [[Frisia]], ca 516, which is also described in ''Beowulf''. C. 551, some decades after Hygelac's raid, Jordanes described the Geats as a nation which was "bold, and quick to engage in war".<ref name="larsson0443">{{Cite book|last=Larsson|first=Mats G. |year=2004|title=Götarnas riken |publisher=Atlantis |place=Stockholm|pages= 43 }}</ref>

The [[Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain]] included many North Germanic people who were losers in the brutal tribal warfare of Scandinavia. The place-name ''-gate'' marks the site of Geatish settlement, often alongside strategically important [[Roman roads]] and nearby [[Visigoths|Visigothic]] and/or [[Jutes|Jutish]] settlements.<ref>Margary, Ivan D. (1973). Roman Roads in Britain, 3rd ed. London: Baker.</ref> Defeated Jutes like Hengest and his brother Horsa fled to Kent, while Geats defeated by encroaching [[Swedes (tribe)|Swedes]] moved to [[Yorkshire]] where they founded [[Gillingshire]] by the [[River Tees|Tees]], originally the settlement of the ''Geatlings''.<ref name="shippey">{{Cite book|last=Shippey|first=Tom |year=2018|title=Laughing Shall I Die |publisher=Reaction Books Limited|place=London|isbn=978-1-78023-909-5|pages=56 }}</ref> It has also been suggested that East Anglia was settled by Geats at this time,<ref name="farell269">{{Cite book|last=Farrel|first=R.T.|year=1972|title=Beowulf, Swedes and Geats|publisher=Viking Society for Northern Research, University College, London|pages=269|url=http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Beowulf%20Swedes%20andGeats.pdf|access-date=18 August 2021|archive-date=11 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210711013208/http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Beowulf%20Swedes%20andGeats.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> or by [[Wulfings]] who also came from Götaland, bringing the traditions of ''Beowulf'' with them.<ref name="newton">{{Cite book|last=Newton|first=Sam|year=1993|title=The Origins of Beowulf, and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia|publisher=D. S. Brewer, Cambridge}}</ref>

Any peace that eventually settled in southern Scandinavia was most likely due to exhaustion, and a Danish archaeologist has summarized that in the mid-6th century, and after, Scandinavia "went down to hell".<ref name="shippey"/> Scandinavian wares appear to have stopped arriving in England, c. 550, suggesting that contact was broken.<ref name="farell269"/>

===Political centralization in Scandinavia===
According to Procopius there were 13 "very numerous nations" on the Scandinavian peninsula in the 6th century, which is supported by recent archaeological analyses. Several scholars consider this to be a reasonable number of independent kingdoms at the time, with each consisting of one or more tribes, as reported by Jordanes.<ref name="iversen250">{{Cite book|last=Iversen|first=Frode |year=2020|chapter=Between Tribe and Kingdom – People, Land, and Law in Scandza AD 500–1350|title=Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia |publisher=De Gruyter|doi=10.1515/9783110421101-004|pages=250 |isbn=9783110421101 |s2cid=213596339 }}</ref> However, by 1350, these 13 kingdoms had been reduced in number to only two, Norway and Sweden.<ref name="iversen246">{{Cite book|last=Iversen|first=Frode |year=2020|chapter=Between Tribe and Kingdom – People, Land, and Law in Scandza AD 500–1350|title=Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia |publisher=De Gruyter|doi=10.1515/9783110421101-004|pages=245–304 |isbn=9783110421101 |s2cid=213596339 }}</ref> The Geats were one of the largest tribes.<ref name="iversen295">{{Cite book|last=Iversen|first=Frode |year=2020|chapter=Between Tribe and Kingdom – People, Land, and Law in Scandza AD 500–1350|title=Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia |publisher=De Gruyter|doi=10.1515/9783110421101-004|pages=295 |isbn=9783110421101 |s2cid=213596339 }}</ref>

Procopius and Jordanes both mention the Geats, but after them, foreign sources about Scandinavia are scarce until the 9th century, when Anglo-Saxon and Frankish sources do shed some light on the area. In these, the Geats are absent, which has led some scholars to conclude that they were no longer an independent nation and had been subsumed by the Swedes.<ref name="stål1"/> Norwegian and Icelandic scaldic sources from the 10th century however indicate that they were still politically independent, sometimes opposing Norwegian kings. It has been suggested that their absence from older sources is instead due to their being an inland people.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sawyer|first=Peter|title=När Sverige blev Sverige|year=1991|publisher=Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås|page=12}}</ref>

The nature and the processes of [[consolidation of Sweden|how Geats and Swedes came to form one kingdom]] have been much debated among Swedish scholars. The scarcity and sometimes debated veracity of sources has left much room open for interpretation. The oldest medieval Swedish sources present the Swedish kingdom as retaining differences between provinces, in laws as well as in weights and measures.<ref name="stål1"/> Some scholars have argued that the Geats were subjugated by the Swedes, and have suggested various dates for such an event, from the 6th to the 9th centuries.<ref name="stål1">{{Cite book|last=Ståhl |first=Harry |year=1976 |title=Ortnamn och ortnamnsforskning |publisher=Almquist & Wiksell |place=Uppsala |pages= 131 }}</ref> Others have wanted to see a more gradual merging, and that the Geats were slowly subsumed into the more powerful kingdom of Sweden, and in many respects they maintained their own cultural identity during the Middle Ages.<ref name="farell">{{Cite book|last=Farrel|first=R.T.|year=1972|title=Beowulf, Swedes and Geats|publisher=Viking Society for Northern Research, University College, London|pages=270|url=http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Beowulf%20Swedes%20andGeats.pdf|access-date=18 August 2021|archive-date=11 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210711013208/http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Beowulf%20Swedes%20andGeats.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Still others have put emphasis on how it was individual rulers, not ethnic groups, who were driving the process towards a unified kingdom, and that the process was very complicated.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sawyer|first=Peter|title=När Sverige blev Sverige|year=1991|publisher=Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås|pages=9–10}}</ref>

Papal letters from the 1080s style the recipients as "king of the Swedes" or "king of the West Geats". In another papal letter from the 1160s, the title ''rex Sweorum et Gothorum'' is first attested.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sawyer|first=Peter|title=När Sverige blev Sverige|year=1991|publisher=Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås|pages=58–59}}</ref> The Swedish kings began the custom of styling themselves as also the kings of the Geats in the 1270s.<ref name="dick">{{Cite book|last=Harrison|first=Dick|year=2002|title=Sveriges historia: Medeltiden|publisher=Liber, Stockholm|pages=58, 70–74 }}</ref><ref name="Henriksson">{{Cite book|last=Henriksson|first=Alf|year=1963|title=Svensk historia I|publisher=Bonniers, Stockholm|pages=86–88}}</ref><ref name="weibull">{{Cite book|last=Weibull|first=Jörgen|year=1993|title=Swedish History in Outline|publisher=The Swedish Institute, Stockholm|pages=18}}</ref>

===Dynastic struggles===
In the 11th century, the Swedish [[House of Munsö]] became extinct with the death of [[Emund the Old]]. [[Stenkil]], a Geat, was elected king of the Swedes, and the Geats would be influential in the shaping of Sweden as a Christian kingdom. However, this election also ushered in a long period of civil unrest between Christians and pagans and between Geats and Swedes. The Geats tended to be more Christian, and the Swedes more pagan, which was why the Christian Swedish king [[Inge I of Sweden|Inge the Elder]] fled to Västergötland when deposed in favour of [[Blot-Sweyn]], a king more favourable towards [[Norse paganism]], in the 1080s. Inge would retake the throne and rule until his death c. 1100.

[[File:Västgötalagen blad 21.jpg|thumb|200px|''Sveær egho konong at taka ok sva vrækæ'' and the following sentences in the [[Westrogothic law]]]]
In his ''[[Gesta Danorum]]'' (book 13), the Danish 12th-century chronicler [[Saxo Grammaticus]] noted that the Geats had no say in the election of the king, only the Swedes. When the West Geatish law or [[Westrogothic law]] was put to paper, it reminded the Geats that they had to accept the election of the Swedes: ''Sveær egho konong at taka ok sva vrækæ'' meaning ''"It is the Swedes who have the right of choosing ["taking"] and also deposing the king"'' and then he rode [[Eriksgata]]n ''"mæþ gislum ofvan"'' – ''"with hostages from above [the realm]"'' through [[Södermanland]], the Geatish provinces and then through [[Närke]] and [[Västmanland]] to be judged to be the lawful king by the [[lawspeaker]]s of their respective [[Thing (assembly)|things]]. One of these Swedish kings was [[Ragnvald Knaphövde]], who in 1125 was riding with his retinue in order to be accepted as king by the different provinces. According to material appended to the oldest manuscript of the [[Westrogothic law]], he decided not to demand hostages as he despised the Geats, and was slain near [[Falköping]].

In a [[Medieval Scandinavian laws#Swedish provincial laws|new general law]] of Sweden that was issued by [[Magnus IV of Sweden|Magnus Eriksson]] in the 1350s, it was stated that twelve men from each province, chosen by their things, should be present at the [[Stone of Mora]] when a new king was elected.

The distinction between Swedes and Geats lasted during the Middle Ages, but the Geats became increasingly important for Swedish national claims of greatness due to the Geats' old connection with the Goths. They argued that since the Goths and the Geats were the same nation, and the Geats were part of the kingdom of Sweden, this meant that the Swedes had defeated the Roman empire. The earliest attestation of this claim comes from the [[Council of Basel]], 1434, during which the Swedish delegation argued with the Spanish about who among them were the true Goths. The Spaniards argued that it was better to be descended from the heroic Visigoths than from stay-at-homers. This cultural movement, which was not restricted to Sweden went by the name ''[[Gothicismus]]'' or in Swedish ''Göticism'', i.e. ''Geaticism''.

After the 15th century and the [[Kalmar Union]], the Swedes and the Geats appear to have begun to perceive themselves as one nation, which is reflected in the evolution of ''svensk'' into a common ethnonym.<ref name=national>The article ''Svear'' in ''[[Nationalencyklopedin]]''.</ref><ref>The earliest attestation of this meaning is from the mid-15th century ''[[Swedish Chronicle]].''</ref> It was originally an adjective referring to those belonging to the Swedish tribe, who are called ''svear'' in Swedish. As early as the 9th century, ''svear'' had been vague, both referring to the Swedish tribe and being a collective term including the Geats,<ref name=national/> and this is the case in [[Adam of Bremen]]'s work where the Geats (''Goths'') appear both as a proper nation and as part of the ''Sueones''.<ref name=national/> The merging/assimilation of the two nations took a long time, however. In the early-20th century, ''[[Nordisk familjebok]]'' noted that ''svensk'' had almost replaced ''svear'' as a name for the Swedish people.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://runeberg.org/nfcg/0605.html|title=1129–1130 (Nordisk familjebok / Uggleupplagan. 27. Stockholm-Nynäs järnväg – Syrsor)|date=22 September 1918|website=runeberg.org|access-date=4 December 2006|archive-date=3 January 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070103091640/http://runeberg.org/nfcg/0605.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

At the same time, the Swedish ancestors were often referred to as Geats, especially when their heroism or connection to the Goths was to be stressed. This practice disappeared during the 19th century, when the [[viking]]s gradually took over the role as the heroic ancestors.