Editing Thuringii

{{Short description|Early Germanic people native to Thuringia (now part of Germany)}}
{{distinguish}}
[[File:MUFT - Mühlhausen Fibel.jpg|thumb|[[Fibula (brooch)|Fibula]] found in [[Mühlhausen]], 4th/5th century AD]]
[[File:MUFT - Kamm 1.jpg|thumb|Ancient Germanic bone [[comb]], Thuringia]]
The '''Thuringii''', or '''Thuringians''' were a [[Germanic peoples|Germanic people]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Buchberger |first1=Erica |date=2018 |chapter=Thuringians |chapter-url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001/acref-9780198662778-e-4762? |editor1-last=Nicholson |editor1-first=Oliver |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=9780191744457 |access-date=January 26, 2020 |quote=Thuringians... A Germanic people in central Germania... }}</ref> who lived in the kingdom of the Thuringians that appeared during the late [[Migration Period]] south of the [[Harz Mountains]] of central [[Germania]], a region still known today as [[Thuringia]]. The Thuringian kingdom came into conflict with the [[Merovingian]] [[Franks]], and it later came under their influence and Frankish control as a [[stem duchy]]. The name is still used for one of modern Germany's federal states (''[[Bundesland (Germany)|Bundesländer]]'').

==First appearances==
[[File:Cornelius-Tacitus-Hugo-de-Groot-Antiquitates-Germanicæ MGG 0263.tif|thumb|Image from "Battle of [[Hermunduri]] and [[Chatti]]", 1717]]
The Thuringians do not appear in classical Roman texts under that name, but some have suggested that they were the remnants of the [[Suebi]]c [[Hermanduri]], the last part of whose name (''-duri'') could represent the same sound as (''-thuri'') and the Germanic suffix ''-ing'', suggests a meaning of "descendants of (the [Herman]duri)".<ref>Schutz, 402.</ref> This people were living near the [[Marcomanni]]. [[Tacitus]], in his ''[[Germania (book)|Germania]]'', describes their homeland as being where the [[Elbe]] starts, but also having colonies at the [[Danube]], and even within the [[Roman province]] of [[Rhaetia]]. [[Claudius Ptolemy]] mentions neither the Hermunduri nor the Thuringians in his geography, but instead the [[Teuriochaemae]], who are described as living just north of the [[Sudetes]] mountains in, what is thought to be, the [[Ore Mountains]]. These may also be connected to later Thuringians. ("''Chaemae''" may represent a version of the Germanic word for "home". Ptolemy also for example mentions a people called the ''[[Bainochaimai]]'', located to the west of the Elbe.){{Clarify|date=July 2023|reason=This "chaemae" info is disjointed & seems like prior context was removed; needs to be elaborated upon/clarified as to the context and meaning}} 

The name of the Thuringians appears to be first mentioned in the veterinary treatise of [[Vegetius]], written early in the fifth century.<ref>[[Guy Halsall]], Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376-568, p.39, citing B. Schmidt.</ref>

The formation of the Thuringian kingdom may have had also been influenced by two longer-known tribes more associated with the eastern bank of the lower Elbe river, northeast of Thuringia, because the [[Carolingian]] law code written for them was called the "law of the [[Angles (tribe)|Angles]] and [[Varini]] that is the Thuringians". Much earlier, in his ''Germania'' for example, Tacitus had grouped the Anglii and Varini among the more distant Suebic tribes, living beyond the Elbe, and near a sea where they worshipped a goddess called [[Nerthus]]. These two tribes are among Germanic groups known to have been found north of the Danube in this period. [[Procopius]] in his ''Gothic Wars'' describes the land of the Varini in the 6th century as being south of the Danes, but north of the [[Slavs]], who were in turn north of the uncultivated lands which lay north of the Danube. Procopius describes a marriage alliance between the Angles of [[Great Britain|Britain]] and the Varni in the sixth century.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Procopius|last=H. B.|first=Dewing|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1962|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=255|url=https://archive.org/stream/L217ProcopiusVHistoryOfTheWars7.368.GothicWar/L217-Procopius%20V%20History%20of%20the%20Wars%207.36-8.%20%28Gothic%20War%29#page/n263/mode/2up}}</ref>

They appear in some lists of the peoples involved in [[Attila]]'s invasion of [[Gaul]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Goffart |first1=Walter |author-link1=Walter Goffart |year=2006  |title=Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qr43XNyZh6AC  |publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]]  |isbn=9780812239393 }} p.216</ref> [[Walter Pohl]] has also proposed that they may be the same as the [[Turcilingi]] (or Torcolingi) who were one of the tribes near the middle Danube after the collapse of the empire of Attila, to whom they had apparently all been subject. They are specifically associated with [[Odoacer]], who later became King of Italy, and are sometimes thought to have formed a part of the [[Sciri]]. Other tribes in this region at the time included the [[Rugii]] and the [[Heruls]]. [[Sidonius Apollinaris]], in his seventh poem, explicitly lists them among the allies who fought under Attila when he entered Gaul in 451. During the reign of [[Childeric I]], [[Gregory of Tours]] and [[Fredegar]] record that the Frankish King married the runaway wife of the King of the Thuringians, but the story may be distorted. (For example, the area of [[Tongeren]], now in Belgium, may have been intended.<ref>Halsall p.392</ref>)

More clearly, correspondence is recorded with a kingdom of Thuringians by Procopius and [[Cassiodorus]] during the reigns of [[Theoderic the Great]] (454–526) and [[Clovis I]] (approx. 466–511), after the downfall of Attila and Odoacer. {{Citation needed|date=November 2021}}

==Political history==
{{See also|Rulers of Thuringia}}
[[File:Europe and the Near East at 476 AD.png|thumbnail|350px|Europe at the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD.]]
The Thuringii established an empire in the late fifth century. It reached its territorial peak in the first half of the sixth before it was conquered by the [[Franks]] in 531&ndash;532. Examination of Thuringian grave sites reveal cranial features which suggest the strong presence of [[Huns|Hunnic]] women or slaves, perhaps indicating that many Thuringians took Hunnic wives or Hunnic slaves following the collapse of the [[Huns#Unified Empire under Attila|Hunnic Empire]].<ref>Schutz, 411.</ref> There is also evidence from jewellery found in graves that the Thuringians sought marriages with [[Ostrogothic]] and [[Lombards|Lombard]] women.{{citation needed|date=January 2016}} Under the leadership of [[Alboin]], a large group of Thuringii joined the Lombards on their migration into Italy.<ref name=HGL>{{cite book|title=History of the Lombards: Translated by William Dudley Foulke |first=Edward |last=Peters |year=2003 |place=University of Pennsylvania Press}}</ref> The Lombard king [[Agilulf]] (590&ndash;616) was of Thuringian descent.

After their conquest, the Thuringii were placed under Frankish dukes, but they rebelled and had regained their independence by the late seventh century under [[Radulf, King of Thuringia|Radulf]]. Towards the end of this century, parts of Thuringia came under [[Duke of Saxony|Saxon]] rule.

By the time of [[Charles Martel]] and [[Saint Boniface]], they were again subject to the Franks and ruled by Frankish dukes, with their seat at [[Würzburg]] in the south. Under Martel, the Thuringian dukes' authority was extended over a part of [[Austrasia]] and the [[Bavaria]]n plateau. The valleys of the [[Lahn]], [[Main (river)|Main]], and [[Neckar]] rivers were included. The [[Naab]] formed the south-eastern border of Thuringia at the time. The [[Werra]] and [[Fulda]] valleys were within it also and it reached as far as the [[Old Saxony|Saxon]] plain in the north. Its central location in [[Germania]], beyond the [[Rhine]], was the reason it became the ''[[point d'appui]]'' of Boniface's mission work.

The Thuringii had a separate identity as late as 785&ndash;786, when one of their leading men, [[Hardrad]], led an abortive insurrection against [[Charlemagne]]. The [[Carolingians]] codified the Thuringian legal customs (but perhaps did not use them extensively) as the ''[[Lex Thuringorum]]'' and continued to exact a tribute of pigs, presumably a [[Merovingian]] imposition, from the province. In the tenth century, under the [[Ottonians]], the centre of Thuringian power lay in the north-east, near [[Erfurt]]. As late as the end of the tenth century, the porcine tribute was still being accepted by the [[King of Germany]].

==Ecclesiastical history==
Christianity had reached the Thuringii in the fifth century, but their exposure to it was limited. Their real [[Christianisation]] took place, alongside the ecclesiastical organisation of their territory, during the early and mid eighth century under Boniface, who felled their "sacred oak" at [[Geismar]] in 724, abolishing the vestiges of their paganism.

In the 1020s, [[Aribo, Archbishop of Mainz]], began the minting of coins at [[Erfurt]], the oldest market town in Thuringia with a history going back to the Merovingian period. The economy, especially trade (such as with the Slavs), greatly increased after that.

==Social history==
The Thuringian nobility, which had an admixture of Frankish, Thuringian, and Saxon blood, was not as [[landed nobility|landed]] as that of [[Francia]]. There was also a larger population of free peasant farmers than in Francia, though there was still a large number of [[serf]]s. The obligations of serfs there were also generally less oppressive. There were also fewer clergymen before [[Boniface]] came. There was a small number of artisans and merchants, mostly trading with the Slavs to the east. The town of Erfurt was the easternmost trading post in Frankish territory at the time.

==Historiography==
The history of the Thuringii is best known from the writings concerning their conquerors, the Franks. [[Gregory of Tours]], a [[Gallo-Roman]], includes the nearest account in time of the fall of the Thuringian Empire. [[Widukind of Corvey]], writing in [[Duchy of Saxony|tenth-century Saxony]], inundates his similar account with various legends.

The Thuringii make brief appearances in contemporary Italian sources when their activities affect the land south of the [[Alps]]. [[Procopius]], the [[Eastern Roman]] author, mentions them and speaks of their fall. The seventh-century ''[[Origo Gentis Langobardorum]]'' mentions a king of the Thuringii, [[Fisud]], as a contemporary of [[Theudebert I]].
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==Sources==
*[[Timothy Reuter|Reuter, Timothy]]. ''Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800&ndash;1056''. New York: Longman, 1991.
*[[James Westfall Thompson|Thompson, James Westfall]]. ''Feudal Germany''. 2 vol. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1928. 
*[[Herbert Schutz|Schutz, Herbert]]. ''The Germanic Realms in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400&ndash;750''. American University Studies, Series IX: History, Vol. 196. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.

==See also==
{{Portal|Harz}}
*[[List of Germanic peoples]] 
*[[Barbarian invasions]]
*[[Turcilingi]]

{{Early Germanic Kingdoms}}
{{Germanic peoples}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Thuringii| ]]
[[Category:History of Thuringia]]
[[Category:Harz]]
[[Category:Early Germanic peoples]]
[[Category:German tribes]]
[[Category:Barbarian kingdoms]]