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Discover the vibrant village life of the Germanic people, their warrior culture, law system, and the impactful role they played in the fall of the Roman Empire. Learn about key figures like Attila, Alaric, and Odoacer, and the rise of Germanic kingdoms.
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SECTION 1 Village Life SECTION 2 The Conquerors Contents
Terms to Learn People to Know • clans • Wodan • chieftain • blood feuds • oath-helpers • ordeal • wergeld • Thor • Attila • Alaric • Odoacer • Theodoric Places to Locate • Danube River valley • Valhalla
Village Life • Although the Germans took part in Roman life, they also kept much of their own culture. • They lived in villages of thatched roof huts surrounded by farmlands and pastures. • Women, children, and enslaved people did most farm work. • German dress was simple. • The Germans so strongly believed in hospitality that it was against the law to turn away anyone who came to the door.
Village Life (cont.) • Feasting, drinking, and dancing were favorite German pastimes. • The Germans spoke a language that later became modern German. • At first, they could not read or write, because their language had no alphabet. • Gradually, they began to use Roman letters to write their own language.
Warriors • German men were warriors, spending most of their time fighting, hunting, or making weapons. • The Germans were divided into clans, or groups based on family ties. • At first, the Germans gave their greatest loyalty to their clan but later shifted their loyalty to a chieftain, a military leader. • The chieftains provided their men with leadership, weapons, and adventure. • German warrior bands were small and did not have fixed plans of fighting.
Warriors (cont.) • A successful attack provided warriors with enslaved people, cattle, and other treasures. • The Germans' love of battle was closely linked to their religion, and they expected warriors to win in battle or die trying. • The chief god, Wodan, was the god of war, poetry, learning, and magic and his son Thor was the god of war and thunder. • The Germans believed that goddesses carried warriors who died in battle into the afterlife to Wodan’s hall, called Valhalla, to feast and fight forever.
Law • Unlike the Romans who believed the law came from the emperor, the Germans believed that the law came from the people, requiring public approval for any changes. • Reckless, often drunken, fighting caused problems in German villages. • Courts were established to keep such fights from becoming blood feuds, or quarrels in which the families of the original fighters seek revenge.
Law (cont.) • Germans who were accused of a crime would profess their innocence in an oath, and that oath would be defended by an oath-helper, who swore that the accused spoke the truth. • Sometimes guilt or innocence would be decided by ordeal, a severe trial, in which the accused would walk on red-hot coals or be bound and thrown in the water. • If the burns healed in three days or if the accused sank, he was considered innocent. • Courts also could impose fines called wergeldon a person judged as guilty. Section 1-6
The Conquerors • The Goths were a Germanic people who lived in the Balkan Peninsula of Europe. • In the late 300s the Huns, led by Attila, or “Little Daddy,” attacked both the Ostrogoths (East Goths) and the Visigoths (West Goths). • After the Huns conquered the East Goths, the West Goths asked the Roman emperor for protection. • Before long, trouble broke out between the West Goths and Roman officials.
The Conquerors (cont.) • Finally, the West Goths rebelled against the Romans and defeated them at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. • In 410, led by Alaric, they captured and looted Rome and continued on to Gaul and then to Spain, ending the Roman rule in Spain and driving out the Vandals. • In 455, the Vandals attacked and burned Rome, but spared the lives of the Romans.
The Conquerors (cont.) • The Germanic invasions were one of the three main reasons the Roman Empire in the West began to fall. • In 476, a German general named Odoacer took control and ruled the western empire in his own name for almost 15 years. • Later the East Goths, led by Theodoric, took Italy, killed Odoacer, and set up their own kingdom.
The Conquerors (cont.) • By 550, the Roman Empire in the West had faded away, replaced by six major and a great many minor Germanic kingdoms. • Many Roman beliefs and practices remained to shape later civilizations.
