Alemanni

Relationship with the Suebi

Modern scholars think it is probable that Suebian groups such as the Neckar Suebi or Semnones contributed to the ancestry of the Alemanni. On the other hand, although the two terms Alemanni and Suebi gradually became interchangeable in later centuries, the reasons for this are unclear today, and it is unclear whether any of the third or fourth century Alemanni saw themselves as Suebi. In this period the term Suebi was not associated by Roman authors with the Alemanni, but most often with the neighbours and allies of the Marcomanni and Quadi who lived north of the Danube.

There are on the other hand some indications of a Suebian association in early records. A third century monument associates the Juthungi with the Semnones, who were certainly known as Suebi, and the Juthungi at least eventually came to be seen as part of the Alemannic population in the fourth century.

The connection between the two names may have developed later. For example, writing about fifth-century events, the 6th-century writer Jordanes described a group of Suebi who moved from the east under the rule of a leader named Hunimund, after he lost a battle with the Ostrogoths. He reported that they settled together with the Alemanni, but treats them as a distinct group living in the same area.

Early history

The early history of the Alemanni, like their northern neighbours the Franks, is difficult to reconstruct because before the late third-century contemporary sources mainly describe the enemies of the Romans there using broad terms such as Germani or barbari. (However, the Juthungi were mentioned in a small number of third century records.) Later historians sometimes identify groups involved in third-century events as Alemanni or Franks, but modern scholars consider many of these to be uncertain, and possibily anachronistic. The earliest possible mention of the Alemanni under that names comes from 213, but this remains disputed, and the panegyric delivered for Maximian in 289 is generally treated as the earliest secure attestation of the name Alamanni in a third century source.

Before the third century, much of the region east of the Rhine where the Alemanni later became established was under Roman control, but Germanic groups had been settling there since the first century AD. Around the lower Neckar, a Suebian population known as the Neckar Suebi (Suebi Nicretes) was centred on Lopodunum (Ladenburg), and their settlement community later developed into the Roman Civitas Ulpia Sueborum Nicretum.

The connection between these populations and the later Alemanni is unclear, but connections are likely. Modern scholarship generally rejects the older model in which an already formed Alemannic people migrated into the region in the third century. The prevailing view instead places the formation of the Alemanni after the abandonment of the Upper German–Raetian limes, among groups settling between the Upper Rhine and the Danube. Archaeological evidence likewise suggests origins among several different groups rather than a single migrating population.

On the other hand, in the third century the wider Germanic world was itself undergoing major changes since the Marcomannic Wars (166–180), and a part of the Alemanni probably entered the region from elsewhere. Older political groupings and elites were disrupted and new confederations emerged, eventually including the Alemanni. The Alemanni are not named in contemporary accounts of those wars, but for example the Juthungi are associated with the Semnones in a third-century Roman monument. In short, Germanic peoples known from before the third century probably contributed to the population which later formed the Alemanni, though a direct continuity cannot be demonstrated.

First possible appearance in 213

The earliest possible written references to the Alemanni occur in the surviving fragments of Cassius Dio's account of Caracalla's German campaign of 213, but the textual evidence is complicated. The relevant portion of Dio's work no longer survives, but parts are preserved in the Constantinian Excerpta de virtutibus et vitiis, other Byzantine excerpts, and the later epitome of John Xiphilinus. The Excerpta de virtutibus et vitiis uses the form Ἀλαμβαννοί, implying Alambanni, on several occasions, and Ἀλβανοί (Albani) on one occasion, while also naming the Chatti (Χάττοι) as being involved in these events. The Excerpta de sententiis, in a passage attributed to Peter the Patrician, who was using Dio for this period, implies Albanni (Ἀλβαννοί). Xiphilinus calls another group involved in the campaign Κέννοι (Kenni), but their identity is unclear, and they have been identified in modern scholarship with either the Alemanni or the Chatti.

Scholars therefore disagree about whether Dio really mentioned the Alemanni by that name in his account of Caracalla's campaign. Lawrence Okamura, Matthias Springer, and Helmut Castritius have all argued against it, while Bleckmann, Hummer and other scholars have defended the widespread acceptance of the idea that Dio mentioned them. Most recently, Becker compared the Constantinian excerpts with those portions of Dio for which the original text survives. He found that the excerpts preserve the order of Dio's narrative and provide no parallel for the interpolation of new ethnic names. He therefore considers it very likely that the forms Ἀλαμβαννοί and Ἀλβανοί derive from Dio himself, and argues that they can plausibly represent scribal variants of Ἀλαμαννοί or Alamanni. The identification nevertheless remains disputed.

The surviving evidence indicates that Caracalla conducted a German campaign beyond the Upper German–Raetian frontier in 213. Contemporary records show that on 11 August he was preparing to cross the frontier of Raetia into territory beyond the empire. The precise route of the campaign is uncertain, but later tradition places at least some of the fighting near the Main. Aurelius Victor, writing around 360, states that Caracalla defeated the Alamanni, "near the river Main". This has often been used to locate the campaign in the Main region, although it does not by itself show that the Alemanni were permanently settled there.

The surviving Dio tradition contains several anecdotes about Caracalla's dealings with Germanic groups during the campaign. In one passage he is described as intervening among them, ordering forts and settlements to be established and changing place names. In another, he summoned men of military age on the pretext of recruiting them as mercenaries and then had them surrounded and killed. A further passage reports that people identified in the transmitted text as Alemanni claimed to have caused an illness of Caracalla by magical means, while the emperor attempted to counter them by invoking ancestral spirits.

Conflicts with the Roman Empire

The Alemanni were continually engaged in conflicts with the Roman Empire in the third and fourth centuries. They launched a major invasion of Gaul and northern Italy in 268 when the Romans were forced to denude much of their German frontier of troops in response to a massive invasion of the Goths from the east. Their raids throughout the three parts of Gaul were traumatic: Gregory of Tours (died ca 594) mentions their destructive force at the time of Valerian and Gallienus (253–260), when the Alemanni assembled under their "king", whom he calls Chrocus, who acted "by the advice, it is said, of his wicked mother, and overran the whole of the Gauls, and destroyed from their foundations all the temples which had been built in ancient times. And coming to Clermont he set on fire, overthrew and destroyed that shrine which they call Vasso Galatae in the Gallic tongue," martyring many Christians (Historia Francorum Book I.32–34). Thus sixth-century Gallo-Romans of Gregory's class, surrounded by the ruins of Roman temples and public buildings, attributed the destruction they saw to the plundering raids of the Alemanni.

In the early summer of 268, the Emperor Gallienus halted their advance into Italy but then had to deal with the Goths. When the Gothic campaign ended in Roman victory at the Battle of Naissus in September, Gallienus's successor Claudius Gothicus turned north to deal with the Alemanni, who were swarming over all Italy north of the Po River.

After efforts to secure a peaceful withdrawal failed, Claudius forced the Alemanni to battle at the Battle of Lake Benacus in November. The Alemanni were routed, forced back into Germany, and did not threaten Roman territory for many years afterwards.

Their most famous battle against Rome took place in Argentoratum (Strasbourg), in 357, where they were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their king Chnodomarius was taken prisoner to Rome.

On January 2, 366, the Alemanni yet again crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers, to invade the Gallic provinces, this time being defeated by Valentinian (see Battle of Solicinium). In the great mixed invasion of 406, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine river a final time, conquering and then settling what is today Alsace and a large part of the Swiss Plateau. The crossing is described in Wallace Breem's historical novel Eagle in the Snow. The Chronicle of Fredegar gives the account. At Alba Augusta (Alba-la-Romaine) the devastation was so complete, that the Christian bishop retired to Viviers, but in Gregory's account at Mende in Lozère, also deep in the heart of Gaul, bishop Privatus was forced to sacrifice to idols in the very cave where he was later venerated. It is thought this detail may be a generic literary ploy to epitomize the horrors of barbarian violence.

List of battles between Romans and Alemanni

• 259, Battle of Mediolanum – Emperor Gallienus defeats the Alemanni to rescue Rome
• 268, Battle of Lake Benacus – Romans under Emperor Claudius II defeat the Alemanni.
• 271
  • Battle of Placentia – Emperor Aurelian is defeated by the Alemanni forces invading Italy
  • Battle of Fano – Aurelian defeats the Alemanni, who begin to retreat from Italy
  • Battle of Pavia – Aurelian destroys the retreating Alemanni army.
• 298
  • Battle of Lingones – Caesar Constantius Chlorus defeats the Alemanni
  • Battle of Vindonissa – Constantius defeats the Alemanni.
• 356, Battle of Reims – Caesar Julian is defeated by the Alemanni
• 357, Battle of Strasbourg – Julian expels the Alemanni from the Rhineland
• 368, Battle of Solicinium – Romans under Emperor Valentinian I defeat an Alemanni incursion.
• 378, Battle of Argentovaria – Western Emperor Gratianus is victorious over the Alemanni.
• 451, Battle of the Catalaunian Fields – Roman General Aetius and his army of Romans and barbarian allies defeat Attila's army of Huns and other Germanic allies, including the Alemanni.
• 457, Battle of Campi Cannini – Alemanni invade Italy and are defeated near Lake Maggiore by Majorian
• 554, Battle of the Volturnus – Byzantine General Narses defeats a combined force of Franks and Alemanni in southern Italy.

Subjugation by the Franks

The kingdom of Alamannia between Strasbourg and Augsburg lasted until 496, when the Alemanni were conquered by Clovis I at the Battle of Tolbiac. The war of Clovis with the Alemanni forms the setting for the conversion of Clovis, briefly treated by Gregory of Tours. (Book II.31) After their defeat in 496, the Alemanni bucked the Frankish yoke and put themselves under the protection of Theodoric the Great of the Ostrogoths but after his death they were again subjugated by the Franks under Theudebert I in 536. Subsequently, the Alemanni formed part of the Frankish dominions and were governed by a Frankish duke.

In 746, Carloman ended an uprising by summarily executing all Alemannic nobility at the blood court at Cannstatt, and for the following century, Alemannia was ruled by Frankish dukes. Following the treaty of Verdun of 843, Alemannia became a province of the eastern kingdom of Louis the German, the precursor of the Holy Roman Empire. The duchy persisted until 1268.

Culture

Language

The German spoken today over the range of the former Alemanni is termed Alemannic German, and is recognised among the subgroups of the High German languages. Alemannic runic inscriptions such as those on the Pforzen buckle are among the earliest testimonies of Old High German. The High German consonant shift is thought to have originated around the fifth century either in Alemannia or among the Lombards; before that, the dialect spoken by Alemannic tribes was little different from that of other West Germanic peoples.

Alemannia lost its distinct jurisdictional identity when Charles Martel absorbed it into the Frankish empire, early in the eighth century. Today, Alemannic is a linguistic term, referring to Alemannic German, encompassing the dialects of the southern two-thirds of Baden-Württemberg (German State), in western Bavaria (German State), in Vorarlberg (Austrian State), Swiss German in Switzerland and the Alsatian language of the Alsace (France).

Political organization

The Alemanni established a series of territorially defined pagi (cantons) on the east bank of the Rhine. The exact number and extent of these pagi is unclear and probably changed over time.

Pagi, usually pairs of pagi combined, formed kingdoms (regna) which, it is generally believed, were permanent and hereditary. Ammianus describes Alemanni rulers with various terms: reges excelsiores ante alios ("paramount kings"), reges proximi ("neighbouring kings"), reguli ("petty kings") and regales ("princes"). This may be a formal hierarchy, or they may be vague, overlapping terms, or a combination of both. In 357, there appear to have been two paramount kings (Chnodomar and Westralp) who probably acted as presidents of the confederation and seven other kings (reges). Their territories were small and mostly strung along the Rhine (although a few were in the hinterland). It is possible that the reguli were the rulers of the two pagi in each kingdom. Underneath the royal class were the nobles (called optimates by the Romans) and warriors (called armati by the Romans). The warriors consisted of professional warbands and levies of free men. Each nobleman could raise an average of c. 50 warriors.

Religion

The Christianization of the Alemanni took place during Merovingian times (sixth to eighth centuries). We know that in the sixth century, the Alemanni were predominantly pagan, and in the eighth century, they were predominantly Christian. The intervening seventh century was a period of genuine syncretism during which Christian symbolism and doctrine gradually grew in influence.

Some scholars have speculated that members of the Alemannic elite such as king Gibuld due to Visigothic influence may have been converted to Arianism even in the later fifth century.

In the mid-6th century, the Byzantine historian Agathias records, in the context of the wars of the Goths and Franks against Byzantium, that the Alemanni fighting among the troops of Frankish king Theudebald were like the Franks in all respects except religion, since

they worship certain trees, the waters of rivers, hills and mountain valleys, in whose honour they sacrifice horses, cattle and countless other animals by beheading them, and imagine that they are performing an act of piety thereby.

He also spoke of the particular ruthlessness of the Alemanni in destroying Christian sanctuaries and plundering churches while the genuine Franks were respectful towards those sanctuaries. Agathias expresses his hope that the Alemanni would assume better manners through prolonged contact with the Franks, which is by all appearances, in a manner of speaking, what eventually happened.

Apostles of the Alemanni were Columbanus and his disciple Saint Gall. Jonas of Bobbio records that Columbanus was active in Bregenz, where he disrupted a beer sacrifice to Wodan. Despite these activities, for some time, the Alemanni seem to have continued their pagan cult activities, with only superficial or syncretistic Christian elements. In particular, there was no change in burial practice, and tumulus warrior graves continued to be erected throughout Merovingian times. Syncretism of traditional Germanic animal style with Christian symbolism is also present in artwork, but Christian symbolism became more and more prevalent during the seventh century. Unlike the later Christianization of the Saxons and of the Slavs, the Alemanni seem to have adopted Christianity gradually, and voluntarily, spread in emulation of the Merovingian elite.

From c. the 520s to the 620s, there was a surge of Alemannic Elder Futhark inscriptions. About 70 specimens have survived, roughly half of them on fibulae, others on belt buckles (see Pforzen buckle, Bülach fibula) and other jewellery and weapon parts. The use of runes subsides with the advance of Christianity. The Nordendorf fibula (early seventh century) clearly records pagan theonyms, logaþorewodanwigiþonar read as "Wodan and Donar are magicians/sorcerers", but this may be interpreted as either a pagan invocation of the powers of these deities, or a Christian protective charm against them. A runic inscription on a fibula found at Bad Ems reflects Christian pious sentiment (and is also explicitly marked with a Christian cross), reading god fura dih deofile ᛭ ("God for/before you, Theophilus!", or alternatively "God before you, Devil!"). Dated to between AD 660 and 690, it marks the end of the native Alemannic tradition of runic literacy. Bad Ems is in Rhineland-Palatinate, on the northwestern boundary of Alemannic settlement, where Frankish influence would have been strongest.

The establishment of the bishopric of Konstanz cannot be dated exactly and was possibly undertaken by Columbanus himself (before 612). In any case, it existed by 635, when Gunzo appointed John of Grab bishop. Constance was a missionary bishopric in newly converted lands, and did not look back on late Roman church history unlike the Raetian bishopric of Chur (established 451) and Basel (an episcopal seat from 740, and which continued the line of Bishops of Augusta Raurica, see Bishop of Basel). The establishment of the church as an institution recognized by worldly rulers is also visible in legal history. In the early seventh century Pactus Alamannorum hardly ever mentions the special privileges of the church, while Lantfrid's Lex Alamannorum of 720 has an entire chapter reserved for ecclesial matters alone.

Genetics

A genetic study published in Science Advances in September 2018 examined the remains of eight individuals buried at a seventh-century Alemannic graveyard in Niederstotzingen, Germany. This is the richest and most complete Alemannic graveyard ever found. The highest-ranking individual at the graveyard was a male with Frankish grave goods. Four males were found to be closely related to him. They were all carriers of types of the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b. A sixth male was a carrier of the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b1a1 and the maternal haplogroup U5a1a1. Along with the five closely related individuals, he displayed close genetic links to northern and eastern Europe, particularly Lithuania and Iceland. Two individuals buried at the cemetery were found to be genetically different from both the others and each other, displaying genetic links to Southern Europe, particularly northern Italy and Spain. Along with the sixth male, they might have been adoptees or slaves.

According to Gretzinger et al. (2024), the early medieval Alemannic and Bavarian populations of southern Germany had considerably more steppe-related ancestry and, consequently, significantly less Early European Farmer (EEF) ancestry than the preceding Iron Age Hallstatt population, which was "congruent with the arrival of Germanic-speaking tribes from northern Germany or Denmark". The data indicate a significant increase in Scandinavian-related ancestry—a proxy for Germanic-speaking groups—in the first half of the first millennium AD, with "median northern European ancestry" rising significantly, reaching high levels in the early medieval period. This population turnover was associated with the introduction of new paternal haplogroups, such as I1-M253, which is commonly found in "Continental North European-like ancestry". These Alemannic and Bavarian populations of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages were genetically indistinguishable from Iron Age and Medieval groups in Northern Germany and Scandinavia, and showed the closest resemblance to present-day populations from Denmark, northern Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.