Everything about The Irminones totally explained
The
Irminones, also referred to as
Herminones or
Hermiones, were a group of early
Germanic tribes settling in the
Elbe watershed and by the
1st century AD expanding into
Bavaria,
Swabia and
Bohemia.
Irminonic or
Elbe Germanic is a conventional term grouping early
West Germanic dialects ancestral to
High German.
The name Irminones comes from
Tacitus’s
Germania (98 AD) who categorized them as one of the tribes of
Mannus. Other
West Germanic proto-tribes were the
Ingvaeones and
Istvaeones, all of them living in the "Central region" of Germania, as well as the
Suebi, which include the
Semnones, the
Quadi and the
Marcomanni.
Pomponius Mela writes in his
Description of the World (III.3.31) in reference to the
Kattegat and the waters surrounding the Danish isles (see the
Codanus sinus):
» On the bay are the
Cimbri and the
Teutoni; farther on, the farthest people of
Germania, the
Hermiones.
Mela then begins to speak of the
Scythians.
Pliny's
Natural History (4.100) claims that the Irminones include the
Suebi,
Hermunduri,
Chatti,
and
Cherusci.
In
Nennius the name
Mannus (see
Mannaz) and his three sons appear in corrupted form, the ancestor of the Irminones appearing as
Armenon. His sons here are
Gothus,
Valagothus/
Balagothus,
Cibidus,
Burgundus, and
Longobardus, whence come the
Goths (and
Ostrogoths,
Visigoths,
Crimean Goths),
Valagoths/
Balagoths,
Cibidi,
Burgundians and
Lombards/
Langobards.
They may have differentiated into the tribes
Alamanni,
Hermunduri,
Marcomanni,
Quadi,
Suebi by the
1st century AD. At this time the
Suebi,
Marcomanni and
Quadi had moved southwest into the area of modern day
Bavaria and
Swabia. In
8 BC, the Marcomanni and Quadi drove the
Boii out of
Bohemia.
The term
Suebi is usually applied to all the groups that moved into this area, though later in history (ca. 200 AD) the term
Alamanni (meaning "all-men") became more commonly applied to the group.
Jǫrmun, the Viking Age Norse form of the name
Irmin, can be found in a number of places in the
Poetic Edda as a by name for
Odin. This pans with both the historical circumstances of the Irminones in relationship to Rome, Widukinds confusion over whether Irmin was comparable to Mars or Hermes, and with Snorri Sturluson's allusions at the beginning of his Prose Edda; that Odin's cult appeared first in Germany and then spread up into the Ingaevonic North.
Further Information
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