Curated playlist
Early Germanic peoples
- FranksThe English word frank comes from the Franks, not the other way around. They were the free people.
- SuebiThe Suebi were not one people but a name shared by dozens of Germanic tribes.
- VisigothsA Roman official invented the name Visigoths around 507. Before then, they called themselves Goths.
- GothsIn 410, Goths walked into Rome and sacked it. Their leader Alaric I died soon afterward.
- Angles (tribe)A pope once punned on the name of the Angles after seeing children in a Roman slave market.
- VandalsThe word vandalism comes from a people who sacked Rome in 455 AD. A French bishop coined "vandalisme" in 1794.
- JutesNobody agrees where the Jutes, a founding people of England, came from.
- SaxonsSaxon first meant any raider who came by boat, not one tribe. Roman records used it much as later writers used Viking.
- LombardsBy one account, the Lombards got their name from women wearing their hair like beards.
- North Germanic peoplesNormandy gets its name from "Northman," the word for Viking settlers.
- CimbriRomans coined a phrase, terror cimbricus, for the fear one northern tribe caused.
- HeruliThe Heruli sacked Athens in 267 AD after sailing in from the Sea of Azov. Local militias had to defend the city.
- GeatsUntil 1973, Sweden's king was formally king of the Geats too. Carl XVI Gustaf dropped that old title.