''Sippe'' is German for " clan, kindred,

extended family An extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family of parents and their children to include aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins or other relatives, all living nearby or in the same household. Particular forms include the stem ...

" ( Frisian ''Sibbe'', Norse ''Sifjar''). It continues a

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...

term ''*sebjō'', which referred to a

band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary *Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania *Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, I ...

confederation A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

bound by a treaty or

oath Traditionally an oath (from Anglo-Saxon ', also called plight) is either a statement of fact or a promise taken by a sacrality as a sign of verity. A common legal substitute for those who conscientiously object to making sacred oaths is to g ...

, not primarily restricted to blood relations. The original character of ''sibb'' as a peace treaty is visible in Old English, e.g. in '' Beowulf'' (v. 1858): :''hafast þû gefêred, þæt þâm folcum sceal, :''Geáta leódum ond Gâr-Denum'' :''sib gemæne ond sacu restan.'' The ''Sippe'' came to be a cognatic, extended family unit, exactly analogous to the Scottish/Irish

sept A sept is a division of a family, especially of a Scottish or Irish family. The term is used in both Scotland and Ireland, where it may be translated as ''sliocht'', meaning "progeny" or "seed", which may indicate the descendants of a person ...

. Most of the information left about the nature and role of the ''Sippe'' is found in records left by the

Lombards The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the '' History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 an ...

, Alamanni, and Bavarians. One of the functions of the Sippe was regulating use of forests. The average ''Sippe'' likely contained no more than 50 families. The ''Sippe'' seems to have been absorbed into the monogamous family later on; P.D. King asserts that this was already the case among the

Visigoths The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is ...

during the time of the

Visigothic Kingdom The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to ...

.P.D. King, ''Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom'', Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 3rd ser. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 233.

Footnotes

{{Authority control Early Germanic law Family in early Germanic culture Lists of ancient Indo-European peoples and tribes Clans

See also

Footnotes