The Irminones, also referred to as Herminones or Hermiones (), were a large group of early

Germanic tribes The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts ...

settling in the

Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...

watershed and by the first century AD expanding into

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

Swabia Swabia ; , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of ...

, and

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

. Notably this included the large sub-group of the

Suevi file:1st century Germani.png, 300px, The approximate positions of some Germanic peoples reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 1st century. Suebian peoples in red, and other Irminones in purple. The Suebi (also spelled Suavi, Suevi or Suebians ...

, that itself contained many different tribal groups, but the Irminones also included for example the

Chatti The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (''Visurgis'') river. They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in ...

. The term Irminonic therefore is also used as a term for

Elbe Germanic Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a proposed subgrouping of West Germanic languages introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the West Germanic d ...

, which is one of the proposed (but unattested) dialect groups ancestral to the

West Germanic The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germ ...

language family, especially the

High German languages The High German languages (, i.e. ''High German dialects''), or simply High German ( ) – not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called "High German" – comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Ben ...

, which include modern

Standard German Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the umbrella term for the standard language, standardized varieties of the German language, which are used in formal contexts and for commun ...

History of use

Classical

The name Irminones or Hermiones comes from

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

's ''

Germania Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superio ...

'' (AD 98), where he categorized them as one of the tribes that some people say were descended from

Mannus Mannus, according to the Roman writer Tacitus, was a figure in the creation Germanic mythology, myths of the Germanic tribes. Tacitus is the only source of these myths. This is a university textbook and exists in several variants printed for d ...

, and noted that they lived in the interior of

. Other Germanic groups of tribes were the Ingvaeones, living on the coast, and Istvaeones, who accounted for the rest. Tacitus also mentioned the

Suebi file:1st century Germani.png, 300px, The approximate positions of some Germanic peoples reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 1st century. Suebian peoples in red, and other Irminones in purple. The Suebi (also spelled Suavi, Suevi or Suebians ...

as a large grouping who included the

Semnones The Semnones were a Germanic and specifically a Suebi people, located between the Elbe and the Oder in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. They were described in the late 1st century by Tacitus in his ''Germania'': "The Semnones give themselves out t ...

, the

Quadi The Quadi were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people during the Roman era, who were prominent in Greek and Roman records from about 20 AD to about 400 AD. By about 20 AD they had a kingdom centred in the area of present-day western Slovakia, north ...

, and the

Marcomanni The Marcomanni were a Germanic people who lived close to the border of the Roman Empire, north of the River Danube, and are mentioned in Roman records from approximately 60 BC until about 400 AD. They were one of the most important members of th ...

, but he did not say precisely to which (if any) of the three nations they belonged.

Pomponius Mela Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest known Roman geographer. He was born at the end of the 1st century BC in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45. His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nea ...

, in his ''Description of the World'' (III.3.31) described the Hermiones as the farthest people of

, beyond both the Cimbri and Teutones who lived on the Codanus sinus, which is understood today to have been his name for the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

and

Kattegat The Kattegat (; ; ) is a sea area bounded by the peninsula of Jutland in the west, the Danish straits islands of Denmark and the Baltic Sea to the south and the Swedish provinces of Bohuslän, Västergötland, Halland and Scania in Swede ...

, although it was described by him as a very large bay filled with islands, east of the

river. Still farther east Mela describes the

Sarmatians The Sarmatians (; ; Latin: ) were a large confederation of Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Iranian Eurasian nomads, equestrian nomadic peoples who dominated the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Pontic steppe from about the 5th century BCE to the 4t ...

whom he places west of the

Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...

, and then the

Scythians The Scythians ( or ) or Scyths (, but note Scytho- () in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern Iranian peoples, Iranian Eurasian noma ...

whom he places east of the Vistula. Pliny's ''Natural History'' (4.100) claimed that the Irminones included the

Hermunduri The Hermunduri, Hermanduri, Hermunduli, Hermonduri, or Hermonduli were an ancient Germanic tribe, who occupied an inland area near the source of the Elbe river, around what is now Bohemia from the first to the third century, though they have als ...

, and

Cherusci The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germania in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered thems ...

Medieval

In the so-called Frankish Table of Nations (c. 520), probably a Byzantine creation, the son of Mannus, who was the ancestor of the Irminones, is named Erminus (or Armen, Ermenius, Ermenus, Armenon, Ermeno, as it appears in various manuscripts). He is said to have fathered the

Ostrogoths The Ostrogoths () were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populatio ...

Visigoths The Visigoths (; ) were a Germanic people united under the rule of a king and living within the Roman Empire during late antiquity. The Visigoths first appeared in the Balkans, as a Roman-allied Barbarian kingdoms, barbarian military group unite ...

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...

Gepids The Gepids (; ) were an East Germanic tribes, East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary, and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava, and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the G ...

, and

Saxons The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

. In a variation on the table that appears in the ''

Historia Brittonum ''The History of the Britons'' () is a purported history of early Britain written around 828 that survives in numerous recensions from after the 11th century. The ''Historia Brittonum'' is commonly attributed to Nennius, as some recensions ha ...

'', the Vandals and Saxons have been replaced by the

Burgundians The Burgundians were an early Germanic peoples, Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared east in the middle Rhine region in the third century AD, and were later moved west into the Roman Empire, in Roman Gaul, Gaul. In the first and seco ...

and Langobards.. They may have differentiated into the tribes

Alamanni The Alemanni or Alamanni were a confederation of Germanic tribes * * * on the Upper Rhine River during the first millennium. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Roman emperor Caracalla of 213 CE, the Alemanni c ...

, and

by the first century AD. By that time the Suebi, Marcomanni, and Quadi had moved southwest into the area of modern-day

and

. In 8 BC, the Marcomanni and Quadi drove the

Boii The Boii (Latin language, Latin plural, singular ''Boius''; ) were a Celts, Celtic tribe of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul (present-day Northern Italy), Pannonia (present-day Austria and Hungary), present-day Ba ...

out of

. The term Suebi is usually applied to all the groups who moved into this area, although later in history (around 200 AD) the term Alamanni (meaning "all-men") became more commonly applied to the group. '' Jǫrmunr'', the Viking Age Norse form of the name '' Irmin'', can be found in a number of places in the ''

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...

'' as a by-name for

Odin Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Em ...

. Some aspects of the Irminones culture and beliefs may be inferred from their relationships with the Roman Empire, from Widukind's confusion over whether Irmin was comparable to

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

Hermes Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quic ...

, and from

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

's allusions, at the beginning of the ''Prose Edda'', to Odin's cult having appeared first in Germany before spreading up into the Ingvaeonic North.

Notes

References

* * Grimm, Jacob (1835). ''Deutsche Mythologie'' (German Mythology); From English released version ''Grimm's Teutonic Mythology'' (1888); Available online by Northvegr © 2004-200
Chapter 15, page 2

3
File retrieved 09-26-2007. * Friedrich Maurer (1942) ''Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde'', Strasbourg: Hünenburg. * Tacitus, ''

'' (1st century AD). (in Latin) {{Authority control Early Germanic peoples Pre-Roman Iron Age