The Vidivarii are described by

Jordanes Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, one on R ...

in his

Getica ''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae''), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'' (), written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the ori ...

as a

melting pot A melting pot is a Monoculturalism, monocultural metaphor for a wiktionary:heterogeneous, heterogeneous society becoming more wiktionary:homogeneous, homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an alternative bei ...

of tribes who in the mid-6th century lived at the lower

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 ...

: Mayke de Jong, Frans Theuws, Carine van Rhijn, ''Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages'', BRILL, 2001, p.524,

''Ad litus oceani, ubi tribus faucibus fluenta Vistulae fluminibus ebibuntur, Vidivarii resident ex diversis nationibus aggregati.''Jordanes, Getica, chapter 5, as cited by Jacob Grimm et al, ''Werke'', 2nd edition, Georg Olms Verlag, 1999, p.500,

Though differing from the earlier Willenberg culture, some traditions were continued, thus the corresponding archaeological culture is sometimes described as the Vidivarian or ''widiwar'' stage of the Willenberg culture. The bearers of the Willenberg culture have been associated with a heterogeneous people comprising Vistula Veneti,

Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is ...

Rugii The Rugii, Rogi or Rugians (), were one of the smaller Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity who are best known for their short-lived 5th-century kingdom upon the Roman frontier, near present-day Krems an der Donau in Austria. This kingdom, like t ...

, and

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 ...

.Jan M Piskorski, ''Pommern im Wandel der Zeit'', 1999, p.25, One hypothesis, based on the sudden appearance of large amounts of Roman solidi and migrations of other groups after the breakdown of the Hun empire in 453, suggest a partial re-migration of earlier emigrants to their former northern homelands.

Etymology

The first element ''vid''/''wid'' means "wood" (

sacred grove Sacred groves, sacred woods, or sacred forests are groves of trees that have special religious importance within a particular culture. Sacred groves feature in various cultures throughout the world. These are forest areas that are, for the most ...

?), from

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...

*''widuz''. The second element ''-varii'' is most prolific among Germanic tribal names (Ampsivarii, Angrivarii, Raetovarii, Falchovarii, Baiuvarii, ...), commonly taken to mean "inhabitants of", "dwellers in". Its precise etymology remains unclear.

References

Early Germanic peoples History of Pomerania {{europe-ethno-group-stub

Etymology

See also

References