Geat Totally Explained

Everything about Geat totally explained

Geats, Geatas, Gautar, Goths, Gotar, Gøtar, Götar were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting Götaland ("land of the Geats") in modern Sweden. The name of the Geats also lives on in the Swedish counties of Västergötland and Östergötland, the Western and Eastern lands of the Geats, as well as in many toponyms.

History

Early history

The earliest mention of the Geats may appear in Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.), where they're referred to as Goutai. In the 6th century, they were referred to as Gautigoths and Ostrogoths (the Ostrogoths of Scandza) by Jordanes and as Gautoi by Procopius. In the Norse Sagas they're referred to as Gautar, and in Beowulf and Widsith as Gēatas. Geats shouldn't be confused with the Thracian Getae. Beowulf and the Norse sagas name several Geatish kings, but only Hygelac finds confirmation in Liber Monstrorum where he's referred to as Rex Getarum and in a copy of Historiae Francorum where he's called Rege Gotorum. These sources concern a Viking raid into Frisia, ca 516, which is also described in Beowulf. Some decades after the events related in this epic, Jordanes described the Geats as a nation which was "bold, and quick to engage in war".
   Before the consolidation of Sweden, the Geats were politically independent of the Swedes, whose old name was Sweonas in OE. When written sources emerge (approximately at the end of the 10th century), the Geatish lands are described as part of the still very shaky Swedish kingdom, but the manner of their unification with the Swedes is a matter of much debate.
   Based on the lack of early medieval sources, and the fact that the Geats were later part of the kingdom of Sweden, traditional accounts assume a forceful incorporation by the Swedes, but the only surviving traditions which deal with Swedish-Geatish wars are of semi-legendary nature and found in Beowulf. The Swedish invasion of Geatish lands has been explained with Geatish involvement in the Gothic wars in southern Europe, which brought a great deal of Roman gold to Götaland, but also naturally depleted their numbers (see Nordisk familjebok). The Hervarar saga is believed to contain such traditions handed down from the 4th century. It relates that when the Hunnish Horde invaded the land of the Goths and the Gothic king Angantyr desperately tried to marshal the defenses, it was the Geatish king Gizur who answered his call.
   There are widely diverging opinions among scholars as to when the Geats were finally subdued by the Swedes and made a part of the Swedish kingdom. According to Curt Weibull, the Geats would have been finally integrated in the Swedish kingdom c. 1000, but according to others, it most likely took place before the 9th century, and probably as early as the 6th century.. It was originally an adjective referring to those belonging to the Swedish tribe, who are called svear in Swedish. As early as the 9th century, svear had been vague, both referring to the Swedish tribe and being a collective term including the Geats, and this is the case in Adam of Bremen's work where the Geats (Goths) appear both as a proper nation and as part of the Sueones. The merging/assimilation of the two nations took a long time, however. In the early 20th century, Nordisk familjebok noted that svensk had almost replaced svear as a name for the Swedish people.
   Today, the merger of the two nations is complete, as there's no longer any tangible identification in Götaland with a Geatish identity, apart from the common tendency of people living in those areas to refer to themselves as västgötar (West Geats) and östgötar (East Geats), that's to say, residents of the provinces of Västergötland and Östergötland. The city Göteborg, known in English as Gothenburg, was named after the Geats (Geatsburg or fortress of the Geats), when it was founded in 1621.
Until 1973 the official title of the Swedish king was King of the Swedes, the Geats/Goths and the Vandals (with the formula "Sveriges, Götes och Vendes konung") This, however, changed when the new king Carl XVI Gustaf in 1973 decided that his royal title should simply be King of Sweden. The disappearance of the old title was a decision made entirely by the king. The old title in Latin was "N.N. Dei Gratia, Suecorum, Gothorum et Vandalorum Rex."

On Geats and Goths

Geatas was originally Proto-Germanic *Gautoz and Goths and Gutar (Gotlanders) were *Gutaniz. *Gautoz and *Gutaniz are two ablaut grades of a Proto-Germanic word *geutan with the meaning "to pour" (modern Swedish gjuta, modern German giessen). The word comes from an Indo-European root meaning to pour, offer sacrifice. There were consequently two derivations from the same proto-Germanic ethnonym.
It is a long-standing controversy whether the Goths were Geats. Both Old Icelandic and Old English literary sources clearly separate the Geats on one hand (Isl. Gautar, OEng Geatas) from the Goths/Gutar (Isl. Gotar, OEng. Gotenas); on the other, however, the Gothic historian Jordanes wrote that the Goths came from the island of Scandza. Moreover, he described that on this island there were three tribes called the Gautigoths (cf. Geat/Gaut), the Ostrogoths (cf. the Swedish province of Östergötland) and Vagoths (Gutar?) - this implies that the Geats were Goths rather than vice versa. The word Goth is also a term used by the Romans to describe related, culturally linked tribes like the Tervingi and the Greuthungs, so it may be correct to label Geats as Goths. Scandinavian burial customs, such as the stone circles (domarringar), which are most common in Götaland and Gotland, and stelae (bautastenar) appeared in what is now northern Poland in the 1st century AD, suggesting an influx of Scandinavians during the formation of the Gothic Wielbark culture (External Link

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). Moreover, in Östergötland, in Sweden, there's a sudden disappearance of villages during this period.

On Gautar and Geatas

The generally accepted identification between the Götar and Gautar as the Gēatas of Beowulf is mainly based on the observation that the ö monophthong of modern Swedish and the au diphthong of Old Norse correspond to the ēa diphthong of Old English.
Correspondences:

Swedish	Old Norse	Old English
bröd lök löv öst dröm död röd nöt köp öga hög söm töm (rein) öd (archaic) löpa	brauð laukr lauf austr draumr dauðr rauðr naut kaup auga haugr saumr taum (rein) auðr hlaupa	brēad lēac (onion) lēaf ēast drēam dēað rēad (red) nēat (head of cattle) cēap (purchase) ēage (eye) hēah (high) sēam tēam ēad (wealth/property) hlēapan (run)

etc.
   Thus, Gēatas is the Old English form of Old Norse Gautar and modern Swedish Götar. This correspondence seems to tip the balance for most scholars. It is also based on the fact that in Beowulf, the Gēatas live east of the Dene (across the sea) and in close contact with the Sweon, which fits the historical position of the Geats between the Danes and the Swedes.
   Moreover, the story of Beowulf, who leaves Geatland and arrives at the Danish court after a naval voyage, where he kills a beast, finds a parallel in Hrólf Kraki's saga. In this saga, Bödvar Bjarki leaves Gautland and arrives at the Danish court after a naval voyage and kills a beast that has been terrorizing the Danes for two years (see also Origins for Beowulf and Hrólf Kraki).
   Since the 19th century, there have been various theories that Beowulf's people were not the Gautar, but other Germanic tribes like the Danes (Curt Weibull), the Goths, the Gotlanders, and notably the Jutes.
   The Geats and the Jutes are mentioned in Beowulf as a different tribes, and whereas the Geats are called gēatas, the Jutes are called ēotena (genitive) or ēotenum (dative). Moreover, the Old English poem Widsith also mentions both Geats and Jutes, and it calls the latter ȳtum. (see for example the OED which identifies the Geats through Eotas, Iótas, Iútan and Geátas). Fahlbeck did not, however, propose an etymology for how the two ethnonyms could be related.
   Fahlbeck's theory was refuted by Schück who in 1907 noted that another Old English source, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, called the Jutes īutna, īotum or īutum. Björkman proposed in 1908 that Alfred the Great's translation of Jutes as Geats was based on a confusion between the West Saxon form Geotas ("Jutes") and Gēatas ("Geats").

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