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 on the Danube river in what is now Austria, west of Vienna. This kingdom first appeared in records after the death of Attila in 453. The next year, in 454, the Rugii, Heruli, Sciri and other peoples who had been allies within Attila's Hunnic empire were able to create short-lived, independent kingdoms in the Middle Danube region after they defeated an alliance of Attila's sons and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao. In 469 they were part of a similar alliance which lost to the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia, weakening their kingdom significantly.
Many Rugii, once again along with Sciri, Heruli and other Danubians, joined Odoacer's army in Italy working for the Western Roman emperor, and participated in his overthrow of the emperor and takeover of Roman Italy in 476. Fearing plots against him, Odoacer nevertheless invaded the Danubian Rugian kingdom in 487, and the Rugian lands were then settled by the Lombards from the north. Most Rugii in the Danubian region eventually joined the Ostrogoth Theoderic the Great who killed Odoacer and replaced him with a Gothic-led regime in Italy. There were Rugii based in Pavia who played an important role in the Italian kingdom until it was destroyed by eastern emperor Justinian. The third last king of the Gothic kingdom of Italy was the Rugian Eraric who died in 541. The 6th century historian of the Gothic wars, Procopius included the Rugii among the "Gothic peoples", grouping them with Goths, Gepids, Vandals, Sciri, and the non-Germanic Alans, who were mainly associated with Eastern Europe. After the defeat of kingdom, these Rugii disappear from history.
Despite their very different location, it is generally accepted that the Danubian Rugii were descended from the Rugii who were mentioned by Tacitus in the first century, in his Germania. He mentioned a people called the Rugii living near the south shore of the Baltic Sea, near the Lemovii and Gutones. Various other records mentioning places or peoples with similar names have been associated with the Danubian Rugii as possible relatives. These similar names all appear to be related to Indo-European words for the grain rye. In the 2nd century, Ptolemy mentioned the Rutikleioi, and the place known as Rougion, on the southern Baltic coast. In the 6th century Jordanes listed "Rugi" among the tribes supposedly living in Scandinavia in his own time, near the Dani and Suetidi. He also listed the "Rogas" as an Eastern European people of the 4th century. Much later, the medieval Rygir were a tribe residing in Rogaland, in southwestern Norway, around the Boknafjord. The German coastal island known today as Rügen is also sometimes associated with the Rugii. The Rugii are also associated with the Ulmerugi mentioned by Jordanes. This name probably means "island Rugii", and he described them as a people who had many centuries before him lived on the Baltic coast near the Vistula, at the time when he believed the Goths arrived by boat from Scandinavia. A similar island name, Holmrygir, is known from much later medieval Norway, in the area near Rogaland.
The name of the Rugii continued to be used after the sixth century to refer to Slavic-speaking peoples near the Danube, and in north-eastern Germany, and it was even used as a Latin name for the Rus people of eastern Europe.

Etymology

The tribal name Rugii is believed to originate from the name of the cereal rye and would therefore have meant "rye eaters" or "rye farmers". The Proto-Germanic word for rye has been reconstructed as *rugiz, and versions of the word exist in both West Germanic, and North Germanic languages, but are not known from East Germanic. They are also known in the other language families of the Baltic region: Finnic ; Baltic; and Slavic. Andersson notes that etymology limits the possible places that we might expect the Rugii to have had their original homeland. For example, the cultivation of rye, which began in the Middle East, is not known in Norway in the Roman era, which implies that the later Rygir of Norway were not living in the original Rugian homeland.
Other historical terms associated with the Rugii:
  • The Ulmerugi, were a people who lived on the coast near the Vistula. They were mentioned by Jordanes, and scholars have traditionally interpreted their name as "island Rugii", containing the Proto-Germanic word reconstructed as *hulmaz. An equivalent word in Old Norse holmrygir is found in Norway, near the tribe who were called the Rygir.
  • Ptolemy's Rutikleioi have been interpreted by some scholars as a scribal error for Rugikleioi. The meaning of the second part of this name form is unclear, but it has, for example, been interpreted as a Germanic diminutive.
  • Though some scholars have suggested that the Rugii passed their name to the Isle of Rügen in modern Northeastern Germany, other scholars have presented alternative hypotheses of Rügen's etymology associating the name to the mediaeval Rani tribe.
  • The Rugini are mentioned only once, in a list of pagan tribes living in Germania, which was drawn up by the English monk Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica of the early 8th century.

    Origins

Southern Baltic coast

The earliest surviving mention of the Rugii is by Tacitus writing about 100 AD. He described them as living on the southern Baltic coast near the Lemovii, probably west of the Vistula estuary. Together with their inland neighbours the Gutones as a group of Germanic peoples who were distinguishable from other Germanic peoples because they used round shields and short swords, and obeyed kings.
The 2nd century geographer Ptolemy did not mention the Rugii, but he did mention a place named Rugion and a tribe named the Routikleioi in roughly the same area, between the rivers Vidua and Vistula. Modern scholars have suggested links between both these geographical entries and the Rugii.
In the 6th century, Jordanes wrote an origin story about the Goths, the Getica. According to this account, when the Goths arrived from Scandinavia in the coastal area of "Gothiscandza" they expelled a people called the Ulmerugi.
The Oxhöft culture is associated with parts of the Rugii and Lemovii. The archaeological Gustow group of Western Pomerania is also associated with the Rugii. The remains of the Rugii west of the Vidivarii, together with other Gothic, Veneti, and Gepid groups, are believed to be identical with the archaeological Dębczyn culture.
According to an old proposal, in the 2nd century AD, eastern Germanic peoples then mainly in the area of modern Poland, began to expand their influence, pressing peoples to their south and eventually causing the Marcomannic Wars on the Roman Danubian frontier. Given the coincidence of the same name on the Baltic and Danube, the Rugii are one of the peoples thought to have been involved. While modern authors are sceptical of some elements of the old narrative, the archaeology of the Wielbark culture has given new evidence to support this idea.
In his Getica Jordanes claimed that the 4th-century Gothic king Ermanaric, who was one of the first rulers west of the Don river to confront the Huns as they entered Europe, ruled an empire stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. In a list of the peoples conquered by him the name "Rogas" appears.

Scandinavia

The 6th-century writer Jordanes made reference to a people called the Rugii living in Scandinavia in his time, in the area near the Dani, who are normally presumed to be the Danes.
According to an old proposal, the Rugii possibly migrated from southwest Norway to Pomerania in the 1st century AD. Rogaland or Rygjafylke is a region in south west Norway. Rogaland translates "Land of the Rygir", the transition of rygir to roga being sufficiently explained with the general linguistic transitions of the Norse language.
Scholars suggest a migration either of Rogaland Rugii to the southern Baltic coast, a migration the other way around, or an original homeland on the islands of Denmark in between these two regions. None of those theories is so far backed by archaeological evidence. Another theory suggests that the name of one of the two groups was adapted by the other one later without any significant migration taking place.
Scholars such as Andersson regard it as very unlikely that the name meaning "rye-eaters" or "rye-farmers" was invented twice. In favour of a Scandinavian origin, despite doubts about the early cultivation of Rye, he cites the sixth century claim of Jordanes that Scandinavia was the "womb of nations". Others such as Pohl have argued that the similarity of names has been uncritically interpreted to indicate tribal kinship or identity, feeding a debate about the location of an "original homeland" without any reference to historical sources. Pohl also suggests that one possibility suggested by the work of Reinhard Wenskus and the Vienna School of History is that the name of the Rugii could have been spread by small elite groups who moved around, rather than mass migration.

Danubian and Italian Rugii

One of the first clear records of the Rugii interacting with the Roman empire is in the Laterculus Veronensis of about 314. In a list of barbarians under the emperors it lists them together with their future neighbours the Heruli, but in a part of the list between the Scottish barbarians and the tribes north of the lower Rhine. Unlike the Heruli, they do not appear in other such 4th-century lists.
The Rugii were listed by Sidonius Apollinaris as one of the northern peoples who were led by Attila over the Rhine, to invade Gaul, and eventually fight the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451. After Attila's death in 453, the Rugii were among the Hunnic confederates who successfully rebelled against his sons, defeating them and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454. Whether or not the Rugian kingdom existed before then, and in what form, is unknown.
Another group of Rugii were settled near Constantinople after Nadao, in Bizye and Arcadiopolis where they provided troops to the empire.
In 468/9 the Danubian kingdom of the Rugii and the Gepids sent forces to the Battle of Bolia to support their neighbours in the Suavian kingdom, and the remnants of the Sciri. These Danubian kingdoms fought against their powerful southern neighbours the Ostrogoths and lost. Leading the Sciri in this disastrous battle were the father and brother of Odoacer, Edeko and Onoulphus.
By 470, Odoacer was the military leader for the Romans, of a mixed group of Danubian peoples including Heruli, Sciri and Rugii. In one passage Jordanes even referred to Odoacer as a king of the Rugii. In 476 these Rugii were foederati of Odoacer, who was became the first king of Italy in 476.
With Roman power still weakened along the Danube, the majority of the Rugii remained part of the independent Rugian kingdom on the Danube, ruled by Flaccitheus in Rugiland, a region presently part of lower Austria, north of the Danube. After Flaccitheus's death, the Rugii of Rugiland were led by king Feletheus, also called Feva, and his wife Gisa.
By 482 the Rugii had converted to Arianism.
Feletheus' Rugii were utterly defeated by Odoacer in 487. King Feletheus and his wife Gisa were brought to Italy. Many of those who did not join Odoacer in Italy joined the Ostrogoths. Rugiland was subsequently settled by the Lombards. Records of this era are made by Procopius, Jordanes and others.
Two years later, Rugii joined the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great when he invaded Italy in 489. Within the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy, they kept their own administrators and avoided intermarriage with the Goths. They disappeared after Totila's defeat in the Gothic War.