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SUEBI, or SUEVI

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 21 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SUEBI, or SUEVI , a collective See also:term applied to a number of peoples in central See also:Germany, the See also:chief of whom appear to have been the See also:Marcomanni, Quadi, Hermunduri, Semnones and Langobardi. From the earliest times these tribes inhabited the See also:basin of the See also:Elbe. The Langobardic territories seem to have lain about the See also:lower reaches of the See also:river, while the Semnones See also:lay See also:south. The Marcomanni occupied the basin of the See also:Saale; but under their See also:king, Maroboduus, they moved into Bohemia during the See also:early See also:part of See also:Augustus's reign, while the Quadi, who are first mentioned in the See also:time of Tiberius, lay farther See also:east towards the See also:sources of the Elbe. The former See also:home of the Marcomanni was occupied by the Hermunduri a few years before the See also:Christian era. Some See also:kind of See also:political See also:union seems to have existed among all these tribes. The Semnones and Langobardi were at one time subject to the dominion of the Marcomannic king Maroboduus, and at a much later See also:period we hear of Langobardic troops taking part against the See also:Romans in the Marcomannic See also:War. The Semnones claimed to be the chief of the Suebic peoples, and See also:Tacitus describes a See also:great religious festival held in their tribal See also:sanctuary, at which legations were See also:present from all the other tribes. Tacitus uses the name Suebi in a far wider sense than that defined above. With him it includes not only the tribes of the basin of the Elbe, but also all the tribes See also:north and east of that river, including even the Swedes (Suiones). This usage, which is not found in other See also:ancient writers, is probably due to a confusion of the Suebi with the agglomeration of peoples under their supremacy, which as we know from See also:Strabo extended to some at least of the eastern tribes. In early Latin writers the term Suebi is occasionally applied to any of the above tribes.

From the 2nd to the 4th See also:

century, however, it is seldom used except with reference to events in the neighbourhood of the Pannonian frontier, and here probably means the Quadi. From the See also:middle of the 4th century onward it appears most frequently in the regions south of the See also:Main, and soon the names See also:Alamanni and Suabi are used synonymously. The Alamanni (q.v.) seem to have been, in part at least, the descendants of the ancient Hermunduri, but it is likely that they had been joined by one or more other Suebic peoples, from the Danubian region, or more probably from the middle Elbe, the See also:land of the ancient Semnones. It is probably from the Alamannic region that those Suebi came who joined the See also:Vandals in their invasion of See also:Gaul, and eventually founded a See also:kingdom in north-See also:west See also:Spain. After the 1st century the term Suebi seems never to be applied to the Langobardi and seldom to the Baiouarii (Bavarians), the descendants of the ancient Marcomanni. But besides the Alamannic Suebi we hear also of a See also:people called Suebi, who shortly after the middle of the 6th century settled north of the Unstrut. There is See also:evidence also for a people called Suebi in the See also:district above the mouth of the See also:Scheldt. It is likely that both these settlements were colonies from the Suebi of whom we hear in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith as neighbours of the See also:Angli, and whose name may possibly be preserved in Schwabstedt on the Treene. The question has recently been raised whether these Suebi should be identified with the people whom the Romans called See also:Heruli. After the 7th century the name Suebi is practically only applied to the Alamannic Suebi (Schwaben), with whom it remains a territorial designation in See also:Wurttemberg and See also:Bavaria until the present See also:day. See Caesai, De See also:bello gallico, i. 37, 51 sqq., iv.

I sqq., vi. 9 sqq. ; Strabo, p. 290 seq. ; Tacitus, Germania, 38 sqq. ; K. Zeuss, See also:

Die Deutschen and die Nachbarstdmme, pp. 55 sqq., 315 sqq. ; C. See also:Bremer in See also:Paul's Grundriss (2nd ed.), iii. 915-950; H. M.

See also:

Chadwick, Origin of the See also:English Nation, 216 sqq. (See also:Cambridge, 1907). (F. G. M.

End of Article: SUEBI, or SUEVI

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