Geats
Geats, or
Götar in
Swedish, is the
Old English spelling of the name of a
Scandinavian people living in
Götaland, land of the Geats, currently within the borders of modern
Sweden. The name of the Geats lives on in the
Swedish counties of
Västra Götaland and
Östergötland, the Western and Eastern lands of the Geats, as does the city
Göteborg, known in English as
Gothenburg.
The Geats were formerly politically independent of the
Swedes, whose old name was
Svear. Starting in the
500s, the Geats slowly lost their independence and became tributaries of the Swedish kings. Towards the 12th and 13th centuries the Geats provided several Swedish kings, who to this day still formally call themselves "götars och svears konung" (king of Geats and Swedes).
On Geats and Goths
\nIt is a long-standing controversy whether the Goths were Geats. Jordanes claimed that the Goths came from the island of Scandza. He also claimed that on this island there were two tribes called the Gautigoths (cf. Geat/Gaut) and the Ostrogoths (cf. the Swedish province of Östergötland). It is also fuelled by Tacitus, who several centuries earlier in his work Germania named a tribe called Gothones just before he named the Suiones (Svear).
Today, Jordanes' claim is also supported by Polish archaeologists who claim that the Gothic finds are similar to those of southern Sweden. Moreover, in Västergötland, in Sweden, there is a sudden disappearance of villages prior to the appearance of Goths in Poland. However, in Sweden, where the general opinion is that the Goths did not come from Sweden, this is attributed to an economic change, and the linguistic and material similarities are generally attributed to contacts.
On Gautar and Geats
\nThe general identification of the Geatas of Beowulf as the Gautar/Götar of southern Sweden is usually based on the observation that the EA diphthong of the Anglo-Saxon language was the equivalent of the AU diphthong of Old Norse and the Ö sound in modern Swedish.
Bread-Braudr-Bröd, Dream-Draumr-Dröm, Leaf-Laufr-Löv, East-Austr-Öst, etc., etc.
Thus, the expected form of Old Norse Gautar and modern Swedish Götar is the Old English Geatas and modern English Geats.
This correspondence seems to tip the balance for most scholars. It is also based on the fact that in Beowulf, the Geats live east of the Daner and in close contact with the Svear, which fits the historical position of the Gautar.
Moreover, the story of Beowulf, who leaves Geatland and arrives at the Danish after a naval voyage court finds a parallel in Rolf Krake's saga, where Beowulf's cognate Bodvar Bjarke leaves Gautland and arrives at the Danish court where he kills a beast that has been terrorizing the Danes for two years (see also Origins for Beowulf and Rolf Krake).
However, since the 19th century, several other nations have been suggested to correspond to the Geats, such as the Danes (Curt Weibull), the Jutes (Pontus Fahlbeck 1884), the Goths and the Gotlanders. See e.g. the OED which identifies the Geats through Eotas, Iótas, Iútan and Geátas) with the Jutes referred to in the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. ' (See: Jutes.)
These hypotheses have been suggested in spite of the fact that, in Beowulf, the Geats are clearly distinguished from both Jutes Eótenas and Danes. Thus any identification between the Geatas and these two nations is refuted by the epic itself.
In addition, the reconstructed root for both Geat and Gaut is *Gaut-, whereas the reconstructed root of Goth and Got(-land) is *Gut-. The root of Jute is usually regarded as unknown.
Even if the identification made in this article may seem to be generally accepted or to be the simplest one, the matter is not dead and it will continue to raise harsh feelings even in the future. Especially, in Sweden, where the whole debate about Sweden's history prior to the 11th century is infected.
Especially, some conspiracy theorists of the highly controversial Götaland theory deny the connection between the Geats and the Gautar, because they want to place the Svear in Götaland. For such a discussion see the following link (the text is in Swedish):\nhttp://home.swipnet.se/dx/vaggan/skolan.htm
See also
\n*Viking, Varangian\n*Hygelac\n*Geatish Society\n*Trial by combat\n*Trial by ordeal\n*Göta\n*Goths
