Baiuvarii

The Baiuvarii, Baiovari or early Bavarians were a Germanic people who first appeared in the 6th century. They originally lived in what had been the Roman province Raetia, south of the Danube, in what is now southern Bavaria. From there, their territory expanded. Their culture, language and political institutions are the predecessors of those of the medieval Duchy of Bavaria and Margraviate of Austria. These are in turn the predecessors of modern Bavarian, Austrian, and South Tyrolean cultures.

Reconstruction of the grave of the Kemathen warrior, who is believed to have been a Bavarian

Map of the extent of the Bavarian, also known as Austro-Bavarian, dialects of the German language

The Baiuvarii are first mentioned in contemporary records starting in the 6th century, soon after the end of the Western Roman Empire, which affected Raetia and many of the surrounding countries.

Among the Baiuvarii the Bavarian language developed, which is a West Germanic language closely related to Standard German. Modern versions are still spoken not only by modern-day Bavarians, but also by Austrians and South Tyroleans.

Language

The language of the Baiuvarii was West Germanic, like its descendants medieval Old High German, and the modern Bavarian language. It was so similar to the contemporary languages of the neighbouring Alamanni, Thuringi, and Langobards, that it is difficult to tell them apart.^[1][2][3] This group of languages ancestral to Old High German are sometimes referred to as "Elbe Germanic", although the model used to define this term is now considered obsolete.^[1][4]

Early evidence of the language of the Baiuvarii is limited to personal names and a few Runic inscriptions. However, by the 8th century AD, the Austro-Bavarian language was already well-established.^[5][6]

A peculiarity of Bavarian compared to its neighbours is that it appears to have loaned words from East Germanic languages, such as Gothic.^[7][4][1]

Name

A map of the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum (red borders) showing the Lech, Danube and Inn rivers

The name of the Baiuvarii had many written variants, but many differences can be explained in terms of the spelling conventions of the time. The use of the letters "b", "v", "u", "uu" and "o" was common when representing the same w-like sound in words from Germanic languages. Similarly, versions with a letter "g" such as Bogari, Baguvarii, are using that letter to represent a palatal glide, or y-like sound. Versions with an initial p such as Pagoarii, Paioarii, Peigiro reflect the normal Upper German version of the High German consonant shift, which still distinguishes southern dialects of German today, and so this was a real variant pronunciation.^[8]

Modern scholars reconstruct the original Germanic pronunciation before the first written forms as *Baiwari, and singular *Bai(a)warjōz.^[9] According to Rübekiel, the standard modern terms such as German Baj-u-waren and English Bai-u-varii are based on a misunderstanding of early medieval spellings such as Baiuuari, where "uu" really represented a single w-like consonant, and not an "uw" syllable.^[8]

Different etymologies can be proposed, but modern scholars normally understand the name as a compound of two elements: *Baia-/Baijo- which is believed to be a Germanic evolution from the pre-imperial Celtic tribal name Boii; and -warjōz which is a common Germanic suffix used to create the names of peoples, by associating them with nouns such as regional names.

The earliest attestations are the following, from the 6th century, when the term seems to have been new. The early 6th century biography of Severinus of Noricum describes the region without mentioning them.^[10]

• The variants Baioarius, Baweros, Baioeros, Bawarios, Baioarios, Boguarii, Bogari in various versions of the Frankish Table of Nations, starting from about 520, which describes them as a people with kinship to the Burgundians, Thuringians and Lombards.^[10]
• The variants Baibaros, Baiobaros, Baioarios, in the Getica of Jordanes, of 551. He described how a Suebian group under the rule of the 5th century king or warlord named Hunimund moved to the southern side of the Danube to live in an Alpine area with the Alemanni. They had the Franks on their west, Thuringians to their north, Burgundians to their south, and these Baibaros to their east, who are generally understood to have been the Bavarians.^[11]
• Venantius Fortunatus mentioned a region called Baivaria near the Lech river, and a person who was a Baiovarius, near the Breuni who were based near the river Inn. The Lech flows north from the Austrian alps to the German Danube.^[8]

Possible sources of the name

The Baiuvarii probably didn't exist under that name before the 5th century. However, the Boii, who seem to be the basis of the first element of the Baiuvarii name, almost disappeared from the written record around the time when the Roman empire began, centuries earlier. This has led scholars to propose different ways in which the Baiuvarii name can be indirectly derived from the much older name of the Boii tribe. By explaining this, scholars also hope to get indications about how the Baiuvarii came into existence.

A common and old proposal is that the Baiuvarii name somehow evolved from the classical version of the geographical term "Bohemia" which was used by Latin and Greek writers in the first century AD. Strabo called it Buiaimon, Velleius Paterculus called it Boiohaemum, and Tacitus called it Boiemum.^[12] Modern scholars see this as a Germanic word, coined by the Suebi who settled there under Maroboduus, long after the Boii departed. According to this proposal the second component is Germanic *haim-, the source of modern English "home" and modern German "Heim".^[8][13] One of the last classical reports of this name is the 2nd century mention of a people called the Bainochaemae. Claudius Ptolemy described them in his Geography as living near the Elbe, east of the Melibokus mountains, and north of the Asciburgius mountains.^[14]

According to this proposal, the Baivari migrated south from the original Bohemia, which is generally believed to be roughly where the modern Bohemia is, now in the Czech Republic. Alternatively, if Bohemia was in Moravia then the migration was from the east, along the Danube. The "haim" part of the placename, which would have made the evidence for this etymology clear, has however disappeared, leaving only the name of the Boii.^[13]

There are similar migration proposals which however proposal that the name does not come from Bohemia, but directly from the Boii name itself, which was preserved in various areas to the east of Raetia (which would become the core of Bavaria). Examples which have been proposed include the following:

• Boiodurum, which was the Roman name of Passau.^[13]
• The Ravenna Cosmography mentions a country called Baias, which was part of a mountainous region called Ungani, stretching from the southern Elbe far to the east, and bordering upon Roman Pannonia.^[15]
• Ptolemy in the second century reported a "large nation" called the Baiani (Ancient Greek: Βαιανοί) or Baimi (Βαίμοι) between the Luna Forest and the Danube.^[13][16] This population mentioned by Ptolomy is believed to have been the "Vannius Kingdom", which was established on Quadi territory by transporting Marcomanni from Bohemia after a civil war in the first century AD.
• Within Roman Pannonia itself there was also a civitas of the Boii, on the Danube near present day Vienna, in the north west of the Roman province of Pannonia.^[17] By about 400 AD, when the Notitia Dignitatum was made, the area's military defence included Marcomanni troops many of whom had by this time been moved into the empire.
• Another name associated by scholars with the Boii name in late antiquity is the country called Bainaib, possibly from *Bain-haim, recorded in Origo Gentis Langobardorum as one of the places the Langobards stopped on their trek from the lower Elbe to the Middle Danube.^[13][8] It came between Antaib and Burgundaib.
• The name of the Baiuvarii is probably also preserved in the list of great rulers of peoples in the Old English poem about Widsith, the traveller, which lists "Becca" as ruler of the Baningas, along with better-known rulers such as Attila who ruled the Huns, and Ermanric who ruled the Goths.^[13][8]

There are also several proposals about the ethnic background of the population who brought the Baiuvarii name with them to Raetia, and made it the name of the mixed community. However, most of the proposals involve the Suebian Germanic peoples to the east of Raetia such as the Marcomanni and Quadi.^[16]

A third proposal is that the name of the Boii still survived in Raetia, making no migration necessary. In other words, the Celtic Boii of the Norican–Raetian region were the name-giving element for the mixed population that remained there after Rome abandoned the provinces.^[16] According to Karl Bosl in 1971, Bavarian migration to present-day Bavaria is a legend, and Walter Goffart has more recently agreed that there is no reason to assume any single large immigration in order to explain the 5th century origins of the Baiuvarii.^[10]

Modern commentary

The Baiuvarii emerged about 500 after both Odoacer (died 493) destroyed the Rugian kingdom just to the east of Bavaria in 487. He and his successor as king of Italy, Theoderic the Great (died 526), both had their roots in the Middle Danubian area and led large numbers of people from there to Italy, to Italy.^[18][10]

The Rugian kingdom was soon taken over in this same period by Langodbardi, who moved from the Lower Elbe, and filled the power vacuum in the Middle Elbe while the Bavarians did so in the more Romanised region of Raetia.

The Baiuvarii are believed to have incorporated elements from several Germanic peoples, including the Rugii, Sciri, Marcomanni, Heruli, Suebi, Alemanni, Naristi, Thuringi and Lombards. They might also have included non-Germanic Romance people (romanized Celtic people).^[18]

It has been proposed that the Baiuvarii came into being as a territory defending a new border, under the influence of Theodoric the Great in Italy or the Frankish kings Theuderic I and his son Theudebert I (died 548).^[16] Theudebert claimed in a letter to the Byzantine emperor Juntinian that he controlled the area from the North Sea to Pannonia. After his death, his uncle Chlothar I appointed Garibald I as dux of Bavaria.^[10]

Garibald established the Agilolfing dynasty with his power base at Augsburg or Regensburg.^[18]

Archaeology

The early Baiuvarii are often associated with the Friedenhain-Přešťovice [de] archaeological group, but this is controversial.^[18]

The funerary traditions of the Baiuvarii are similar to those of the Alemanni, but quite different from those of the Thuringi.^[19]

The Baiuvarii are distinguished by the presence of individuals with artificially deformed craniums in their cemeteries. These individuals were predominantly female; there is no undisputed evidence of males with artificially deformed skulls in Bavaria.^[20] Genetic and archeological evidence shows that these women were migrants from eastern cultures, who married Bavarii males, suggesting the importance of exogamy within the Bavarii culture.^[21] The migrant women were fully integrated in to Bavarii culture.^[22]

Genetics

Further information: Lombards § Genetics, Goths § Genetics, Visigoths § Genetics, and Alemanni § Genetics

In 2018, genomic research showed that these foreign women had southeastern European and East Asian ancestry. The presence of these women among the Bavarii people indicates that men from the Bavarii culture practiced exogamy, preferentially marrying women from eastern populations.^[23][a][24]

The genetic study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in 2018 examined the remains of 41 individuals buried at a Bavarian cemetery ca. 500 AD. Of these, 11 whole genomes were generated. The males were found to be genetically homogeneous and of north-central European origin. The females were less homogeneous, carried less Northern European ancestry, and were found to combine Southeast European and East Asian ancestry.^[23]

There were significant gender differences in skin, hair and eye pigmentation in the sample. While 80% of the Bavarii males had blond hair and blue eyes, the women had much higher rates of brown eyes and darker hair colors. The local women with East Asian and Southern European-related ancestry, generally had brown eyes, and 60% were dark haired.^[b][c]

No significant admixture with Roman populations from territories further south of the area was detected.^[d] Among modern populations, the surveyed male individuals did not have modified skulls and were found to be most closely related to modern-day Germans.^[e]

Origin myth

A medieval origin story exists for the Baiuvarii, the Annolied written in the 11th century, says that the Bavarian tribe came long ago from Armenia, "where Noah came out of the ark". The leaders of the Bavarian army are said to have been Duke Boimunt and his brother Ingram. The story was also reflected in the Song of Roland, which mentions a Bavarian duke Naimes. Also the epic Karl written by "Der Stricker" says that Naymes, the Bavarian duke, was born in "Ormenîe".^[13]

These origin-legends stem from learned medieval conceptions.^[13]

Law code

A collection of Bavarian tribal laws was compiled in the 8th century. This document is known as Lex Baiuvariorum. Elements of it possibly date back to the 6th century.^[18] It is very similar to Lex Thuringorum, which was the legal code of the Thuringi, with whom the Baiuvarii had close relations.^[19]

Christianity

By the 8th century, many Baiuvarii had converted to Christianity.^[25]

See also

• Elbe Germanic peoples
• Irminones

Notes

1. Veeramah et al: "A much more diverse ancestry was observed among the females with elongated skulls, as demonstrated by a significantly greater group-based FIS (SI Appendix, Fig. S35). All these females had varying amounts of genetic ancestry found today predominantly in southern European countries [as seen by the varying amounts of ancestry inferred by model-based clustering that is representative of a sample from modern Tuscany, Italy (TSI), Fig. 3], and while the majority of samples were found to be closest to modern southeastern Europeans (Bulgaria and Romania, Fig. 4C), at least one individual, AED_1108, appeared to possess ~20% East Asian ancestry (Fig. 3)^[23]
2. Veeramah et al: "Based on the HIrisPlex system (13), the majority (~80%) of individuals with normal or intermediate skulls (and thus northern/central European ancestry) showed high probabilities for blue eyes and blonde hair (SI Appendix, Fig. S7 A and B); in contrast, the majority of women with deformed skulls had a high likelihood for brown eyes (80% of individuals), and both brown and blonde hair (~60% and 40% of individuals, respectively) were represented in the sample."^[23]
3. Veeramah et al: "While the immigrant females would have been clearly distinguishable physically among the local population based on the combination of their enlarged crania as well as their different eye, hair, and perhaps even skin pigmentation patterns, it is noteworthy that their assemblies of grave goods appear to reflect both local customs and more distant material cultures (10)."^[23]
4. Veeramah et al: " It is perhaps surprising that no local individual was found to share recent common genetic ancestry with a Roman soldier living in the same area ~200 y earlier. The analysis of his genome identifies him to be of southwest European origin. Thus, our results, though only based on one sample, argue against significant admixture between any Roman populations from more southern parts of the former Roman Empire and our individuals buried in Bavaria around 500 AD."^[23]
5. Veeramah et al: "A population assignment analysis (PAA) at the level of individual modern nation states suggested greatest genetic similarity of these normal-skulled individuals with modern Germans, consistent with their sampling location (Fig. 4 A and B and SI Appendix, Table S35)."^[23]