Turcilingi

Thomas Hodgkin's map of barbarian peoples during the time of Augustulus, from his Italy and Her Invaders. The location of the Turcilingi is only a guess.

The Turcilingi (also spelled Torcilingi or Thorcilingi) were an obscure barbarian people who first appear in historial sources as living in Gaul in the mid-fifth century and last appeared in Italy during the reign of Romulus Augustulus (475–76). Their only known leader was Odoacer (Odovacar).

Primary sources

The Turcilingi are mentioned in only two independent sources: three times in the Getica of Jordanes and once in the Historia Miscella of Landulf Sagax. They are also mentioned once in the Historia Langobardorum of Paul the Deacon in a passage that is a derivative of Jordanes. Johann Kaspar Zeuss, followed by Karl V. Müllenhoff, believed that the 'Ρουτίχλειοι mentioned in the Geographia of Ptolemy (II.11.7) were the Turcilingi, but this thesis requires a complex etymology. Landulf Sagax lists them together with the Scirii among the nations which participated on the side of Attila and the Huns at the Battle of Châlons. Landulf is the unique source for this information; though he is a very late source (tenth century), it is probable that he had access to now lost sources and there is nothing inherently improbable about the Turcilingi being present at Châlons along with the Scirii as Hunnic allies.

Jordanes speaks of the Turcilingi, though he makes no mention of them at Châlons. The Turcilingi were joined with several other barbarian tribes, like the Scirii, Rugii, and Heruli, under Odoacer as foederati of the Western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus, who was a puppet of his father, Flavius Orestes. The barbarians demanded from Orestes in return for their military service some Italian land on which to settle. They were denied. According to Jordanes:

Now when Augustulus had been appointed Emperor by his father Orestes in Ravenna, it was not long before Odoacer, king of the Torcilingi (rex Torcilingorum), invaded Italy, as leader of the Scirii, the Heruli and allies of various races. He put Orestes to death...[1]

When Theodoric the Great was looking for a pretext to invade Italy in 493, he petitioned the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno by reminding him of the "tyranny" (unlawful rule) of the city of Rome by Turcilingi and Rugii. According to Jordanes, Theodoric gave the following justification:

The western country, long ago governed by the rule of your ancestors and predecessors, and that city which was the head and mistress of the world—wherefore is it now shaken by the tyranny of the Torcilingi and the Rugi?[2]

Theodoric's charge against the Turcilingi had resonance. As late as the 17th century, Lancelot Andrewes found use for citing the "inhumanity" and barbarity of the Turcilingi in his Gunpowder Plot Sermon.

Paul the Deacon, in his opening chapter,[3] names several peoples (Vandals, Rugii, Heruli, Turcilingi) who have come, he says, from Germania to Italy. He goes on to name the Lombards as latecomers from the same region. This passage is clearly based on Jordanes, but its reference to Germany is unique. Nonetheless, Paul does not say that the Turcilingi are Germans, but only that they came from: "The Goths indeed, and the Wandals, the Rugii, Heroli, and Turcilingi, and also other fierce and barbarous nations have come from Germany." The Turcilingi appear to have originated in Germany, perhaps near the Baltic Sea,[4] and thence moved with the Huns into Gaul and finally to the Danube, possibly Noricum, before entering Italy with Odoacer.

Identification

From the sources it is not possible to infer the origin of Turcilingi. The Turcilingi are generally considered to have been a Germanic tribe.[5] It was often assumed that they were an Eastern Germanic people related to the Scirii, or at least connected to the Scirii by special affinity.[6] Nineteenth-century German scholarship supposed that the Turcilingi were neighbours of (or the same people as) the Scirii in the first century, or that they were the royal clan of the Scirii[7] or the Huns. Herwig Wolfram classifies the Turcilingi as a Germanic tribe, and supports the notion that they were the royal clan of the Scirii.[7][8] The more enthusiastic invented a homeland for them straddling the Oder, with the Scirii to the east, the Vandals to the west, and the Rugii to the north. These scholars placed them in the Gothic mouvance. They were identified with the Thuringii by Helmut Castritius and Walter Pohl. Odoacer's father is said to have been a Thuringian in some sources. If this is true, it is possible that he ruled those people, and that Turcilingi is merely a scribal error for Thuringii.

Etymology

The problem of identification is related to the problem of etymology. Both are related to the question whether the Turcilingi were Germanic or not. The root Turci- has led some scholars to suggest that they were a Turkic-speaking tribe.[9] The -ling suffix is Germanic, denoting members of a line, usually one descended from a common ancestor.[10]

References

  1. ↑ XLVI.242
  2. ↑ LVII.291
  3. ↑ I.1
  4. ↑ This is where Zeuss places them, with the Rugii.
  5. ↑ Menges 1995, p. 20 ... "the problem of the Turcilingi should be mentioned; this is a tribal group found along with Germanic groups, apparently always East-Germanic ones, which is usually considered to be itself Germanic."
  6. ↑ Johann Kaspar Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstamme. Munchen: Lentner, 1837
  7. 1 2 Wolfram 1997, p. 183
  8. ↑ Wolfram 1990, p. 609
  9. ↑ Thompson 1982, p. 64.
  10. ↑ Schütte 1929, p. 156

Sources

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