The Alemanni were a Germanic tribal confederation dwelling between the three rivers Main, Rhine, and Danube, between the third and sixth centuries CE. Their name originates in early Germanic word roots allaz "all, other, outside" + mann "man, men, people," and it is from this word that the name of Germany in many modern languages is derived, e.g. Allemagne, Almanya, Yr Almaen, etc. Depending which sources one consults, at various times the Alemanni may have referred to themselves as the Suebi, or they may have strictly been a related tribe to the Suebi, or included the Suebi in their confederation.

Cassius Dio's accounting of the year 213 military campaign of Roman Emperor Caracalla features the earliest surviving mention of the Alemanni: the Alemanni petitioned Caracalla for aid, and he used this as occasion to colonise their territory, which had already been extensively Romanised in customs and norms, through significant contact with Roman settlements in neighbouring colonies. In 260 the Alemanni seized control of the Roman territory of Agri Decumates (accounting for the Black Forest region of modern Germany, present-day Alsace and Switzerland, and much of the upper Rhine territory). For the previous two centuries, numerous Roman military campaigns had been pursued in territory formerly inhabited by the Alemanni, under the claim of being directed at the Alemanni for reasons of generational bad blood between these "barbarians" and the Romans; it is unlikely, however, that the tribes dwelling in these former occupied regions were actually Alemannic at all, and Rome simply had straightforward economic and military incentives to pursue these campaigns, with or without the veneer of a justified generational vendetta. Thereafter the Alemanni maintained their military and political sovereignty in Alsace and Switzerland uninterrupted, until the year 496, when Clovis, leader of the Franks, annexed their territories, though he did not force cultural integration or religious conversion upon them. The Alemanni still were allowed by the Franks to maintain nearly unimpeded self-rule until the eighth century, until a ducal uprising prompted the Frankish duke Carloman to execute the Alemannic leadership and install his own allies in their place.

Despite the eventual Christianisation and cultural assimilation of the Alemanni by the Franks, the early Germanic language of the Alemanni remained the chief contributor to the vocabulary and grammar of the eventual modern German language.


Iron Noder 2022, 23/30

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