I was recently going back over the genealogy report on Ulrika Johansdotter and read how she was born in the province of Vastergotland, which means "the western part of the land of the Geats." That got me to wondering, who exactly, were the Geats?
According to Wikipedia, the Geats were an ancient tribe of people who lived in southern Sweden. They were classified as a northern Germanic tribe. They may or may not have been associated with the Goths. The Goths were another northern Germanic tribe. The Romans called any tribe which was not Greek or Roman "Goths". The Goths are believed to have originated on the island of Scandza in southern Sweden. The Goths later migrated south to Europe and defeated the Roman Empire. The Geats are thought to be part of the Goth tribe. Because there is little evidence of the time period there are conflicting theories. The first mention of the Geats was by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD. The old English poem "Beowulf" is about a hero named Beowulf, and he is referred to as King of the Geats.
While the Geats lived in southern Sweden, the tribes of the Jutes and Danes lived in modern day Denmark. Living in central Sweden was a tribe named the Swedes. Once again, there is little evidence of what happened, but eventually the Swedes and the Geats, along with several other smaller tribes, formed modern day Sweden. Some scholars believe the Swedes defeated the Geats. Other scholars believe that the Swedes and the Geats merged into one bigger body. The land occupied by the Geats seemed to keep a seperate cultural identity well into the Middle Ages. Other scholars believe that it was individual rulers who eventually brought the Geats and the Swedes together into one kingdom.
One of the differences between the Swedes and the Geats I found is that the Geats tended to be more Christian than the Swedes. The Swedes kept to the pagan gods and goddesses of Scandinavia whereas the Geats took to Christianity more rapidly. They helped spread Christianity in Sweden. The Geats also became important to claims of greatness in Sweden. Because the Geats were thought to be related to the Goths, and because the Goths had defeated the Roman Empire, Sweden used this to claim that Sweden had defeated the Roman Empire. Claiming Geats/Goth heritage was seen as having bragging rights in the world.
After the Kalmar Union in the 15th century the Geats and the Swedes seemed to stop viewing themselves as separate entities and just Swedish. The Kalmar Union is when the land of Sweden, Norway and Denmark was united under one monarch.
Today there seems to be little left of the tribe of the Geats, except for place names.
There is a website named "My True Ancestry" where you can upload your DNA results and they will compare them to over 146 archaeology samples from around the world. They will tell you what ancient civilization your DNA most compares to. I did this and here are my results:
Svear + Goth (3.304)
Viking + Goth (4.075)
Viking + Ostrogoth (4.536)
Svear + Ostrogoth (4.863)
Viking Danish + Goth (5.111)
Goth (7.988)
Svear (8.964)
Viking (9.673)
Ostrogoth (10.41)
Viking Danish (10.67)
* Svear is another name for the Swede tribe.
So, my ancient DNA matched samples taken from known Swede, Goth and Viking sites. Pretty cool! I like to think that going way back, not only did we have ancestors who were Vikings, but ancestors who were Geats and Goths. Fighting against the Romans and off conquering lands. At the Council of Basel in 1534 delegations from Spain and Sweden argued over who was descended from the Goths, who were the true Goths. The Spaniards argued that it was better to be descended from the Visigoths than "stay at homers." I have to say I agree. :)
If you are interested in learning more about the Geats, Swedes, Goths, or other ancient tribe I recommend doing your own research. I think it's pretty interesting. Any questions, comments or thoughts, post below or email me. Thanks for reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geats#/media/File:Nordic_Settlements.jpg:~:text=By%20The%20map,108763444%22%3ELink%3C/a%3E
Pretty neat your a Viking
ReplyDeleteWe all are! I need to read up more on the ancient tribes of Europe. It's pretty cool.
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