Editing Geats (section)

===Political centralization in Scandinavia===
According to Procopius there were 13 "very numerous nations" on the Scandinavian peninsula in the 6th century, which is supported by recent archaeological analyses. Several scholars consider this to be a reasonable number of independent kingdoms at the time, with each consisting of one or more tribes, as reported by Jordanes.<ref name="iversen250">{{Cite book|last=Iversen|first=Frode |year=2020|chapter=Between Tribe and Kingdom – People, Land, and Law in Scandza AD 500–1350|title=Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia |publisher=De Gruyter|doi=10.1515/9783110421101-004|pages=250 |isbn=9783110421101 |s2cid=213596339 }}</ref> However, by 1350, these 13 kingdoms had been reduced in number to only two, Norway and Sweden.<ref name="iversen246">{{Cite book|last=Iversen|first=Frode |year=2020|chapter=Between Tribe and Kingdom – People, Land, and Law in Scandza AD 500–1350|title=Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia |publisher=De Gruyter|doi=10.1515/9783110421101-004|pages=245–304 |isbn=9783110421101 |s2cid=213596339 }}</ref> The Geats were one of the largest tribes.<ref name="iversen295">{{Cite book|last=Iversen|first=Frode |year=2020|chapter=Between Tribe and Kingdom – People, Land, and Law in Scandza AD 500–1350|title=Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia |publisher=De Gruyter|doi=10.1515/9783110421101-004|pages=295 |isbn=9783110421101 |s2cid=213596339 }}</ref>

Procopius and Jordanes both mention the Geats, but after them, foreign sources about Scandinavia are scarce until the 9th century, when Anglo-Saxon and Frankish sources do shed some light on the area. In these, the Geats are absent, which has led some scholars to conclude that they were no longer an independent nation and had been subsumed by the Swedes.<ref name="stål1"/> Norwegian and Icelandic scaldic sources from the 10th century however indicate that they were still politically independent, sometimes opposing Norwegian kings. It has been suggested that their absence from older sources is instead due to their being an inland people.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sawyer|first=Peter|title=När Sverige blev Sverige|year=1991|publisher=Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås|page=12}}</ref>

The nature and the processes of [[consolidation of Sweden|how Geats and Swedes came to form one kingdom]] have been much debated among Swedish scholars. The scarcity and sometimes debated veracity of sources has left much room open for interpretation. The oldest medieval Swedish sources present the Swedish kingdom as retaining differences between provinces, in laws as well as in weights and measures.<ref name="stål1"/> Some scholars have argued that the Geats were subjugated by the Swedes, and have suggested various dates for such an event, from the 6th to the 9th centuries.<ref name="stål1">{{Cite book|last=Ståhl |first=Harry |year=1976 |title=Ortnamn och ortnamnsforskning |publisher=Almquist & Wiksell |place=Uppsala |pages= 131 }}</ref> Others have wanted to see a more gradual merging, and that the Geats were slowly subsumed into the more powerful kingdom of Sweden, and in many respects they maintained their own cultural identity during the Middle Ages.<ref name="farell">{{Cite book|last=Farrel|first=R.T.|year=1972|title=Beowulf, Swedes and Geats|publisher=Viking Society for Northern Research, University College, London|pages=270|url=http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Beowulf%20Swedes%20andGeats.pdf|access-date=18 August 2021|archive-date=11 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210711013208/http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Beowulf%20Swedes%20andGeats.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Still others have put emphasis on how it was individual rulers, not ethnic groups, who were driving the process towards a unified kingdom, and that the process was very complicated.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sawyer|first=Peter|title=När Sverige blev Sverige|year=1991|publisher=Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås|pages=9–10}}</ref>

Papal letters from the 1080s style the recipients as "king of the Swedes" or "king of the West Geats". In another papal letter from the 1160s, the title ''rex Sweorum et Gothorum'' is first attested.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sawyer|first=Peter|title=När Sverige blev Sverige|year=1991|publisher=Viktoria Bokförlag, Alingsås|pages=58–59}}</ref> The Swedish kings began the custom of styling themselves as also the kings of the Geats in the 1270s.<ref name="dick">{{Cite book|last=Harrison|first=Dick|year=2002|title=Sveriges historia: Medeltiden|publisher=Liber, Stockholm|pages=58, 70–74 }}</ref><ref name="Henriksson">{{Cite book|last=Henriksson|first=Alf|year=1963|title=Svensk historia I|publisher=Bonniers, Stockholm|pages=86–88}}</ref><ref name="weibull">{{Cite book|last=Weibull|first=Jörgen|year=1993|title=Swedish History in Outline|publisher=The Swedish Institute, Stockholm|pages=18}}</ref>