Baiuvarii

File:Kipfenberg Burg 2009 (07).JPG

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 or Bavarii, sometimes simply called Bavarians (Template:Langx; Template:Langx) were a Germanic people who lived in and near present-day southern Bavaria, which is named after them.

They began to appear in records by the 6th century AD, and their culture, language and political institutions are the predecessors of those of the medieval Duchy of Bavaria and Margraviate of Austria.

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

Name

The name of the Baiuvarii is also spelled Baiuvari.Template:Sfn It probably means "men from Bohemia".Template:Sfn The placename Bohemia is believed to be connected to that of the Boii, a Celtic people who partly left the region before the Roman era and then were dominated by Germanic peoples. The Baiuvarii gave their name to the region of Bavaria.Template:Sfn

Language

The language of the Baiuvarii is classified as Germanic.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn It is uncertain whether they originally spoke an East Germanic or West Germanic language.Template:Sfn Early evidence regarding the language of the Baiuvarii is limited to personal names and a few Runic inscriptions. By the 8th century AD, the Baiuvarii were speakers of an early form of the Austro-Bavarian language within the West Germanic family.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

History

The name is first attested in Latin sources in the 6th century AD.

The early 6th century biography of Severinus of Noricum describes the region without mentioning them.Template:Sfn
One of the earliest references to the Baiuvarii is the Frankish Table of Nations from about 520, which describes them as a people with kinship to the Burgundians, Thuringians and Lombards.Template:Sfn
In his Getica (551), Jordanes described how the Suebian people 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 near the Alemanni, with the Franks on their west, Thuringians to their north, Burgundians to their south, and the Baibaros to their east, who are generally understood to have been the Bavarians.<ref>Getica in Latin: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/iordanes1.html; in English: http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html</ref>
In a poem about a pilgrimage to Augsburg in 565, Venantius Fortunatus mentions the land Baioaria on the river Lech, which flows north from the Austrian alps to the German Danube.Template:Sfn They were between the Allemanni on the Danube and the Breuni who were based near the river Inn.

Evidence from the etymology of their name implies that the Baiuvarii, being named after Bohemia, can not have existed under that name before the 1st century AD. During this period Maroboduus, king of the Germanic Marcomanni, lead his people into their area which had previously been inhabited by the Celtic Boii.Template:Sfn Whether the Baiuvarii settled Bavaria in a specific later migration, after Maroboduus, either from the north (Bohemia) or from Pannonia, is uncertain.Template:Sfn

A possible earlier record of the Baiuvarii, is the 2nd century mention of the Banochaemae, whose name appears to have a similar etymology. Claudius Ptolemy described them in his Geography as living near the Elbe, east of the Melibokus mountains, and north of the Asciburgius mountains.<ref>Ptolemy 2.10</ref>

According to Karl Bosl, Bavarian migration to present-day Bavaria is a legend.Template:Sfn The early Baiuvarii are often associated with the Template:Ill archaeological group, but this is controversial.Template:Sfn During the time of Attila in the 5th century, the entire Middle Danube region saw the entry of many new peoples from north and east of the Carpathians, and the formation and destruction of many new and old political entities.

It is thus more probable that the Baiuvarii emerged in the provinces of Noricum ripense and Raetia secunda following Odoacer's withdrawal of population to Italy in 488, and the subsequent expansion of Italian Ostrogothic, and Merovingian Frankish influence into the area.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn They are believed to have incorporated elements from several Germanic peoples, including the Sciri, Heruli, Suebi, Alemanni, Naristi, Thuringi and Lombards. They might also have included non-Germanic Romance people (romanized Celtic people).Template:Sfn

The region was under the influence of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Theodoric the Great. During this period, the Frankish king Theudebert I (died 548) claimed control from the North Sea to Pannonia. After his death, his uncle Chlothar I appointed Garibald I as dux of Bavaria.Template:Sfn He established the Agilolfings dynasty with his power base at Augsburg or Regensburg.Template:Sfn By the 8th century, many Baiuvarii had converted to Christianity.Template:Sfn

Through their ruling Agilolfings dynasty, they were closely connected with the Franks.

Culture

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.Template:Sfn It is very similar to Lex Thuringorum, which was the legal code of the Thuringi, with whom the Baiuvarii had close relations.Template:Sfn

The funerary traditions of the Baiuvarii are similar to those of the Alemanni, but quite different from those of the Thuringi.Template:Sfn

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.<ref>Template:Cite journal "In Bavaria, ACD is mainly observed in women, and there is only disputed evidence for ACD in men or children"</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal "Further studies based on other archaeobiological proxies supported the hypothesis that female exogamy played an important role at the time (Knipper et al. 2017; Stewart 2022; Veeramah et al. 2018)."</ref> The migrant women were fully integrated in to Bavarii culture.<ref>Hakenbeck, Susanne. (2011). Roman or barbarian? Shifting identities in early medieval cemeteries in Bavaria. Postclassical Archaeologies. 1. p. 49. "Both the manner of their burial and the positions of their graves indicate that the different life-histories suggested by their modified skulls and possibly foreign childhood was subsumed into the local group identity by the time of their death. Regardless of whether these women may have had a foreign identity during their lifetime, in death they were treated as local women with no evidence of their possible migration other than that which was inscribed on their bodies during childhood."</ref>

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.<ref name="Veeramah">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Efn<ref>Template:Cite journal "Medieval blue-eyed and blond ‘Bavarians’, meanwhile, seem to have fancied brown-eyed women from south-east Europe (Veeramah et al. 2018)"</ref>

Genetics

Template:Further

A 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.<ref name="Veeramah" />

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.Template:Efn Template:Efn

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