- Alamannia
Alamannia or Alemannia was the territory inhabited by the
Alamanni after they broke through the Roman "limes" in 213. The term "Swabia " was often used interchangeably with "Alamannia" in the 10th to 13th centuries and is still so used when speaking of those centuries.Merovingian duchy
Originally a loose confederation of unrelated tribes, the Alamanni underwent coalescence or
ethnogenesis during the 3rd century, and were ruled by kings throughout the 4th and 5th centuries until 496, when they were defeated byClovis I of theFranks at theBattle of Tolbiac . They bucked the Frankish yoke and put themselves under the protection ofTheodoric the Great of theOstrogoths , but after his death they were again subjugated by the Franks (539), underTheuderic I andTheudebert I . Thereafter, Alamannia was a nominal dukedom within Francia.Though ruled by their own dukes, it is not likely that they were very often united under one duke in the 6th and 7th centuries. The Alamanni most frequently appear as auxiliaries in expeditions to Italy. The
Duchy of Alsace was Alamannic, but it was ruled by a line of Frankish dukes and the region around the upperDanube andNeckar rivers was ruled by theAhalolfing family and not by the ducal house which ruled central Alamannia aroundLake Constance .Rhaetia too, though Alamannic, was ruled by theVictorids coterminously with theDiocese of Chur .Alamannia was Christianised early, but not as thoroughly as either Francia to its west or Bavaria to its east. The Roman dioceses of Strasbourg and Basel covered Alsace and that of Chur, as mentioned, Rhaetia. Alamannia itself only had a diocese in the east, at Augsburg (early 7th century). There were two Roman bishoprics, Windisch and Octodunum, which were moved early to other sites (
Avenches andSitten respectively). Western Alamannia did eventually (7th century) receive a diocese (Constance) through the cooperation of the bishops of Chur and theMerovingian monarchs. The foundation of Constance is obscure, though it was the largest diocese in Germany throughout the Merovingian and earlyCarolingian era. The dioceses of Alamannia, including Chur, which had been a suffragan of theArchdiocese of Milan , were placed under the jurisdiction of theArchdiocese of Mainz by the Carolingians.After the death of
Dagobert I in 638, Alamannia, like Bavaria, Aquitaine, and Brittany, broke its ties with its Frankish sovereigns and struggled for independence. This was largely successful until the early 8th century, when a series of campaigns waged by theArnulfing mayors of the palace reduced Alamannia to a province of Francia once again. It was, however, during this period of "de facto" independence that the Alamanni began to be ruled by one duke, though Alsace and Rhaetia remained outside of the scope of Alamannia. Between 709 and 712,Pepin of Heristal fought againstLantfrid , who appears as "dux" of the Alamanni, and who committed to writing the first Alamannic law code, the "Lex Alamannorum ". In 743,Pepin the Short and Carloman waged a campaign to reduce Alamannia and in 746 Carloman began a final thrust to subdue the Alamannic nobility. Several thousand Alamanni noblemen were summarily arrested, tried, and executed them for treason at a Council at Cannstatt. Thereafter, Alamanni was ruled by Franks and the only remaining native Alamannic nobility seems to have hailed from Alsace.Merovingian dukes
*
Butilin 539–554
*Leuthari I before 552–554
*Haming 539–554
*Lantachar until 548 (Avenches diocese)
*Magnachar 565 (Avenches diocese)
*Vaefar 573 (Avenches diocese)
*Theodefrid
*Leutfred until 588
*Uncilin 588–607
*Gunzo 613
*Chrodobert 630
*Leuthari II 642
*Gotfrid until 709
*Willehari 709–712 (inOrtenau )
*Lantfrid 709–730
* Theudebald 709–744Carolingian "regnum"
During the reign of
Louis the Pious , there were tendencies to renewed independence in Alamanni, and the 830s were marked by bloody feuds between the Alamannic and Rhaetian nobility vying for dominion over the area. Following theTreaty of Verdun of 843, Alamannia became a province ofEast Francia , the kingdom ofLouis the German , the precursor of theKingdom of Germany . It was called a "regnum" in contemporary sources, though this does not necessarily mean that it was a kingdom or subkingdom. At times, however, it was. It was granted toCharles the Bald in 829, though it is not certain whether he was recognised as duke or king. It was certainly a kingdom, including Alsace and Rhaetia, when it was granted toCharles the Fat in the division of East Francia in 876. Under Charles, the Alammania became the centre of the Empire, but after his deposition, it found itself out of favour. Though ethnically singular, it was still plagued by Rhaetian-Alamannic feuds and fighting over the control of the Alammanic church.Alamannia in the late 9th century, like Bavaria, Saxony, and Franconia, sought to unite itself under one duke, but it had considerably less success than either Saxony or Bavaria. Alammannia was one of the "jüngeres Stammesherzogtum", one of the "younger" stem duchies, or tibal duchies, which formed the basis of the political organisation of East Francia after the collapse of the Carolingian dynasty in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. In the 10th century, no noble house of Alamannia succeeded in fouding a ducal dynasty, as the
Ottonians did in Saxony or theLiutpolding in Bavaria, though theHunfridings came closest.The duchy encompassed the area surrounding Lake Constance, the
Black Forest , and the left and right banks of theRhine , including Alsace and parts of theSwiss plateau , bordering onUpper Burgundy . The boundary with Burgundy, fixed in 843, ran along the lowerAare , turning towards the south at the Rhine, passing west ofLucerne and across theAlps along the upper Rhône to theSaint Gotthard Pass . In the north, the boundary ran from theMurg (some 30 km south ofKarlsruhe ) toHeilbronn and theNördlinger Ries . The eastern boundary was at theLech River .Argovia was disputed territory between the dukes of Alamannia and Burgundy.From the tenth century onwards, Alamannia is more typically known as the
Duchy of Swabia .Legacy
In modern Catalan, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish the words for "Germany" are "Alemanya", "Allemagne", "Alemanha", "Alemania", "Almanya" all of which derive from Alamannia. A similar correspondence exists for "German", both as the language and the adjectival form of "Germany".
ee also
*
Early history of Switzerland
*Alemannic German ources
*Reuter, Timothy. "Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056". New York: Longman, 1991.
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