Frankreich & Allemagne

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Originally posted by Temujin

Originally posted by gcle2003

I put that in to establish that in the third century the Alamanni were already across the upper Rhine, and therefore in a position to move downstream well before the 5th century. A couple of hundred kilometres isn't much over two hundred years.

yeah? so why didn't they moved east or whatever? 100km is a lot unless you're on a migration spree or whatever you assume in the context of the great migrations. you pointed to now reasonable arguemtn why they shoudl move northwards from Alsace, it would have eben more plausible to move eastwards along the Danube if anyhting.

I didn't say they only moved north along the Rhine and/or west across it. What they did was spread out until someone stopped them: the Burgundians (see below) to the west, various tribes - Bavarians, Goths, Lombards to the east, the Romans and then the Goths to the south, and the Franks to the north. 

But that is exactly what I have been saying. They crossed the middle Rhine into historic Luxembourg (and throughout I've been saying historic Luxembourg, not modern Luxembourg). I never claimed they were native to the area - that would be silly. My whole point is that they migrated into it - either across the middle Rhine (as this quotation says, and you now accept) or downstream from Alsace - before being pushed out by the Franks.

no, where did i imply that? 

You wrote:

Originally posted by Temujin

the second scan even mentions: "die [Alemannen] vom Ober- und Mittelrhein nach Gallien vordrangen."  = they [Alemanni] entered Gallia from the upper and middle rhine. so it confirms that they crossed the rhine into modern Luxemburg, because Gallia = west of the rhine.
That is accepting that they crossed the middle Rhine not just the upper Rhine.

They are certainly known to have crossed as far downstream as Mainz (in 406 if on no other occasion).

Alemanni presence in Alsace is established fact by archeaology, language & customs of the people there, Alemanni presence deeper in central France and Luxemburg etc is only from literary sources which implies that the impact was not deep = no occupation other than militarily.

There are certainly historical records of Alamanni presence in the Moselle valley, the Lorraine plateau and so on, though I wouldn't call that 'deeper in central France'. It's all on the edge of France, and indeed at times outside it. And where there is military presence there is usually to some degree (certainly in the time of the mass migrations) settlement. As far as language is concerned I don't think there are any Gaulish traces left in L�tzebuergesch but that doesn't mean present Luxembourg doesn't have a considerable Gaulish ancestry (as the English have Celtic ancestry).

For that matter how many people in Lombardy grow up speaking German?

You mean this one:

(I got this far, but I'm getting 'access denied' on trying to insert the map. it's at http://www.cleverley.org/images/scannedmap4.jpg )
If you mean this one I accept it shows Burgundians AND Alamanni in the area, which is true at the outset of the 5th century, though the Burgundians were just passing through on their way to southern Gaul (as the dates on the map indicate). 

What was your point?

Also take a look at the series of maps of the Frankish areas on p120, which are at http://www.cleverley.org/images/scannedmap5.jpg. 
Not until 486 do they show the Franks in control of the area in question - at 460 they aren't there yet, which is in accord with what I've said. Granted these maps don't show who WAS in the area, but the Burgundians are - correctly - shown far to the south already, and who else was there around?

Granted maps on this scale aren't going to be very accurate, when they all point to more or less the same situation it has to mean something. The same is true of the other sources I've given you. They may be inaccurate or untrustworthy and they may not prove anything absolutely, but they all add up to a probability, especially when there is no evidence at all that contradicts them.

no i meant the Hun map on page 112.

That doesn't show anybody in the area. 

anyways, the area in question seems clearly Frankish to me, if anything. check the map on page 120, which shows the area of Trier as Frankish already.

As I already pointed out (I also gave the map) that was in 480. From the beginning I've pointed out that the Franks had control of Trier by then. The same map shows no Franks there in 460.

Part of my point all along is that when the Franks did take control, they did not actually eliminate all the Alamanni living there (or for that matter the Treveri and other Gauls who were still around). 

 it is obvious that there is a grey area between the Franks and Alemanni. the blank area does in no way imply that it was occupied by Alemanni, whats the evidence for that? with what tribes would you fill the rest of the blank areas? 

Depends which other blank areas you are talking about. In this specific blank area I don't think there's much other choice. (For Burgundians and others see below.)

you say that it is unlikely that the Alemanni didn't went there within 200 years. i say it is unlikely that the Alemanni went there and just mixed with the Romano-Gallic population established there since ~500 years. if there was any temporary Alemanni occupation of the area it doesn't validate to say that modern Luxemburgers are Franks and Alemanni.

Well, the Alamanni, to say nothing of the Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths and Vandals (etc), were busily doing that elsewhere. 

I'd even accept that the passing Burgundians and Vandals had some effect on the ancestry of the population of Luxembourg. So it goes. 

and about Burgundians. it is said that Worms was their capital, the other map i posted shows Worms in Alemanni control. what are we supposed to believe? again and again and again: why do you say "the Burgundians just passed through" but keep going on saying the Alemanni migrated there?? it is obvious the Burgundians occupied an area in between the Franks and Alemanni before they were resettled in Gallia as Foederati, which explains the grey area in between the two.

Within less than a century, the Burgundians, a small tribe compared to the Alamanni, moved from the Vistula basin to the Rhone and southern France. They were established in the Worms area for about 20-30 years at the turn of the century (in the middle of the period of Alamanni occupation there.) That's what I meant by they 'passed through'. The Vandals had already done the same thing. The Vandals were moving even faster, since they crossed the frozen Rhine in 406 and in 409 were already crossing the Pyrenees.

i understand the battle of Z�lpich as a contest for control of this area, which the Franks won, which is why the area is Frankish and not Alemanni.

The point is that up until the late 5th century the Alamanni were undoubtedly established
(a) on the right bank of the Rhine up to more or less the confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine.
(b) on the left bank of the Rhine in modern Alsace (probably also in modern Lorraine, though that may be more disputable)
(c) on the left bank of the Rhine west of Mainz. 
In addition they were finally defeated by the Franks at modern Z�lpich which is as far north as Li�ge and Aachen. 

Plot those areas on a map and you get Alamanni presence in a big arc with a hole in the middle including the areas that have formed historic Luxembourg, at a time when no other major Germanic tribe was in the area. It seems to me likely to the point of obvious that the Alamanni would have filled the gap.

Incidentally I didn't know the Pennsylvania Dutch also claimed mixed descent from the Alamanni and the Franks.
http://www.horseshoe.cc/pennadutch/history/index.htm#owb
Note the references to Lorraine as well as Alsace.