Subject: warrior
Culture: Germanic / Teutonic
Setting: Roman wars, Germania 1-2ndC
Evolution:
Context (Event Photos, Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, Field Notes)
* Todd 1992 p36-37
"Germanic society was a warrior society, a society geared to waging war, within tribes, between different peoples and against external enemies. How this was done was a largely determined by the character of Germanic society itself.
"The Germanic hosts which swept into southern Europe in the late second century BC were mainly foot-soldiers. A century later the warriors who formed the armies of Maroboduus and Arminius also fought largely on foot. The migrating peoples who passed into the Roman provinces depended overwhelmingly upon their infantry troops, relying for the most part on massed ranks of men. The use of mounted troops among most Germanic peoples was limited, the main exceptions being certain tribes settled near the Rhine, such as the Tencteri, and some of the eastern peoples who had connections with the horsemen of the steppes. Julius Caesar employed German horsemen in his armies in Gaul, though on occasion he had to provide them with Roman mounts, their own horses being too small. The lack of suitably large and fast horses in northern Europe imposed serious limitations on the development of cavalry warfare. The use of the chariot so favoured by the western Celtic peoples was not taken up by the early Germans. There was a further restriction on the use of horsed warriors: the cost of maintaining a mount. But above and beyond such considerations, the size, physical strength and warlike energy of the Germans were most effectively deployed in infantry formations. Long after Germanic peoples had settled in the Roman world, their military strength still resided in their infantry. The cavalrymen who appear in the historic and archaeological record were mainly chiefs and their immediate retinues. A richly furnished series of graves found in Denmark, northern Germany and Poland, containing spurs and other items of horse-gear, makes the point very well. The high quality of this equipment, especially the silver-inlaid spurs, points to a high social status for these warriors."
* Harrison/Embleton 1993 p12
"Tacitus' descriptions of the early Germanic warrior shows him as a somewhat primitive and poorly equipped figure. The main offensive weapon was a short, narrow-bladed spear called the framea which could be used for thrusting and throwing. Warriors fighting on foot might also carry several javelins; those on horseback used only spear and shield."
Sword
* Todd 1992 p37-38
"Finds of Germanic weaponry in graves and votive deposits, and sculpted scenes of combat involving Germans on Imperial reliefs, present the same general picture. The barbarian forces which took the field against Roman armies in the first and second centuries were largely equipped with javelins, lances, shields and, to a notably lesser extent, with swords. Swords do not figure prominently in the record before the third century AD. So valuable were they to their owners that they were probably consigned to burials and votive deposits much less commonly than other weapons. The rank and file probably rarely possessed swords."
* Todd 1992 p39-40
"The slowness to adapt to changed military circumstances is a marked feature of early Germanic warfare. External influences did, however, work on the swords used in the Germanic world. Before the first century AD, short, one-edged swords were current, usable only at close quarters, especially in single combat. Longer two-edged weapons, based on the Celtic spatha, were introduced from central Europe, and these did offer a wider range of fighting modes. Short-bladed knives or Kampfmesser were also in widespread use, underlining the frequency of hand-to-hand combat. Roman influence on the swords used in northern Europe was effective by the early second century AD, if not earlier. In southern Scandinavia, for example, a workshop was producing imitations of the legionary gladius by that date, while in the Elbe basin versions of a light, slashing sword based on Roman models were current about the same time. In this same period, Roman swords with a ring at the end of the hilt (Ringknaufschwerter) appeared in the Elbe valley and in Jutland, some of them arriving with other booty, others perhaps as objects of illicit trade. Although such imports may have provided models for Germanic smiths to follow, there are few signs of widespread imitation of Roman swords at this time. Nor is there any indication that swords formed a more dominant element in German armament. Those warriors who possessed such weapons still seem to have been the nobiles and their followings."
Shield
* Todd 1992 p38-39
"Virtually the only defensive arm for the vast majority of warriors was the shield, long and oval or rectangular earlier, smaller and circular later on. The shield-boss, often, though not invariably, of iron, was frequently prominent enough to be used as an offensive weapon, to be thrust at the face of an opponent. Both wickerwork and wooden shields are reported, some of the latter being covered with leather and bound with bronze strips at the edges."
* Harrison/Embleton 1993 p12
"The shield, decorated in colours of personal choice, was the principal defensive equipment of all warriors. Additionally, the Germans are said to have had a 'few' helmets of metal or hide."
* Powell/Dennis 2014 p
"
Costume
* Todd 1992 p39
"Most of the rank-and-file warriors went into battle wearing their customary everyday garments. Some made it a point to fight entirely naked, trusting to divine powers for their protection. Throughout several centuries of warfare against well armoured Roman armies, body armour was not worn by German fighting men. Roman stone reliefs and figurines invariably show German opponents fighting naked or clad only in breeches and cloak. The upper body and the head were usually unprotected, so that the number of casualties in set-piece battles with fully protected legionaries, equipped with a variety of thrusting and throwing weapons, must often have been horrific. And yet this elementary deficiency was not made good, even long after widespread Germanic settlement within the Roman provinces."
