Migration Period

2nd to 5th century migrations. See also map of the world in AD 820.

The Migration Period is a name given by historians to a human migration which occurred within the period of roughly AD 300–700 in EuropePrecise dates given may vary; often cited is 410, the sack of Rome by Alaric I and 751, the accession of Pippin the Short and the establishment of the Carolingian Dynasty., marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.

The migration included the Goths, Vandals, and Franks, among other Germanic and Slavic tribes. The migration may have been triggered by the incursions of the Huns, in turn connected to the Turkic migration in Central Asia, population pressures, or climate changes.

The modern account

The migration movement may be divided into two phases. The first phase, between AD 300 and 500, largely seen from the Mediterranean perspective, put Germanic peoples in control of most areas of the former Western Roman Empire. (See also: Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Burgundians, Alans, Langobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Alamanni).The first to formally enter Roman territory were the Visigoths who ended the Late Roman Empire. They were first called by the Roman Empire to defend its boundaries in exchange for fees, but they later occupied it. They were soon followed by the Ostrogoths led by Thiudareiks.

The second phase, between AD 500 and 700, saw Slavic tribes re-settling in Eastern Europe and gradually making it predominantly Slavic.

During the 8th to 10th centuries, not usually counted as part of the Migrations Period but still within the Early Middle Ages, new waves of migration, first of the Magyars and later of the Turkic peoples, as well as Viking expansion from Scandinavia threatened the newly established order of the Frankish Empire in Central Europe.

Völkerwanderung

The German term Völkerwanderung ("migration of peoples"), is less often used as an alternative label for the Migration Period in English-language historiography than it is in German discourse"Jene Epoche, in der sich der Übergang von der Spätantike zum Frühmittelalter vollzog, wird in der deutschen Wissenschaftssprache traditionell als "Völkerwanderungszeit" bezeichnet." Manuel Koch, "Das Reich der Vandalen und seine Vorgeschichte(n)" (on-line).

However, the term Völkerwanderung is also strongly associated with a certain romantic historical style which has strong roots in the German-speaking world of the 19th century, perhaps associated with the same cultural process which included the music of Wagner and the writings of Nietzsche and Goethe.

In cultures that are heirs to Latin culture, these migrations are often called "invasions" (e.g. the Italian term "Invasioni Barbariche" meaning "barbarian invasions"). This is due to a widespread view of Northern peoples of that period as uncivil and primitive; often they have been blamed for destroying the Roman Empire. This way of thinking is a remnant of the Renaissance, common until Romanticism and still alive in popular histories in France and Italy.

By contrast, the subtext of Völkerwanderung, seen as the forceful expansion of the Germanic tribes into France, England, Northern Italy and Iberia, is an indication of the energy and dynamism of those so-called "barbarian" peoples. This analysis became associated with 19th century German Romantic nationalism and the Eastern expansion of Germany (Drang nach Osten, the urge to move East).

It is argued that this kind of analysis contributed to the Nazi folk ideology of Lebensraum, or "living space", the theory that the Germans had a mission to expand their population beyond the national borders of Germany.