Fifth century society

On this page, I will discuss certain aspects of fifth century society that are crucial for understanding the text of the Thidrekssaga.

Starting in 406, several Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine into the Roman Empire. They met little opposition and were able to set up some kingdoms.

The best known of these are the kingdoms of the Visigoths in southern Gaul, of the Vandals in North-Africa and of the Burgundians, said to live at the Rhine, maybe near Worms.

This was the first wave of invaders. Slightly later, a second, less spectacular invasion began: the gradual infiltration of the border-lands near the Rhine by the people generally called Franks.

This second wave was distinct from the first in several aspects:

• It has left far fewer traces in the sources, mainly because it involved less sacking of cities, battles and other noteworthy events.
• It is likely that at first the Franks were not invaders, but actually the Roman frontier guards. Only when the Empire lost the means of adequately paying them, they decided to go on on their own.
• At first, the Franks did not follow one leader. Indeed, it seems likely that they had quite a few independent kings. Only around 510, king Clovis was able to conquer all the other Franks and become their sole king.

If Ritter is right, Dietrich, Siegfried and the Nibelungen belonged to this second group of invaders.

The single most important political fact of the early Frankish era was that

there were several kings, who regarded their neighbours as their worst enemies and wanted to conquer and kill them.

This is abundantly proven by Gregory's account of Clovis' gory career.

Therefore, competition was hot. All kings needed to safeguard their realms against their neighbours, while at the same time searching for a chance to attack them.

For both purposes, a large following of warriors was necessary. These warriors, moreover, needed some reason to follow the king.

Why should warriors follow a king? The main reason was gold. All kings were expected to regularly grant their followers lavish gifts. To obtain these gifts, they had to conquer the treasures of other kings, which in turn was only possible when having a sufficient following.

Thus, a king having a large following could conquer other kings' treasures and use them to attract even more warriors, giving him the chance to conquer even more kings. This was the mechanism that made Clovis king of all the Franks.

On the other hand, a king not having a large treasure was in serious trouble. How was he to acquire a large following?

The answer was heroism.

If a king was a Great and officialy recognized Hero, warriors were led to believe he could acquire treasure by defeating his neighbours by the strength of his arm. In addition, it was very honourable to serve under a great hero. In fact, even when a king had all the treasures of the world, he still had to prove his worth by succesfully leading his men into battle.

Thus, it is no coincidence that Clovis was able to defeat all the other Frankish kings only after he had proven himself to be a Hero by defeating the Visigoths in 507. Of course, the treasure he conquered helped him attract more followers, but it would have been worthless without the heroism.

Heroism gave status to a king and could even help to balance the fact that the king had only little gold to give.

It is vitally necessary to keep this point in mind when studying the text of the Thidrekssaga. Without it, the saga seems only to consist of independent stories. When taking heroism and its social implications into account, large parts of the saga suddenly acquire structure and meaning.

An even clearer example of heroism as a major point of interest to Dietrich is provided by the Bertangaland-story.

Load the page discussing the Bertangaland-story and the heroism involved in this.