Aventinus 46

Johannes Turmayr's 1520 History of Bavaria, Chapter 46 - translated and annotated by Ras Feqade, AD 2020.

* Previous Chapter: Aventinus 45
* Next Chapter: Aventinus 47
* (To Table of Contents)

## 46. Of King Schwab, the eighth emperor in Germania.

After king Gamper (who was 44 years in power) I find that king **Schwab** ruled in Germania and German lands, the above-mentioned king Gampar's son, 46 years. The Swabians come from him. And the Swabians were once a great, powerful nation of Germans, divided into many other peoples, namely in Angles, Longobardi, Livonians, Senones, Marcomanni, Quadi, Lechvelder, Rugi, Swedes, Sitones, those were the main names.

[King Suevus ruled Germania (greater Swabia) from 1967 to 1915 BC, 52 years as in the Latin version. Anderson says he ruled 48 years, 1652-1604 BC according to him.

The Angles mentioned here are more likely Saxons at this time, since the name of the Angles is said by Saxo and Magnus to have originated after Angel, son of King Humbel of Sweden, was exiled to the Saxons in 1751 BC. The Swedes themselves had been independently established from Magogia long before this, Aventinus was evidently confused to include them here among the tribes of Suevus or Swabia, though not in the Latin text.]

According to the description of Ptolemy, Angles lived in these rivers, where now Tyrgen, Meissen, Büecherland, between the Westerharz and Tyringerwald, reach right into the middle of the Elbe. After those after the Elbe, the territory of the Senones has risen, stretching towards the east to the river, Schwab then, now called the Oder. Longobardi sat by the Elbe, adjoining Denmark, now Holland and Lübeck, they descended on Italy 566 years after the birth of Christ, have named the same Langbardei after them, which is commonly known as Lombardy. Marcomanni sat in Bohemia and around the Danube and in Austria. Quadi lived on the Markveld in Austria and in Merhern, and stretched as far as the Kremnitz in Hungary, so for the ancient people it was called Swabian mountain or Schwabsberg. Rugi, Swedes, Livonians still keep their old country and name. Lechvelder and Sitones lived in Poland this side of the Vistula to the west.

[The Longobardi were according to their own traditional accounts, initially known as the Winnili.

The Marcomanni are later said to have driven the Boji out of Bohemia in the reign of Brenner II (6th c. BC), the Boji themselves and the name of Bohemia originating from the time of King Boiger, c. 1750 BC. It is unclear where the Marcomanni had been prior to Brenner II; with the Quadi land here being called Markveld, the Marcomanni likely dwelt among them, and possibly also among the Boji in Bohemia after 1750 BC.

The Livonians in historic times were known as a Finnic group on the shores of Latvia. The other groups here called Swabian are all Germanic and located west of the Vistula. Livones appear again in the narrative of Magnus at the time of king Beric, ca. 1780 BC, among opponents of Sweden beyond the Baltic along with Estones, Finningas, Curetes, and Ulmerugi, these last being the same as the Swabian Rugi.]

Nothing is permanent in this world, everything becomes anchored; as people die, so do the country and the people, as I then indicated above at length. The Swabians lived somewhere in the middle of Germany, within the Harz-, Wester-, Tyringer-, Behamerwald, between the Elbe and the Vistula, now they are located in Germania. And quite a few years after the birth of Christ they left their old home, part of them sought fertile land, part was driven out by the Winds and Wends or Slavs, who, together with the Saxons, have such a territory inside. Angles sit on the island of Brittannia, which they wrested from the old Roman Empire and named England after them; before it was called Brittannia. Marcomanni and Quadi raided Hispania and settled there. The other Swabians left their old fatherland after Attila's death, and took over the area around the origins of the Rhine and the Danube. But I want to describe such things in the following book, as there will be time.

His descendants, the Swabians, also made this king Schwab a god, gave him a wild, dark forest (according to the old Germans) in the area where is now Görlitz the city and Lausnitzer land; his all there to come at the usual and specific time, have apparently honored him with human blood, have openly stabbed a person like an ox in his name. Nobody is allowed to go into the forest either, they would then be bound standing on their backs; shows the violence of god and that he is less. And whether someone has gone wrong, he must by no means get up against it, must roll out; one should remember that the beginning of the Swabians came from here, where lives God who rules all things, to whom all other things are subject and obeyed.