History of Bavaria - Migrations and Early Medieval Period

Migrations and Early Medieval Period

During the 5th century the Romans in Noricum and Raetia came under increasing pressure from an influx of foreign peoples.

One theory of the etymological origins of the name "Bavarian" is that Bai(o)arii was derived from Bai(a)haim (Boiohaemum in Latin), which is thought to be equivalent with the land of the antique tribe of the Boii and modern Bohemia (Reindel 1981).

The Bavarian name was first mentioned historically by the Franks in a list of peoples, prepared c. 520. The first document that also describes their location (east of the Swabians) is the History of the Goths by the historian Jordanes dating from 551. Then follows a remark by Venantius Fortunatus in his description of his travels from Ravenna to Tours (565-571) in which he had crossed the lands of the Bavarians, referring to the dangers of travel in the region: 'If the road is clear and if the Bavarian does not stop you … then travel across the Alps.'

Archaeological evidence dating from the 5th and 6th centuries points to social and cultural influences from several regions and peoples, such as Alamanni, Lombards, Thuringians, Goths, Bohemian Slavs and the local Romanised population .2

According to the narrative traditions collected by Anno, the Bishop of Cologne, and some other documents, the Bavarians had come from Armenia, the 'land of Noah's arc'.

Recent research (e.g. Wolfram and Pohl 1990) has moved away from searching for specific geographical origins of the Bavarians. It is now thought that the tribal ethnicity was established by the process of ethnogenesis, whereby an ethnic identity is formed because political and social pressures make a coherent identity necessary.