Quid Tacitus . . . ? The Germania and the Study of Anglo-Saxon England

Abstract

The construction of the Germanic comitatus by Cornelius Tacitus in one of his early works, the Germania, offers scholars of Anglo-Saxon England an easy shorthand way to discuss the heroic code as it appears in an assortment of late Old English texts, notably including Beowulf and the Battle of Maldon. This convenient shorthand has been much used, beginning in the nineteenth century with such scholars of history as John Richard Green and John Mitchell Kemble, and largely continuing in a straight line — although with some changes in emphasis and occasional concerns about relevance - to the present day. This dependence, or at the very least this call to a Roman history to provide a sense of longitude and certainty to the construction of Anglo-Saxon heroic behaviour, offers scholars a kind of chronological certainty in their consideration of the Germanic tribes and their behaviours when they first migrated to England. Tacitus could demonstrate the fixed and longstanding construction of heroism and of the cultural mores of Germanic society. The Germania could function as a touchstone text, a way to indicate the longevity of the notion of a fiercely individual, frequently violent, and fiercely loyal tribesman serving a chosen lord. To some extent, this use of Tacitus derives from the clarity and elegance with which the late Roman historian expressed himself, making it easy for scholars to comprehend and to quote his historiography of the Germanic tribes. However, it might also be argued that the call to Tacitus reflects a more profound desire to establish Anglo-Saxon social behaviour as part of a longstanding and rich tradition, as reflecting a personal integrity which reaches back to the Germanic tribes ranged against the Roman legions, and defeating them. Here, I will argue, first, that Tacitus wrote the Germania for very specific reasons which should not be ignored when this ethnographic treatise is considered and should occasion some pause when scholars wish to consider it as a ‘true’ representation of Germanic behaviour. Second, I will suggest that some of the ways in which Tacitus is bandied about in modern Anglo-Saxon scholarship require some modification — both because they derive from a historiographic and ethnographic approach which scholars in other fields no longer use and because they offer too simplistic an interpretation of both Tacitus and Germanic social behaviour as it came to function in Anglo-Saxon England. The argument that Tacitus still provides the best short introduction to the presentation of lof ‘fame’ and to the role of the heorðgeneatas‘hearth-companions’ in Old English texts may have its shortcomings. I want, therefore, to look again at the late Roman context of the Germania, the evidence for its transmission and possible influence on Anglo-Saxon texts, and its modern history as the basic historiographic reference in the nineteenth century for how Anglo-Saxon society functioned. Moreover, there has developed in the last twenty years a bifurcation in approach, in which historians no longer seem to consider Tacitus’s Germania as central to their conception of Anglo-Saxon governance structures, but some literary analysts continue to produce a Tacitean master narrative for Old English heroic behaviour. Teasing out the details of this approach to Tacitus may offer some new insight as to how— and how carefully— Anglo-Saxon scholars should use references to the Germania when thinking about Anglo-Saxon culture. Finally, I want to consider whether general introductions to the field should continue to use this shorthand as a way of explicating heroic behaviour. Tacitus may offer a convenient option for comparative purposes, and anchors Old English behaviour in its Germanic origins — or does he?