Ostrogoths

[[File:Orecchini ostrogoti.jpg|thumb|Ostrogoth ear jewels, Metropolitan Museum of Art]]

[[File:Orecchini ostrogoti.jpg|thumb|Ostrogoth ear jewels, Metropolitan Museum of Art]]

=== Written records ===

Surviving Gothic writings in the [[Gothic language]] include the Bible of [[Ulfilas]] and other religious writings and fragments. In terms of Gothic legislation in [[Latin]], one finds the [[edict of Theodoric]] from around the year 500, and the ''Variae'' of Cassiodorus, which may also pass as a collection of the state papers of Theodoric and his immediate successors. Among the Visigoths, written laws had already been put forth by [[Euric]]. Alaric II put forth a Breviarium of [[Roman law]] for his Roman subjects; but the great collection of Visigothic laws dates from the later days of the monarchy, being put forth by King [[Reccaswinth]] about 654. This code gave occasion to some well-known comments by Montesquieu and [[Edward Gibbon|Gibbon]], and has been discussed by Savigny (''Geschichte des römischen Rechts'', ii. 65) and various other writers. They are printed in the ''Monumenta Germaniae, leges'', tome i. (1902).{{sfn|Freeman|1911|p=275}}

Surviving Gothic writings in the [[Gothic language]] include the [[Ulfilas]] Bible translation and other religious writings and fragments. In terms of Gothic legislation in [[Latin]], one finds the [[edict of Theodoric]] from around the year 500, and the ''Variae'' of Cassiodorus, which may also pass as a collection of the state papers of Theodoric and his immediate successors. Among the Visigoths, written laws had already been [[Code of Euric | codified]] by [[Euric]]. Alaric II published a {{lang | la | [[Breviary of Alaric | Breviarium]]}} of [[Roman law]] for his Roman subjects; but the great collection of Visigothic laws dates from the later days of the monarchy, being promulgated by the Visigothic King [[Reccaswinth]] about 654. This code gave occasion to some well-known comments by Montesquieu and [[Edward Gibbon|Gibbon]], and has been discussed by Savigny (''Geschichte des römischen Rechts'', ii. 65) and by various other writers. They are printed in the ''Monumenta Germaniae, leges'', tome i. (1902).{{sfn|Freeman|1911|p=275}}

Amid Gothic histories that remain, besides that of the frequently quoted Jordanes, there is the Gothic history of [[Isidore]], archbishop of [[Seville]], a special source of the history of the Visigothic kings down to [[Suinthila]] (621–631). But all the Latin and [[Greek language|Greek]] writers contemporary with the days of Gothic predominance also made their contributions. Not for special facts, but for a general estimate, no writer is more instructive than [[Salvian of Marseilles]] in the 5th century, whose work, ''De Gubernatione Dei'', is full of passages contrasting the vices of the Romans with the virtues of the "barbarians", especially of the Goths. In all such pictures one must allow a good deal for exaggeration both ways, but there must be a groundwork of truth. The chief virtues that the [[Roman Catholic]] [[presbyter]] praises in the Arian Goths are their chastity, their piety according to their own creed, their tolerance towards the Catholics under their rule, and their general good treatment of their Roman subjects. He even ventures to hope that such good people may be saved, notwithstanding their [[Christian heresy|heresy]]. This image must have had some basis in truth, but it is not very surprising that the later Visigoths of Iberia had fallen away from Salvian's somewhat idealistic picture.{{sfn|Freeman|1911|p=275}}

Amid Gothic histories that remain, besides that of the frequently quoted Jordanes, there is the Gothic history of [[Isidore]], archbishop of [[Seville]], a special source of the history of the Visigothic kings down to [[Suinthila]] (621–631). But all the Latin and [[Greek language|Greek]] writers contemporary with the days of Gothic predominance also made their contributions. Not for special facts, but for a general estimate, no writer is more instructive than [[Salvian of Marseilles]] in the 5th century, whose work, {{lang | la | De Gubernatione Dei}}, is full of passages contrasting the vices of the Romans with the virtues of the "barbarians", especially of the Goths. In all such pictures one must allow a good deal for exaggeration both ways, but there must be a groundwork of truth. The chief virtues that the [[Roman Catholic]] [[presbyter]] praises in the Arian Goths are their chastity, their piety according to their own creed, their tolerance towards the Catholics under their rule, and their general good treatment of their Roman subjects. He even ventures to hope that such good people may be saved, notwithstanding their [[Christian heresy|heresy]]. This image must have had some basis in truth, but it is not very surprising that the later Visigoths of Iberia had fallen away from Salvian's somewhat idealistic picture.{{sfn|Freeman|1911|p=275}}

=== Art ===

{{sectstub}}

Early Ostrogothic art featured utilitarian objects and jewellery, with ornamental patterning and [[animal style]] comparable to other [[migration-period]] work.<ref>

{{cite book

|last1 = Johnson

|first1 = Mark J.

|editor-last1 = Arnold

|editor-first1 = Jonathan J.

|editor-last2 = Bjornlie

|editor-first2 = Michael Shane

|editor-last3 = Sessa

|editor-first3 = Kristina

|editor-link3 = Kristina Sessa

|date = 18 April 2016

|chapter = Art and Architecture

|title = A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=48wJDAAAQBAJ

|series = Brill's Companions to European History, volume 9

|publication-place = Leiden

|publisher = Brill

|page = 350

|isbn = 9789004315938

|access-date = 8 July 2025

|quote = Very little is known about Ostrogothic art prior to the Ostrogoths' settlement in Italy. Indeed it is difficult to say that a distinctive style of Ostrogothic art was ever developed. Their art, as was the case for other migrating tribes, consisted of decorated utilitarian objects and jewellery, which continued to be produced after their arrival in Italy. Good examples [...] are made of cloisonné gold metalwork with garnets of a kind found throughout Europe. Ornamental patterns and animals fill the surfaces of these objects that include fibulae, buckles, and earrings datable to the 5th or early 6th century.

}}

</ref>

One historiographical tradition credits the Ostrogoths with assimilating [[Ancient Greek art | Greek]] and Asian artistic influences in the [[Pontic steppe]], inventing [[runes]] there, and ultimately producing distinctive decorative art in Italy.<ref>

{{cite book

|last1 = Brown

|first1 = G. Baldwin

|author-link1 = Gerard Baldwin Brown

|year = 1910

|chapter = Migrations and Settlements of our Teutonic Forefathers

|title = The Arts & Crafts of Our Teutonic Forefathers, being the substance of the Rhind Lectures for 1909

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=3lczAAAAMAAJ

|series = Rhind lectures in archaeology

|publication-place = London

|publisher = T. N. Foulis

|pages = 75 - 78

|access-date = 8 July 2025

|quote = The artistic importance of the Ostrogoths can hardly be overestimated. It resides first of all in the fact of their residence for two hundred years in southern Russia, in contact alike with the Greek and Romanized-Greek civilizations of the northern shores of the Black Sea, and [...] with the seats of still older civilizations towards the east. [...] the commingling of elements and of influence, which ultimately produced Teutonic art, was largely accomplished in this Ostrogothic region in the period preceding the movement westward of the Huns about A.D. 376. [...] It is moreover at the present hour a strongly maintained theory of the origin of the Runic system of writing that it was invented by the Goths in southern Russia during the early period of their residence in that locality. [...] The residence of the Ostrogoths in Italy during the first half of the sixth century of our era produced notable artistic results. There is monumental evidence of their activity [...] at Ravenna, while there and in other parts beautiful objects of decorative art have [...] been exhumed that can be distinguished by their style from the later products of Lombard craftsmen and can fairly be assigned to the countrymen and even to the circle of Theodoric.

}}

</ref>

==6th-century Scandinavian Ostrogoths (Jordanes)==

==6th-century Scandinavian Ostrogoths (Jordanes)==