Europe (c.1400-1458)

40. Bavaria, The Palatinate, Swabia

Bavaria, The Palatinate, Swabia 191 tor; in assaulting towns he was often the first to climb the wall; he was frequently challenged to single combat, never declined, and never failed to strike down his enemy. In military games, where men contend with lances, he was the only one never to be thrown from his horse and to overthrow all those who rode against him. At tournaments, he always emerged victorious. On seventeen occasions , protected only by a shield and helmet and with the rest of his body uncovered (as in a type of duel practiced by the Germans), he charged with pointed lance in hand against challengers armed in the same way, without ever suffering an injury or failing to unhorse his opponents. For these deeds he was named, not without justification , the German Achilles. The skills of a soldier and the qualities of an emperor—his noble lineage, too—shown forth in him with extraordinary grace. His stature and handsome looks, his physical strength, and the eloquence of his tongue made him an almost divine figure of awe.474 40 BAVARIA, THE PALATINATE, SWABIA 139. BAVARIA abuts the northeast of Franconia and a part of its southern border.475 It, too, is an extensive and wealthy land. In the south, it is bordered by the Italian Alps; the Swabians lie to its west, the Austrians and Bohemians, to its east.476 The Danube flows roughly through its center. Some have set the Enns River as the frontier between Austria and Bavaria, others the Inn River; the Lech River marks the boundary between the Swabians and Bavarians . The Noricans once inhabited this region, and a portion of it 474. Albert was also extremely brutal toward his enemies and made no exceptions for civilians or the clergy; see Brady, German Histories, 95. 475. Lit. “toward the summer sunrise and a portion of its midday region.” 476. Lit. “The Swabians receive its setting sun, the Austrians and Bohemians, its rising sun.” 192 Bavaria, The Palatinate, Swabia situated across the Danube is still called Noricum, as I mentioned before. 140. I cannot easily tell from where the Bavarians got their name or took their origin. But when I find that the oldest manuscripts use the name Boioaria for what our contemporaries call Bavaria, it is not hard for me to believe that the people of Boioaria were named after the Boians and that once it was a Gallic race. Strabo adds support to this opinion in his fifth book when he says (with reference to the Po River): “Therefore, in olden times, as I have said, a great many Gallic tribes lived by the river. The most numerous of these were the Boians, the Insubrians, and the Senonians, who with the Gesatans once attacked and captured the city of Rome. In later years the Romans utterly destroyed the latter and expelled the Boians from their territory. Migrating from there, they settled with the Tauriscans in the vicinity of the Danube, where they engaged in constant warfare with the Dacians.”477 It is apparent, then, that the Boians settled in Pannonia and in the course of time were able to migrate from there without difficulty into the bordering region of Noricum. In identifying the lake which is now called Constance, Strabo also says that the Rhaetians lived a short distance from it, the Helvetians and Vindelicans further away.478 Beyond the Vindelicans , he states that the unpopulated territory of the Boians reached as far as the Pannonians.479 By this he makes it clear enough that the land of the Bavarians was inhabited by the Boians. Strabo, once again, in describing Germany, asserts that the Boians previously inhabited the Hercynian Forest and that the Cimbrians assembled an army and invaded the region but were repelled by the Boians.480 We are therefore justified in concluding that the name of the Bavarians descended from the Boians; for their land on the other side 477. Strabo, Geography, 5.1.6. 478. Strabo, Geography, 4.3.3. 479. Strabo, Geography, 7.1.5. 480. Strabo, Geography, 7.2.2. In this passage, the modern Black Forest corresponds to a small (western) portion of what the ancients called Hercynian. Bavaria, The Palatinate, Swabia 193 of the Danube includes a large part of the Hercynian Forest. The race is now German and speaks the German language. It is not an “unpopulated territory,” as Strabo reports, though perhaps...