The Frankish Table of Nations is a brief early medieval genealogical text in Latin giving the supposed relationship between thirteen nations descended from three brothers. The nations are the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Gepids, Saxons, Burgundians, Thuringians, Lombards, Bavarians, Romans, Bretons, Franks and Alamanni.
The Table is called "Frankish" after the origin of the surviving manuscript tradition, not the origin of the work itself. In structure it is similar to the "Table of Nations" in the Bible. Although it survives in over ten manuscripts, the only medieval work to make use of it was the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, which nonetheless assured it a wide diffusion. The Table itself is the oldest extant work to make use of the Germania, a 1st-century work of Tacitus. It is also the oldest work to mention the Bavarians.
The Table was probably composed in the Byzantine Empire, or possibly in the Ostrogothic Kingdom, around 520. It may have originally been written in Greek. Its author fit contemporary peoples, mostly Germanic, into a framework supplied by Tacitus. Later copyists frequently combined the text with lists of Roman and Frankish kings, which some modern editors have treated as integral parts of the text.
Title In 1851, Karl Müllenhoff assigned the text the name by which it is now generally known—Frankish Table of Nations, or fränkische Völkertafel—because he thought it was written from the perspective of a Frank of about the year 520. Georg Heinrich Pertz, in the first published notice of the text from 1824, called it Populorum Germanorum generatio ("generation of the peoples of the Germans"). Müllenhoff himself, in his edition of Tacitus' Germania, included it in an appendix as the Generatio regum et gentium ("generation of kings and peoples"). Bruno Krusch calls the addition to manuscript D containing the Table De gentilium et barbarorum generationibus ("on the generations of peoples and barbarians"). David Dumville, in an appendix to his edition of the Historia Brittonum, calls it the Genealogiae Gentium ("genealogies of nations"). Walter Goffart in his edition based on all surviving manuscripts places it under the title Generatio Gentium ("generation of peoples").
In three manuscripts the Table appears under a rubric (title). In manuscript A it is ("[here] begins the generation of kings") and in B Item de regibus Romanorum ("furthermore on the kings of the Romans"). In M, it is ("Jerome in chronicles"). This mystifying rubric suggests that the copyist saw a connection between the Table and the Chronicon of Jerome or something in that tradition. A chronicle falsely attributed to Jerome is found in manuscript F.
Origins Date Müllenhoff dated the Table to around 520, while Krusch favoured the late 7th or early 8th century, since he believed that the list of Roman kings that accompanies the text in some manuscripts was an integral part of it and could not be earlier than the late Merovingian period. Modern scholarship accepts Müllenhoff's dating based on internal evidence. The Vandals and Gepids effectively ceased to exist after the conquest of their kingdoms in 534 and 567, respectively. The Thuringians and Burgundians were conquered by the Franks in 531 and 534, but are listed alongside the independent Lombards. The Lombards are an obscure people before their defeat of the Heruli in 510. The Bavarians likewise are not otherwise mentioned in any text before Jordanes' Getica in or shortly after 551. This suggests that the text was composed between 510 and 531. Krusch was correct, however, regarding the date of the Roman king list, which is a later addition.
Place
The Frankish Table of Nations was composed either in Ostrogothic Italy or the Byzantine Empire. Goffart, its most recent editor, favours a Byzantine origin, as does Helmut Reimitz. Nicholas Evans favours an Italian origin.
The main argument in favour of an Italian origin is the use of the Germania of Tacitus. No surviving work earlier than this one made use of it, and the only other author to make use of it before the 9th century was Cassiodorus in Ostrogothic Italy. This is proof for the circulation of the Germania in Italy in the early 6th century. It is not known with certainty to have ever been available in the Byzantine Empire, although it may be quoted in the 7th-century Strategikon of Maurice.
The content of the text provides evidence of a Byzantine origin, and its purpose is readily related to the interest of the emperors Justin I and Justinian I in a restoration of Roman rule in the West in the 520s. It may even have been directly linked to the accession of either Justin in 518 or Justinian 527. For the time, a Byzantine origin is consistent with an original composition in either Latin or Greek.
Authorship The author of the Table is unknown. Although there have been many past attempts to determine his ethnicity or nationality from internal evidence, the Table does not obviously glorify or denigrate any people in particular. Müllenhoff argued for the Frankish identity of the author and gave the Table its conventional name. Many arguments for a Frankish author would apply equally well to a Gothic one. Ferdinand Lot suggested that he was an Alan cleric.
Goffart argues that if the author was writing in Ostrogothic Italy he was probably a Roman and not a Goth (despite the fact that he does place the Goths first among the nations). Evans suggests he was an Ostrogoth. If writing in the Byzantine Empire, he was most likely a resident of Constantinople, the seat of power. In favour of the Byzantine hypothesis, Goffart argues that the Table represents "the ethnic panorama of the current West as seen from a metropolitan angle of vision".
Manuscripts Independent Separate recensions of the Table are found in seven manuscripts. Six of these were assigned the sigla ABCDEF in the 19th century and the seventh is designated M:
The manuscripts can be grouped by origin, with ABCD originating north of the Alps and EMF originating in Italy. AB and EMF appear to derive from a common source. In their treatment of the Table of Nations, the manuscripts can be grouped in several other ways. ACDEF treat it as filler, unconnected to the rest of their contents, while only BM integrate it fully. It is found with historical texts in A, legal texts in BCE and sacred texts in DFM. The texts of the Table in E and M are identical, probably because M was the model for E. According to Walter Pohl, the manuscripts CEM are all the product of a strategy of identity-building at Monte Cassino., citing .
Historia Brittonum
The Table was incorporated into the Historia Brittonum (written c. 830), where it is fully integrated into a series of genealogical texts. It follows the generations of Noah from Genesis, of which the Table itself may be an imitation, and is followed by a genealogy tracing the three brothers' descent from Adam. As in EMF, in the Historia Brittonum the main genealogy is connected to a single royal Roman progenitor.
The version of the Table in the Historia is related to that in F and derives ultimately from an Italian version. The Table can be found in §§13–16 of the Harleian recension of the Historia, §7 of the Vatican recension, ch. 13 of the Sawley recension and §9 of the Chartres manuscript. In the manuscript Harley 3859 copied around 1100, which includes the Table, the Historia is interpolated by a 10th-century set of Welsh genealogies.
The Historia is the only work prior to the 19th century to make actual use of the Table. A widely copied text, it ensured the Table a wide diffusion. There are three Gaelic versions of the Table derived from the Harleian Historia: in the Lebor Bretnach, a mid-11th-century translation of the Historia; in one recension of the late 11th-century historical compilation Lebor Gabála Érenn; and in the 11th-century Middle Irish Sex aetates mundi. In the 12th century, Lambert of Saint-Omer incorporated the text of the Table from a copy of the Historia into his encyclopaedic Liber Floridus. Another 12th-century writer, Geoffrey of Monmouth, was also influenced by the genealogical material in the Historia, including the Frankish Table.
Transmission The Table was probably brought to the Frankish kingdom in the 6th or 7th century. If originally in Greek, it probably received its translation there. The Excerpta latina barbari is another originally Greek work that travelled west and survives only in a Latin translation made in the Merovingian kingdom. The reign of Theudebert I (533–548) and the later 6th century were both periods of intense Frankish–Byzantine diplomacy that may have resulted in the transmission of texts such as these.
All surviving copies of the Table derive from a Frankish copy made probably in the late 7th or 8th century. No surviving manuscript pre-dates the Carolingian period and two of the manuscripts (AB) originated in the Carolingian empire. Both place the Table between a list of Roman rulers and a list of Frankish rulers. Outside of the Frankish kingdom, the text circulated in Italy., citing .
Two features common to all manuscripts are probably emendations by an early Frankish copyist: the introduction of the term Walagothi in place of an unknown original and the addition of the Saxons to the original list of twelve nations. The term Walagothi is a hapax legomenon, occurring nowhere else in literature. It consists of the prefix wala- (from proto-Germanic *walhaz), meaning foreign, and the name of the Goths. Such a construction implies the hand of a native Germanic speaker. The Saxons were far more prominent to an 8th-century Frank than a 6th-century Byzantine and they break the even division of twelve peoples into three groups. Nicholas Evans considers the hypothesis of later Frankish emendation unwarranted.
In every manuscript, the Frankish Table of Nations appears attached to other texts. In AB, the Table follows a list of Roman kings and precedes a list of Frankish kings; in C, it is followed by a list of Frankish and Bavarian lawgivers; in D, it comes as the answer to the last of eight questions in a joca monachorum; and in EMF, the main genealogy is connected to a single royal Roman progenitor. This demonstrates that the core text once circulated independently without any Roman kings or any father to the three brothers. Goffart's edition covers the Table itself and the additions.
Text Earliest attainable version The Table circulated as what Léopold Genicot called a "living text" (), a text in which every copy becomes a new edition and not merely a witness to the original. It is thus impossible to produce an (original version) from surviving witnesses. Goffart provides what he calls the "earliest attainable version", essentially a composite of what is common to all witnesses.
Variations The spelling in the manuscripts is erratic and follows no rule. Inguo may be spelled Tingus or Nigueo; Istio becomes Scius or Hostius; the Gepids are sometimes Brigidos or Cybedi; the Thuringians are Loringus or Taringi; in one the Goths and Walagoths become Butes and Gualangutos.
In manuscripts AB, the Table is preceded by a list of Roman kings that begins with a "first king of the Romans" () named Analeus (A) or Allanius (B). In F, Alaneus is the father of the three brothers, while in the Alanus is the father and also the "first man who came to Europe" () of the nation of Japheth, son of Noah. In EM, the father of the brothers is called King Mulius.
The Table contains what is probably the earliest reference to the Bavarians. The next reference to them is in the from about 551. The spelling in the manuscripts can provide no evidence for the early spelling or pronunciation of the Bavarians' name. The spellings given are Baioarius (A), Baweros (B), Baioeros (C), Bawarios (D), Baioarios (EMF) and Boguarii or Bogari (in the ). Thomas Hodgkin took the Boguarii to be the Bulgarians.