304 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2>>d S. VI. 146., Oct. 16. '58. 



which subsisted among ourselves down to the last gener- 

 ation, in the Baronies of Forth and Bargie, in the county 

 of Wexford in Ireland. The remnant of the first English 

 or Welsh adventurers under Strongbow, who obtained 

 lands in that district, maintained themselves through a 

 # long series of generations, distinct in manners, usages, 

 costume, and even language, and both from the Irish 

 population, and, what is more remarkable, from the Eng- 

 lish settlers of all subsequent periods." 



It would be an amusing book tliat should con- 

 sist of the innumerable " facts," which, once as- 

 serted, are endlessly repeated — though proved to 

 be false; and the multitude of "scraps" which 

 are, for the same reason, as worthless as the " cast- 

 off garments" for which the importunate Jew 

 clamours on Monday mornings with his sonorous 

 "Auldo."* 



Exactly thirty years ago the Count Benedetto 

 Giovanelli proved that these so-called Cimbri and 

 Teutones — the representatives of a remnant that 

 escaped the sword of Marius — were merely a 

 colony of Germans, in the true ethnological sense 

 of the word, who settled in Italy during the reign 

 of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who died in 

 the year of Our Lord 526 ! \DeW Origine dei 

 Sette e Tredeci communie cV altre Popolazioni Ale- 

 manne ahitanti frd V Adige e la Brenta nel Trentino, 

 iiel Veronese, e nel Vicentino. Memoria del C. 

 Benedetto Giovanelli, Trento, 1828.) And in 

 1829, M. W. F. Edwards, in his brochure Des 

 CaractHres Physiologicpies des Races Humaines, 

 p. 107. et seq., superadded his own valuable ex- 

 perience to the archeeological investigations of 

 Giovanelli, as follows : — 



" 1 cannot dismiss the subject of Italy without speaking 

 of a tribe whose ancestors are supposed to have played a 

 conspicuous part in histoiy. In the mountains of the 

 Vicentino and Veronese territory there exists an exotic 

 population. It is considered to be a remnant of the 

 Cimbri vanquished by Marius: it even goes by that 

 name, or that of the inhabitants of the 'Seven or the 

 Thirteen Communi,' according to the province in which 

 the tribe happens to be situated. I had reason, on all ac- 

 counts, to wish to become acquainted with them, ... It 

 is said that a king of Denmark paid them a visit, and 

 acknowledged them to be his fellow-countrymen. If they 

 really spoke a Danish dialect, and wei'e yet the descend- 

 ants of the Cimbri vanquished by Marius, their affinity 

 with the Gain called Kimris could scarcely subsist, — 

 unless we suppose that, even at the time of Marius, they 

 had already changed their language, — an opinion which 

 3'ou [he is addressing Amidee Tinerry'], I think, would 

 reject. Before approaching them, I was convinced that 

 they could not — even on that hypothesis — have is ued 

 from the Cimbric Chersonesus. At Bologna, Mezzotante 

 had shown me a specimen of their language — the Lord's 

 Prayer: and far from being Danish, it was such easy 

 German, that I understood every word of it at once. 

 When I arrived at Vicenza, and subsequently at Verona, 

 the advanced state of the season prevented me from ex- 

 tending my journey into the mountains. Count Orti, of 



* The reader may probably remember Byron's detec- 

 tion of " blunders " in Lord Bacon's Apothegms. See 

 Byron's Works, vol. xvi. 120., ed. 1833. In this edition 

 the Index-reference to this matter is wrong, being vol. 

 Sv. instead of xvi. 



Verona, had the kindness to collect for me a few of these 

 mountaijieers, who frequently visit that cit}'. I there- 

 fore both saw and heard them speak. If I was not war- 

 ranted in coming to any conclusion from their features, 

 on account of the smallness of their number, I could, at 

 least, form a judgment respecting the nature of their lan- 

 guage. I addressed one of thera in German : he replied 

 in his own language, and we understood each other per- 

 fectly. I was thus convinced that their dialect is Ger- 

 manic, and in no respect whatever Scandinavian. A 

 comparison of the languages alone was sufficient to con- 

 vince me that they could not be a remnant of the Cimbri 

 of Marius. 1 was then unacquainted with the historical 

 researches which Count Giovanelli had just published re- 

 specting these supposed Cimbri. Induced by similar 

 reasons to these which I have st.ated, and others which I 

 omit. Count Giovanelli consulted the authors who wrote 

 during the epoch of the decline and fall of the Roman 

 Empire, for the purpose of finding the traces of any Ger- 

 man people who might have established themselves in 

 these regions before the invasion of the Lombards. In 

 these writers he found authentic documents attesting that 

 establishment and its epoch. Ennodius, in his Panegyric 

 of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, in Italy, addresses 

 the following words to the latter : ' Thou hast received 

 the Germans within the confines of Italy, and thou hast 

 established them without prejudice to the Roman pro- 

 prietors of the land. Thus this people has found a king 

 in the place of the one whom it deserved to lose. It has 

 become the guardian of the Latin Empire, whose fron- 

 tiers it had so often ravaged : it has been fortunate in 

 abandoning its own country, since it has thus obtained 

 the riches of ours ? ' * A htter of Theodoric, king of Italy, 

 written by Cassiodorus, and addressed to Clovis, king of 

 the Franks, explains the cause and the circumstances of 

 immigration : — ' Your victorious hand has vanquished 

 the German people, struck down by powerful disasters ; 

 . . . but moderate your resentment against those unfor- 

 tunate remnants of the nation, — for they deserve pardon, 

 since they have sought an asylum under the protection 

 of your relatives. Be merciful towards those who in their 

 terror have hidden themselves in our con6nes. . . . Let 

 it sutfice that their king has fallen, together with the 

 pride of his nation.' f After these formal historical 

 vouchers, it is evident that these supposed Cimbri are 

 Southern Germans belonging to the confederation of the 

 AUemanni, whose name was subsequently extended to 

 the people of all Germany." 



It is much to be regretted that Edwards did 

 not visit this isolated people, so as to give to 

 Ethnology those important details which it craves, 

 respecting the persistence of Races through an 

 immense lapse of time. But, after all, what is 

 this persistence of only some 1300 years com- 

 pared with that of the Hebrew Eace — which has 



* " Quid quod il te AUemannia; generalitas infra Italire 

 terminos sine detrimento Roman® possessionis inclusa 

 est, rui evenit habere regem, postquam meruit perdidisse. 

 Facta est Latialis custos Imperii, semper nostrorum po- 

 pulatione grassata. Cui feliciter oessit fugisse patriam 

 suam, nam sic adeptaest soli nostri opulentiam." — Opera, 

 311. ed. 1611. 



+ Allemannicos populos, causis fortioribus inclinatos, 

 victrici dextrS. subdidistis, etc. Sed motus vestros in 

 fessas reliquias temperate; quii jure gratise merentur 

 evadere, quos ad parentum vestrorum defensionem re- 

 spicitis confugisse. Estote illis remissi qui nostris finibus 

 celantur exterrit!, etc. Sufficiat ilium regem cum gentis 

 suae superbia cecidisse." — Cassiod. Var., 1. ii. 41. 



