Italy's Germanic Influence??

[JohnSmith]

I am doing research on mostly Southern/Central Italy and I am surprised by how much it was German influenced through my research. I did not expect to find this. The city from great Grandparents where from was founded by Frederick II of Germany. Also, found two of my family surnames are Germanic in origin one is Frankish from the word blanc. I doubt this really mean anything it is just a name many people probably adopted different names. It looks like the Normans controlled much of Southern Italy for many years. I never knew that Central/Southern Italy had this much Germanic influence?? I knew Northern Italy did.

[Sikeliot]

Genetic studies have shown that southern Italy has very little Germanic, Slavic, nor North European input of any kind.

[JohnSmith]

Genetic studies have shown that southern Italy has very little Germanic, Slavic, nor North European input of any kind.

I believe you, and is what makes it more interesting and surprising. It doesn't make sense.

[Sebastianus Rex]

I believe you, and is what makes it more interesting and surprising. It doesn't make sense.

of course it makes sense, peoples and cultures are to a greater or lesser extend influenced by all those who came before, Germanics are part of the southern Italian heritage but less so than Romans impacted Germany.

[JohnSmith]

of course it makes sense, peoples and cultures are to a greater or lesser extend influenced by all those who came before, Germanics are part of the southern Italian heritage but less so than Romans impacted Germany.

But many people here will deny that as they do not want to think Southern Italians have anything to do with Germanic influence but the evidence clearly show they were there.

[Sebastianus Rex]

But many people here will deny that as they do not want to think Southern Italians have anything to do with Germanic influence but the evidence clearly show they were there.

whatever this forum is full of uncultured imbeciles, if people want to deny that having a gothic style cathedral in their home city square is to some degree due to Germanic influence (even if is indirectly so) there's not much you can do with such low genetic material.

[Sikeliot]

whatever this forum is full of uncultured imbeciles, if people want to deny that having a gothic style cathedral in their home city square is to some degree due to Germanic influence (even if is indirectly so) there's not much you can do with such low genetic material.

No one denies this. But there is definitely a need for some to idolize Northern input and glorify it, when it is not the majority of the ancestry nor even a very significant part.

[JohnSmith]

No one denies this. But there is definitely a need for some to idolize Northern input and glorify it, when it is not the majority of the ancestry nor even a very significant part.

Yeah I agree, that is a bit silly. But it would not be wrong to say an Italian most likely has some Germanic heritage even if it is small. And I am not just referring to Northern Italy,, Southern Italy should also be included based on their history.

[Sebastianus Rex]

No one denies this. But there is definitely a need for some to idolize Northern input and glorify it, when it is not the majority of the ancestry nor even a very significant part.

well this kind of forums attract people with many ideological tendencies. All european nations have cultures that are to a greater or less extend hybrid and that dynamic is stronger than ever now, with globalization and fall of borders.

[Ouistreham]

I am doing research on mostly Southern/Central Italy and I am surprised by how much it was German influenced through my research. I did not expect to find this. The city from great Grandparents where from was founded by Frederick II of Germany. Also, found two of my family surnames are Germanic in origin one is Frankish from the word blanc. I doubt this really mean anything it is just a name many people probably adopted different names. It looks like the Normans controlled much of Southern Italy for many years. I never knew that Central/Southern Italy had this much Germanic influence?? I knew Northern Italy did.

All of modern Europe (and of the modern world) is a Germanic construction. Nation-states as we know them were an (unvoluntary) Germanic invention. Which is why I assume that for 1,500 years we've been living in the Germanic era. The pre-Germanic civilization knew only empires or state-cities, come of them eventually growing to an empire (best instance being Rome).
But that doesn't mean that genetic and racial Germanic influence became sizeable everywhere.
In Southern Italy just like anywhere else in Europe Germanic given names became extremely popular in the dark ages because they were introduced by the ruling Germanic aristocracies. Then family surnames started being stabilized in the 15th century, many of them were old Germanic given names, but it didn't imply in any way that Iberian "Rodriguez" or Italian "Manfredi" had any Germanic origin.

As for Norman influence in Southern Italy and Sicily, it was politically very important, but genetically close to nothing.

[Ouistreham]

whatever this forum is full of uncultured imbeciles, if people want to deny that having a gothic style cathedral in their home city square is to some degree due to Germanic influence (even if is indirectly so) there's not much you can do with such low genetic material.

Here the important word is "indirectly". Gothic art was born in Northern France, in an area that used to be bilingual Frankish/Romance, but that had switched to mediaeval French two or three hundred years earlier. The Gothic style became later on seen as something typically Germanic, but was actually in the beginning a de-Germanized French thing.

[JohnSmith]

All of modern Europe (and of the modern world) is a Germanic construction. Nation-states as we know them were an (unvoluntary) Germanic invention. Which is why I assume that for 1,500 years we've living in the Germanic era. The pre-Germanic civilization knew only empires or state-cities, come of them eventually growing to an empire (best instance being Rome).
But that doesn't mean that genetic and racial Germanic influence became sizeable everywhere.
In Southern Italy just like anywhere else in Europe Germanic given names became extremely popular in the dark ages because they were introduced by the ruling Germanic aristocracies. Then family surnames started being stabilized in the 15th century, many of them were old Germanic given names, but it didn't imply in any way that Iberian "Rodriguez" or Italian "Manfredi" had any Germanic origin.

That is what I thought. Many Germanic people and tribes did go to these places and some were the ruling aristocracies. Germanic influence is part of European heritage even if small in racial or genetic amounts. They were there and it is possible that some influence can be seen in the people even in Southern Italy.