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Extinct Germanic Groups
The Gall-gaidheal
The Norse-Gaels, or Gall-gaidheal, were the people who lived in the Western Isles of Scotland and parts of Ireland (and Man as well, I think) and who came about as a result of intermarraige between the Norse and the local Gaels, the Celtic people who already lived there. The term Gall (singular - the plural is Gaill) is usually translated "foreigner", but this is in fact not a very good translation since Picts, Britons and Saxons are never designated Gaill. It seems to come from the Latin Gallus (meaning a Gaul) and seems to more accurately mean "person from continental Europe." The place name Galloway (a region of south-west Scotland) takes its name from them, but Argyll ("coast of the Gaels") to the north of it does not.
Though not originally used in this sense, there was a later early-medieval distinction between the Black Gaill, who were the Norse-Gaels, or Hiberno-Norse as they are sometimes called and the White Gaill, who were the Anglo-Danish.
Here's a list of a few useful books for folk to check out:
Pictland to Alba: 789 - 1070, Alex Woolf - part of the New Edinburgh History of Scotland series. I read this recently, and would recomend to anyone with an interest in Dark Age Europe, as it frequently takes detours to England, Ireland, Wales, Scandinavia, Iceland, Germany and more. Obviously the main focus is on the formation of the early forms of the kingdom of Alba, which would later become Scotland from the two kingdoms of Dal Riata and Pictland. There's a good deal about the Norse and their impact on Scotland, as well as a decent background to the causes of Norse expansion.
The Lords of the Isles, Raymond Cambell Paterson - this is a general overview of the history of Clan Donald, and though not so detailed as I'd have liked, it's nonetheless well worth a read. Only the early parts of it deal with the Gaill, but it's good for seeing the emergence of the Donalds as a powerful force in the context of early Scotland, and that context is party informed by Norse influence on the Western Isles, which was always the Donald heartland. The book continues to the modern period, and ends with the Clearances and death of the tradional way of life in the Highlands generally in the ninteenth century; and in some places the experience of the MacDonalds can be seen as a type of Highland experience as a whole.Here's a review
Somerled: Hammer of the Norse, Kathleen McPhee - I've not actually read this book myself, so I can't say much about it, but it's actually the book that I think would have most about the Gaill, though it's not as scholarly as Woolf's (the author is an English teacher, rather than a specialist historian), but that's not to say that there can't be worthwhile material in there. Somerled (Gaelic: Somhairle, Norse: Sumarliđi), was one of the most powerful of the early Hebridian leaders.
Further reading:
Haywood, John (1995). The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-051328-0.
McDonald, R. Andrew (1997). The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland's Western Seaboard, c.1100-c.1336. East Linton: Tuckwell Press. ISBN 1-898410-85-2.
Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí (1995). Early Medieval Ireland, 400-1200. London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-01566-9.
Oram, Richard (2000). The Lordship of Galloway. Edinburgh: John Donald. ISBN 0-85976-541-5.
Scholes, Ron (2000). Yorkshire Dales. Derbyshire: Landmark. ISBN 1-901522-41-5.
The Crimean Goths
Crimean Goths were those Gothic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the least-powerful, least-known, and paradoxically longest-lasting of the Gothic communities.
According to Herwig Wolfram, following Jordanes, the Ostrogoths had a huge kingdom north of the Black Sea in the fourth century, which the Huns overwhelmed in the time of the Gothic king Ermanaric (or Hermanric; i.e. "king of noblemen" when the Huns migrated to the Russian steppe. The Ostrogoths became vassals of the Huns until the death of Attila when they revolted and regained independence. Like the Huns, the Goths in the Crimea never regained their lost glory.
According to Peter Heather and Michael Kulikowski, the Ostrogoths did not even exist until the fifth century, having emerged from other Gothic and non-Gothic groups.Other Gothic groups may have settled in the Crimea.
During the late fifth and early sixth century, the Crimean Goths had to fight off hordes of Huns who were migrating back eastward after losing control of their European empire. In the fifth century, Theodoric the Great tried to recruit Crimean Goths for his campaigns in Italy, but few showed interest in joining him.
While initially Arian Christians like other Gothic peoples,[citation needed] the Crimean Goths had fully integrated with the Trinitarian Roman Church by the 500's. Following the split of the Church, these peoples would remain loyal to Constantinople as part of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the eighth century John of Gothia, an Orthodox bishop, led an unsuccessful revolt against Khazar overlordship.
Many Crimean Goths were Greek speakers and many non-Gothic Byzantine citizens were settled in the region called "Gothia" by the government in Constantinople. A Gothic principality around the stronghold of Doros (modern Mangup), the Principality of Theodoro, continued to exist through various periods of vassalage to the Byzantines, Khazars, Kipchaks, Mongols, Genoese and other empires until 1475, when it was finally incorporated by the Khanate of Crimea and the Ottoman Empire.
The Crimean Goths themselves were assimilated by the Greeks by the 8th century. Several inscriptions from the early 9th century found in the area use the word "Goth" only as a personal name, not ethnonym. Meanwhile, some legends about a Gothic state in Crimea existed in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. In the 16th century, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq reported having had a conversation with two Goths in Constantinople. He also left the Gothic-Latin dictionary with few words that are similar to ancient Gothic language. There are no further sources concerning the Crimean Goths and the survival of their language.
http://www.mangup.bigyalta.net/eng/m...-history.shtml
http://idiocentrism.com/crimea.htm
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Originally Posted by Nomad
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