Talk:Lugii

Old stuff (heading added 4/21/2013)

http://historiakurgany.republika.pl/apo_plik/Lugii.htm If this has some of your sources, a sympathetic Pole might clue in us English speakers. Meanwhile this is as mysterious as a role-playing game.Wetman 05:30, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

translations fragments: Lugii ~ Lugii, Lygii, Lugoi, Lungi, Longi, Logiones, Longiones, Langiones .. in italian gi is pronounced dzi > Ludzi, Lydzi, Lugoi, Lundzi, Londzi, Lodziones, Londziones, Landziones, name Lugii-Ludzie (union ludzi) related to name "banta Antów".

Name Lugii-ludzie, Longiones-Langiones-Londzianie-Landzianie related to polish string of words Ledianie-Lędzianie-Lądzianie related to lond-ląd-lód-lud (?-land-ice-people) (Lodo'meria) is anather (semanticly related) words string, simply ziemia-ziemianie(land-lords), pole-polanie-polska-polacy (earth-Polanie(tribe)-Poland-Poles). Harii Hary .. Hor'waci ~ Hor'mani from mount(gora/hora) Hory~Hary .. hrew-grew-krew (blood or related tribe)

Pole = Lug (in Russian)

I'm a native Russian speaker, and for me (and anyone with sufficient knowledge of Russian) there's an an obvious and evident linguistic connection between "Lug" and "Pole".

Both words mean "a Plain", that is, a large, open area of earth surface covered with grass and free of trees and bushes; suitable for breeding cattle (cows goats etc).

Speculations moved from Lendians

Some recent authors would like to connect the Lugii with West Slavs, The word Lugi is by sound equal to Ludzie what mean the people in today inhabitant of the land of the antique Lugi. In modern Serbian, the word Lug means "small forest". Thus the word Lugii could indicate "forest people". Serbs have many versions of this word in use today, and all deal with forest, wood and swamp land. Word is also often used in Croatian, and it can also mean ash.

Ancient writers included them to Germans, but not Teutons. Others claim that they were a compound tribe, or confederation of tribes of different ethnicity. Most scholars though agree that it could perhaps be a mixture between the two groups.

Other point that Germans is now equaled with Teutons who exclusively asimilated the exonym Germans and the ancient Germans did not mean Teutons exclusively but rather Teutons are contrasted to antique or even mediveal Germans. The turning point in Teutons overtaking the exonym Germans was, in 19 century, the 'edition' of Getica by Theodore Mommsen.

confederation?

Alcaios the word confederation is being used a lot, also in the short name of the article. I have my doubts that scholars today would be comfortable with that simply being asserted like that. Do you agree? (I think in the late 20th century it was part for the course to call all kinds of groups "federations", such as Franks, Alemanni and so on. But it implies quite specific political knowledge.) Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:41, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster:, Neumann uses the word Gesamtverbandes in the RGA, which I translated to "confederation". Falileyev p. 82 uses "tribal union". Alcaios (talk) 11:55, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

But there is no primary source which ever says anything like this, and like I mentioned, a lot of 20th century authors used this term without much evidence or argument, for just about every group of tribes with a shared name. We don't need to cite every claim which has ever been published. IMHO, based on working on articles like this, in such cases we should ideally look for positive evidence that single-word claims like this are really believed in by recent authors who've made a real case for it as opposed to a passing remark.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:07, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

• FWIW, Berndt (who has written a few times about the Vandals) says that the Lugii "have long been viewed as a cult community, to which the Vandals may also have belonged": Berndt, Guido M. (2010). "Hidden Tracks: On the Vandal's Paths to an African Kingdom". In Curta, Florin (ed.). Neglected Barbarians. Studies in the Early Middle Ages. Vol. 32. pp. 537–569. doi:10.1484/M.SEM-EB.3.5097. ISBN 978-2-503-53125-0.
• Similarly, Wolfram has also been translated as saying "In all likelihood the Lugians and the Vandals were one cultic community that lived in the same region" p.42 in Wolfram, Herwig (1997). The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520085114.

@Andrew Lancaster: (1) I have read Berndt, who cites Kazimierz Godłowski (who was mentioned at the end of the article). Berndt considers it mistaken to equate the Lugii with the Vandals, but he doesn't develop his argumentation. It's only a passing remark endorsing Godłowski. Walter Pohl (added to the article) provides a cautious view about the identification Lugii = Vandilii. Both Godłowski and Pohl are now mentioned in /Ethnic identity/. Mention of a more cautious position is now also in the lead (2) I have replaced confederation with the more vague union, to encompass the many terms used by scholars (Gesamtverbandes/confederation, Kultverband/cult-based league, tribal union, alliance). Alcaios (talk) 23:29, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

In English I honestly don't think union is a good general word which covers all these options. It strongly implies that you're opting for a political structure, and can be read in this context as meaning more or less the same as confederation. I guess you didn't like the vaguer word "group" because you wanted to say something more specific about what groups the group. (I personally think being vague is sometimes appropriate. Our sources agree they are a group, but they don't agree what binds them.) I don't think there is any consensus about for example political structures, language or religion being involved in that grouping. Maybe all of the main proposals would be covered by a term like "cultural group", although once again you possibly want to push more in a direction which explains how they could sometimes act in a coordinated way, apparently as an alliance? (But in that sense I think they also acted in a coordinated way with non Lugians sometimes, such as the Hermunduri. They were part of the greater Marcomannic alliance, or whatever it was. So that does not seem decisive either.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Strabo describe them as a "large people" (μέγα ἔθνος; méga éthnos), and Tacitus names a Lugiorum nomen that 'spread across several communities' (in plures civitates diffusum). The scholarly theory going back from Wenskus to Tausend and Castritius (and endorsed by Wolfram) is that it was a voluntary "union" of mixed Celtic and Germanic tribes. I have rewritten lead to improve attribution. See the current version of the page and give me your feedback. Alcaios (talk) 10:18, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

I like the general direction of your editing. I made some tweaks. Maybe its worth mentioning that I've been trying in recent years to move complex footnotes into the body and out of the lead, because that seems to be the preferred way unless there is really a big risk of edit wars without them in the lead. Also concerning the lead I wonder if it might eventually be a good idea to say something about things they actually did in history, because I think for many readers that is a core thing. As far as I remember the main events through Roman eyes involved them being neighbours of the Suebian peoples on the Danube border. In the first century they were in the Maroboduus empire, and they helped eject Vannius for example. They are not mentioned often.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:56, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Also concerning the lead I wonder if it might eventually be a good idea to say something about things they actually did in history > done. Alcaios (talk) 11:16, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

not the easternmost in pliny

Alcaios I checked the text concerning the remark that Castritius in RGA says that Pliny calls the Vandili the easternmost Germanic people. (I checked because I've been working on the Vandili and I am sure Pliny did not do this.) It is a bit misleading because we're making this more sound more certain than a reader of Castritius would think it is. Castritius remarks (as a side remark: he does not give any argument or citation for it) that Pliny was listing from east to west. It is possible, but if we are being more careful than secondary sources, which I think we should as a tertiary prublication, then I would suggest avoiding this speculation. Actually FWIW Castritius is also demonstrably wrong. The fifth race is that of the Peucini, who are also the Basternæ . They live in what is now Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. The identifiable Vandili in Pliny's list are also very hard to locate, but we know from Tacitus that the Gotones and Varini were NOT counted by him as Lugii and both are north of the Lugii, near the Baltic coast. The position of the early Burgundiones is also indicated by another author, Ptolemy, who places them north of the Lugii and near the Vistula. Maybe more importantly, like Tacitus he also clearly distinguishes them from the Lugii who he for whatever reason identifies carefully. So as a bigger issue I am also a little worried that you the article is strongly promoting the old idea of the Vandals and Lugii being the same, as if this were a simple consensus among scholars. I think there is at least room for doubt among scholars. (I know some big names in the 20th century were happy with this assumption, but I don't think it is a simple consensus.) BTW, I tend to cite the sub-articles from the RGA separately and not as articles co-written by several authors. I've seen that this is how Germans do it, and I've noticed that the sub-articles also often disagree with each other. They are clearly seen as works by individual authors. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:15, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: Castritius writes Hingegen führt Plinius bei seiner von O nach W vorrückenden Aufzählung der fünf Germanorum genera die L. auffälligerweise nicht an, nennt dabei die östlichste der germ. Großgruppen Vandili, denen er Burgunden , Goten und andere, aber eben nicht die L., zuordnet (Plin. nat. 4,99). (Pliny, by contrast, in his east-to-west enumeration of the five genera Germanorum, strikingly does not mention the Lugii. He names the easternmost of the major Germanic groups as the Vandili, to whom he assigns the Burgundians, Goths, and others, but not the Lugii. The sfn are blending the two authors, although there are inline attributions in the text itself. They could be split.

Regarding the identification with the Vandals, this is the view of Wenskus, Wolfram, Tausend, and Castritius (the article attributes this identification to the authors every time the link is mentioned). Castritius presents the identification as a recurrent scholarly hypothesis. Can you provide other secondary sources that dispute this? Alcaios (talk) 12:04, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I was asking myself the same question. I know the same sources you have except Tausend, which are still often recycled, partly because there is more focus on this topic coming from the Vandal side in recent generations, and not so much on the Lugii. I'll try to find time to look around as well. There is nothing wrong with the position you've stated BTW, only that I think it is a specific group of authors who I think all cite back to Wenskus.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:59, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Concerning Castritius I agree that he makes that passing remark but we do not have to cite every passing remark, especially if we know that it is wrong. (I am putting aside the fact that Pliny definitely does not give enough information about positions to even guess about this, and just focussing on the fact that the Peucini are one of the most easy to locate, but they are listed last, and definitely the most eastern.) I think you are giving undue weight to this wording.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:00, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: In response to both comments, I have only consulted what the secondary literature says about the Lugii and summarised it in the article. Further secondary sources are welcome to improve the article and present the scholarly debate more fully. I have no personal position on the question (I never have when I write on Wikipedia), I am simply reporting what scholars have written on the subject. Alcaios (talk) 21:55, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Concerning the remark of Castritius you are reporting one individual side remark, and that can certainly go wrong in this field. I think that is giving WP:UNDUE weight, and that can't be addressed by looking for more and more secondary sources, because other secondary sources are unlikely to bother with this type of one-off offhand remark, and either should we? Concerning the term "confederation" (where there are certainly several sources) from the beginning I've said I'll consider the secondary sourcing again when I get a moment. BTW I don't think it is correct to now mix these different concerns up as if they are all one point. They aren't, and confusing these issues breaks the threading of the discussion, and seems to be trying to imply that you are using multiple sources in BOTH cases, which is not true.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:18, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Castritius's remark has been removed in a previous edit, it doesn't add anything to the article. Regarding the identification with the Vandals, and the term "confederation" (or "tribal union"/"alliance"), both are indeed supported by several secondary sources. If there are other secondary sources that reject those, they should be added to the article. Alcaios (talk) 22:32, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Please discuss the other topic in the other thread.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:03, 30 June 2026 (UTC)