Question

Migration is a significant feature of ancient and medieval life. Using examples from the medieval world, consider how the name we give to these movements of peoples shapes our view of their cultures. How do we define migration vs. invasion? Which term is most appropriate to the more fluid pre-modern political entities of this period? Were migration and invasion more harmful or more beneficial in the early medieval period? Explain.

must be at least 200 words

Answer 1

Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with the intention of settling in the new location. When large numbers of people relocate, historians ask questions about why these people moved and what impacts their movements had.

Broadly speaking, there are two categories of factors that influence people’s decisions to migrate. Push factors occur where someone is currently living and make continuing to live there less attractive. A push factor could be political unrest, a lack of job opportunities, or overcrowding. Pull factors occur in a potential destination and make it an attractive place to migrate to. A pull factor could be better job opportunities or having relatives or friends who have already moved to this location.

We are all descended from migrants. The earliest ancestors of people living in Britain today arrived about 25,000 years ago from other parts of Europe. Since then people continued to migrate here for thousands of years for three main reasons:

• to trade
• to settle
• to conquer

Trading routes by sea from Northern Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa have existed for centuries, bringing goods and people.

The Roman conquest from AD43 brought people from across the Roman Empire including Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Soldiers from what is now Croatia, for example, built a fort in Cumbria, and a Bulgarian cavalry officer was buried in Colchester. Some settled and made a life here.

After the Roman armies left Britain, Roman influence remained for centuries. Peoples’ lives mixed ancient British and Roman influences. Between the 5th and 11th centuries, many Germanicpeople - Angles, Saxons and Jutes - arrived to conquer and settle. The kingdoms they created had a wide mix of languages and cultures. They continued to have trading links with the rest of Europe and North Africa and possibly further afield to Asia. Viking invaders settled in large numbers in the north and east in the 9th and 10th centuries and at different times England was ruled by Saxon and Viking monarchs.

England in 1000 was already a multicultural and multilingual society, and had been for centuries. We know this from various kinds of evidence:

• archaeology (human remains and objects buried with people)
• genetic biology (the study of DNA in human remains)
• chemical analysis of skeletons (to show diet and drinking water)
• histories written by people living at the time

Migration is a way to move from one place to another in order to live and work. Movement of people from their home to another city, state or country for a job, shelter or some other reasons is called migration. An invasion is a military offensive in which large parts of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering; liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory; forcing the partition of a country; altering the established government or gaining concessions from said government; or a combination thereof. An invasion can be the cause of a war, be a part of a larger strategy to end a war, or it can constitute an entire war in itself. Due to the large scale of the operations associated with invasions, they are usually strategic in planning and execution

The wanderings of the Germanic peoples, which lasted until the early Middle Ages and destroyed the Western Roman Empire, were, together with the migrations of the Slavs, formative elements of the distribution of peoples in modern Europe. The Germanic peoples originated about 1800 BCE from the superimposition, on a population of megalithic culture on the eastern North Sea coast, of Battle-Ax people from the Corded Ware Culture of middle Germany. During the Bronze Age the Germanic peoples spread over southern Scandinavia and penetrated more deeply into Germany between the Weser and Vistula rivers. Contact with the Mediterranean through the amber trade encouraged the development from a purely peasant culture, but during the Iron Age the Germanic peoples were at first cut off from the Mediterranean by the Celts and Illyrians. Their culture declined, and an increasing population, together with worsening climatic conditions, drove them to seek new lands farther south. Thus, the central European Celts and Illyrians found themselves under a growing pressure. Even before 200 BCE the first Germanic tribes had reached the lower Danube, where their path was barred by the Macedonian kingdom. Driven by rising floodwaters, at the end of the 2nd century BCE, migratory hordes of Cimbri, Teutoni, and Ambrones from Jutland broke through the Celtic-Illyrian zone and reached the edge of the Roman sphere of influence, appearing first in Carinthia (113 BCE), then in southern France, and finally in upper Italy. With the violent attacks of the Cimbri, the Germans stepped onto the stage of history.

These migrations were in no way nomadic; they were the gradual expansions of a land-hungry peasantry. Tribes did not always migrate en masse. Usually, because of the loose political structure, groups remained in the original homelands or settled down at points along the migration route. In the course of time, many tribes were depleted and scattered. On the other hand, different tribal groups would sometimes unite before migrating or would take up other wanderers en route. The migrations required skilled leadership, and this promoted the social and political elevation of a noble and kingly class.