Belagines
6th century Gothic legal text
title: "Belagines" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["gothic-language", "gothic-writing"] description: "6th century Gothic legal text" topic_path: "general/gothic-language" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belagines" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary 6th century Gothic legal text ::
The belagines were written laws which, according to Jordanes, were given to the Goths by Dicineus / Dekaineos, the Dacian-Getic legislator, Zalmoxian priest at the time of Burebista.
These belagines laws entered in the tradition of the Ostrogoths but it does not exclude similar Visigothic traditions, since the Dicineu / Dekaineos tradition no matter how literary it may be, points to Dacia.
Name
Belagines (described by Jordanes as "compiled laws") is the transcription of the Gothic word *bi-lageineis "laws". The singular *bilageins is based on *bi-lagjan "lay down, impose".
6th century
The Origo Gothica (555 AD) contains the Gothic term belagines for the tribal law. But the author claimed that this law had been written down in the distant past
Fictional character
Danish scholar Arne Søby Christensen claims that the Getica was an entirely fabricated account, and that the origin of the Goths in the book is a construction based on popular Greek and Roman myths as well as a misinterpretation of recorded names from Northern Europe. The purpose of this fabrication, according to Christensen, was to establish a glorious identity for the peoples that had recently gained power in post-Roman Europe.
Canadian scholar Walter Goffart suggests another incentive: Getica was part of a conscious plan by emperor Justinian and the propaganda machine at his court. He wanted to affirm that Goths (and their barbarian cousins) did not belong to the Roman world, thus justifying the claims of the Eastern Roman Empire to the western part of the latter.
References
Bibliography
- {{cite book |last1 = Eliade |first1 = Mircea |title = De Zalmoxis à Gengis-Khan: études comparatives sur les religions et le folklore de la Dacie et de l'Europe orientale |year = 1970 |publisher = Payot
- {{cite book |last1 = Fol |first1 = Alexander |title = History of Humanity: From Seventh Century B.C. to the Seventh Century A.D |year =1996 |publisher = Bernan Assoc |isbn = 92-3-102812-X
- {{cite book |last1 = Goffart |first1 = Walter
|title = The Narrators of Barbarian History |year = 1988 |publisher = Princeton
- {{cite book |last1 = Iamblichus |last2 = Clark |first2 = Gillian |title = On the Pythagorean Life |year = 1998 |publisher = Liverpool University Press |isbn =978-0-85323-326-8
- {{cite book |last1 = Lehmann |first1 = Winfred Philipp |last2 = Hewitt |first2 = Helen-J.J. |last3 = Feist |first3 = Sigmund |title = A Gothic Etymological Dictionary: Based on the Third Edition of Vergleichendes Worterbuch Der Gotischen Sprache by Sigmund Feist |year = 1986 |publisher = Brill Academic Publishers |isbn =978-90-04-08176-5
- {{cite book |last1 = Mierow |first1 = Charles Christopher |title = Jordanes: The Origin and deeds of the Goths in English Version |year = 1908 |publisher = Princeton
- {{cite journal |last1 = Wells |first1 = Peter S. |title = Cassiodorus, Jordanes, and the History of the Goths: Studies in a Migration Myth (Book Review) |year = 2004 |volume = 66 |journal = The Historian |url = https://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5010849449
- {{cite book |last1 = Wolfram |first1 = Herwig |title = History of the Goths |year =1990 |publisher = University of California Press |isbn = 978-0-520-06983-1
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