Toxandri - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Toxandri were a Germanic tribe who settled in the modern Campine

Campine

The Campine is a natural region situated chiefly in north-eastern Belgium and parts of the south-western Netherlands which once consisted mainly of extensive moors, tracts of sandy heath, and wetlands...

(Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

Kempen) region of Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

and Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

. The location of the tribe was described roughly by Plinius

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

in his Naturalis Historia
Naturalis Historia
The Natural History is an encyclopedia published circa AD 77–79 by Pliny the Elder. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny...

. He also said that they go by several names. Their name is also preserved in modern placenames such as Tessenderlo

Tessenderlo

Tessenderlo is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg. It is where the three Belgian provinces of Limburg, Flemish Brabant and Antwerp meet at the front gate of the Averbode Abbey. The municipality Tessenderlo encompasses the villages of Tessenderlo proper, Schoot, Engsbergen,...

.

The name first appears during the first centuries AD, when the area had become part of the Roman empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. They lived in the northern part of the area of the Civitas Tungrorum, a part of the Roman province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

of Germania Inferior

Germania Inferior

Germania Inferior was a Roman province located on the left bank of the Rhine, in today's Luxembourg, southern Netherlands, parts of Belgium, and North Rhine-Westphalia left of the Rhine....

. They were therefore either a part of the Tungri

Tungri

The Tungri were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part Gaul, during the times of the Roman empire. They were described by Tacitus as being the same people who were first called "Germani" , meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those in...

tribe, or possibly subject to them. (The modern town of Tongerlo, named after the Tungri, is very close to Tessenderlo, but actually further from the city of the Tungri which is modern Tongeren.)

The Toxandri may have been made up of Germanic immigrants from the east of the Rhine, settling Roman territory, as certainly happened closer to the Rhine - for example the Ubii

Ubii

thumb|right|350px|The Ubii around AD 30The Ubii were a Germanic tribe first encountered dwelling on the right bank of the Rhine in the time of Julius Caesar, who formed an alliance with them in 55 BC in order to launch attacks across the river...

to the east near Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, the Cugerni

Cugerni

The Cugerni was a tribal grouping with a particular territory within the Roman province of Germania Inferior, which later became Germania Secunda. More precisely they lived near modern Xanten, and the old Castra Vetera, on the Rhine...

to the northeast near Xanten

Xanten

Xanten is a historic town in the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany, located in the district of Wesel.Xanten is known for the Archaeological Park or archaeological open air museum , its medieval picturesque city centre with Xanten Cathedral and many museums, its large man-made lake for...

, and the Batavians

Batavians

The Batavi were an ancient Germanic tribe, originally part of the Chatti, reported by Tacitus to have lived around the Rhine delta, in the area that is currently the Netherlands, "an uninhabited district on the extremity of the coast of Gaul, and also of a neighbouring island, surrounded by the...

directly to the north of the Toxandri, in the Rhine-Meuse delta. On the other hand, while Germanic immigration is thought to have affected this whole area, it is sometimes argued that the Toxandri and Tungri may also represent a continuation of earlier populations under new names.

The name of the "Tungri" themselves also only appears in Roman imperial times. Before the takeover of Rome in this region, in the commentary

Commentarii de Bello Gallico

Commentarii de Bello Gallico is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting local armies in Gaul that opposed Roman domination.The "Gaul" that Caesar...

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

gave of his campaign in the area the Germani had been the tribal group living in approximately the same area, made up of the Eburones

Eburones

The Eburones , were a Belgic people who lived in the northeast of Gaul, near the river Meuse and the modern provinces of Belgian and Dutch Limburg, in the period immediately before it was conquered by Rome. They played a major role in Julius Caesar's account of his "Gallic Wars", as the most...

, the Condrusi

Condrusi

The Condrusi were a Germanic tribe of ancient Belgium, which takes its name from the political and ethnic group known to the Romans as the Belgae. The Condrusi were probably located in the region now known as Condroz, named after them, between Liège and Namur...

, the Paemani

Paemani

The Paemani were a tribe of Gallia Belgica, mentioned by Julius Caesar in his commentary of his Gallic Wars. They were one of a group of tribes listed by his local Remi informants as the Germani, along with the Eburones, Condrusi, Caeraesi , and Segni...

, the Caeroesi

Caeroesi

The Caeroesi were a tribe living in Belgic Gaul when Julius Caesar's Roman forces entered the area in 57 BCE. They are know from his account of the Gallic War...

, and the Segni

Segni (tribe)

The Segni were a tribe living in Belgic Gaul when Julius Caesar's Roman forces entered the area in 57 BCE. They are know from his account of the Gallic War. They were one of a group of tribes listed by his local informants as the Germani of Belgian Gaul, along with the Eburones, Condrusi, Paemani ,...

. The Eburones were the biggest group within the Germani, and their territory at least over-lapped with that of the later Toxandri. Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

suggested that the Tungri were the same as the original Germani, and had changed their name. This is often interpreted as implying that the Tungri, a name later used to refer to all the tribes of this area, where descendants of several tribes including the ones Caesar referred as being called Germani collectively. The name may even be an artificial name meaning "the sworn ones" or confederates.

The etymology of the name Toxandri is uncertain, but it has been proposed that it may be a translations of the original Gaulish name of the Eburones, referring to the yew tree (taxus
Taxus
Taxus is a genus of yews, small coniferous trees or shrubs in the yew family Taxaceae. They are relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of 1-40 m, with trunk diameters of up to 4 m...

in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

). (But this is not the only possible explanation of the name.) Also, like the Condrusi, one of the earlier Germani tribes mentioned by Caesar, the Texuandri or Toxandrians were recognized by the Romans as an distinct grouping for the administrative purpose of mustering troops.

In the middle of the 4th century, the Salian Franks

Franks

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

settled as foederati

Foederati

Foederatus is a Latin term whose definition and usage drifted in the time between the early Roman Republic and the end of the Western Roman Empire...

in Toxandria

Toxandria

Toxandria is the classical name for a region between the Meuse and the Scheldt rivers in the Netherlands and Belgium. The name is also spelled Taxandria...

, which eventually became the name of a county

County

A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...

in early medieval Lower Lotharingia. Once again at this point in history it is not clear if the Toxandri were driven away or merged into the large Germanic tribal federation

Confederations of Germanic tribes

The following are some historical Germanic Confederations:*230 BC - Bastarnae, a mixture of Germanic tribes, at the Black Sea; they participated in the siege of Olbia in 220 BC....

of the Franks. The last seems most likely.

See also