A question comes naturally: who led the early Germanic communities?
Did they have a king or a ruler similar to the Roman model?
Well, it seems that no central authority was present, at least at the time when Caesar writes: while in peace, a local figure would sometimes interfere with the disputes within the village – or pagu (pl. pagi), as a kindred group was called -, and when at war, a confederate of leaders would jointly lead the warriors, losing their position as soon as the war was over.

A change appears to have occurred by the time of Tacitus: a new system of chieftainship where the members of the most important clans would compete to be elected leader of the community. This new ruler had then military as well as religious authority, which was not, however, absolute, for the assembly of the warriors could reject his proposals, and a council of the other leaders could decide to overthrow him.
To administrate the justice throughout the territory, a number of leading men was elected, to operate as judges on their journey from village to village; around 100 attendants would follow these judges to assist them in carrying out their verdicts: should a person be considered guilty, the repayment was in horses or cattle, depending on the gravity of the crime. However, there were disputes that could only be solved by the kindreds themselves: theft, murder and wounding were dealt with through a blood feud that could last for generations. A practice, this one, that endured long after the Germanics had been converted to Christianity.

As we said, the rulers were elected, for their position was not hereditary, and as far as we know only a few attempted to obtain more power: in 9 BCE, Maroboduus, the chieftain of the Marcomanni, drove his people from the Main Valley to Bohemia, subjugating the other Germanic people who lived there – among them, the Lombards and the Semnones -, but he was attacked, defeated, and cast out into the Roman Empire’s borders in 17 CE by the Cherusci tribes. The same fate met those who, in this period, sought to increase their authority over the permitted limits.

A few centuries later, with the invasion of the Roman provinces, the Germanic tribes had to maintain the form of administration to which those territories were used; so we assist to the birth of the first proper Germanic kings, with the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Visigoths in Gaul and Spain, and the Vandals in Africa and Sardinia, all creating their kingdoms. Little, although, changed for those tribes who lived beyond the borders or just neighbouring them, who maintained their role of leaders with very similar authority to the one described by Tacitus in the first century CE.

With the political and administrative changes, also came an important turn in the religious life of the Germanic peoples: while the major tribes living outside the Empire retained their traditions, those who instead had moved too close or even inside the Roman provinces were shamefully converted to Christianity within a generation.
The first to fall under the new god seem to have been the Vandals during their stay in Spain between 409 – 429; then the Burgundians in Gaul from 412 to 436; then the Ostrogoths of Pannonia around 456 to 472. The Franks only changed their faith two decades after the fall of Rome. Until that moment – for reasons still unknown – the other Germanic peoples had adopted the Arianism in spite of the Catholicism.

Unfortunately, the conversion process did not stop: on the continent, the last great resistance against Christianity came from the Old Saxons, who had to give up during the 8th century, and while England had been converted one century before, the Scandinavians managed to hold their beliefs up until the 10th century.

After that point, the Germanic peoples as we knew them will never again be the same.

*featured image: the baptism of Clovis, king of the Franks, in 496 CE.