Germania

Germania (/dʒərˈmeɪniə/; Greek: Γερμανία Germanía) was the Roman and Greek term for the geographical region inhabited mainly by the Germanic people. It bordered to west on the Rhine river, to the south on the Danube river, to the north on the Baltic Sea, and to the east on the Vistula river. According to Friedrich Engels in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (first published in 1884) Germania covered an area of 500,000 km² or 190,000 sq mi and had a population of 5,000,000 in the 1st century BC. The areas west of the Rhine were mainly Celtic (specifically Gaulish) and became part of the Roman Empire in the first century BC.

Some Germani, perhaps the original people to have been referred to by this name, had lived on the west side of the Rhine. At least as early as the 2nd century BC this area was considered to be in "Gaul", and became part of the Roman empire in the course of the Gallic Wars (58-50 BC). These so-called Germani cisrhenani lived in the region of present-day eastern Belgium, the southeastern Netherlands, and stretching into Germany towards the Rhine. During the period of the Roman empire, more tribes settled in areas of the empire near the Rhine, in territories controlled by the Roman Empire. Eventually these areas came to be known as Lesser Germania, while Greater Germania (Magna Germania; it is also referred to by names referring to its being outside Roman control: Germania libera, "free Germania") formed the larger territory east of the Rhine.

Germania (disambiguation)

Germania can refer to:

Places and jurisdictions

Germania (guild)

Germanies (in Catalan; literally "brotherhoods") were guilds of artisans in the Kingdom of Valencia in Spain. Each germania ([dʒeɾmaˈni.a]) represented a single trade. The germanies are similar to the hermandades (also "brotherhoods", but in Castilian Spanish) of Castile, which were paramilitary law-enforcement militias. Similar to the hermandades, the Germanies at times took up arms to defend Valencia against raids from the Barbary pirates, but this privilege was revoked and the Germanies suppressed after they revolted against the royal government of King Charles I of Spain.

Revolt

The germanies began to take power in Valencia in 1519 after an outbreak of the plague, and the situation degenerated to open warfare between the Germanies and the Crown by 1520. The previous king, Ferdinand of Aragon, had granted permission for the Germanies to take up arms shortly before his death, but the Valencian nobles had mostly quashed this possibility, fearing the Germanies would gain political power if they could back their demands with force. King Charles I, however, issued an edict legalizing the Germanies to take up arms in 1519, which allowed the Germanies to strike back at the royal government after the new Viceroy of Valencia refused to seat elected representatives friendly to the Germanies.